![[Electronix Express Logo]](http://www.elexp.com/buttons/exp_sml.gif){kind=small}
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
To Alpha. Index
To Manuf. Index
To Category Index
Part No. Index
WEB SPECIALS
NEW PRODUCTS
VIEW CART
Welcome to the June 2009 Issue of the Electronix Express Newsletter
STORIES |
|
|||||||
While standard DVDs are made with three spatial dimensions, the Aussie researchers added two more. Using nanoparticles, the Swinburne team was able to introduce a spectral or color dimension and a polarization dimension. To create the color dimension, the researchers inserted gold nanorods onto a disc's surface. Because nanoparticles react to light according to their shape, this allowed the researchers to record information in a range of different color wavelengths on the same physical disc location. Their findings appear in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature. When the scientists Down Under projected light waves onto the disc, the direction of the electric field contained within them aligned with the gold nanorods. This allowed researchers to record different layers of information at different angles. According to James Chun of the university's Centre for Micro-Photonics, "the polarization can be rotated 360 degrees. So for example, we were able to record at zero-degrees polarization. Then on top of that, we were able to record another layer of information at 90 degrees polarization, without them interfering with each other."
Not surprisingly, some issues, such as the speed at which the discs can be written on, have yet to be resolved. However, the researchers, who have already signed an agreement with Samsung, are confident the discs will be commercially available within 5 to 10 years. The discs are likely to have much broader applications. For example, they could potentially store large medical files such as MRIs. And of course, the commercial potential for this technology is obvious.
Last spring, Daniela Rus, a professor who runs the Distributed Robotics Lab at MIT, began a two-part course. In the first semester, the students learned the basics of creating and using robots. By the fall, the students were ready to have robots tackle a real-world problem. The 12 students broke into groups, each tasked with solving a different problem, such as creating the mechanical arm needed to harvest the tomatoes or perfecting the network that let the plants and robots share information. Each plant and robot is connected to a computer network. The plants, through sensors in their soil, can tell the network when they need water or fertilizer, while the robots use a camera to inventory the plants' fruit. The robots also are programmed with a rudimentary growth model of the cherry tomato plants, which tells them roughly when a tomato will be ripe enough to be picked.
However, the students quickly encountered challenges, both robotic and biologic. Huan Liu, a 21-year-old computer science major, said designing the robot to pick the delicate tomatoes was made more difficult because the fruit would grow in unreachable places, such as behind stems or above where the robot's arm could reach. Even though robots have made few inroads into agriculture, these robots' creators hope their technology eventually could be used by farmers to reduce the natural resources and the difficult labor needed to tend crops.
The study participants performed Web search and book-reading tasks while researchers scanned their brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and recorded the subtle brain-circuitry changes taking place during those activities. All participants showed significant brain activity during the book-reading task, demonstrating use of the regions controlling language, reading memory and visual abilities. However, "we found that the people who had experience with the Internet had a much greater extent of activation of all areas of the brain, particularly the frontal lobes -- the part of the brain that controls complex decision making, reasoning and putting together the big picture," Small said.
The findings indicate the brain is still plastic or malleable even in middle age and beyond. It is encouraging that the study suggests that you can teach an old brain new technology tricks.
Amazon stressed that its main goal was to make reading more convenient for owners of Kindle readers. Much of Kindle's current appeal lies in the low prices on new books, many of which sell for less than half the price of their print version. But now those savings become available to millions of customers without a Kindle. Ultimately, the apps may give consumers less incentive to buy a Kindle from the start. Some analysts say Amazon is likely to spur demand for e-books by letting customers download them to other devices. Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney isn't concerned about cannibalization. Amazon does not release sales figures for its Kindle or Kindle 2 readers. But in February, Mahaney estimated that sales of the device could top $1.2 billion in 2010.
The iPhone also may have proved to Amazon just how enthusiastic consumers could be about reading e-books on their mobile phones, despite its relatively smaller screen and shorter battery life. According to O'Reilly research, books were the fastest-growing category of applications in Apple's App Store in the 12 weeks ending on Mar. 1. The current leader of App Store books is Stanza, an application that's seen about 7 million e-book downloads since launching in mid-2008. Perhaps the Kindle is not the iPod of books, as it was once hailed. But in pursuing wider distribution of its digital books across multiple platforms, Amazon may now be settling for becoming "the iTunes of books". And it's hoping some customers will still buy a few Kindles even if they can read those books somewhere else.
In addition, it is also possible to buy computer software to work out one's brain just as it is possible to go to work out one's body in the gym. Software programs now on the market include Nintendo's "Brain Age" and Posit Science's Brain Fitness Programs. Indeed, consulting firm Sharpbrains reports that the market for these products more than doubled between 2005 and 2007 to US$225 million, and health insurers like Humana are offering brain fitness programs to Medicare members at a discounted price.
Such programs won't cure Alzheimer's, of course, but other members of the tech community are working on projects that might help scientists beat the disease. Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen's Allen Institute for Brain Science mapped an entire mouse brain in 2006, detailing more than 21,000 genes at the cellular level. This provided scientists free of charge with a level of data previously unavailable. Allen researchers will conduct additional work charting gene activity in the developing mouse brain, and last week the company announced that they are working on mapping the human brain.
Some interesting facts and figures about BigBelly include displacing four out of five pick ups; thus the 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The BigBelly can hold 150 gallons of trash and its compaction mechanism can exert 1,200 pounds of force. When it comes to energy efficiency, the BigBelly gets 100% of its energy from the sun and uses less than 5 watt hours/day. That amounts to the equivalent energy it takes to make a piece of toast. How's that when you are talking about efficient use of energy!
Currently, BigBelly Solar has over 40 distributors in the US and around the world. The newest model of BigBelly is 200 lbs. lighter and has a 33% smaller footprint than it's predecessor. The standard black machine is made with recycled ABS plastic. Some of the more high profile BigBelly locations are Harvard University, Fenway Park, and the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. Is this the trash can of the future? We will have to wait and see.
Copyright © 1996-2004 Electronix Express
A Division of R.S.R. Electronics, Inc.
365 Blair Road
Avenel, New Jersey 07001
Phone 1-800-972-2225 (In NJ 1-732-381-8020)
Fax 1-732-381-1006; 1-732-381-1572
To Top Of Page