New light physics with plasmons that could bridge light, matter and electronics. Plasmon computers could operate at 100 Terahertz – 1000 terahertz or 20,000 to 200,000 times faster than mainstream computer chips. Part of what I think is the growing trend of greater control of all information, light, energy, matter and magnetism. (ILEMM) Two-dimensional light, …
Coal is projected to increase 50% in the AEO2007 reference case, particularly for electricity generation. Coal consumption is projected to increase from 22.9 quadrillion Btu (1,128 million short tons) in 2005 to more than 34 quadrillion Btu (1,772 million short tons) in 2030, with significant additions of new coal-fired generation capacity over the last decade …
Spintronic memory advance: New research suggests a new route for developing high density magnetic memory chips which will not lose information when the power is switched off. For the first time data will be written and read very fast using only electrical currents. Physicist at the Universities of Bath, Bristol and Leeds have discovered a …
An article from the New York Times about the UN report on global wealth distribution A lot of focus has been on how much is owned by the top tier. (40% by the top 1% and 50% by the top 2%, 85% from the top 10%) I think it is more important to note how …
Stephen Hawking told a BBC radio audience that if the human race were to survive, it would be necessary to go to another star. Hawking talked about using antimatter powered spaceships to go at about 86% of light speed. It would take a lot of power to send a space ship with people to another …
The New Scientist, examines the efforts to reduce ship drag using tiny bubbles, slippery polymers and trapped sheets of air. As a ship moves through water it encounters three types of drag: wave drag, pressure drag and frictional drag. Wave resistance is mainly a problem at high speed, and can be minimised with a carefully …
Swarmanoids are a follow up to swarmbots Will initially have eye-bots, hand-bots and foot-bots Swarm robotics is inspired by the social insect metaphor, and emphasises aspects such as decentralisation of control, limited communication abilities among robots, use of local information, emergence of global behaviour, and robustness. Most current studies in swarm robotic systems have focused …
The US army has some small funding for a Slingatron. Initial studies have demonstrated the fundamental feasibility of the Slingatron concept. This program will explore the concept’s bounding limits and seek to develop uses for the technology within those limits. Included in this program will be studies of the key technologies that will allow the …
Springer and the Nano Research Society have announced a new partnership to publish Nanoscale Research Letters (NRL), which will be the first nanotechnology journal from a major commercial publisher to publish articles with open access. Look for it at springerlink July 2006 Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger …
In Dec, 2005, Fujitsu announced that they were able to connect carbon nanotube bumps to the miniature electrode of a high power transistor. Carbon nanotubes have thermal conductivity of 1400W/(m-K) – a level much higher than that of metal(4), and because it is possible to connect carbon nanotube-based bumps very near to the heat-generating miniature …