Posted by admin in Hi-tech on 03. Feb, 2012 | 0 Comments
The augmented reality future we were long ago promised has been slow to come around, perhaps restrained most by the basic biology of our own eyes, which are unable to properly see detailed images placed very near the pupils. But via technology developed in part with a certain government agency, Washington-based Innovega has created a [...]
Precision guided weapons are usually the purview of larger weapons platforms, like naval vessels, combat aircraft, or assault vehicles. But a couple of Sandia National Labs engineers are bringing the guided munition down from the mountaintop and putting it into the hands of the average infantryman. The engineers have developed and patented a new breed [...]
The search for the perfect invisibility cloak lumbers onward, but that lumbering is starting to pick up speed. We’re hearing more and more these days about metamaterials, the possibilities of time cloaking, and other such future-stuff. And today, from deep in the heart of Texas, we get another tantalizing finding: UT researchers have, for the [...]
The coming year is going to be a big one in all kinds of areas, from space to supercomputing, research done both above and below the ocean, examinations into our distant past and into our future. And salmon. Expect to hear lots about salmon. Asteroid Fly-By On January 31, the 20-mile-long asteroid Eros makes its [...]
A group of researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, led by Bruce Spiegelman and Pontus Boström, have discovered a hormone that mimics some of the results of a workout by facilitating the transformation of white fat into brown fat. While the purpose of the former is to accumulate excess calories, the latter [...]
Posted by admin in Space on 06. Dec, 2011 | No Comments
Astronomers have measured the two most enormous supermassive black holes found so far, vast realms of titanic gravity large enough to swallow 10 of our solar systems. The black holes are much bigger than predicted, suggesting extra-large galaxies and their black holes grow and evolve differently than smaller ones. Behemoth Black Hole: This figure shows [...]
Posted by admin in Computers, Design on 25. Nov, 2011 | No Comments
Could multi-touch desks be the wave of the future? ExoPC thinks so, and has posted a video of its new 40-inch multitouch desk on YouTube – a desk it plans on officially announcing at the Consumer Electronics Show at the beginning of January. The teaser video (below) doesn’t offer a ton of information about [...]
Posted by admin in Electronics, Robots on 23. Nov, 2011 | No Comments
Nobody likes having to deal with automated telephone services, that say wonderful things like, "You said ‘Beelzebub,’ is that correct?". Such services may get slightly less annoying, however, thanks to research being carried out at Spain’s Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and Universidad de Granada. A team of scientists from those institutions have created a [...]
Posted by admin in Hi-tech on 18. Nov, 2011 | No Comments
Despite being 99.99 percent open volume, the new material boasts impressive strength and energy absorption, making it potentially useful for a range of applications. The 0.01 percent of the material that isn’t air consists of a micro-lattice of interconnected hollow nickel-phosphorous tubes with a wall thickness of 100 nanometers – or 1,000 times thinner than [...]
Posted by admin in Alternative energy, Hi-tech on 09. Nov, 2011 | No Comments
If you really want to minimize the amount of toxins that you put into the environment, use rechargeable batteries. Disposable and rechargeable batteries can contain heavy metals such as mercury, lead, and cadmium, and with an estimated 3 billion batteries a year being discarded in the U.S. alone, the sometimes small amounts in each battery [...]
