Electronics
Solar singlet fission bends the laws of physics to boost solar power efficiency by 30% July 11, 2014 at 11:27 am
Chemists at the University of California Riverside (UCR) have devised a way of increasing solar cell efficiency by as much as 30%. With current photovoltaic cells unable to surpass 33% due to the Shockley-Queisser limit, a boost of 30%, to a total efficiency of 60% or more, would be absolutely huge — and exactly what solar power needs if it ever hopes to be a cost-efficient alternative to fossil fuel power generation. Best of all, though, this new method for boosting solar cell efficiency has an awesome name: singlet fission.Russia bets its energy future on waste-free fast breeder nuclear reactors July 10, 2014 at 12:17 pm
Russia’s new BN-800 nuclear reactor uses no expensive moderator, and could even produce no nuclear waste. Is this the future of nuclear power?Nanopixel displays with 150 times higher resolution – and they’re flexible, too July 10, 2014 at 11:02 am
Researchers at Oxford University in England have created nanopixels that measure just 300-by-300 nanometers. Compare this to a modern smartphone with a 400 ppi display, where each pixel is about 150 times larger (about 50 microns across). Furthermore, Oxford’s prototype nanopixel displays are both low-power and thin and flexible. Ultimately, these nanopixels could eventually be used in extremely high-resolution displays with billions of pixels — though it might be rather hard to find a graphics card that can drive a 198000×120000 display, of course.IBM plows $3 billion into 7nm chip research and ‘post-silicon’ computer technology July 10, 2014 at 7:41 am
IBM has announced that it’s plowing $3 billion into two R&D programs that will hopefully make it the authority on 7-nanometer-and-beyond chip technologies. One R&D project will look at pushing conventional silicon chips as far as they will go (around 7nm), and the other will be tasked with finding new materials and techniques that can take us even further (quantum computing, carbon nanotubes, graphene, III-V). IBM also took the opportunity to remind everyone that it’s already the biggest player in 7nm-and-beyond technology, with over 500 applicable patents (more than double the nearest competitor).10Gbps over a copper telephone line: A new world record set by Bell Labs July 9, 2014 at 1:21 pm
The telecommunications masters at Bell Labs have managed to deliver a world record connection speed of 10Gbps (10,000Mbps) over copper wires. Dubbed XG.fast, the new technology could be used to massively extend the life of existing copper wireline networks, offering telecom companies an alternative to laying costly fiber-optic networks to billions of homes that already have a telephone line — but more importantly, it might mean you finally get a serious upgrade from your ~10Mbps ADSL or ~50Mbps VDSL connection.The human brain’s remarkably low power consumption, and how computers might mimic its efficiency July 9, 2014 at 11:25 am
A new paper discusses the efficiency of neuronal computing and the ways in which we might better model the brain’s function in future hardware. In some significant ways, we’re clearly on the right track already.US Department of Energy doubles lithium-ion battery capacity with spongy silicon July 9, 2014 at 9:53 am
The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has created a new variety of lithium-ion battery that can store at least twice the amount of energy found in your conventional smartphone or laptop battery. Unlike some other battery advances that won’t see the light of day for years to come (if at all), this energy storage breakthrough could actually find its way into commercial devices fairly soon. As is fairly normal nowadays, nanotech is the magic ingredient; nanostructured silicon sponges to be exact.NASA’s new astronaut-replacing robots, powered by Google Tango smartphones, launch into space this week July 9, 2014 at 6:45 am
First robots stole our jobs here on Earth — and now Google and NASA want to do the same to our astronauts. Later this week, Google and NASA will launch some Tango smartphone-powered SPHERES robots to the International Space Station. As their name suggests, SPHERES are spherical robots that will float through the halls of the ISS, powered by small CO2 thrusters, performing chores that would normally be carried out by astronauts. Tango, Google’s sensor-laden prototype depth-sensing smartphone, will be the brain of each robot. In the future, the SPHERES robots could even perform risky tasks outside the ISS in the deep, dark, never-ending expanse.Foxconn is attempting to replace its human workers with thousands of robots July 8, 2014 at 4:15 pm
Foxconn wants to replace a portion of its workforce with ten thousand “Foxbots.” These robots alone could manufacture hundreds of millions of iPhones every year — potentially eliminating the need for most of the workforce. The rollout of these robots might solve Foxconn’s current PR problem, but will it create a bigger uproar when thousands of workers lose their jobs to robots?
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