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220
Boldwin
ID: 18643169 Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 16:13
Finally, a robot that can shoot martians with lasers.
221
Boldwin
ID: 77422621 Sun, Aug 26, 2012, 22:42
Revolutionary breakthru to replace bulky and inefficient silicon based electronics with 2D molybdenum.
Most battery tech improvements are unfortunately incremental. Relatively small increments. I'm happy to see 10-20% improvements.
This one is a whole order of improvement better.
The University of Illinois team says its use of 3D-electrodes allows it to build "microbatteries" that are many times smaller than commercially available options, or the same size and many times more powerful.
It adds they can be recharged 1,000 times faster than competing tech.
However, safety issues still remain.
The scientists' "breakthrough" involved finding a new way to integrate the anode and cathode at the microscale.
"The battery electrodes have small intertwined fingers that reach into each other," project leader Prof William King told the BBC.
"That does a couple of things. It allows us to make the battery have a very high surface area even though the overall battery volume is extremely small. Microbattery design A cross-section of the battery reveals the 3D-design of the research project's anodes and cathodes
"And it gets the two halves of the battery very close together so the ions and electrons do not have far to flow.
"Because we've reduced the flowing distance of the ions and electrons we can get the energy out much faster."
"But in principle our technology is scalable all the way up to electronics and vehicles.
"You could replace your car battery with one of our batteries and it would be 10 times smaller, or 10 times more powerful. With that in mind you could jumpstart a car with the battery in your cell phone."
Trust me on this, when they say there are safety issues to overcome, they aren't kidding. Substantial safety problems involved. Do not throw away your jumper cables.
I only missed nitrogen. I knew that was the answer ringing the bells for me, but hydrogen is just so overwhelmingly the most common atom in the universe, I just thot it must be. Never go against the gut.
Weird cause I studied the process which strips elements from the atmosphere just this month.
It'll set you back $500,000. But compare that to the $1 billion-plus price tag on, say, Fujitsu's "K" supercomputer, installed in Japan in 2011, and you've got a screaming deal.
Supercomputer sales rose 30% in 2012 from the year earlier...
"Ten years ago, [supercomputer makers] were trying to build systems that maybe 100 people around the world would use,"...Back then, the market was almost entirely government, aerospace and automotive clients. ... "They were wanting to simulate the Big Bang or model nuclear explosions or do things the government doesn't want to tell us about."
Now, companies like Procter & Gamble and PayPal are buying their own supercomputers. --- PayPal, for example, needed a way to detect fraud before credit cards were hit with the charges. With its previous systems, the company often wasn't able to discover bad transactions until as long as two weeks after they happened. --- PayPal recorded $710 million in revenue savings in the first year after it started using the supercomputer... --- Swift Engineering, a designer of racecars, invested several years ago in a Cray CX1000 -- an earlier model also aimed at the mid-range market. The computer lets Swift test the aerodynamics of new models and make changes far more quickly than when it used to make physical models and test them in a wind tunnel.
Well every now and then I have to admit some things that are just beyond my grasp and phonons, quasiparticles, nanoplasmonics...I was just born to soon to absorb this stuff perfectly.
But if I could, I'd understand how this guy is designing low efficiency but relatively cheap paint-on photovoltaics.
TORONTO - When Todd Reichert settles into the pilot seat of the helicopter he helped build, there are no fancy electronic switches to flip, there's no fuel tank to fill and certainly no computer to configure before take off.
What allows the 31-year-old to defy gravity is sheer human power, delivered to the craft's four rotors through the bicycle pedals he steadily pumps throughout his flight.
It's that fragile machine, built by Reichert's Canadian team, which has now won a long-coveted international prize that lay unclaimed for years.
The AHS Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Competition was established in 1980 for the first successful controlled flight of a human powered helicopter that could reach a height of three metres while hovering for at least one minute in a 10-square-meter area.
What if the government policy wasn't to bankrupt the coal industry and drive everyone's energy costs thru the roof in order to make Obama's Solyndra's break even?
What if [with a little subsidy] we took the carbon dioxide from the coal plants, used it as the necessary ingredient for enhanced oil recovery and suddenly we could double the recoverable oil in our oil fields? Cheap power, double our assets, sequester carbon underground forever...win, win, win!
We currently only recover 1/3 of the oil. Carbon dioxide injection recovers another third.
If the goal is to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere, then how bout we all plant trees, preferably a fruit or nut tree and pay forward.
How come Almonds and Pistachios are so cheap now? They used to be expensive. Is the peanut now dead? Perhaps that's where the Chinese are spending all their money.
Funny thing about retirement, it's usually something that happens to the old and frail. I wouldn't last a week at hard labor at my age (59).
I'm content to slowly plant fruit trees on my semi-arid 5 acres here in Colorado Springs. We've got 10 fruit trees going now (4 apple, 2 pear, 2 plum and 2 cherry). They are surviving and fruiting most years with watering only during the dry spells. They have a lot more success growing fruit trees near Grand Junction, the soil is a little more fertile there. I've planted about 50 trees, mostly evergreen, since retiring 11 years ago. Lost maybe 15%, most of those were Junipers that were probably sickly when I bought them at Lowes.
Seriously, I dont envy millenials the challenges they'll have with the environment. Public panic does no good, national policy has to be the solution. We all can do some small things to help though.
Internet of everyThings is percolating just below the surface. Early investors are piling on Ineda as the presumptive winner of Apple's favor for their chips. Expect an explosion of low power sub-$10 chips glomming onto every device that can be made to have electricity running thru any part of itself. If Apple has anything to say about it, most of them will only talk to Apple products.
Recent Iphone iterations have had one of these auxillary chips that are very low power and which can operate while the main chip powers down. It stays alert to situations that call for the main chip to spring to life. One of it's early jobs was to know exactly where it was and to make sense of the situation.
They'll all first and foremost know exactly where they are. Something useful to totalitarians determined to know where you are and to keeping you doing what you are supposed to be doing.
"Sensors detect a woman nearby. You are not thinking of raping her, are you? Remember we are watching."
"Sensors detect a PoC approaching. You are not going to oppress them again, are you? Remember to grovel at their feet as they pass by. We are watching you."
"Heroes of labor keep their heart rate higher than this. Hop to it! We are watching."
"You have exceeded allowable tolerances. Any further instances of supremacist posture towards AI persons in the environment will be accompanied by an appropriate shock."
I should point out on the other-hand that Google was planning on tackling this tech challenge and came away from their analysis proclaiming that it was impossible to derive power economically from wave power. Some awfully sharp and creative minds over there at Google. Really makes ya wonder. The idea always intrigued me.
Named the DIG-T R, the 3 cylinder 1.5 liter engine has a power to weight ratio of 10HP per kilo, besting even high performance Formula 1 engines. Carried aboard Nissan’s Zero Emmision ZEOD the 500mm tall, 400mm long, and 200mm wide (19.68 x 15.74 x 7.78 in) package is one of the most compact performance engines every built.
First to appear at Lemans. Then into products for the masses.
Boeing's new engine patent. Lasers and nuclear fusion powered. Virtually no fuel needed. You will never see it built but wow, just wow, what a concept.