Month: August 2012

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From Geeks are Sexy Technology News: QR Codes Under Threat From New Tech


Korean researchers say they’ve found a way to produce an alternative to QR codes that takes up less space, carries far more data, yet costs very little.

The solution involves a rectenna, which takes its name from ‘rectifying antenna’ rather than rectangular. It’s effectively a tiny AC/DC converter that works with microwave energy.

The idea is to harness the energy from a smartphone’s radio waves, convert it to a DC current, and use that to power the data transmission from a chip that can be put onto posters or other displays. It’s a similar concept to Near Field Communications, used in several smartphone “swipe to pay” or “tap to pay” tools, but would allow two-way communication.

The development from Sunchon National University and the Paru Printed Electronics Research Institute is to produce the rectenna using electronic inks. That greatly reduces costs as the rectennas (or rectennae) can simply be printed in rolls rather than produced in a more complicated fashion. The researchers believe each rectenna produced this way could cost as little as 1.5 cents.

Another benefit is that it’s possible to print an extra layer on top the rectenna that contains visual information for the user. This means there’s no need to either print a separate explanation of what the visible chip is for, or to take up space with a QR “barcode” and either explain it or hope people know what it is.

 

from Geeks are Sexy Technology News

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From Ars Technica: Wind accounts for one-third of new energy-generating capacity in US

Enlarge / Wind and gas have dominated recent additions to the US generating capacity.
DOE

In 2011, roughly one-third of the new generating capacity installed within the US was in the form of wind turbines, according to a new report prepared by the Department of Energy. That represents nearly seven Gigawatts of new wind installations. Although that leaves the nation a distant second to China (which installed a hefty 17.6GW), it’s about double the capacity installed in the next closest country (India) and leaves the US firmly in second place in total wind capacity, with 47GW.

It’s important to note that this capacity doesn’t reflect the typical output of these wind farms, since the wind doesn’t always actually blow. Nevertheless, the steady growth of wind capacity has now pushed the amount that is actually generated by wind to over three percent of the annual national consumption of electricity. The top four countries in this regard—Denmark, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland—all produce over 18 percent of their needs through wind. The US ranks thirteenth.

That said, several states within the US would be competitive with the international results. Wind accounts for over 22 percent of the electricity generated in South Dakota, and just under 19 percent of electricity generated in Iowa (four other states are also above 10 percent). These are important figures, because the US grid isn’t especially well structured to handle over 20 percent of its power coming from intermittent sources like wind. The experience gained by the nations and states could prove invaluable as wind power continues to grow.

 

from Ars Technica

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From Engadget: Samsung’s defense against Apple patents begins with DiamondTouch table, LiveTile UI prior art

Samsung's defense against Apple patents begins with DiamondTouch table, LiveTile UI prior art

Samsung may have convinced Judge Koh to toss a few international handsets out of Apple’s lawsuit, but the Korean firm still has Cupertino’s patent licensing accusations to contend with. Their tactic? Convince the court that Apple’s claim to the inventions are invalid, and that the technology was developed prior to the disputed patent’s filing. It’s called showing “prior art,” and Sammy’s done it before — famously showing a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey in an attempt to put Apple’s iPad design claims to rest. Today’s examples were more grounded in reality, focusing on debunking Cupertino’s claim to the “bounce back” effect that happens when a user reaches the end of a page and common multitouch zoom / navigation gestures.

Samsung pitted the famous “bounce back” feature against an old PocketPC interface called LaunchTile, which allowed users to navigate through 36 applications by zooming in and out and a panning across a grid-like “world view” of said apps. Movement between grids snap to each zone, marking the end of a page. Apple shot back, noting that LiveTile’s snapping navigation didn’t work on diagonals, and cited other differences as well. Samsung wasn’t deterred, however, and brought out DiamondTouch, a projector based multitouch table that utilized both one touch scrolling and pinch-based zoom gestures. The table even takes aim at the aforementioned bounce-back patent with a technology called TableCloth, which bounces back images that are pulled off screen. DiamondTouch’s creator, Adam Bogue, told the court that he had demoed the technology to Apple privately back in 2003, noting that it was also available to anyone who visited the Mitsubishi Electronic Research Laboratories’ lobby.

If the jury takes to Samsung’s claims of prior art, it could severely cut Apple’s claims against it. Even so, Cupertino’s lawyers aren’t going down without a fight, and still have a number of navigation and design claims that Samsung hasn’t addressed. The two parties are expected to keep up the fight for about a week, we’ll keep you posted on the inevitable revelations as they come.

 

 

from Engadget

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From Discover Magazine: Light-activated, Nano-sized Protein Factories Show Promise For Drug Delivery | 80beats

particle

Some of the most exciting medical research these days involves light. Light therapy for cancer, in which a tumor-seeking dye becomes toxic as soon as a light is switched on, manages to avoid slaughtering nearby healthy cells. Optogenetics—using light to turn on or off the expression of neurons—has advanced researchers’ understanding of neurological diseases.

Now, a recent paper is a reminder that light might someday be used for exquisitely tailored drug delivery: in this paper, tiny packages bearing all the molecular machinery to build a protein are idle when injected into mice, but spring into action when exposed to UV light.

The nanoparticles, which you can see a schematic of above, are little envelopes of cellular membrane, wrapped around a basic set of protein-building machinery and the gene for whatever you’d like manufactured—the researchers used a glowing fluorescent protein for their test. The gene can’t be accessed by the machinery because it is sealed into a loop by a piece of molecular adhesive, but shine a UV light on it, and the adhesive unsticks. Then the machinery transcribes the gene, and the protein is expressed. The researchers found that when they injected the particles into mice and …

 

from Discover Magazine

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From Wired Top Stories: It’s Do or Die For Military’s Mach 5 Missile

On Tuesday, an Air Force B-52 bomber will take off from Edwards Air Force Base in California and fire off an experimental hypersonic missile. If all goes well for the military’s flight test, the missile will accelerate past Mach 5, rush more than 300 miles in less than five minutes, and usher in a new chapter in high-speed warfare. If it fails — and the last two tests of this X-51A Waverider have fallen short — then the Pentagon will have sent something on the order of $300 million to the bottom of the Pacific.

from Wired Top Stories