When femtocells first emerged they were touted simply as home installed cellular base stations, backhauled over a broadband connection that would enable mobile operators to relieve traffic on their macro network and divert business and revenue away from fixed line phone and broadband service providers.
But with the first handful of operators now offering femtocells commercially these devices are evolving rapidly to support a whole range of new services through integration with the new generation of smartphones and other components of the digital home.
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Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Google getting On2 video compression
Google's reasoning is that "Today video is an essential part of the web experience, and we believe high-quality video compression technology should be a part of the web platform," according to Sundar Pichai, Google's vice president, product management.
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Toshiba to Launch Fuel-cell Charger Soon
Toshiba plans to launch an external battery charger based on a DMFC (direct methanol fuel cell) in the next two months, its new president said on Wednesday.
The charger will be a portable device that can be used to charge the batteries in portable gadgets such as cell phones, music players and portable game devices instead of plugging them into an electrical outlet.
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The charger will be a portable device that can be used to charge the batteries in portable gadgets such as cell phones, music players and portable game devices instead of plugging them into an electrical outlet.
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New clues about a hydrogen fuel catalyst
To use hydrogen as a clean energy source, some engineers want to pack hydrogen into a larger molecule, rather than compressing the gas into a tank. A gas flows easily out of a tank, but getting hydrogen out of a molecule requires a catalyst. Now, researchers reveal new details about one such catalyst. The results are a step toward designing catalysts for use in hydrogen energy applications such as fuel cells.
Scientists from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory combined experimental and theoretical studies to identify the characteristics of the catalyst, a cluster of rhodium, boron and other atoms. The catalyst chemically reacts with ammonia borane, a molecule that stores hydrogen densely, to release the hydrogen as a gas. Their results, which reveal many molecular details of this catalytic reaction, appear August 5 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
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Scientists from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory combined experimental and theoretical studies to identify the characteristics of the catalyst, a cluster of rhodium, boron and other atoms. The catalyst chemically reacts with ammonia borane, a molecule that stores hydrogen densely, to release the hydrogen as a gas. Their results, which reveal many molecular details of this catalytic reaction, appear August 5 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
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5 Shark-Inspired Technologies
Think "shark" and chances are images of technology are not the first to dance in you're head. But plenty of technology is inspired by shark, from its skin to its speed.
Solid-state rivalry sizzles: Toshiba ships 512GB SSD
Toshiba has begun volume shipments of solid-state drives ranging up to 512GB in size, as these hyper-fast storage options bulk up on capacity.
Drives are also offered in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities and are built on a 43-nanometer manufacturing process using multi-level cell (MLC) technology. MLC technology allows drive makers to increase capacity while keeping production costs under control.
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Drives are also offered in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities and are built on a 43-nanometer manufacturing process using multi-level cell (MLC) technology. MLC technology allows drive makers to increase capacity while keeping production costs under control.
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An Iron Key to High-Temperature Superconductivity?
The new iron compounds knocked the cuprates off their pedestal as a seemingly unique class of high-temperature superconductors. For more than 20 years the cuprates had resisted all attempts by researchers to formulate a theory explaining all of their properties, most particularly their high transition temperatures. Now with two species to compare and contrast, experimenters might finally uncover the vital clues that theorists could use to solve the mystery of high-temperature superconductivity.
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Century-Old Physics Law Violated
In 1900 legendary physicist Max Planck described the way energy gets dissipated from any nonreflective object, called a blackbody. But even Max said if something else is really, really close to the object, his law might not hold.
Now physicists from M.I.T. have finally shown that if you can get another object near enough to the blackbody, but still not touching it, Planck’s blackbody radiation law really does break down.
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Now physicists from M.I.T. have finally shown that if you can get another object near enough to the blackbody, but still not touching it, Planck’s blackbody radiation law really does break down.
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New Technology Could Drill Deeper Into the Earth Than Ever Before
An adaptation of oil drills for deep water could bring scientists closer to the goal of drilling all the way through the earth's crust to the wonders beneath
The International Ocean Drilling Project announced today that, with the help of a company called AGR Drilling Services, they have engineered a type of technology called Riserless Mud Recovery (RMR) for extremely deep drilling. RMR allows for a closed drilling system -- where the mud and drilling fluid are kept separate from surrounding seawater -- without the need for risers surrounding the drill to draw mud up to the surface.
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The International Ocean Drilling Project announced today that, with the help of a company called AGR Drilling Services, they have engineered a type of technology called Riserless Mud Recovery (RMR) for extremely deep drilling. RMR allows for a closed drilling system -- where the mud and drilling fluid are kept separate from surrounding seawater -- without the need for risers surrounding the drill to draw mud up to the surface.
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New System To Allow For Automated Predator Drone Landings
While the UAVs can follow a pre-programmed flight path, they still need a human to bring them safely down to the tarmac. And that means a lot of UAVs crashing due to human error.
Image analysis company 2d3 is developing new software that will finally allow the UAVs to land themselves.
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Image analysis company 2d3 is developing new software that will finally allow the UAVs to land themselves.
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Nikon Unveils Pocket Camera with Onboard Projector
Nikon’s new Coolpix S1000pj camera is a theater in your pocket. In playback mode, you can open a second lens on the front of the camera that casts images and movie clips as large as 40 inches onto any surface up to 6.5 feet away.
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New super lattice structure offers effective means for developing quantum functional devices
Shinichi Shikata (Deputy Director of Diamond Research Center and concurrently Leader), Hideyuki Watanabe (Research Scientist) and others of the Device R&D Team, the Diamond Research Center of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have succeeded in the vapor-phase synthesis of a stack of nanometer-scale thin films of diamond using carbon isotopes 12C and 13C, which differ in mass. Electrons and holes were confined to a single material for the first time using the diamond stack.
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Hypersonic Test Flight Targeted For December
First flight of the X-51A scramjet demonstrator is now on track for early December while captive carriage tests on the NASA-operated B-52H mothership at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., are set to begin in October.
A joint effort by the U.S. Air Force, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, and Boeing, the hypersonic vehicle is designed to be the first air-breathing craft to demonstrate sustained speeds in excess of Mach 4 using a “logistically friendly” hydrocarbon fuel.
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A joint effort by the U.S. Air Force, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, and Boeing, the hypersonic vehicle is designed to be the first air-breathing craft to demonstrate sustained speeds in excess of Mach 4 using a “logistically friendly” hydrocarbon fuel.
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USAF Could Deploy Massive Ordnance Bomb from 2010
According to information presented on August 2nd, the Pentagon is looking to accelerate the introduction of an immense new weapon into the Unites States Air Force's inventory. A so-called "bunker buster" bomb may become a standard fit on USAF B-2 Spirit strategic bombers from July 2010 onwards - two years earlier than previously thought.
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Russian missile chief fired amid speculation
Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, has been replaced by his deputy, Lt. Gen. Andrei Shvaichenko, amid media speculation over failed missile launches.
Solovtsov is reported to have been discharged from military service on reaching the mandatory retirement age of 60. His replacement Shvaichenko, 56, was first appointed deputy SMF commander and SMF chief of staff in 2001.
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Solovtsov is reported to have been discharged from military service on reaching the mandatory retirement age of 60. His replacement Shvaichenko, 56, was first appointed deputy SMF commander and SMF chief of staff in 2001.
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WaveRider test vehicle meets B-52
Airmen successfully mated the X-51A WaveRider flight test vehicle to a B-52 Stratofortress July 17 at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The fit check followed integration earlier in the month of the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne scramjet propulsion system into the X-51 at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif.
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Missile Defense Goes to Sea
Another missile development for the Navy is the sea-based terminal capability, aimed to a great extent at the threat of antiship ballistic missiles under development by China. The first phase in the program was deployment of new software and SM-2 Block IV missiles on board Aegis ships. The third and latest test of the Block IV took place in March off Point Mugu, Calif. The next phase is the integration of a new interceptor missile.
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Monday, August 3, 2009
From graphene to graphane, now the possibilities are endless
Ever since graphene was discovered in 2004, this one-atom thick, super strong, carbon-based electrical conductor has been billed as a "wonder material" that some physicists think could one day replace silicon in computer chips.
But graphene, which consists of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice, has a major drawback when it comes to applications in electronics – it conducts electricity almost too well, making it hard to create graphene-based transistors that are suitable for integrated circuits.
In August's Physics World, Kostya Novoselov - a condensed-matter physicist from the Manchester University group that discovered graphene -- explains how their discovery of graphane, an insulating equivalent of graphene, may prove more versatile still.
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But graphene, which consists of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice, has a major drawback when it comes to applications in electronics – it conducts electricity almost too well, making it hard to create graphene-based transistors that are suitable for integrated circuits.
In August's Physics World, Kostya Novoselov - a condensed-matter physicist from the Manchester University group that discovered graphene -- explains how their discovery of graphane, an insulating equivalent of graphene, may prove more versatile still.
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U.S. Navy Shoots Down Target Missile in Space
The U.S. Navy and Missile Defense Agency (MDA) successfully shot down a short-range ballistic missile in space in a July 30 test, agency officials announced Friday.
The Navy's USS Hopper and USS O'Kane destroyers detected and tracked a missile fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands, Kauai in Hawaii during the test, which was latest demonstration of the U.S. military's Aegis Missile Defense system.
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The Navy's USS Hopper and USS O'Kane destroyers detected and tracked a missile fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands, Kauai in Hawaii during the test, which was latest demonstration of the U.S. military's Aegis Missile Defense system.
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New Microbe Strain Makes More Electricity, Faster
In their most recent experiments with Geobacter, the sediment-loving microbe whose hairlike filaments help it to produce electric current from mud and wastewater, Derek Lovley and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst supervised the evolution of a new strain that dramatically increases power output per cell and overall bulk power. It also works with a thinner biofilm than earlier strains, cutting the time to reach electricity-producing concentrations on the electrode.
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Navy awards laser development contract
The U.S. Navy has contracted Applied Energetics Inc. to design and develop a laser technology for deployment with Marine Corps and naval aircraft.
U.S. company Applied Energetics was selected by the Navy to develop an Ultra-Short Pulse laser system. Under the $992,000 contract, Applied Energetics will be expected to develop a demonstration system to explore Ultra-Short Pulse laser effects.
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U.S. company Applied Energetics was selected by the Navy to develop an Ultra-Short Pulse laser system. Under the $992,000 contract, Applied Energetics will be expected to develop a demonstration system to explore Ultra-Short Pulse laser effects.
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New Armored Ride Will Protect Troops From IEDs in Afghanistan
July was the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the war began. Fortunately, after nearly eight years of fighting, Army infantry and Marines in Afghanistan will finally be getting a new vehicle that is designed to meet the challenges of the theater.
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Launch Your Own Personal Satellite
Ever wanted to launch your own satellite into low earth orbit, then track it on ham radio for a few weeks before it burns up on re-entry? Well, 52 years after the launch of Sputnik, you can. Interorbital Systems is offering YOU the chance (by the end of 2010) to send up a TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit for the low introductory price of just $8,000.
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Tiniest two-photon MEMS microscope performs brain imaging
Researchers at Stanford University (Stanford, CA) have developed an incredibly small two-photon microscope imager that uses a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) laser-scanning mirror to image (v) the brain of a mouse.
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Ultrafast grows as lasers shrink
Many of the technical papers and product announcements at recent industry conferences serve to underscore the considerable engineering and design effort being undertaken by laser makers toward making femtosecond pulses more accessible to a broader community and of end users. And as the lasers are gradually becoming easier to use and more reliable, the payoff is being seen in fields as diverse as biophotonics and materials processing.
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Raytheon Secures Prime Development Contract for Advanced Airborne Sensor
The U.S. Navy has awarded a multi-year contract authorizing Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) to begin development of the Advanced Airborne Sensor, the follow-on to the Littoral Surveillance Radar System (LSRS).
The AAS program will equip the P-8A Poseidon, the Navy's next patrol maritime aircraft. LSRS is currently operational on Navy P-3C Orions; the AAS will provide airborne radar surveillance with next-generation line-of-site capability.
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The AAS program will equip the P-8A Poseidon, the Navy's next patrol maritime aircraft. LSRS is currently operational on Navy P-3C Orions; the AAS will provide airborne radar surveillance with next-generation line-of-site capability.
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Saturday, August 1, 2009
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