N Y B B L E M O N T H L Y N E W S L E T T E R
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2006.09.01 Issue No. 180
Exciting times for the game console market with the Xbox 360 pulling
out all the stops to extend their lead, given that the product
launches for PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii are just around the
corner. I've had my eye on the PlayStation2 ever since it came out six
years ago. What with export restrictions being slapped on it because
its Emotion Engine co-processor is too powerful - 6.5 mathematical
operations per second. Any crazy terrorist can buy a bunch of these
consoles, and cobble up a supercomputer for military use. I kid you
not. Microsoft's Xbox came out a few years later, and I've been biding
my time ever since.
With the winter clearance sales on, I thought this is the best time to
buy an Xbox console. Not an easy task finding an actual unit though.
Most stores I visited don't carry it anymore. Either they sold out in
a hurry, or maybe it was pulled out of the market so as not to affect
X360 sales. Tried the shopping centres in other suburbs and struck
gold. One shop is still selling it at regular prices: A$250 for the
console, A$280 includes two games. Toys R Us is selling the console
for A$250 and the package with two games for A$200. Yup, you read that
right. Don't ask me why. Ah, good things come to those who wait (and
shop around).
Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my
way by clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to discuss
a topic. If you think Nybble is good enough, do tell the Xbox fans
about it. Thanks.
_________TABLE OF CONTENTS_________
* Philips Demoes Light-Emitting Clothing
* TeliaSonera First to Launch UMA Service
* Pluto Not a Planet
* Liquid Armour
* Just Add Fluorine for Faster Chips
* Depression-Resistant Mice
* Holographic Storage Coming Soon
* Free Energy for All
* Likeable Links
* Questionable Question
* Quotable Quote
* Trivial Trivia
* Laughable Laugh
_________PHILIPS DEMOES LIGHT-EMITTING CLOTHING_________
http://www.research.philips.com/newscenter/archive/2006/060901-lumalive.html
Philips Research intends to impress the visitors at this year's IFA
(Internationale Funkausstellung) with a world-first demonstration of
promotional jackets and furniture featuring its innovative Lumalive
technology. Lumalive textiles make it possible to create fabrics that
can display vivid colored patterns, logos, dynamic advertisements,
short text messages or even full color animations.
Lumalive fabrics feature flexible arrays of colored light-emitting
diodes (LEDs) fully integrated into the fabric - without compromising
the softness or flexibility of the cloth. The electronics, batteries
and LED arrays are fully integrated and invisible to the observer and
wearer.The products include features that make them practical for
daily use. For example, when integrating the Lumalive fabrics into the
garment Philips Research has made the parts that can't be easily
washed — such as the batteries and control electronics—simple to
disconnect and reconnect after the garment has been cleaned. Even the
light-emitting layer can be easily removed and refitted to the jacket.
These first-generation fabrics are ready for commercialization by
companies partnering with Philips Research, particularly those in the
promotional industry looking for a new, high-impact medium.
_________TELIASONERA FIRST TO LAUNCH UMA SERVICE_________
http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=4718
Swedish-Finnish telecommunications operator TeliaSonera recently
unveiled the world's first UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) technology,
enabling users to access mobile and Internet (IP) telephony on the
same phone. The technology, which will be marketed under the name
"Home Free", enables callers to use a mobile phone at home as an IP
phone, which uses W-Fi to make very low-cost calls. The same phone
works outside the home as a normal mobile phone that automatically
seeks out a GSM network.
With the new technology, Danish families will now be able to cancel
their fixed line subscriptions at home without losing their home phone
numbers, and at the same time save more than 20 percent on their phone
bill. VoIP usage is currently limited at home, but in the future, the
technology "could also be used an IP phone if the user is in a Wi-Fi
hotspot outdoors, such as an airport, cafe, or conference centre for
example. Naturally, users will have to acquire a mobile phone that
supports UMA. At the moment, only Samsung's SGH-P200 is UMA-compliant.
_________PLUTO NOT A PLANET________
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5282440.stm
In the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) recent meeting at
Prague, about 2,500 scientists have adopted historic new guidelines
that saw the small, distant world demoted to a secondary dwarf planet
category.
Pluto's status has been contested for many years. It is further away
and considerably smaller than the eight other "traditional" planets in
our Solar System. At just 2,360km (1,467 miles) across, Pluto is
smaller even than some moons in the Solar System. Its orbit around the
Sun is also highly tilted compared with the plane of the big planets.
In addition, since the early 1990s, astronomers have found several
objects of comparable size to Pluto in an outer region of the Solar
System called the Kuiper Belt. The critical blow for Pluto came with
the discovery three years ago of an object currently designated 2003
UB313. After being measured with the Hubble Space Telescope, it was
shown to be some 3,000km (1,864 miles) in diameter: it is bigger than
Pluto.
The scientists agreed that for a celestial body to qualify as a planet:
* it must be in orbit around the Sun
* it must be large enough that it takes on a nearly round shape
* it has cleared its orbit of other objects
An unmanned US spacecraft, New Horizons, is due to fly by Pluto and
the Kuiper Belt in 2015.
_________LIQUID ARMOUR_________
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_32/b3996068.htm
Armor Holdings Inc. is developing new, high-tech "liquid armour" --
garments constructed from layers of tough fibers and fluid polymers --
that could keep troops, police, and prison guards safer.
Developed by Norman Wagner, a professor of chemical engineering at the
University of Dela-ware's Center for Composite Materials, Armor
Holdings' product is a mix of polyethylene glycol, a polymer found in
laxatives and other consumer products, and nanobits of silica, or
purified sand. Together they produce a "sheer-thickening liquid" that
stiffens instantly into a shield when hit hard by an object. It
reverts to its liquid state just as fast when the energy from the
projectile dissipates. It's also lighter than Kevlar and other widely
used fabrics. That means Armor Holdings' new vests, in which the
substance would be sandwiched between layers of ballistic fibers,
might be lighter than current versions, which weigh four pounds or
more. The Jacksonville (Fla.) company wants to continue to sell
entry-level garments for $500 to $600.
While liquid armor seems tailor-made for combat personnel or police,
the company is initially targeting prisons because the fabric resists
punctures. That means it can protect guards from stabbings, something
even a top-of-the-line bulletproof vest can't do.
_________JUST ADD FLUORINE FOR FASTER CHIPS_________
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5259594.stm
Discovered by Professor Peter Ashburn at the University of
Southampton, a simple tweak to the way common silicon transistors are
made could allow faster, cheaper mobile phones and digital cameras. To
achieve the speed gain, researchers at the University of Southampton
added fluorine to the silicon devices.
The research was carried out using a simple type of transistor known
as a silicon bipolar transistor. Professor Ashburn and colleagues at
ST Microelectronics used a simple transistor made of silicon with a
boron filling for the research. To make transistors of this type
requires high temperature manufacturing processes which cause the
boron layer to diffuse, creating a thicker and hence slower layer. To
get round this problem, the researchers added fluorine implants to the
silicon layers using ion implantation. At an atomic level, the
fluorine creates small clusters of vacancies, areas of missing silicon
atoms. These voids suppress boron diffusion, creating a thinner layer
and therefore speeding up the transistor. When the researchers tested
the new device it clocked a speed of 110 GHz. Complete circuits
usually operate at about a tenth of the speed of the component
transistors meaning the new devices could allow engineers to build
chips that operate at a speed of about 11GHz. The previous world
record, held by electronic giant Philips, created transistors that
operate at speeds of up to 70GHz, allowing operating circuit speeds of
7GHz.
_________DEPRESSION-RESISTANT MICE_________
http://snipurl.com/vqb6
How do you make a mouse feel depressed? Take if off its all-cheese
diet? I don't know, but somehow scientists were able to create a new
breed of permanently 'cheerful' mouse, which is providing hope of a
new treatment for clinical depression.
TREK-1 is a gene that can affect transmission of serotonin in the
brain. And Serotonin is known to play an important role in mood, sleep
and sexuality. By breeding mice with an absence of TREK-1, researchers
from the University of Nice, France were able create a
depression-resistant strain. According to Dr. Guy Debonnel, professor
in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University and principal
author of the new research, "Current medications for clinical
depression are ineffective for a third of patients, which is why the
development of alternate treatments is so important." Mice without the
TREK-1 gene ('knock-out' mice) were created and then tested using
separate behavioral, electrophysiological and biochemical measures
known to gauge 'depression' in animals. The result was that the
knock-out mice behaved as if they had been treated with
antidepressants for at least three weeks.
This research represents the first time depression has been eliminated
through genetic alteration of an organism.
_________HOLOGRAPHIC STORAGE COMING SOON_________
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060804-7424.html
Long-promised but rarely seen, commercially available holographic
storage devices will become a reality before the end of the year, in
the form of a system developed by InPhase Technologies and built by
Hitachi Maxell. The idea of holographic storage was originally
proposed at least as early as 1963 by Polaroid researcher Pieter J.
Van Heerden. Lucent later did some work on the concept, then in 2001,
the company spun off InPhase with the goal of developing a commercial
application for the technology.
In the Hitachi Maxell device, a single disc about 1cm larger in
diameter than a CD will buy you 300GB. By way of contrast, HD-DVD
currently offers a maximum of 30GB on a 2-layer disc, and Blu-ray tops
out at 50GB. Future plans for the holographic disc include boosting
the capacity to 800GB in two years, and 1.6TB per disc by 2010. Don't
get too excited, though. First generation systems tend to be
expensive—on the order of US$15,000 for the reader/writer and between
US$120-$180 for the discs. Also, the media is write-once, meaning that
the system will be targeted at enterprise users who need a
high-density backup solution.
InPhase and Hitachi Maxell have been discussing what form a consumer
version of the technology might take. One possibility that has been
mentioned is a disc around the size of a postage stamp, which would
probably hold about 75-100GB.
_________FREE ENERGY FOR ALL_________
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060818/bs_afp/irelandscienceenergy
An Irish company by the name of Steorn is claiming that it has
developed a technology that produces free energy. The company says its
discovery is based on the interaction of magnetic fields and allows
the production of clean, free and constant energy -- a concept that
challenges one of the basic rules of physics. Physics says that energy
can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only change form.
Steorn's chief executive officer Sean McCarthy explains thus, "What we
have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you
travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same
position, you have gained energy. The energy isn't being converted
from any other source such as the energy within the magnet. It's
literally created." (And travelling around the magnetic fields doesn't
require energy?!) Anyway, Steorn is so confident of its technology
that it issued a public challenge to the scientific community through
an advertisement in the Economist magazine. Let's see how it turns
out, but I'm not holding my breath.
_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
eHow.com
http://www.ehow.com/
Clear Instructions on How to Do (Just about) Everything
Google Tutor & Adviser
http://www.googletutor.com/
Tutorials, tips, and Advice for Google Users
The Architecture of Fight Club
http://home.uchicago.edu/~davep/fightclub
If you don't get this, get the book.
The Zompist Phrasebook
In French, Spanish, and German
http://www.zompist.com/phrases.html
in Chinese
http://www.zompist.com/phrases3.html
_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm."
~ Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, French novelist ~
_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
How many people in the world speak Chinese?
More than 880 million people speak Mandarin Chinese, the most popular
language in the world. But if you count ALL of the Chinese languages,
such as Cantonese, Wu, and others, then you're talking about a
whopping 1.2 BILLION people. In contrast, just 330 million people
speak the second most popular language, Spanish. And about 320 million
people speak English.
Source: Arcamax Trivia
_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
Two young men came upon a great trout brook. They stayed all day
enjoying the fishing. At the end of the day, knowing that they would
be graduating from college soon, they vowed they would return in 20
years. Twenty years later, they walked into the woods and before long
came upon a brook. One of the men said to the other, 'This is the
place!' The other disagreed, but the first man said,' Yes, I recognize
the clover growing on the other side.' To which the other replied,
'Silly, you can't tell a brook by its clover.'
That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in
progress. Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to
improve Nybble. Just hit the reply button to you know, reply.
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