new technology – Page 18

Aviation, new technology, Science & Technology News, Space Flight, Travel

This ‘Spaceplane’ could get you from Sydney to London in four hours

October 1, 2019

There are plans to start running test flights of the ‘hypersonic’ jet in the mid-2020s.

Developers are working on a “hypersonic” jet engine that could see commuters flying from Sydney to London in four hours, and London to New York in one. It’s called a SABRE—that is, Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine—and it allows planes to hit speeds of Mach 5.4 (6400 kilometres per hour). Hence the “hypersonic” moniker: whereas “supersonic” refers to a rate of travel that simply exceeds the speed of sound, “hypersonic” speeds typically exceed it five or six times over.

The hybrid hydrogen-oxygen engine is also way greener and cheaper than current air travel, The Telegraph reports, and will give aircraft the potential to fly in space.

Continue reading… “This ‘Spaceplane’ could get you from Sydney to London in four hours”

Healthcare, Inventions, Medical Breakthrough, new technology, Science & Technology News

Faster super-resolution microscope can see virus particles moving through a cell

September 28, 2019

This image taken by the new microscope shows a living bone cancer cell with nucleus (blue), mitochondria (green) and cytoskeleton (magenta).

When you want to look at something small up close, you use a microscope. And when you want to look at something really really small, you use a super-resolution microscope. These tools can look in resolutions of a millionth of a millimeter, but they work slowly due to the volume of image data that they need to record. Now, researchers have developed a way to speed up the process by creating a method which can record data at this microscopic scale in real-time.

Continue reading… “Faster super-resolution microscope can see virus particles moving through a cell”

Engineering, Inventions, new technology, Science & Technology News

Graphene nanoribbons lay the groundwork for ultrapowerful computers

September 28, 2019

Graphene nanoribbons on silicon wafers could help lead the way toward super fast computer chips. Image courtesy of Mike Arnold.

Smaller, better semiconductors have consistently allowed computers to become faster and more energy-efficient than ever before.

But the 18-month cycle of exponential increases in computing power that has held since the mid 1960s now has leveled off. That’s because there are fundamental limits to integrated circuits made strictly from silicon—the material that forms the backbone of our modern computer infrastructure.

As they look to the future, however, engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are turning to new materials to lay down the foundations for more powerful computers.

They have devised a method to grow tiny ribbons of graphene—the single-atom-thick carbon material—directly on top of silicon wafers.

Continue reading… “Graphene nanoribbons lay the groundwork for ultrapowerful computers”

communication, Employment, Internet, new technology, Science & Technology News

How 5G will reinvent “working from home”

September 24, 2019

It’s 10:00 am. Do you know where your employee is? No doubt they are working—somewhere.

Thanks to greatly improved internet connectivity and workforce applications, employees in an increasing number of professions can work just about anywhere they want—in their home, at a coffee shop, on a plane. And chances are they’re more productive and more engaged than they would be if they were in the office. They may even be planning to stay in their job longer because of their flexible work location. In 2017, Stanford economics professor Nicholas Bloom, in a TED Talk, went so far as to call work-from-home potentially as innovative as the driverless car.

Now, work-from-home is itself about to be disrupted, by the coming of 5G and its ability to enable virtual reality (VR) anywhere through what’s known as XR, the combination of extended, augmented, virtual, and mixed reality technologies. Fifth-generation (5G) communications networks, with their exponentially faster connection speeds, capacity, and communication response times (known as latency), will make possible an astonishing range of innovative new products and services.

Continue reading… “How 5G will reinvent “working from home””

Engineering, Nanotechnology, new technology, Science & Technology News

The world’s most advanced nanotube computer may keep Moore’s Law alive

September 6, 2019

Up close photograph of nanotube

MIT researchers have found new ways to cure headaches in manufacturing carbon nanotube processors, which are faster and less power hungry than silicon chips.

A team of academics at MIT has unveiled the world’s most advanced chip yet that’s made from carbon nanotubes—cylinders with walls the width of a single carbon atom. The new microprocessor, which is capable of running a conventional software program, could be an important milestone on the road to finding silicon alternatives.

The electronics industry is struggling with a slowdown in Moore’s Law, which holds that the number of transistors that can be packed on a silicon processor doubles roughly every couple of years. This trend is facing its physical limits: as the sizes of the devices shrink to a few atoms, electrical current is starting to leak from the metallic channels that shuttle it through transistors. The heat that’s released saps semiconductors’ energy efficiency—and may even cause them to fail.

Continue reading… “The world’s most advanced nanotube computer may keep Moore’s Law alive”

Automobiles, new technology, Science & Technology News, Tesla

U.S. to test mirrorless, camera-based systems in autos

September 5, 2019

An Audi 55 e-tron is seen ahead of the company’s annual news conference at its headquarters in Ingolstadt, Germany, March 14, 2019.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to test how drivers could use cameras to replace traditional rearview mirrors in automobiles, a technology already allowed in other countries, the agency said on Tuesday.

The planned test by the agency known as NHTSA would examine “driving behavior and lane change maneuver execution” in cars with traditional mirrors and camera-based visibility systems, the department said in a notice offering the public a chance to comment.

In March 2014, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers — a trade group representing General Motors Co, Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE), Toyota Motor Corp and others, along with Tesla Inc, petitioned NHTSA to use camera-based rear or side-vision systems. A similar petition was filed by Daimler AG in 2015 seeking approval for camera use instead of rearview mirrors in heavy-duty trucks. Those petitions are still pending.

Continue reading… “U.S. to test mirrorless, camera-based systems in autos”

Brain, brain hacking, new technology, Science & Technology News

A map of the brain could help to guess what you’re reading

August 30, 2019

A 3D map of how the brain responds to words could unlock new ways to understand and treat dyslexia and speech disorders.

Map-making: Researchers at UC Berkeley used functional MRI to measure nine volunteers’ brain activity (using blood flow as a proxy) as they listened to, and then read, stories from “The Moth Radio Hour,” a storytelling podcast which airs on 500 radio stations around the world. The researchers collected volunteers’ brain activity data for reading (one word at a time, to help separate the data) and listening to recordings of the same text, then matched both sets of data against time-stamped transcriptions of the stories.

Language links: The results were then fed into a computer program, which mapped out thousands of words according to their relationship to each other, using natural-language processing. For example, the “social” category includes words like “husband,” “father,” and “sister.” Different categories sparked activity in different parts of the brain: these “social” words were found on the right side, behind the ear. This area also responded most strongly to words that describe people or dramatic events, as well as words that describe time.

Continue reading… “A map of the brain could help to guess what you’re reading”

Engineering, Healthcare, new technology, Science & Technology News

Quantum radar has been demonstrated for the first time

August 30, 2019

A radar device that relies on entangled photons works at such low power that it can hide behind background noise, making it useful for biomedical and security applications.

One of the advantages of the quantum revolution is the ability to sense the world in a new way. The general idea is to use the special properties of quantum mechanics to make measurements or produce images that are otherwise impossible.

Much of this work is done with photons. But as far as the electromagnetic spectrum is concerned, the quantum revolution has been a little one-sided. Almost all the advances in quantum computing, cryptography, teleportation, and so on have involved visible or near-visible light.

Continue reading… “Quantum radar has been demonstrated for the first time”

new technology, Science & Technology News, Transportation, Venture Capital

LA new mobility challenge

August 27, 2019

The L.A. New Mobility Challenge is a major global startup competition focused on solving the challenges of urban mobility. The third edition of the Challenge brings together 12 semi-finalists who will pitch their innovations on stage to a crowd of top Venture Capitalists and key public and private stakeholders on November 13, 2019, the eve of CoMotion LA 2019.

The four categories this year are shared and personal mobility, urban aerial mobility, smart infrastructure (including autonomy and connectivity), and zero emission mobility. To be eligible, companies must be less than five years old, have revenue of less than $5 million, and have a product in pilot, beta or prototype stage.

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Big Problems, Climate Change, new technology, Science & Technology News

Scientists cook up new recipes for taking salt out of seawater

August 16, 2019

As populations boom and chronic droughts persist, coastal cities like Carlsbad in Southern California have increasingly turned to ocean desalination to supplement a dwindling fresh water supply. Now scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) investigating how to make desalination less expensive have hit on promising design rules for making so-called “thermally responsive” ionic liquids to separate water from salt.

Ionic liquids are a liquid salt that binds to water, making them useful in forward osmosis to separate contaminants from water. (See Berkeley Lab Q&A, “Moving Forward on Desalination”) Even better are thermally responsive ionic liquids as they use thermal energy rather than electricity, which is required by conventional reverse osmosis (RO) desalination for the separation. The new Berkeley Lab study, published recently in the journal Nature Communications Chemistry, studied the chemical structures of several types of ionic liquid/water to determine what “recipe” would work best.

Continue reading… “Scientists cook up new recipes for taking salt out of seawater”

Engineering, new technology, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News, Transportation, Travel

World’s longest hyperloop track in the works for Saudi Arabia

August 9, 2019

A 35-km-long (21.- mi) hyperloop test track is planned for Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Economic City

Virgin Hyperloop One has expanded its relationship with Saudi Arabia, with the two announcing plans to develop a new test track in the country’s west. The facility would become the world’s longest Hyperloop tube, and would be used to test out the technology as the gulf nation eyes a wider rollout of the futuristic transport system.

Continue reading… “World’s longest hyperloop track in the works for Saudi Arabia”

Breakthrough Thinking, Engineering, Machine Learning, new technology, Science & Technology News

Simple ‘smart’ glass reveals the future of artificial vision

August 4, 2019

From left to right, Zongfu Yu, Ang Chen and Efram Khoram developed the concept for a “smart” piece of glass that recognizes images without any external power or circuits.

The sophisticated technology that powers face recognition in many modern smartphones someday could receive a high-tech upgrade that sounds — and looks — surprisingly low-tech.

This window to the future is none other than a piece of glass. University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers have devised a method to create pieces of “smart” glass that can recognize images without requiring any sensors or circuits or power sources.

Continue reading… “Simple ‘smart’ glass reveals the future of artificial vision”