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The Two Day Battery
Stanford researchers have figured out a way to incorporate silicon nanowires into rechargeable lithium ion batteries and extend their life from 4 to 40 hours. The work, described in a paper in Nature Nanotechnology, could lead to iPods, laptops and camcorders that could be run nearly for an entire weekend without requiring a re-charge. Of course, this is still in the lab stage, and there are undoubtedly quite a few steps and hurdles between the campus and commercialization, but we're optimists. So, here's to the end of the ABC (Always Be Charging) Rule of electronics.—Gregory Mone
The former CTO of the One Laptop Per Child initiative, which builds inexpensive notebook computers for kids in developing countries, now plans to build an even cheaper version. Mary Lou Jensen hopes to succeed where OLPC failed: She wants to produce laptops that sell for under $100. Way under, in fact. She says she should be able to commercialize one with a price tag of only $75. Given that the price of the OLPC version is currently north of $180, this might sound unrealistic.
But that price point may just be a long-term goal for Jensen's new company, Pixel Qi. They'll also be pursuing the idea of bringing sunlight-readable screens to other products, including laptops, cellphones and digital cameras.—Gregory Mone
Earthlink failed. Google's effort didn't work out. But now a startup called Meraki Networks—a company we've been following for some time—hopes to construct a city-wide Wi-Fi network in San Francisco within the next year. To make it work, the company will have to persuade thousands of San Francisco residents to set up radio repeaters in their homes and on rooftops (including versions like the coming-soon solar-powered version pictured here).
While this sounds like a monumental task, it may prove easier than Earthlink's plan, which called for setting up transmitters on public property and, as a result, became bogged down in bureaucracy. In all, Meraki will need to set up more than 10,000 repeaters, according to the company's CEO. Right now, Meraki has installed enough of the devices to give 40,000 people in the city free access. But this isn't just about San Francisco. Meraki will offer the service free there, but it has much bigger plans. The company hopes that the San Francisco project will prove the viability of its technology, which it then hopes to sell to other countries to generate revenue.
In December, PopSci gave Meraki a Grand Award in our annual Best of What's New issue; we're happy to see them as ambitious as ever.—Gregory Mone
From the Department of Obvious But Still Interesting Findings: A new study concludes that drivers chatting away on their mobiles probably slow down the daily commute. Even the hands-free talkers are guilty. On average, drivers carrying on phone conversations drive about two miles per hour slower in commuter traffic conditions, and fail to keep up with the flow. According to one of the authors, David Strayer, a psychology professor at the university of Utah, this could add up to 20 hours per year of travel time.
In the study, three dozen students drove in simulators, and the ones talking on the phone were more likely to stick behind slow drivers, and less likely to change lanes. In the real world, given that 10 percent of commuting drivers, on average, are probably chatting away, this inattention adds up.
What we'd like to know, though, is how, or whether, these findings could explain the fast-talking taxi drivers who spend all day and night jabbering away into their mics, yet still manage to switch lanes more than any group on the planet. Let's get them in the simulator and see what happens.—Gregory Mone
Tennis has the Hawkeye system, hockey tried out that weird streaking puck display, and now golf is going high-tech, too. The Golf Channel is going to start using the TrackMan Tour System, a radar technology that measures golfer's swings and the flight of the ball, for certain tour events.
Trackman records the golfer's swing motion in 3D space, then tracks the launch, flight and spin of the ball with unprecedented precision. The USGA used it this past summer to track and analyze pros's swings, and now Golf Channel viewers will be able to see virtual replays of certain shots.
The first showing will be at the Mercedes-Benz Championship on December 3rd.—Gregory Mone
In a move that would have made Gutenberg's head explode, Israeli scientists have printed the entire Old Testament onto a silicon chip that is only 1/1000th of an inch square—tinier than a pinhead. This "nano-Bible project," developed at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, demonstrated a nanotech building process that might someday be used to store a person's medical history in his DNA.
Scientists wrote the Bible by utilizing a focused ion beam (FIB) generator shooting tiny Gallium ions that etched the manuscript onto a gold surface, guided by a newly developed computer program written at Technion. Developing the program took more than three months, but writing the full text took only 90 minutes.
"The nano-Bible project demonstrates the miniaturization at our disposal," explains Professor Uri Sivan, the head of the University’s Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, who conceived it. "This research could lead to the creation of more advanced miniature structures—and imaging—on a nanometric scale, advances in storing information in very small spaces, and the use of DNA molecules to store information."—Robert E. Calem
Oceanlinx, an Australian company that makes devices capable of converting the juice from ocean swells into electricity, has signed a deal with the state of Rhode Island to produce two separate offshore facilities that could end up powering more than 15,000 homes. One of the facilities will boast a bunch of the devices, each of which will be about 60 feet wide and 30 feet tall. Read more about how they work here. They're big, but they'd sit far enough offshore so they wouldn't be an eyesore.
We wrote about the technology at the beginning of last year—at that point the company was called Energetech—and back then everyone was a bit more optimistic in terms of the timetable. Now it will be at least two years before the devices start generating electricity. But at least things are moving along again.—Gregory Mone
The idea makes sense: You're moving your legs, working your muscles, but since you're in water, you're doing so without the pounding of a regular run, whether that be on a treadmill or the road, with the added benefit of increased resistance from the water. Still, Hydrophysio's aquatic treadmill looks a bit over-the-top. Not to mention that it would give the less dedicated among us too much opportunity to back out and think of something else to do while waiting for the machine to fill up with fluid. Now, if it doubled as a jacuzzi, so you could finish your workout, grab some Gatorade, and then return a few minutes later to find it warm and bubbling, that would be something. One bonus: It works for rehabbing your pets, too. So, you know, you could walk your dog, in the water, without going outside. Because that's what technology's for. —Gregory Mone
Next year should still be the real test, with American Airlines and Virgin America inaugurating service, plus a new entrant called Row 44, but JetBlue is trying to hustle ahead of them all. We've posted about this before, but this latest move is yet another sign that it might actually be happening. The company will be offering limited Internet access on a flight from New York to San Francisco next week. How limited? Well, fliers will be able to check email if they've got one of two Blackberry models, or they can use a laptop to access their Yahoo! mail. General web-surfing, though, will be barred. Still, we're hoping it works. Even an hour off-line is just too much to bear.-Gregory Mone
Several companies are planning to build new nuclear reactors in the United States, and they'd like to speed up the approval process to get these plants online as soon as possible, but that might not be happening. All plant designs have to be approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, so if a company wants to construct a new model, or import a proven one from France or Japan, it still has to get the NRC's OK, and this can take a while.
According to the New York Times, three companies have filed applications to build and operate five new reactors - but they've all either substantially modified approved designs or suggested models that haven't gotten NRC approval yet. Which means they're probably not going to be breaking ground as soon as they'd like. For many environmentalists, this is good news, considering the fact that we still haven't figured out what we're going to do with the waste yet. But others insist that we need nuclear, and we need to start planning new plants now, to meet our growing energy needs and assure that fossil fuels don't consume an increasing slice of that budget in the coming decades as today's nuclear power plants are retired. For more on that idea, settle down with this enormous study.-Gregory Mone
Last week, the United Nations Committee Against Torture ruled that the Taser gun is a form of torture, and "can even provoke death." The group issued the statement in response to news that Portugal has purchased Taser X-26 stun guns for its police force. Basically, the UN thinks that's a bad idea, and a violation of the UN'S Convention against Torture.
Naturally, Taser isn't too happy about this conclusion. The company says the UN group is "out of touch" and questions its contention that there is evidence the stun guns can provoke death. Yet it's not exactly surprising that people are raising questions, since two people died after being jolted by the gun in Canada in the last two months. There's no evidence that the Taser devices actually caused the deaths, but officials are looking into both events.—Gregory Mone
The point of the Global Security Challenge, a new competition focused on security technology, is to help innovators break into a crowded field, and get new ideas off the drawing board and into the real world, where they might actually start helping people. Started by students at London Business School, the competition is focused on technologies that could help governments and organizations defend against terrorist attacks—and the $500,000 first prize is nothing to scoff at.
This year's winning technology went to the NoblePeak Vision Corporation, which is developing a new video surveillance camera that enhances night-vision by picking up more of the infrared spectrum. See the other winners here.—Gregory Mone
San Francisco, Chicago and Cincinatti already ditched their plans to transform into one big wireless hotspot, but there may still be hope in the city of brotherly love.
Three years ago, the mayor of Philadelphia announced a plan to launch the first major city-wide WiFi network in the US. But now the project is running behind, and the provider that won the contract, Earthlink, may be looking to sell its municipal WiFi business. At this point the network is 75 percent complete, and Earthlink has said it will finish the job.—Gregory Mone
This weekend marks what must be the seventeen-millionth 3D revolution in the last 50 years, with the premier of the movie Beowulf in IMAX 3D. There's no doubt that the technology keeps getting better, and the IMAX experience is unparalleled. But Beowulf could be a key test for this new iteration of 3D, an indicator of whether it's really going to catch on.
The movie is a CGI-animated re-telling of the classic man-vs.-monsters tale. It's the original Jaws. Some critics have protested the transformation of the titular monster's even-more-fierceful mom into a temptress played by a digitized Angelina Jolie, but that seems off-the-mark. In real life she's a maneater, so why can't she play one onscreen?
Back to the technology, though. The early reviews of the 3D experience have been mixed—there are still reports of the shadow-image effect called "ghosting" that the engineers behind the new technology swore they had eliminated—but if you're in the mood for a monster flick, find the nearest IMAX and decide for yourself.—Gregory Mone
It's every stubborn man's dream. You don't have the dashboard navigator. You don't want to go in and ask for directions because, well, that's beneath you. Men don't ask for directions. But there on the screen right before you, as you're re-filling the tank, a touch-activated Google map offers to show you the way to your destination. And you don't even have to admit you're lost. You could just say you're double-checking.
The gas pump maker Gilbarco Veeder-Root unveiled plans to roll out a Google maps-enabled service at 3,500 pumps across the U.S. The bad news? In the short term, you'll only be able to search for spots chosen by the retailer: hotels, restaurants, landmarks, etc. But the company expects to allow drivers to search for whatever address they want in the future.—Gregory Mone
One of the winner's of this year's PopSci Invention Awards, a sensor-laden glove that shows people how to correctly perform CPR in emergency situations, just won the top prize from the Collegiate Inventors Competition at CalTech.
The two inventors, Corey Centen and Nilesh Patel, who struck on the idea after reading a few frightening statistics about failed CPR, have also launched a startup, Atreo Medical Inc., to move their life-saving glove from the engineering lab and into the real world.
Though it looks like an unmanned drone, and probably a tiny one at that, the Waterspout is no flying shrimp. The autonomous craft is designed to fly up to 80 miles, pick up two passengers, and return to its starting point on the open ocean.
The small helicopter, designed by a team from Technion University in Israel and Penn State, would be able to launch from a submarine swimming 50 feet below the surface. The craft would float to the surface, deploy its blades, take off even in rough seas, and fly autonomously to pick up its passengers. And, naturally, it would also use stealth technology, since you can imagine that this robo-chopper won't be deployed for run-of-the-mill pick-ups.—Gregory Mone
And then there were eleven. Yesterday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that it had narrowed the field for its Urban Grand Challenge to just under a dozen robotic vehicles. 35 teams were part of this week's qualifying rounds.
The finalists, which include a truck, a Prius and a sedan, will be competing this weekend for $3.5 million in prize money. To finish, each robot has to complete a 60 mile course in under six hours. And there's going to be live traffic—roughly 50 human-driven vehicles will be on the road. The robots will even have to deal with four-way-stops. Which would be amazing, since that's something most humans can't even figure out. Tomorrow, watch the race live here.—Gregory Mone
Hey, how fun! A fingerprint scanner that debits your back account! In what might be a clever way to distract drivers from the fact that they're emptying their accounts at the pump, Shell has announced a plan to test biometric systems at Chicago-area gas stations.
Initially, people will scan their prints at a kiosk inside one of the ten participating stations and either provide their bank info on the spot, or do it online. Then, to fill up, drivers will be able to simply scan their fingertips at the pump—the system will automatically charge the amount to their checking or credit-card accounts.—Gregory Mone
It probably wouldn't seem so funny if a mountain's worth of snow were tumbling down the slope after you, but on its own, the Life Bag looks like a lock for ridiculous product of the year. In an avalanche situation, though, you pull a handle to inflate the bags, which keep you on your back, with your head up and out of the snow.
If you're buried, Snowpulse, the company that designed them, says the bags deflate and create a cavity around you, providing some breathing room. OK, so maybe they're not so funny after all.—Gregory Mone
The One Laptop Per Child initiative has had its share of development hiccups. The project hasn't gotten the notebooks down to goal of $100 per machine, and a few recent bugs have delayed the recently proposed Give One Get One plan, in which customers in developed countries buy one of the laptops for themselves, and another for someone in need.
But down at the grassroots level, the project seems to be taking hold. In India, for example, the group is developing a cow-powered system in an area short on sunlight, wind and other good renewable energy sources. Cattle would pull on a series of belts and pulleys, activating a dynamo that re-charges spent laptops. Which is exactly how I use my cows.—Gregory Mone
Look, I'll be honest. Sitting down with a hyper-intelligent scientist and discussing his or her work for a few hours isn't always the most socially comfortable situation. Fascinating? Absolutely. But there can be quite a few awkward silences as well.
Astrophysicist Gaspar Bakos, one of this year's Brilliant Ten, eased my pre-interview jitters right away when he suggested we leave his tiny office in Harvard's Center for Astrophysics and head up to the roof. Up there, standing around the corner from what was one of the world's great observatories a century ago, he proceeded to clearly and comfortably explain the intricacies of his technique for hunting down extrasolar planets. So I went back with a camcorder, to capture him using his water bottle as a stand-in for a planet, a star and even a telephoto lens. Enjoy. —Gregory Mone
Japan's commuter trains can get a tad congested, offering an easy way for gropers to explain away their wandering hands. But an increasingly popular download called "Anti-Groping Appli" is giving women a new weapon in the war against fondling.
The offended party uses the app to flash a series of messages on her phone's screen. "Excuse me, did you just grope me?" might be followed up with "Shall we head to the police?" It's a way for users to confront the potential groper without hurling false accusations, and embarrassing a legitimately distracted co-commuter. Sound like a small market? It's not. In 2005, nearly 2,000 people were arrested for groping on Tokyo trains.—Gregory Mone
As if the ugly uniforms weren't enough, now a private school is considering using RFID chips to track its students, too. At a school in South Yorkshire, UK, officials are testing a new system that tracks whether students are in a given classroom or not, and can also cut off access to certain areas of the school.
The radio-frequency identification tags tell the students' teachers whether or not they're in the building, and call up other critical data, such as photos and behavioral records, in the event that the teacher forgets who he or she is dealing with. Ten kids have been wearing the chips for eight months. And you have to wonder if any of them have been asked to read 1984 yet.—Gregory Mone
Harvard University scientists have created solar cells made from a single wire that's just 300 nanometers wide. The technology could be used to provide electricity to tiny sensors, or lead to cheaper solar power.
Each of the tiny wires is made up of layers of silicon that basically take over the job of semiconductors in conventional solar cells. Eventually, the nanowires could be packaged together into larger arrays, and might even lead to less-expensive rooftop solar panels. This research is just one aspect of a larger effort to make solar power more competitive with cheaper sources of energy, and according to scientists, it's an important step forward.—Gregory Mone
Helping to fight illegal brawn with brains, scientists at Purdue University and Tsinghua University in Beijing have developed a quicker way to screen for performance-enhancing steroids.
The work, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Analytic Chemistry, simplifies the process of checking a sample by using two techniques: reactive desorption electrospray ionization and tandem mass spectrometry. In lab tests, the scientists showed that they could identify the presence of 7 different types of anabolic steroids from a single drop of urine. And they can do this at a rate of nearly one sample per second. Hopefully the development of this new technique is a sign that the cheaters won't always be a few steps ahead.—Gregory Mone
Medtronic, the medical devices manufacturer, announced today that the malfunctioning of a key part of one of its heart defibrillation systems may have led to five patient deaths.
Normally the system, designed for patients at risk for cardiac arrest, delivers a jolt to reset the heart when it detects abnormal rhythms. The company found that in some cases, certain models of the leads that monitor the heart can fracture, leading to unnecessary shocks.
Medtronic is now asking doctors not to install these wires - the Sprint Fidelis model - any longer, but the company, along with the FDA, says that the estimated 268,000 patients who do have them in place do not need to have them removed. The risks associated with removing and replacing the leads are greater than those associated with leaving the potentially faulty wires in place. Instead, doctors can reprogram the system so that it will warn the patient if his or her leads go haywire. Think that's making any of those patients feel better? Me neither.—Gregory Mone
Not too fond of the full-body pat-down when you're rushing to get to the gate? You could avoid the hassle and expedite your trip by signing up for the Clear Registered Traveler service, or hope that the airport security adopts better technology.
The Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is set to begin tests today of a new full-body scanning machine that uses radio waves to search for suspicious objects. The scan itself takes less than two seconds, but it takes a minute for the result to appear on a computer screen for analysis. That's not exactly instantaneous, but at least no one's running their hands over your personal areas. Privacy advocates are protesting, calling the machines virtual strip-searches.—Gregory Mone
Field Notes from the Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT
MIT's Kresge Auditorium, site of the conference
No big announcements or publicity stunts at the first day of EmTech, which is what Technology Review’s Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT is now being called. That’s certainly not to say nothing happened.
Yesterday I had the good fortune to watch small groups of geniuses take the stage and talk about, for example, the Human Microbiome Project, a “second human genome project” that aims to genetically catalogue every microbe found in the human body. (Our bodies are 90 percent microbes, by the way). I heard grown men who don’t work for NASA say things like, “Well, if you were on an outer solar system mission you could dip down into Jupiter’s atmosphere and use some of the kinetic energy to compress your fuel.”
So there are plenty of big ideas floating around, but this doesn’t seem to be the place for press-grabbing announcements. Rather, it’s about bringing together thinkers and researchers from disparate fields and letting them strut for one another—oh yeah, and potential investors.
Yesterday the conference began with a denim-and-Converse panel of Web 2.0 entrepreneurs, including Digg founder Kevin Rose. Then a trio of computing big shots from Intel, HP, Cisco. Then a keynote address from Charles Simonyi on the dysfunctional relationship from the business managers who commission software and the programmers they hire to write said software.
Along the way, attendees fumbled through live voting experiments using electronic nametags by nTag, which makes “the world’s first interactive name badge.” (As I write this, my nTag appears to have died….)
In the afternoon, a panel on the “New Space Race” was notable for the sheer confidence of the panelists—Eric Anderson of Space Adventures, Franklin Chang Diaz of Ad Astra Rocket, Frank Taylor of SpaceDev, and George Whitesides of the National Space Society and Virgin Galactic—a bunch guys who don’t doubt in the least that the financial and logistical challenges facing privatized space flight are mere blips in the big picture, and that before long we’d be mining asteroids and taking honeymoon trips to see the rings of Saturn. “We live in an amazing point in human history,” as Whitesides put it. After listening to each give an impassioned sales pitch for their piece in the commercial space race, it’s hard not to feel the same.
Coming today: panels on biofuels, “engineering the brain,” and a closing performance by what may very well be the world’s geekiest band, Ensemble Robot. Stay tuned. —Seth Fletcher
One of Our Brilliant 10 is Now Officially a Genius
Just days after wrapping up our Brilliant Ten issue—in which we publish our annual roundup of the most impressive young scientists in the United States—PopSci learned that one of our picks (as well as one of our finalists) had become the recipient of a 2007 MacArthur "genius" grant. Yoky Matsuoka initially impressed our editors with the skill and finesse with which she handles one of the most challenging issues facing robotics today.
"Not only does she build advanced robots, she tackles the more difficult problem: making them work with us," says Executive Editor, Michael Moyer. "Her work on direct control of robotic limbs via brain waves is pushing robotics into a new generation of complexity and power." Below is an excerpt from our forthcoming article—learn more about Matsuoka and the rest of the Brilliant Ten when the issue hits newsstands next month.
MIT engineers have developed a robotic exoskeleton that transfers most of the weight of a backpack straight to the ground. The add-on carries 80 percent of the load, and could prove beneficial for soldiers carrying heavy packs.
In the long run, Hugh Herr, the leader of the research group, also hopes the technology could evolve into assistive devices that could help anyone. Someone with a disability could use them to walk normally, for example. This sort of work has been done before, but the MIT team managed to develop a device that swallows much less power, and is therefore much closer to being practical. For now, they're focused in part on engineering it to allow for a more natural gait. —Gregory Mone
Westby Fisher, a Northwestern University cardiologist and blogger, rips into the American Heart Association after a patient left a page from one of the AHA's publications on his desk.
The page in question (left) reviews a study that looked into whether or not iPods effect pacemaker function. Apparently the music players showed some effect, but none of the patients tested experienced any symptoms. Fisher calls this sort of cursory review fear-mongering on the AHA's part.—Gregory Mone
The roughly two thousand people walking around with glass-encapsulated RFID chips in their bodies are probably suffering from some headaches this week. Not because of the chips themselves, but the recent news that they might pose a health risk.
Though the chips are approved for use in humans by the FDA, the AP revealed recently that a number of animal studies, conducted from 1996 to 2006, showed that the implants can induce malignant tumors. The FDA stands by its approval, and implant-maker VeriChip says its products are perfectly safe. But scientists who reviewed the research had mixed reactions.—Gregory Mone
Since Google Earth debuted its new Sky function, which allows users to flip their viewpoints and focus on the heavens from any point on the planet, a few weeks ago, astronomers have already taken to the project.
A UC Berekely professor used it in his introductory astronomy class at the start of school, and scientists have added details about extrasolar planets, gamma ray bursts, and supernovae. Now users can get real-time updates on these dramatic celestial events captured by the SWIFT observatory and Sloan Digital Sky Survey, among others, every 15 minutes.—Gregory Mone
After announcing a $200 reduction in the price of its iPhone, Apple responded to angry reactions from its existing customers by offering them a $100 credit. Those unlucky early adopters will be able to use the money at an Apple store, or its online market.
CEO Steve Jobs says the price cut is part of a pre-holiday push, an effort to make the device available to more people. Others think the move may be a result of Apple falling behind in its sales goals. Jobs posted an open letter on the Apple site explaining the price change, but it's hard to tell whether he's really writing to his beloved customers or the stock analysts questioning his logic. There's also a weird paragraph that basically says, "Hey, this is what happens with technology. You should know that." Read the letter here.—Gregory Mone
Programmer Ivan Bowman contributes in conference room meetings, tools around the office hallways, and has even attended a company party or two—all through his robotic-looking stand-in, IvanAnywhere.
Bowman telecommutes from his home, which is more than 800 miles from the headquarters of his company, iAnywhere. But instead of just staying in touch through the phone or email, he directs what's essentially a webcam and laptop sitting atop a remote-controlled car, driving it through iAnywhere's office.
Now he can even keep pace with kitchen chatter. A great story on the genesis of the idea, and his co-workers' reactions, can be found here.—Gregory Mone
The prospect of more secure borders, and less immigrant labor, has farmers thinking about turning to technologically-advanced machines to do the hard work out in the fields. Companies are developing robots that would be capable of selecting and picking the right fruits and grapes, even determining ripeness through digital imaging, and tending grapevines, too.
The massive machines from Ramsay Highlander (one of which is pictured at left) might look like something out of Mad Max, but they actually help farmers with the very peaceful business of harvesting spinach, lettuce and various vegetables. The company says its new Spinach/Spring Mix Mechanical Harvester can cut over 15,000 pounds worth of the green stuff per hour. That's a lot of lettuce.—Gregory Mone
Now that millions of kids are toting around mobile phones, parents are looking for more ways to police how they're using them. There's the obvious stuff, such as limiting the hours your kids can use the phone, or barring them from access to certain Web sites, but some companies are also adding location-tracking features so that Mom and Dad have an idea of whether Junior is really at school or not.
A company called Firefly Mobile is offering a phone specifically for kids aged 5 to 8. Instead of a standard keypad, it will have dedicated buttons for dialing Mom and Dad or 911. (See the image at left.) Apparently civil libertarians have criticized the tracking technologies, but since when were families free societies?—Gregory Mone
Imagine driving 500 miles nonstop in an electric car, then quickly re-charging if you want to extend your trip. Sound impossible? It might be. Either that or a Texas company called EEStor has come up with a battery replacement called an ultra-capacitor that could make the internal combustion engine obsolete.
The company's claims have spurred the occasional debate on the Web for the last year. EEStor has said that it plans to "replace the electrochemical battery" in everything from vehicles to laptops. But experts are wary, and have been left to an advanced sort of guessing game, as EEStor hasn't been leaking out too many details about how its amazing technology works. The general impression, though, is that what they're claiming is probably impossible, or at least not as wonderful as it sounds. That said, a whole bunch of drivers would love to see the critics proven wrong.—Gregory Mone
Stop right there, or you'll be really, really wet. A Russian company called Special Materials, Ltd., is developing a high-powered super-soaker for riot police. The prototype device fires a half-ounce of water nearly 200 feet in only a second, and the company is hoping that future versions will be able to knock down an adult standing twenty feet away. The idea is to use the blasts of water instead of beanbags or rubber bullets, which can still cause harm. The water fans out by the time it hits its target, distributing its force over a wider area. This makes it less likely to cause serious damage, strengthening the "non" in non-lethal weapons.—Gregory Mone
Nothing inspires like looking up at the stars on a clear night, but a new feature from Google Earth could come close. In fact, the experience it offers is much closer to how many professional astronomers study the sky on a daily basis – not through a lens, but on a computer screen.
The newest version of Google Earth, the free program that has been downloaded by an estimated 250 million people, includes a “Sky” function that allows you to switch the view from any point on the planet so that you’re looking up and out instead of down at the ground. It works just like Google Earth, except now you can zoom in on stars, galaxies and planets. You won’t be looking at a live view; the images are compiled from shots taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Find out more, or download it yourself, here.—Gregory Mone
Just three days after Canon announced a pair of pro cameras, Nikon unleashed it’s own duo of high-end digitals: The ultra high-end D3 and the still really high-end D300.
It leads with the Deathstar of SLRs, the D3. The biggest change is, in fact, one of bigness. Nikon equipped the new camera with a 36x23.9-millimeter image sensor that’s nearly as large as an old 35-milimeter film frame. Previously only Canon made these “full-frame” sensors, which capture extreme wide-angle shots and have larger pixels to soak in more light.
This giant sensor is divided into only 12.1 million pixels (vs. 21.1 on Canon’s new monster, the 1Ds Mark III). With bigger photosites, the D3 can, says Nikon, grab top-quality images at up to ISO 6400 light sensitivity—meaning it can probably see better in the dark than you can. (By comparison, most point-and-shoots stop at ISO 800–one-eight the sensitivity). And if you want, you can push the ISO by a factor of four up to 25,600. (Test shots I took at this absurd setting were heavily mottled with the colored flecks of pixel noise. But it was a preproduction camera, so a final version could perform better.)
The high sensitivity isn’t just for night shots. It also lets you get enough light at ultrafast shutter speeds (up to 1/8000 second) for freezing sports and other action scenes. And the camera’s new Expeed brain can process 9 photos per second for up to 64 continuous shots. That separates it from Canon’s 1Ds Mark III, which grabs up to 56 pictures at 5 per second. Canon’s 1D Mark III (note the lack of an “s”) is still the speed champ at 10 shots per second, but it has a smaller image sensor.
The D3 also gets live shooting, which allows you to see real-time images on its three-inch LCD before you take a picture. (With most digital SLRs, you can compose shots only in the optical viewfinder.) The D3 also has a slew of smaller improvements to items including autofocus, white balance, and automatic in-camera image correction.
Nikon hasn’t announced how much the D3 will cost, but it should be in line with the camera it’s replacing, the D2Xs, which sells for about $4,500.
A small step below the D3 is the new D300. Its 12.2-megapixel sensor is in the standard size of 24-by-16 millimeters, and sensitivity stops at a still-impressive ISO 3200. It’s nearly as fast—shooting up to 100 photos at 8 per second. Otherwise, it’s virtually identical to the D3, and probably at a steep discount. The D200 it’s replacing currently costs about $1,600. It will be going head-to-head with Canon’s other new camera, the 10.1-megapixel EOS 40D, which sells for $1,300.
I spent a few happy weeks with the D200 last summer and fell in love with its easy controls and spot-on color accuracy. My only gripe was with the low-light performance—an area where Canon dominates. If Nikon’s new focus on light-sensitivity pays off, we’re in for a real clash of the camera titans.
The whole world can talk for free...except for the last few days. Skype, the eBay-owned Internet phone service, was unexpectedly taken down last week by a software bug, leaving loads of users unable to log on, including myself. I've been using Skype since the beginning of the year, and have had almost no trouble with the service. Whether I'm calling landlines, mobile phones in China, or other Skype users, the quality is typically great. Sure, I've had a couple of echoes here and there, but most of the time I'll just ask the person if I can hang up and call again, and when I do, it's perfect. 220 million people worldwide use Skype, and there are usually 5 to 9 million online at a given time, but I haven't seen numbers on how many people lost access last week.
Skype has now explained the problem. On Thursday, a huge number of its users' computers re-booted at the same time after receiving a set of routine software patches through Windows Update. This basically crippled Skype's network resources, creating "a chain reaction that had a critical impact." The company insists the outage didn't stem from anything malicious, but I'm sure there were more than a few telecom bigwigs who were happy with the news.—Gregory Mone
PopSci Scores the First Test Drive of Yamaha's Fastest WaveRunner Yet
PopSci scored the first drive on Yamaha’s water rocket, which makes waves with a lighter, stronger hull—courtesy of nanotech
You know that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when a rollercoaster slips over the edge of a huge drop? I got it the first time I grabbed a fistful of throttle on Yamaha’s 2008 FX Cruiser SHO WaveRunner. And I liked it.
I was flying over a glassy lake near Yamaha’s headquarters in Newnan, Georgia, as the first civilian to test-drive the beast. And I mean flying. The FX Cruiser packs one of the most powerful—and cleanest-running—engines in the industry: a 1.8-liter, supercharged four-stroke with roughly the same power as an Audi TT coupe.
But the big news is the WaveRunner’s ultralight hull—the first to use nanotechnology. Instead of hand-laying a traditional fiberglass-and-resin hull, Yamaha combines fiberglass resin with nanoscale particles of clay, melding it all together in a high-compression mold. This new recipe links molecules together in an overlapping design that boosts strength and stiffness while reducing weight by 25 percent.
With more power and less heft, the FX Cruiser jumped from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 6.8 seconds—as fast as a sports car—and went from 0 to 30 in just 1.8 whiplash-inducing seconds. The light, stiff hull was so nimble, I felt like I was riding on rails even as I cranked a sharp turn at 50 miles an hour. All this helps with fuel efficiency, too, but that was the last thing on my mind as I blew past the Yamaha guys who were trying in vain to wave me back to the dock. —Mark Anders
Engineers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a flexible, paper-like battery that can function in temperatures up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and derive power from human sweat...and blood. While this might sound strange, the idea is that you could use them to power small implanted devices, like pacemakers, and the electrolytes found in blood, urine or sweat could be used to activate the battery.
But the coolest feature may be the battery's structure. It's 90 percent cellulose, which means it's basically a piece of paper. The difference is that this paper is laced with a carbon nanotube skeleton. The nanotubes conduct electricity through the device, and allow it to be bent and twisted without breaking. Best of all, in the when-does-this-thing-get-into-our-gadgets sense, is the fact that it may end up being cheap to produce, since the materials are inexpensive.—Gregory Mone
The Vectrix, a new all-electric motor scooter, is getting some press in the Bay Area, where it's being billed as an environmentally-friendly commuting vehicle. The bike, which plugs into a wall outlet and recharges in two to three hours, has a top speed of 60 miles per hour, and decent range: A Vectrix executive estimates that it will go for 60 miles at about 45 miles per hour.
These all-electric, no-emissions scooter are already a staple in some European cities, but it might take a lower price tag for the Vetrix to catch on here. At $11,000, the bike is far more expensive than similarly-size, gas-powered models. So, while you're saving serious money at the pump - it costs pennies per gallon - that initial price forces you to play catch-up. Still, if a company's going to try to sell people an $11,000 all-electric scooter, San Francisco's probably the place to do it.—Gregory Mone
After weeks of speculation on the Internet, and some snooping at the FCC by intrepid bloggers, Fujitsu officially unveiled a tiny pair of notebooks, the LifeBook T2010 and U810. The former includes a 12.1 inch screen that can swivel in either direction and works both indoors and outdoors, plus plenty of security features, including a fingerprint reader. And, for coffee-spilling klutzes like myself, there's a spill-resistant keyboard.
The U810, an ultramobile PC, weighs a scant 1.5 pounds and is essentially Fujitsu's response to the BlackBerry. This lighter model won't be available until September, but will start at under $1,000.—Gregory Mone
Stanford researchers have figured out a way to incorporate silicon nanowires into rechargeable lithium ion batteries and extend their life from 4 to 40 hours. The work, described in a paper in Nature Nanotechnology, could lead to iPods, laptops and camcorders that could be run nearly for an entire weekend without requiring a re-charge. Of course, this is still in the lab stage, and there are undoubtedly quite a few steps and hurdles between the campus and commercialization, but we're optimists. So, here's to the end of the ABC (Always Be Charging) Rule of electronics.—Gregory Mone
