Tag Archive

Another optical wireless experiment shows us that LEDs will beam your future downloads

Beaming data with light is hardly a new thing, but lately we’ve seen a number of attempts at making it rather more usable and, more interesting, rather more speedy. We’re starting to get the feeling that those maybe/maybe not dangerous microwave-based systems have had their days numbered. The latest to beam bits with blinkenlights is a team at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications in Germany, which will be showing its stuff at the always happenin’ Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition in two weeks. The team was able to use a commercial LED and get an impressive 230Mb/s transfer rate, which doesn’t compare to the gigabit Penn State managed or 500mb/s Siemens pulled off, but those were done using rather more specialized hardware (like the Siemens rig pictured above). It’s interesting stuff, and we’re looking forward to see the commercial applications for this tech, but we do have one nagging question: what if you want to surf in the dark?

Another optical wireless experiment shows us that LEDs will beam your future downloads originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scientists discover method for rapid charging Li-ion batteries

Huzzah! Yet another discovery for us to add to our ever-expanding list of “awesome things that’ll never actually happen!” Ibrahim Abou Hamad and colleagues from Mississippi State University have reportedly devised a method of charging batteries that could hasten the process rather significantly, and better still, it could provide “an increase in battery power densities” as well. The only problem? Lithium-ion batteries have been disappointing tech users for years, and so long as Energizer and Duracell are calling the shots, we kind of doubt a lot will be done to improve the longevity of ‘em. Skepticism aside, the new method involves some fancy black magic surrounding molecular dynamics simulations, and researchers have found a way to boost charging time by “simulating the intercalation of lithium ions into the battery’s graphite anode.” We know we just went way over your heads on a Friday afternoon, but if techobabble’s your thing, all you can handle is right there in the Source link.

Scientists discover method for rapid charging Li-ion batteries originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Mar 2010 03:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pushup bar for Wii Fit Balance Board

Fun fact: If you took one of every available Wii accessory and laid them all end-to-end, they’d stretch around the world 17 times! Add this Balance Board pushup bar to the line.

Brains, brains, scanning brains

Researchers would be wasting their time, and their patrons’ money, scanning my brain. They’d quickly find nothing but World of Warcraft Auction House strategies and an incredible amount of space devoted to translation Marca, A Bola, La Gazzetta Dello Sport, and France Football every morning. Maybe if they’d scan, say, the brains of Fez Whatley or Vince McMahon, then they’d find something interesting.

Talkin’ Windows Phone 7 Series gaming with Microsoft at GDC

Talkin’ Windows Phone 7 Series gaming with Microsoft at GDC originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New technology heats up cell phones when callers get agitated

I can’t think of too many use cases for this, but they did it: A team of researchers from the University of Tokyo (Japan’s MIT if you will) has developed a technology that makes it possible to “physically” convey emotions from cell phone to cell phone. The key elements of the technology are a sensor and a Peltier device that’s attached to the back of the phones.

Bill Gates’ hurricane-busting tubeships are real, people

Last year, I wrote that Bill had this (let’s be honest) evil-genius style plan to weaken hurricanes before they make landfall. Sounded a bit fantastical at the time, but as it turns out, there are real scientists ready to rock and roll with these things. They’re so serious they even put together a video.

MIT gurus use polyethylene to suck heat away from your next CPU

Man, MIT is making all of these other places of higher learning look silly. For what seems like the fortieth time this month, scientists at the university have revealed yet another breakthrough that might just change the way we compute in the future. Polyethylene, which is about as common a polymer as they come, could very well become a vital part of the way your next processor is cooled, as MIT boffins have figured out how to cause said polymer to “conduct heat very efficiently in just one direction, unlike metals, which conduct equally well in all directions.” If you’re still struggling to figure out why this matters, have a listen at this: “this may make the new material especially useful for applications where it is important to draw heat away from an object, such as a computer processor chip.” In fact, even Intel is taking notice of the development, though no one’s saying outright when exactly this stuff will leave the lab and hit Dell’s supply chain. There’s no time like the present, guys.

[Thanks, Kevin]

MIT gurus use polyethylene to suck heat away from your next CPU originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is Amazon hiring devs to build a robust web browser for Kindle?

Is Amazon hiring devs to build a robust web browser for Kindle? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PANIC! Study finds that students are addicted to their iPhones!!

200 students surveyed in a Stanford study were found to be “addicted” to their iPhones. “When asked to rank their dependence on the iPhone on a scale of one to five – five being addicted and one being not at all addicted – 10 percent of the students acknowledged full addiction to the device, 34 percent ranked themselves as a four on the scale, and only 6 percent said they weren’t addicted at all.”

Desktop lamp powered by hamster cells

This seems a bit odd, but here’s another take on alternative power; Dutch designer Joris Laarman came up with a concept for a desktop lamp that glows from bio-luminescent hamster ovaries. Seriously, I’m not making this stuff up.

Magnetic quantum dots

Scientist #1: “You got your manganese in my germanium!”
Scientist #2: “You got your germanium in my manganese!”
Both: “Wow! Magnetic quantum dots!”