Hi-Tech Arena

Artificial Trees to Exploit Solar and Wind Energy

admin — Sun, 24 May 2009 10:49:40 +0000

The human population of the world has trebled in the past fifty years from over 2 billion to 6 billion and will increase to about 12 billion in the life time of many of those living today. The farm animals needed to feed the human population has increased even more rapidly and by 2100 will exceed 100 billion. Therefore, world economies and survival are dependent on a diminishing resource of environmentally unfriendly fossil fuels. The result is global warming which is having a destructive effect on many eco systems and seems likely to reduce the quality and quantity of human life. The search for clean alternative energy is a major political, economic and social imperative. Existing sources of renewable energy, solar panels, parabolic sun collectors, wind and tidal turbines are inefficient, expensive and environmentally insensitive.
So, Alex van der Beek, whose previous professional experience was teaching alternative medicine, got an idea: Instead of ruining the natural landscape with conventional technology, why not generate electricity from something that blends in? Like a fake tree… He founded Solar Botanic, Ltd., in London last year with the ambitious plan to involve bringing together three different energy-generation technologies: photovoltaics (aka solar power, or electricity from visible sunlight), thermoelectrics (electricity from heat) and piezoelectrics (electricity from pressure), all in the unassuming shape of a leaf on its stem.
“Place thousands of these units, dubbed nanoleaves, on a natural-looking, though fake plastic tree—and one could have electricity production without spoiling natural landscapes”, van der Beek says.
The company is going to use Biomimicry in order to implement some of the nature’s processes in order to produce clean, environmental friendly energy. The tree, once installed, will replicate the functions of a solar-wind harvester. The solution is unique in a sense that the same installation can use two alternative energy sources to produce clean electricity.
Thus as the sun shines, the winds blow and the rain falls, millions of micro circuits are activated, each making its contribution to the electrical energy of the tree. According to the company’s website, “A Nanoleaf is thin like a natural leaf, when outside forces, like the wind pushes the Nanoleaf back and forth, mechanical stresses appear in the petiole, twig and branches. When thousands of Nanoleaves flap back and forth due to wind, millions and millions of Pico watts are generated, the stronger the wind, the more energy is generated.” The Nanoleaves reflect back only a small portion of the sunlight and the remaining light is used to produce energy. “Due to the unique combination of photovoltaic and thermovoltaic in our Nanoleaves it converts this thermal radiation into electricity, even hours after the sun has set,” the page further states. They can even convert the infrared radiations into energy.
At present, Solar Botanic is exploring several designs, from palm trees to broad leaves as well as flowers and shrubbery. Van der Beek predicts a tree with a canopy 20 feet (six meters) in diameter that provides a surface area of roughly 1,200 square feet (110 square meters) could power an average home, whereas groves of them could make ample amounts of electricity in and around population centers. “These trees could help avoid the long land lines that bring electricity to cities and homes,” van der Beek says.
Solar Botanic hasn’t settled on materials, but the nanoleaves would likely rely on highly efficient, thin-film solar cells, perhaps made of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS), to convert sunlight into an electric current, van der Beek says.
Installation of an energy harvesting tree, van der Beek says, would simply require drilling a hole and then anchoring the extended tree trunk and base in the ground. The branches would go on much like those of an artificial Christmas tree, segment by segment. Should a section or leaf get damaged, customers could swap it out for a new or repaired piece of hardware, says van der Beek. Power lines running underground would bring the energy to a home or a central power storage area; inverters for turning the direct current generated by the faux tree into usable alternating current could go in the trunk or a nearby dwelling. Artificial trees with electrical outlets in mall parking lots could charge electric vehicles while the owner shops, he says.
In deserts, where hydroponics allow the cultivation of fruit and vegetables, Solar Botanic trees and plants both shade the growing tunnels, and provide electricity to circulate water and cool the interior. Conversely in cold regions Solar Botanic trees can provide cheap heating and lighting for crops which would not otherwise be viable.

Unfortunately, neither the Solar Botanic press release nor website says exactly how much power an artificial tree or plant can create. But the company estimates that an average-sized tree with a 6 sq meter canopy could generate enough energy for a single household.
These energy harvesting trees will look as natural as normal trees: “We want to keep the outside resembling a natural tree, so that means no nuts and bolts,” van der Beek says. Though the trunk would be made primarily of recycled materials including plastic bottles and car tires, van der Beek says it would also contain liquefied waste biomass-wood-processed via a steam-combustion technique developed at the State Institute of Wood Chemistry in Riga, Latvia. “The result is a fluid product that we mold into any form we like, so therefore we should be able to create trees that look, feel and smell like real wood,” van der Beek says. The leaves wouldn’t be shiny like a solar panel, either. Solar Botanic woods of oak, ash, beech or sycamore have the advantage over real deciduous trees in not losing their leaves in winter but continue creating energy.
The company is now looking to select final business partners for investment, R&D, manufacturing, distribution and marketing from organizations with relevant specialist knowledge and sector understanding.

Source: Scientificamerican.com; Cleantechnica.com; Azocleantech.com

The World’s First Supercomputer to Compete at Jeopardy!

admin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:12:32 +0000

Back in the mid-1990s, IBM was a joke in the supercomputing field, and Cray and Silicon Graphics were building the truly innovative and powerful machines and cheap x86-Linux clusters were just starting to get traction. IBM’s Power2 and PowerPC processors were 32-bit chips with nothing much impressive about them and its 64-bit PowerPC 620 and 630 parts were utter failures and would not come out for several years. In the past decade, IBM has put its system engineers, scientists working at IBM research facilities around the globe, and numerous supercomputing experts from government and academic labs to build a portfolio of different parallel computing platforms, including the massively parallel BlueGene to the hybrid x64-Cell blade architecture embodied in the “Roadrunner” to giant clusters of its commercial Power Systems such as the future “Blue Waters” Power7 monster.
Now, IBM is no longer content to merely crush the spirits of chess masters like Garry Kasparov thanks to the Deep Blue parallel supercomputing (in 1996, it lost, but it won a six-game match by one game — two wins for Deep Blue, one for Kasparov, and three draws — the next year) and have started working with US television quiz show Jeopardy! to create a supercomputer that will undoubtedly answer questions as accurately as ever.
The Blue Gene supercomputer, dubbed simply as a “Question Answering” system, is named Watson. The Watson QA system software has been in development for the past two years and is based on open source code created by IBM’s Software Group called Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA), which is available as an Apache project. Designers believe it will have the speed and “understanding” necessary to research, buzz in, and then answer questions fast enough to compete on the popular game show.
To win on the long-running show, contestants need good knowledge across a range of topics, and must quickly recognise unusual and unexpected patterns in that information. But more than that, they must do so in response to a question that might be posed in a confusing format.
That makes IBM’s challenge a difficult one, says Tristan Cazenave, an AI expert at the University of Paris VIII. “In contrast to chess and go, Jeopardy! is not a closed world,” he says. “It is based on natural human language understanding, which is very difficult for computers, so it is a real artificial challenge.”
So Watson’s success depends as much on its ability to understand and respond to the subtleties of human language as it does on the extent of its knowledge database. “We’re trying to get the computer to deal with natural language more effectively,” says David Ferrucci, Watson project lead and the principal researcher working on the Watson QA software and the iron that will support it. “Since Jeopardy is such a large domain, it is like we are trying to get the computer to study. Of course, the challenge is that the game has such a broad domain and people play with such confidence”.
The Watson QA system is based on various forms of textual data (books and other types of authoritative data) that will be pumped into the system and organized based on the general Jeopardy question categories. Most of the system is programmed in Java, according to Ferrucci, but there is a smattering of C++ where performance is critical and Prolog is also used for some of the rules relating to textual analysis.
Just like the Deep Blue chess playing supercomputer stored a gazillion possible chess games and moves and sorted through those for the best possible moves based on where it was in a real game, the Watson QA system is being fed with likely statements Jeopardy game host Alex Trebek will make and the possible questions relating to those statements. (In some bases, past Jeopardy statements are being pumped into the machine, in fact). The UIMA framework is what is used to do deep analytics on the raw data ahead of time, and it is also used to parse the statements to “understand” them.
The exact configuration of the Watson QA super has not yet been determined, and it is not clear if the machine will be equipped with electronic ears to hear and speakers to talk as it responds. The machine will be put in the Jeopardy studios to take on people live in 2010 and it will be disconnected from the Internet - no cheating with Google allowed by humans or computers.
The final question is Will Watson QA win at Jeopardy? “We’ll see,” says Ferrucci with a laugh. “We certainly wouldn’t be in the game if we didn’t think we had a good chance.”

Source: Gizmodo.com; Newscientist.com;

Toshiba Plans Self-Encrypting Drives for Early 2010

admin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:52:31 +0000

Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD), the pioneer in small form factor hard disk drives (HDDs), has recently announced that it plans to officially unveil its new self-encrypting drive technology in a demonstration with Wave Systems’ Trusted Drive Manager application at the RSA(R) Conference 2009, April 21-23, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco California.
According to Toshiba, this new solution is meant to enter production early next year and provide users with a number of new technologies designed to deliver enhanced security to traditional hard disk drives. Toshiba’s self-encrypting drive technology supports the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) Storage Architecture Core Specification, as well as the Storage Security Subsystem Class (SSC) Opal Specification. At the RSA Conference 2009, Toshiba will showcase the TCG-Opal compliant self-encrypting drive for the first time.
Self-encrypting drives provide a great defense against the growing problem of data breaches today, offering performance and security advantages over aftermarket software encryption solutions,” said Lark Allen, executive vice president at Wave Systems. “Toshiba is at the forefront of the movement to bring an integrated, hardware-based solution to today’s enterprise. Because Toshiba drives are based on the TCG’s Opal Storage Specification, they’re ideal for deploying across heterogeneous environments.”
“The TCG Storage specifications provide a standards-based framework enabling storage device makers to work with leading ISVs such as Wave Systems to create very robust client security solutions that are more secure, easier to manage and easier to deploy. To help customers realize these benefits, Toshiba is focused on delivering a full array of hardware-embedded security features to security management solutions providers as evidenced in this first demonstration at the RSA Conference,” said Scott Wright, product manager at Toshiba Storage Device Division.
Toshiba’s encryption solution is built around NIST-certified AES encryption technology fully integrated within the HDD controller chip. The encryption/decryption process occurs at full I/O speeds, delivering top performance while maintaining typical HDD power profiles. Toshiba’s self-encrypting drive technology also incorporates other certified algorithms to deliver robust authentication and access control, enabling TCG specification capabilities to provide stronger access security compared to currently available methods.
Toshiba is focused on delivering value-added hardware-based security for solutions designed to meet increasing corporate and consumer demand for strong data security in mobile PCs such as notebooks, which represents the highest-risk use case for data breaches. As IT managers, security solutions integrators, ISVs and PC OEMs begin to deploy standards-based security management solutions in mobile PCs, Toshiba is leading the way with hardware-based security technologies engineered to protect confidential company information and enable security management solutions to easily and cost-effectively comply with industry mandates for data protection.
“We believe the key to delivering robust data security lies in the creation of technology standards that advance a secure client storage platform the entire PC ecosystem can support,” said Scott Wright, product manager at Toshiba Storage Device Division. “The TCG Storage specifications provide a standards-based framework enabling storage device makers to work with leading ISVs such as Wave Systems to create very robust client security solutions that are more secure, easier to manage and easier to deploy. To help customers realize these benefits, Toshiba is focused on delivering a full array of hardware-embedded security features to security management solutions providers as evidenced in this first demonstration at the RSA Conference.”
Although no specific technical details have been given on the upcoming Toshiba drives, the company stated that Toshiba self-encrypting drives with industry standard TCG-Opal SSC support would be available in the first quarter of 2010 as the company continues to work with Wave Systems to develop a fully integrated solution. When launched, Toshiba’s new self-encrypting drives will join those of Seagate, which currently provides a choice for 320GB or 500GB self-encrypted drives of up to 7,200 rpm. In addition to Seagate, Samsung has also announced the availability of its self-encrypted SSDs, which are featured inside Dell’s laptops.

Source: money.cnn.com.

Robot Fish Detect Pollution

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:25:36 +0000

British scientists developed a robot fish that are to be released into the sea off north Spain to detect pollution. The robots were designed, and are being built, by professor Huosheng Hu and his team at the University of Essex, U.K.

If next year’s trial of the first five robotic fish in the northern Spanish port of Gijon is successful, the team hopes they will be used in rivers, lakes and seas across the world. “In using robotic fish we are building on a design created by hundreds of millions of years’ worth of evolution which is incredibly energy efficient,” said Rory Doyle, senior research scientist at engineering company BMT Group, which developed the robot fish with researchers at Essex University and funding from the European Commission. “This efficiency is something we need to ensure that our pollution detection sensors can navigate in the underwater environment for hours on end.” He also said that there were good reasons for making a fish-shaped robot, rather than a conventional mini-submarine. He and his colleagues chose a fish design because hundreds of millions of years of evolution have yielded an energy-efficient creature, he said. “Nature has done it very, very well.”

The robot fish will be roughly the size of a seal, meaning 1.5 meters (nearly 5 feet) long. The robot fish, modeled after a carp, costing 20,000 pounds ($29,000) apiece, mimic the movement of real fish and are equipped with tiny chemical sensors to sniff out potentially hazardous pollutants, such as leaks from vessels or underwater pipelines.

“It’s a little lab onboard the fish,” said Rory Doyle. They will collect data on pollution in the port of Gijón and wirelessly transmit the information back to the port’s control center and, unlike earlier robotic fish, which needed remote controls, they will be able to navigate independently without any human interaction. Moreover, they can’t get caught in nets easily, for instance, and their internal tracking systems can help the robot fish avoid collisions with boats and other obstacles.
Besides, the prototype robot fish have been swimming around the London Aquarium as they await their release off northern Spain in 2011. In the mean time, scientists are working to ensure that the sounds of the robots and other factors don’t disrupt the natural environment, Doyle added. “The hope is that this will prevent potentially hazardous discharges at sea as the leak would undoubtedly get worse over time if not located,” said Professor Huosheng Hu of Essex University, whose team is building the fish.

source: news.nationalgeographic.com; sciam.com.

Sony X Series Walkman to Hit UK This Spring

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:49:53 +0000

Sony’s Walkman line of portable media players got a drastic new look at CES this year with the announcement of a touch-screen, Internet-ready portable media player.

The X series Walkman was said to feature a 3-inch, 16:9 touch display-a clear nod to the popularity of Apple’s iPod touch (and iPhone). Much like its direct competitor, the iPod Touch, it comes in 16GB and 32GB flavors and can be used to surf the web. The screen’s half an inch smaller, but it’s also OLED (rather than the Touch’s LED) so you can expect brighter colors and better contrast.

The player also includes digital noise cancellation, which seems to work more efficiently and accurately than the analog noise cancellation featured in previous Sony Walkman devices. The feature, allows any accompanying 13.5mm EX headphone to block out ambient noise.
However, the most drastic addition to the line is the inclusion of wireless Internet functions. According to Sony reps, the X Series has direct access (via icons on a menu) to YouTube. There will also be an automatic podcast-download feature and an as-yet-unnamed built-in Web browser. Functionality, in terms of Web-browsing, should be “similar” to the iPod touch experience—meaning, no flash sites will load, but most others will. This is the first Walkman with Internet capabilities.
Moreover, the X Series comes in 16 and 32GB capacities (no prices are available yet) and will offer standard audio file support: MP3, WMA, AAC, as well as WMV, MPEG-4, and AVC for video.
Besides, if the idea of a Sony media player with an OLED screen wasn’t tantalizing enough, it seems that Sony’s X Series Walkman device will be out in the UK sooner than expected. At CES, the manufacturers said the walkman would be on sale this summer but now, both Play.com and Amazon have announced the date of the Sony X Series Walkman and although the online retailers offer up different dates, both are touting the player to be out before the end of spring this year.
Should we believe it? Isn’t this an April fool? Let’s not forget Amazon’s previous misfire. However, Amazon has taken the most conservative approach by announcing the player’s release date as 10 May. Play.com is sticking its neck out and has just updated the launch date for the Sony X Series Walkman in the UK - you’ll be able to poke the Sony X Series Walkman to your heart’s content from April 30.
The 3-inch AMOLED touchsceen and digital noise cancellation put the ‘personal’ touch into the PMP, which will cost £250 for the 32GB version, significantly cheaper than we first thought.

Source: mirror.co.uk; pcmag.com.

Lenovo’s Pocket Yoga: Lilliputian Laptop That Actually Fits in a Pocket Spotted

admin — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:07:54 +0000

Lenovo has confirmed the existence of the Pocket Yoga Touchscreen netbook by posting images in its photo feed. But a whole series of ‘leaked’ images of the Lenovo ‘Pocket Yoga’ have hit the net and show off a Lilliputian computer similar in layout to the ridiculously expensive Sony Vaio P in that it has an ultra wide display.

The Lenovo Pocket Yoga netbook is an experiment from 2007 and due to an earlier leak they decided to create some formal shots. Apparently it is a finished product but not much else is known about it and when/if it will be made available. The story behind the Lenovo Pocket Yoga has emerged, courtesy of Johnson Li, Director of Lenovo’s Beijing Innovation Center who revealed on Lenovoblogs.com that the Pocket Yoga was a concept worked on some time back and where the first blurry images of the netbook were snapped. He explained: “The ‘Yoga’ notebook experiment is finished, but the stories of new developed products from Lenovo’s design teams are always happening. Innovation never stops. Next time, which story we will share with you? Who knows?”
The central hinge seemingly allows the Pocket Yoga to open up all the way around, until the form-factor is a long, thin pocketbook. From the images revealed by Lenovo, the Pocket Yoga is covered on the outside in leather which wraps around the whole of the device like a belt, used to keep the Pocket Yoga closed, but that also doubles as a wireless mouse (some sort of mouse pointer diamond embedded in the top-right of the keyboard). The screen appears to be capable of flipping all the way around so it can be used with a stylus as a tablet PC.

Unfortunately, the full specifications are still unknown. However, judging by the images revealed, the Pocket Yoga has at least two USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet connection and there’s definitely a webcam. Hopefully, Lenovo will slip some more details soon, including whether this is a design concept or a netbook headed for production. And the manufacturer will do this very soon if beating Sony competition is desired.

Source: techradar.com; electronista.com.

Apple May Use Touch Screens For Netbook Mac

admin — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:00:50 +0000

It’s no secret that Apple executives have been watching the booming netbook market closely. The mini-laptops, which have screen sizes of 10 inches or less and cost less than $500, have lately been the hottest-selling PCs. According to IDC, shipments of the devices reached 10 million units last year, with half of the units sold in the fourth quarter. Shipments of the low-cost PCs, which accounted for 7% of overall mobile PC shipments last year, are expected to double this year.
And, as Tony Bennett sang at the end of January’s Macworld Conference & Expo, “The Best Is Yet To Come,” reports suggest that Apple might just be prepping a brand new innovative touch-screen netbook.
Analysts predict that Apple’s mini-laptop will offer unique features and command a much higher price than the inexpensive netbooks that are flooding the market.

A new report on Apple’s moves came Wednesday, March 11th, from the Reuters news agency, which quoted an anonymous source saying Apple would take third-quarter delivery of a 10-inch touch screen from display specialist Wintek of Taiwan. Similar Taiwanese media reports of this week also said Taiwan-based Quanta Computer would make the actual PCs for Apple. Despite hopes and rumours, Apple failed to introduce any new Macs, with no sign of an Apple netbook, an ultra portable potentially priced laptop, ideally suited for surfing the Web, sending email, play music and video, and accessing social-networking features and everyday tasks. In essence, it would fall between the iPhone and iPod Touch and a MacBook. One feature Apple may focus on is the ability to read electronic books, magazines, and newspapers. Online retailer Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN).com, which makes the successful Kindle e-book reader, has released an application that turns the iPhone into an e-reader. Apple would likely take this concept further in a touch-screen PC.
Additionally, Ezra Gottheil, analyst for Technology Business Research, told InformationWeek she agrees with reports that Apple’s device is likely to not have a keyboard and to cost from $800 to almost $1,000. “It won’t look like a netbook,” Gottheil said. “It may very well not have a keyboard, and it won’t compete on price.” “This will be Apple’s take on some of the virtues of the netbook,” Gottheil said.
Moreover, a Chinese newspaper suggests now a Mac netbook, or MacBook mini/MacBook nano, could be a reality sooner than later. According to Chinese-language newspaper Commercial Times, Apple already has deals with manufacturers underway.

Therefore, Taiwanese company Wintek is reported to be supplying touchscreen panels for any new Apple netbook, while Quanta Computer will actually make the ultra portable Apple laptops suggests DigiTimes. Apple netbook shipments are likely to begin in the second half of the year suggests the newspaper although no details are given to support the claim.

Source: informationweek.com; macworld.co.uk.

The World’s Smallest Radio

admin — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:34:49 +0000

A single carbon nanotube can function as a radio that detects and plays songs. The nanotube radio was invented in 2007 by physicist Alex Zettl and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. Their invention performs a set of amazing feats: a single carbon nanotube tunes in a broadcast signal, amplifies it, converts it to an audio signal and then sends it to an external speaker in a form that the human ear can readily recognize. The nanotube radio could be the basis for a range of revolutionary applications: hearing aids, cell phones and iPods small enough to fit completely within the ear canal. The nanoradio “would easily fit inside a living cell,” Zettl says. “One can envision interfaces to brain or muscle functions or radio-controlled devices moving through the bloodstream.”
Zettl, who directs 30 investigators engaged in creating molecular-scale devices, decided to make nanotubes a focus of his work because they are remarkable structures. The question of who first discovered them is controversial, but Japanese physicist Sumio Iijima is generally credited with having put them on the scientific map, when in 1991 he announced finding “needlelike tubes” of carbon on the tip of a graphite electrode that emitted an arc, a luminous discharge of electricity.

Today, the word “nano” applies to anything small, even down to the “nanoparticles” in commodities as diverse as motor oil, sunscreen, lipstick and ski wax. Zettl got the idea for a nanoradio when he decided he wanted to create tiny sensing devices that could communicate with one another and broadcast their observations wirelessly. “They were to do monitoring of environmental conditions,” he says. They would be distributed in the field near some factory or refinery and would radio their results back to some collecting point. Anyone could then go to Google “and click on the air quality of a city and see it in real time.” During the course of some experiments aimed at producing a nanotube mass sensor, one of Zettl’s graduate students, Kenneth Jensen, found that if one end of a carbon nanotube was planted on a surface, creating a cantilever, the beam would vibrate when a molecule landed on its free end. Molecules of different masses would make the beam vibrate at different frequencies. When Zettl noticed that some of these frequencies included those in the commercial radio band, the idea of using the cantilevered nanotube to make a radio became virtually irresistible.
In January 2007 Zettl, Jensen and two other Berkeley researchers, Jeff Weldon and Henry Garcia, performed an experiment and mounted a multiwalled carbon nanotube on a silicon electrode and placed a counterelectrode about a micron away, connecting the two by wire. They also attached a DC battery to the apparatus to set up a small field-emission current between the nano¬tube tip and the counterelectrode. To actually see what would happen during the course of a radio transmission from a nearby antenna, they placed their device inside a high-resolution transmission electron microscope (TEM). Then they started broadcasting.
The experimenters documented the entire process -audio and video- and converted the recording to a QuickTime movie that they posted on the Zettl Group’s Web page, where anyone can download and play it for free. Later, they used “Good Vibrations,” by the Beach Boys; the “Main Title” theme from Star Wars, by John Williams; and the largo from Xerxes, the opera by George Frideric Handel. “This is the first song ever transmitted using radio,” Zettl explains.
Zettl and his colleagues withheld news of the nanoradio for several months, until it could be published in Nano Letters, a journal of the American Chemical Society. The apparatus had its formal debut online in October 2007 and then in the November print edition.

Source: sciam.com.

First Virtual Reality Technology To Stimulate All Five Senses

admin — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:32:50 +0000

For decades, Virtual Reality has held out the hope that, one day, we might be able visit all kinds of places and periods as ‘virtual’ tourists. Well, folks, that day has arrived! The first virtual reality headset that can stimulate all five senses has been developed.

To date, though, Virtual Reality devices have not been able to stimulate simultaneously all five senses with a high degree of realism. However, researchers on the project are still working out other engineering problems, like how specific smells can be reproduced (which is, in itself, a worldwide scientific conundrum that’s spawned many not-so-portable prototypes).
Moreover, the scientists from the Universities of York and Warwick now believe they have been able to pinpoint the necessary expertise to make this possible, in a project called ‘Towards Real Virtuality’.
‘Real Virtuality’ is a term coined by the project team to highlight their aim of providing a ‘real’ experience in which all senses are stimulated in such a way that the user has a fully immersive perceptual experience, during which s/he cannot tell whether or not it is real.

Teams at York and Warwick now aim to collaborate with experts at the Universities of Bangor, Bradford and Brighton and develop the ‘Virtual Cocoon‘ – a new Real Virtuality device that can stimulate all five senses much more realistically than any other current or prospective device.
Their main objective will be to optimize the way all five senses interact, as in real life. The team also aim to make the Virtual Cocoon much lighter, more comfortable and less expensive than existing devices, as a result of the improved computing and electronics they develop.
For users, the ‘Virtual Cocoon’ will consist of a headset incorporating specially developed electronics and computing capabilities. The Cocoon will be as a portable VR device that can work for both entertainment and learning, taking viewers from their couch to the African savanna or made them walk along a street in Roman Pompeii or visit the Pyramids of Egypt. It’s obvious that the helmet contains a unique, semi-circular screen that will fill the entirety of your vision. It could also help unlock the full potential benefits of Real Virtuality in fields such as business and environmental protection.
Still, there has been considerable public debate on health & safety as well as on ethical issues surrounding Real Virtuality, since this kind of technology fundamentally involves immersing users in virtual environments that separate them from the real world.

A mock-up of the Virtual Cocoon has been on display at ‘Pioneers 09′, an EPSRC showcase event that was held at London’s Olympia Conference Centre yesterday, on March 4.
Professor David Howard of the University of York, lead scientist on the initiative, said to the press: “Virtual Reality projects have typically only focused on one or two of the five senses – usually sight and hearing. We’re not aware of any other research group anywhere else in the world doing what we plan to do. Smell will be generated electronically via a new technique being pioneered by Alan Chalmers and his team at Warwick, which will deliver a pre-determined smell recipe on-demand. Taste and smell are closely linked but we intend to provide a texture sensation relating to something being in the mouth. Tactile devices will provide touch.”
The Professor added: “In addition to the technical development of the Virtual Cocoon, we aim to closely evaluate the full, far-reaching economic and other implications of more widespread application of Real Virtuality technologies for society as a whole.”
If all goes according to plan, the Virtual Cocoon will be on the market in three years for about $2,000.

Sources: esciencenews.com; sciencedaily.com; alphagalileo.org;

The Richest Technology Companies

admin — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 08:00:00 +0000

It seems that the worst international financial crisis in decades has not affected everyone. While many US companies struggle to survive, some technology companies have plenty of cash piles. Still, how are they planning to use them? Let us see some of these rich tech companies:

Cisco Systems Inc is the most cash-rich tech company with $29.5 billion in hand, putting it just behind Exxon Mobil Corp’s $31.4 billion, despite having a market value less than one-quarter of the oil giant’s. Bankers and analysts think it may make a move on virtualization software maker VMware Inc.

Another tech company with some of the largest cash piles includes Apple Inc with $25.6 billion. In spite of spending about $2bn a year on R&D and capital investment, Apple’s $26bn in cash has left it with the biggest cash pile in the technology world. The company’s stock price too has rebounded from its low of $78.20 in the week when Steve Jobs announced his leave. The fact that Apple’s cash can be a big strength during recession has quieted critics, who in the past have called on the company to buy back shares or offer a dividend.

Microsoft Corp too sits on a huge cash pile of $20.7 billion. The rich software giant, however, announced rather disappointing quarterly results recently, unlike IBM. Microsoft recently announced that its 2009 first quarter profit sank from $4.71bn a year ago to $4.17bn, a loss of 12 percent. Total revenue was $16.63bn, a 2 per cent rise from year before. This was only possible thanks to higher server, tools and entertainment sales.

The search giant Google Inc too sits very well with a cash reserve of $15.9 billion. The Mountain View, California-based company had almost $16 billion in cash at the end of the recent-announced fourth quarter. According to Google CFO, Patrick Pichette, the cash reserves provided Google with sufficient flexibility “for the right deal at the right price.”

International Business Machines Corp too has a huge cash pile. In January, the company disclosed its full-year financial results for 2008: record revenue of $103.6 billion; record pre-tax profit of $16.7 billion; record earnings per share of $8.93; and record free cash flow of $14.3 billion, up $1.9 billion, excluding global financing receivables. IBM also announced an earnings’ forecast for this year at $9.20 a share, well above Wall Street’s $8.75 call.

The enterprise software giant Oracle too sits on a $7.4 billion pile of cash. Little doubt that the Redwood Shores-based company is quietly going on a shopping spree. Recently, the company bought mValent Inc, a small software company that helps configure other software. The deals put Oracle in amongst the cash-rich companies. Oracle made sales of $22.4 billion in fiscal 2008.

Sun Microsystems might be a little bit affected by the recession. However, the high-end computer and software maker remains among the companies with a relatively large amount of cash, even if its stock has been faced considerable hammering in the past few months further accentuated by fears of weakening global tech spending. The company carries a cash balance of $2.6 billion and a market cap of $3.8 billion.

The analysts expect these big players to put their cash to work later in the year in the form of acquisitions or share buybacks.

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com