Technology Review – ABB, the large power and automation company, has developed technology that could provide an efficient way to transmit power from widely distributed solar panels, wind turbines, and other sources of renewable energy. The new technology is a fast and efficient circuit breaker for high-voltage direct-current (DC) power lines, a device that has …
NASA – Water Walls (WW) takes an approach to providing a life support system that is biologically and chemically passive, using mechanical systems only for plumbing to pump fluids such as gray water from the source to the point of processing. The core processing technology of Water Walls is FORWARD OSMOSIS (FO). Each cell of …
Technology Review gives a positive review to the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet Tablets are predominantly media consumption devices, rather than productivity devices, has been something of a stance of mine on this blog. Increasingly, it’s a stance from which I’m willing to back off somewhat. And with a video like that one, I’m almost …
Visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic expects game graphics to become “indistinguishable from reality” within 10 years. In an interview with CVG, visual effects supervisor Kim Libreri shared his view that it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between live action and rendered footage. “The way its going, it’s gonna be pretty …
1. MIT conference (The Future of Manufacturing in the U.S) explores the complex state of the US manufacturing industry which is showing signs of revival. The United States added about 50,000 manufacturing jobs this January alone, the largest monthly gain since 1998. Companies such as Ford Motor Co. have moved overseas plants back to the …
Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s biggest magnet facility today met the grand challenge of producing magnetic fields in excess of 100 tesla while conducting six different experiments. The hundred-tesla level is roughly equivalent to 2 million times Earth’s magnetic field. This is our moon shot, we’ve worked toward this for a decade and a …
Popular Mechanics interviewed James Cameron about his deep sea quests and his technological innovations Cameron pioneered the use of syntactic foam as a structural material. What are the benefits of making the sub’s structure double as the flotation system? Syntactic foam is an epoxy matrix containing glass microspheres that are hollow. It’s been the standard …
CNET – Apple unveiled the iPad HD (aka iPad 3). In January 2012, Nextbigfuture covered the correct rumors of screen resolution and 4G data. New iPad (aka iPad 3 aka iPad HD) screen resolution to a 2048×1536 resolution that exceeds any current tablet or laptop. New iPad minor upgrades are a faster processor, the upgrade …
1. US Energy Information Administration analysis indicates that a $20 increase in the cost of a barrel of oil — roughly what we saw last year — is estimated to shave roughly 0.4 points off GDP growth in the first year alone and boost unemployment by 0.1 percentage points. 2. NY Times – The United …
A team of scientists, led by Guillaume Gervais from McGill’s Physics Department and Mike Lilly from Sandia National Laboratories, has engineered one of the world’s smallest electronic circuits. It is formed by two wires separated by only about 150 atoms or 15 nanometers (nm). This discovery, published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, could have a …
China’s renewable and nuclear energy targets have recently been updated by the NEA (National Energy Agency). They now stand at 150 gW of installed wind capacity by 2020, along with 20 gW of solar, 380 gW of hydro and 80 gW of nuclear. The NEA plans to increase non-fossil fuel energy to 15 percent of …