Current Nikkei Business tech news and highlights from the August 2008 report on japanese research and innovation from the UK Embassy in Japan. 1. Furukawa Co Ltd plans to deploy a thermoelectric device for capturing 7% of the waste heat in car exhaust within 3 years. Furukawa used the latest material to prototype a thermoelectric …
1. Several startups take Wifi to the next level: Amimon WHDI – Wireless Home Digital Interface provides a high-quality, uncompressed wireless link which can support delivery of equivalent video data rates of up to 3Gbps (including uncompressed 1080p) in a 40MHz channel in the 5GHz unlicensed band. The Quantenna High Speed (QHS) family of chipsets …
From Transterrestrial: 1. Jay Penn of Aerospace described a proposed a 125kW laser beaming demonstrator , that could scale up to 200kW with technology insertion. The system would be self-lifting from LEO to GEO using ion propulsion, to save mass. 2. Jordin Kare discussed on laser diode power beaming that will be used at the …
Some people online say that China passing the USA in GDP is a wild dream. One posted analysis is from the Futurist, Stephen Aguilar-Millan. UPDATE:This site has a historical analysis of the actual reported GDP numbers from 2000 to 2008 for China, USA and Japan. The Futurist had 2005 GDP numbers instead of 2007 numbers. …
1. Large Enhancements in the Thermoelectric Power Factor of Bulk PbTe at High Temperature by Synergistic Nanostructuring Power was increased by 71% and the figure of merit increased to 1.5 Northwestern University researchers (along with colleagues from University of Michigan and the Jet Propulsion Lab) discovered that adding two metals, antimony and lead, to the …
4mm square of new carbon nanotube adhesive holds up a bottle of coke. Image: Science/AAAS Liming Dai, a professor of materials engineering at the University of Dayton, and Zhong Wang, director of the Center for Nanostructure Characterization at Georgia Tech have developed an adhesive made of carbon nanotubes whose structure closely mimics that of gecko …
Terahertz near field nanoscope has 40 nanometer resolution. Nanoscale resolution is achieved by THz field confinement at the very tip apex to within 30 nm, which is in good agreement with full electro-dynamic calculations. Imaging semiconductor transistors, we provide first evidence of 40 nm (λ/3000) spatial resolution at 2.54 THz (wavelength λ = 118 μm) …
Carnival of Space Week 74 is up at Kentucky Space. This site contributed an article about the Hyperion uranium hydride nuclear power reactor and how its light weight would make it suitable for power lunar facilities. Centauri Dreams talks about laser pushed solar sails. The lasers powered by using tethers in Jupiter’s magnetosphere for the …
1. A team of internationally renowned astronomers and opticians may have found a way to make “unbelievably large” telescopes on the Moon. – they are synthesizing ionic liquids that remain molten even at liquid-nitrogen temperatures.– all the materials for an entire lunar telescope 20 meters across would be “only a few tons, which could be …
Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University researcher Hao Yan is making DNA based nanostructures inside a living cell. “Cells are really good at making copies of double stranded DNA and we have used the cell like a copier machine to produce many, many copies of complex DNA nanostructures.” DNA nanotechnologists have made some very exciting …
1. Mirrored drones can make jet mounted lasers more effective. [H/T alfin and Tom Craver] The flying laser cannon could be accompanied by a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) fitted with mirrors. These relay UAVs would be harder to spot and more disposable than a 747, and could bounce the high-energy beam onto targets …