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The polariton laser: With 250x lower power consumption, could this be the answer to on-chip optical interconnects? July 23, 2014 at 2:34 pm
Engineers at the University of Michigan and Intel have succeeded in creating the first practical, room-temperature polariton laser. The polariton laser is of extreme interest because it requires just 0.004% of the current required by normal lasers, making it a prime candidate for use with on-chip optical interconnects. It is also believed that the polariton laser is the first new practical method of producing coherent laser light since the laser diode debuted more than 50 years ago in 1962.
Falcon 9 performs another perfect soft landing – SpaceX now confident it can land back at the launch pad (video) July 23, 2014 at 12:38 pm
Following the tenth launch of a Falcon 9 rocket last week, SpaceX is reporting that the rocket’s first stage carried out a perfect soft landing back here on Earth. This is the second time that SpaceX has successfully soft-landed a Falcon 9 rocket launch, and now Musk’s commercial space exploration company is confident enough that it can take the next, most important step: soft landing the Falcon 9 on a solid surface, so that it can be reused in future launches, instantly cutting down the cost of a space launch by tens of millions of dollars. If all goes to plan, SpaceX will attempt a soft landing on a solid surface in October, and then again in December.
New biotech wheat gives fungi the finger without adding new genes July 22, 2014 at 5:04 pm
Wheat is hard to modify in the lab, but a team of Chinese researchers have successfully changed its DNA to make it resistant to fungal infection. They did it without using outside genes, too.
UK supermarket will be the first to disconnect from the grid, use electricity generated entirely by its own rotten food July 22, 2014 at 1:51 pm
A grocery store in the UK will become the world’s first to be powered entirely by its own food waste. At the end of the day, any leftover food — after the good stuff has been given to charity — will be transported to a nearby anaerobic digester, where it will be turned into electricity and sent back to the store via a privately owned one-mile-long power line. When the anaerobic digester is turned on, the grocery store will sever all connections to the national power grid and rely purely on the electricity generated by bacteria feasting on rotten food. Cool.
MIT creates graphite ‘solar sponge’ that converts sunlight into steam with 85% efficiency July 22, 2014 at 11:33 am
MIT is reporting that it has created a new, cheap material — using a microwave, no less — that converts sunlight into steam with an amazing 85% efficiency. This could have major repercussions in the realms of desalination and sterilization, and perhaps for concentrated solar thermal power generation as well.
How to use a VPN to boost your Netflix performance – even if you’re not a Verizon customer July 22, 2014 at 10:15 am
Can using a VPN improve your streaming video performance, even if you aren’t on Verizon? We investigate.
Move aside, Segway: Honda’s Uni-Cub could make walking a thing of the past July 22, 2014 at 8:02 am
Behold, the future of personal mobility devices: The Honda Uni-Cub. The Uni-Cub, which is self-balancing and has zero turning radius, is essentially a sit-on Segway without any handlebars. Most importantly, the Uni-Cub is much smaller and easier to maneuver than the Segway, allowing for Uni-Cub users to ride alongside or even within a pack of pedestrians. The main usage scenario for the Uni-Cub is moving around internal spaces, such as offices and museums: Not only is it easier and faster than walking, but compared to other personal mobility devices it also leaves your hands free to operate a smartphone or some other implement of your choosing.
Handheld device allows anyone to instantly test drinks for date rape drugs July 21, 2014 at 4:35 pm
Date rape drugs are shockingly commonplace in nightclubs, college campuses, and private parties across the world. To help solve this problem, a small team from Toronto, Ontario is crowdfunding the pd.id — the “personal drink ID.” With a device the size of a thumb drive, anyone can test to see if a drink has been tampered with.
Air Force One finally upgrades its 1980s Reagan-era phone system July 21, 2014 at 1:47 pm
Air Force One — the US President’s flying fortress — which has been using the same clunky handsets since the Reagan administration in the ’80s, has finally received some slick new phones that are much more in keeping with Obama’s 21st century aesthetic. These new phones — customized versions of the the Airborne Executive Phone (AEP) — are provided by military contractor L-3 Communications, and they probably cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars each. In what must surely be some of the best news the President has received in the last couple of years, while the old system consisted of two different phones — one for secure communications, the other for non-secure — each AEP is capable of making calls in either mode from a single handset.
The Apollo 11 moon landing, 45 years on: Looking back at mankind’s giant leap July 21, 2014 at 9:32 am
On July 20, 1969 — 45 years and one day ago — Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the Moon. Buzz Aldrin would soon follow suit and climb down the ladder of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module (the Eagle), and the pair would then spend two and a half hours being the first ever humans to explore the surface of another world. Let’s take a retrospective look at some of the awesome photos from Apollo 11, and explore some of the fun (and perhaps lesser-known) factoids from the mission.
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