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
2009.05.15 Issue No. 211
Some interesting things I've noticed in Jakarta:
- 80% of the cars on the road are either vans or SUVs. 15% are motorbikes. 80% of those motorbikes have 2 passengers.
- Very tight security. Doesn't matter where you go - hotels, shopping centres, office buildings. If you're on a car, the security guards will check the trunk, check the inside of the car, and use a mirror to check the underside of the car. Before you enter a building, you'll be asked to surrender your bags and mobile phone and keys, and go through a metal detector.
- Absolutely no handkerchieves for sale in all of the shops and shopping centres I've been to. I don't even want to ask the sales staff because it could be a prohibited item here. Am I the only guy who still uses handkerchieves?
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 people of Jakarta about it. Thanks.
_________INSTANT SUNGLASSES_________
Researchers at Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan have developed a material that almost instantaneously changes from clear to dark blue when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light, and it just as quickly reverts to clear when the light is turned off.
In its natural state, hexaarylbiimidazole (HABI) is colorless, but when ultraviolet light breaks one of the bonds in the molecule, it produces a version that is dark blue. The problem has been that the transformation takes tens of seconds or longer, so the only commercial application has been sunglasses that slowly darken. Through simulations and laboratory experiments, they found that by adding naphthalene to the compound, they could accelerate the color change to about 180 milliseconds. Adding a compound called cyclophane instead of naphthalene improved the clear-to-blue conversion even more--to about 30 milliseconds. Better still, the cyclophane version of HABI reverts just as rapidly to its colorless state when the UV light source is turned off. And the compound is so stable that the reactions can be repeated thousands of times.
If added to Plexiglas or other lens materials, the modified version of HABI would allow sunglasses to instantaneously darken in sunlight and turn clear equally rapidly whenever their wearer moves indoors. HABI's properties could also make it a prime candidate for a new generation of optical data-storage devices, in which its color on/off ability could substitute for the magnetic on/off switches that underlie today's electronic data-storage devices.
_________PAPER SPEAKERS_________
Engineers at Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) have already produced rolls of paper stereo speakers and say they will be used in cars starting from next year. They are also planning a splash introduction of the new technology at a big exhibition in Taipei next year in which they will unroll a three-story high banner that can blare out tunes.
Called Flexpeaker, the special paper is made by sandwiching thin electrodes that receive audio signals and a prepolarized diaphragm into the paper structure. A special Flexpeaker adapter between the MP3 player and the speaker is used to play music through the paper. The goal for the researchers is to be able to mass produce standard poster-size speakers (A2, or 60centimeters by 44cm) costing just US$20 each. Movie makers could then put out posters with soundtrack music or movie highlights emanating from them as people walk by.
One limitation with Flexpeaker is that while it's very good with sounds at frequencies between 500Hz to 20KHz, it doesn't handle low frequency sounds well. That problem can be offset by adding a subwoofer to any system with the paper speakers. The paper speakers are so thin that they're perfect for the current push to ultra thin LCD TVs, a maker simply has to add a subwoofer to make a quality sound system.
_________500GB HOLOGRAPHIC DISCS________
General Electric says it has achieved a breakthrough in digital holographic storage that will allow standard-size discs to hold the equivalent of 100 DVDs.The data is encoded in light patterns that are stored in light-sensitive material. The holograms act like microscopic mirrors that refract light patterns when a laser shines on them, and so each hologram’s recorded data can then be retrieved and deciphered. Holographic storage has the potential to pack data far more densely than conventional optical technology, used in DVDs and the newer, high-capacity Blu-ray discs, in which information is stored as a pattern of marks across the surface of a disc.
To date, holographic storage has not been on a path to mainstream use. The G.E. development, however, could be that pioneering step. The researchers, working at the G.E. lab in Niskayuna, N.Y., north of Albany, makes use of smaller, less complex holograms — a technique called microholographic storage. The recent breakthrough was a 200-fold increase in the reflective power of their holograms, putting them at the bottom range of light reflections readable by current Blu-ray machines.
In G.E.’s approach, the holograms are scattered across a disc in a way that is similar to the formats used in today’s CDs, conventional DVDs and Blu-ray discs. So a player that could read microholographic storage discs could also read CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs. But holographic discs, with the technology G.E. has attained, could hold 500 gigabytes of data. Blu-ray is available in 25-gigabyte and 50-gigabyte discs, and a standard DVD holds 5 gigabytes. When Blu-ray was introduced in late 2006, a 25-gigabyte disc cost nearly $1 a gigabyte, though it is about half that now. G.E. expects that when they are introduced, perhaps in 2011 or 2012, holographic discs using its technology will be less than 10 cents a gigabyte — and fall in the future.
_________WORLD'S FIRST SOLAR-POWERED CITY_________
Electric vehicles, able to plug in for recharge at convenient community-wide recharging stations, will glide along avenues beneath the glow of solar-powered street lamps. Ingenious, revolutionary Smart Grid technologies will monitor and manage energy use while Smart Home technology will allow residents to operate their homes at maximum efficiency, thereby reducing energy costs.
If all goes according to plan, construction on Babcock Ranch’s solar facility will begin later this year and construction of the city center will commence next year. All homes and businesses in the city will be certified according to Florida Green Building Council standards. The community will ultimately contain 19,500 homes and 6 million square feet of retail and light industrial space, but Babcock Ranch won’t just have ample room for homes and businesses - the community will also have over 8,000 acres reserved for greenways and open space.
_________CYBERNETIC SUIT_________
Called a HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) suit, it works by detecting faint bioelectrical signals using pads placed on specific areas of the body. When a person attempts to move, nerve signals are sent from the brain to the muscles via motoneuron, moving the musculoskeletal system as a consequence. At this moment, very weak biosignals can be detected on the surface of the skin. HAL catches these signals through a sensor attached on the skin of the wearer. Based on the signals obtained, the power unit is controlled to wearer’s daily activities.
Among the potential applications, Cyberdyne is emphasizing helping people with movement disabilities, augmenting strength for difficult industrial tasks, disaster rescue, and entertainment. The HAL suit is not currently available. But according to Nikkei News, Daiwa and Cyberdyne are planning an annual production of 400 units and they should be marketed at approximately $4,200 US dollars.
_________WORLD'S FASTEST CAMERA_________
Developed by the University of California, Los Angeles, the camera's "shutter speed" is just a half a billionth of a second, and it can capture over six million images in a second continuously. Its "flashbulb" is a fast laser pulse dispersed in space and then stretched in time and detected electronically. This approach will be instrumental in imaging fast-moving or random events, such as communication between neurons. What's more, the camera works with just one detector, rather than the millions in a typical digital camera.
Dubbed Serial Time-Encoded Amplified imaging, or Steam, the technique depends on carefully manipulating so-called "supercontinuum" laser pulses. These pulses, less than a millionth of a millionth of a second long, contain an enormously broad range of colours. Two optical elements spread the pinprick laser pulses into an ordered two-dimensional array of colours. It is this "2-D rainbow" that illuminates a sample. The result is an image that represents a snapshot just 440 trillionths of a second long. The researchers used a laser that fired more than six million pulses in a second, resulting in as many images. However, they say that the system can be improved to acquire more than 10 million images per second - more than 200,000 times faster than a standard video camera.
The team is working to extend the technique to 3-D imaging with the same time resolution, and to increase the effective number of "pixels" in a given image to 100,000.
_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
Carl Sagan's The Dragon in My Garage
ListenToYouTube.com
How to Sign S60 Apps
Konami Code
Konami Code Sites
_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
Since there is a speed of light and a speed of sound, is there a speed of smell?
_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.
~ Mark Twain
_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
Would you get less wet by running in the rain?
Actual mathematical equations devoted to this popular question have suggested it is true, though not for the simple reasons you might think. Complexities include factoring in the number of rain drops hitting the walker's head versus smacking the runner's chest.
Source: Arcamax Trivia
_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
Q : What's orange and sounds like a parrot?
A : A carrot.
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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