The next iPhone, the iPhone 3GS, will be available June 19, 2009. It will have twice the speed for browsing, a video camera, 32 Gigabytes of storage and voice control. Techcrunch notes that upgrading from an existing iPhone to the iPhone 3GS would be suckers bet. IPhone 3GS details at the Apple site. * Voice …
J Storrs Hall, President of the Foresight Institute, considers what will be the likely situation with early nanofactories. The first nanofactories will probably be DNA/RNA/protein gadgets requiring thousands of steps by skilled scientists to coax them to build a new gadget (which will consist only of DNA/RNA/protein), or diamondoid gadgets in high vacuum requiring thousands …
Chandra blog has the Carnival of Space Week 103. This site submitted a look at computer and television technology in the first 43 years since Star Trek started and looking forward 43 years. Phil Plait, the bad astonomer, looks at ten things you did not know about Hubble. Centauri Dreams has Athena Andreadis’ look at …
Chris Phoenix has considered RepRap and cheap 3D desktop manufacturing devices and iterative improvements there as a path evolves into molecular manufacturing. The Reprap can produce its own circuit boards and desktop manufacturing can produce prototypes. I believe that in the near to mid-term the financial and societal impact will be with things like the …
The radical italian Kitegen wind power system appears to have funding of 15 million euro (announced not distributed). An interesting synergy is possible with large Kitegen systems and nuclear power plants. Kitegen systems could be co-located with nuclear power plants to help prevent any illegal airplanes from hitting the nuclear plant. (Kite flying would be …
1. China’s first supercomputer with a computing speed of over 100 trillion times per second, the Dawning 5000A, also called the “Magic Cube,” will officially be installed in the Shanghai Supercomputer Center in mid-May, according to the Dawning Information Industry Company. The Dawning 5000A, which is to be installed in Shanghai, will have three important …
1. DARPA has funded Rice University to develop platform-aware compilation environment”. Enable compilers which are the everywhere to be faster without needing highly skilled people spending a lot of time tuning each one. If they succeed all computers would become faster. “When a compiler translates human-written code into executable code, it makes myriad choices that …
A 560 page report on the future of China’s cities. * China is leading the global urbanization trend of developing countries and in 2025-2030 one in five of the global city dwellers will be in Chinese cities* Based on current trends, China in 2025 will have 221 cities with more than one million people compared …
Gold nanocups at their magnetoinductive resonance have the unique ability to redirect scattered light in a direction dependent on cup orientation, as a true three-dimensional nanoantenna. Nanocups are just what they sound like: very tiny, cup-shaped particles. What makes them special is their ability to bend light. Halas and Mirin have found a way to …
In 2009, the world’s billionaires have an average net worth of $3 billion, down 23% in 12 months. The world now has 793 billionaires, down from 1,125 a year ago. After slipping in recent years, the U.S. is regaining its dominance as a repository of wealth. Americans account for 44% of the money and 45% …
A 49 page pdf from January 2009 shows the vision of Masdar City. A city that will put together, gather real data on a collection of technologies for a more environmentally friendly and efficient city of the future. It will be more efficient with energy. It will be 100,000 people only using personal rapid transit, …