engineers and physicists from Stanford and the University of California at Santa Barbara demonstrate a potential progenitor of an essential component of quantum computers, “a logic gate” that enables interaction between just two particles of light. “We have demonstrated a system composed of a single quantum dot in a cavity that can be used to …
Giant solar energy balloons floating high in the air may be a cheap way to provide electricity to areas lacking the land and infrastructure needed for traditional power systems. Solar balloons, designed by a team from the Technion Institute of Technology, could be used to harness the sun’s energy in those remote areas. However, the …
There is news related to my articles on industry progress towards meat produced by stem cells in factories with a goal of ground meat products for supermarkets within 5 years. UPDATE: H/T to Onsingularity.com The PETA prize is meaningless because the winner has to be selling their invitro grown meat in 10 states and it …
The US standard tank water heater that uses approximately 4800 kWh per year. Home water heating is the number two residential energy consumption after residential heating and cooling. The average US household uses 920 kwh per month or 11040 kwh per year First for the most bang for the buck, look at simple and cheap …
A full-scale, fully cantilevered electromagnetic railgun developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has successfully launched a full-sized projectile, with size and weight similar to a 120mm mortar, at speeds of 430 meters-per-second. 430 meters/second would be a little faster than the 101-318 meter/second speed of regular mortar firings. The railgun is the …
The source of this post is this 10 page IEEE paper, Launch to Space With an Electromagnetic Railgun byIan R. McNab, Senior Member, IEEE The cost of electricity for a launch will be negligible, as shown below. Barrel life is central to the successful economics for this system. A system might cost $1.3 billion and …
For the same wind velocity, FloDesign’s Mixer Ejector Wind Turbine (MEWT) having a maximum diameter 50% smaller than an existing 3-Bladed regular wind turbine can potentially generate over 50% more power, and can potentially cost 25-35% less than the same conventional wind turbine (horizontal axis wind turbines, HAWT). Hat tip to Al fin for this …
Researchers from University of Wollongong, New South Wales have a new and better way of separating graphene sheets. Their process allows sheets to be kept apart in aqueous solution by electrostatic repulsion alone – without the need for chemical stabilizers. Graphene sheets have an extremely large surface area and non-bonding interactions can cause the sheets …
Tom Craver posits in a comment that the current financial troubles of the United States are from spending too much money on the military and for War in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terror and not because of the subprime mortgage situation. The USA is overspending on the wrong kinds of defense and buying …
iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) (maker of the millions of Roomba vacuums and military Packbots) may be on the verge of creating a new generation of robots with a much higher degree of autonomy than is currently possible. This is another example of how important the sensing systems and other non-artificial intelligence parts of a robot are to …
California Broadband Task Force (commissioned by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in Nov 2006) has published an 84 page plan on how it wants to make the broadband communication available in California competitive with world leaders like Japan (average advertised download speed of 95Mbps). The Task Force recommended that the state issue “broadband bonds,” found an “Advanced …