Even before Weixiao Huang received his doctorate from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, his new transistor captured the attention of some of the biggest American and Japanese automobile companies. The 2008 graduate's invention could replace one of the most common pieces of technology in the world--the silicon transistor for high-power and high-temperature electronics.
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YOUTHSPROUTS
Today and Tomorrow is Ours
Friday, June 06, 2008
Weixiao Haung and new GAN transistor.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Nano switch hints at future chips
Dr Leonid Ponomarenko shows off a device with the transistor embedded
Researchers have built the world's smallest transistor - one atom thick and 10 atoms wide - out of a material that could one day replace silicon.
The transistor, essentially an on/off switch, has been made using graphene, a two-dimensional material first discovered only four years ago.
Graphene is a single layer of graphite, which is found in the humble pencil.
The transistor is the key building block of microchips and the basis for almost all electronics.
Dr Kostya Novoselov and Professor Andre Geim from The School of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Manchester have been leading research into the potential application of graphene in electronics and were the first to separate a sheet of the material from graphite
Super material
Graphene has been hailed as a super material because it has many potential applications. It is a flat molecule, with only the thickness of an atom, and both very stable and robust.
The researchers are also looking at its use in display technology - because it is transparent.
The Manchester-based scientists have shown that graphene can be carved into tiny electronic circuits with individual transistors not much larger than a molecule.
Dr Novoselov told BBC News that graphene had many advantages over silicon because it could conduct electricity faster and further.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Free forum/Community builder software
Look beyond vBulletin. If you are planning to add a forum or bulletin board to your site and don't want to spend a lot on the platform, the good news is that there are a lot of free alternatives available. Here are a few listed below, leave a comment if I have missed out on something.
A free community software based on PHP and MySQL. Complete feature list -
http://www.simplemachines.org/about/features.php
phpBB is one of the most widely used Open Source forum solution. Version 3.0 incorporates a professional-quality modular design, high security, multiple-language interface, support for a multitude of database servers and complete layout customisation, all with a low execution overhead. Complete feature set can be found here http://www.phpbb.com/about/features/
From the creators of WordPress, bbPress is focused on web standards, ease of use, ease of integration, and speed.
View live here http://bbpress.org/forums/
a PHP/MySQL discussion forum with frame-based layout, for easy navigation.
View live forum http://www.beehiveforum.net/forum/
Impressive community builder based on PHP/MySQL With dolphin you can create dating sites, social networks, content sharing portalsThough free, it requires a fee of $39/yr if you want to remove the links to publisher.
Powered by PHP and MySQL, icebb is a free and open source forum solution.
Try it here http://icebb.net/demo/
nextBBS is an open-source Internet forum system written in PHP and its currently running its public beta.
UseBB is a light and Open Source PHP 4 and MySQL based forum package, distributed freely under the GPL license.
Try it here - http://www.usebb.net/community/forum.php?id=7
Vanilla is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the web.
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Sunday, April 13, 2008
IBM races to make hi-tech memory
Advertisement
Inside the spintronics chamber: IBM's Kevin Roche shows how he is designing an entirely new way of storing data.
Handheld gadgets storing thousands of hours of film footage could soon be a reality thanks to IBM scientists.
Researchers for the computer giant are working on a technology known as racetrack memory which uses tiny magnetic boundaries to store data.
In a paper in the journal Science, the team at IBM's Almaden lab in California outline ways to make the building blocks of the novel storage medium.
The capacity of MP3 players could increase 100 times from present levels.
But the IBM team say racetrack memory is still seven to eight years away from commercial use.
Memory boost
Currently most desktop computers use flash memory and hard drives to store data - both have their advantages and disadvantages.
Hard drives are cheap but their moving parts mean they are not very durable. They are also slow in that they typically take a few milliseconds to find and fetch data.
By contrast flash memory is more reliable and data can be read from it much faster though it has a finite lifespan and is expensive compared to hard drives.
The work being done on racetrack memory by Dr Parkin and colleagues could produce a storage medium that is cheap, durable and fast.
Ultimately, said Dr Parkin, racetrack memory could replace both flash and hard drives in computers and other gadgets.
"We have demonstrated the physics and materials underlying racetrack memory," said Dr Stuart Parkin, an IBM fellow at the Almaden laboratory.
"It's now possible to build a racetrack memory though we've not built one yet," he said.
The racetrack memory stores data in the boundaries, known as domain walls, between magnetic regions in nanowires.
The medium gets its name because the data races around the wire or track as it is read or written.
 Spintronics memory might mean devices that can hold 500,000 songs |
The domain walls are read by exploiting the weak magnetic fields generated by the spin of electrons.
The tiny amounts of power needed to exploit these fields means racetrack memory generates far less heat than existing devices.
Many modern computers already use spintronics to improve the density of data on a hard drive.
In the paper in Science and an accompanying review, Dr Parkin, Masamitsu Hayashi and colleagues describe their progress towards making the building blocks of racetrack memory.
The team has been able to create, move and detect the tiny magnetic boundaries "properly timed, nanosecond long, spin-polarized current pulses" and have paved the way towards creating working racetrack memory systems.
The team has also shown how to fabricate the slim wires that would form the racetracks on which data is stored.
If the expected data densities of the technology are realised it could mean gadgets that have about 100 times more memory on board than is possible today. It would mean that a portable MP3 player could hold up to 500,000 songs.
"We are embarking on a path to build a prototype," said Dr Parkin. He said it could take up to four years to produce that prototype and a further three or four to refine it for commercial use. __Saturday, April 12, 2008
Television on the Internet taking off for real
Visitors attend the annual MIPTV trade show in Cannes, southern France. It's been a long time coming but television on the Internet appears finally to be taking off, opening up a new viewing experience for free and helping to fight online piracy
The online video-on-demand (VOD) service "will let you watch your favourite programmes anytime for free", Hulu's youthful CEO Jason Kilar told a conference at the giant MIPTV audiovisual entertainment industry trade show this week.
Geared to appeal to a wide audience, Hulu, which is free but comes with short 15 to 30-second advertising spots that fund the service, offers high picture and sound quality, Kilar said.
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GE FORCE 9800GX2 ZOTAC
www.youthsprouts.blogspot.com
Introduction
It feels weird to have done four articles on the 9800 GX2 without having actually had a look at a single retail card yet. The first retail card to come out of the gates comes in the form of a ZOTAC offering.
The respective SLI setups were tested with the same benchmarks that we have used so far so as to give us a fair indication of how much the cards scale and also how they fair as compared to the 9800GX2. Also, we couldn't just change all our benchmarks as we needed to compare the results to the cards that we've tested previously as well. We might be able to squeeze in a few newer benchmarks from the next graphics card article and gradually shift completely to the newer set.
What to Expect??
power gamming and more on Wii 20 players can play at a time
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Also included will be co-op modes like Cops 'n Robbers and Hangman's Noose, where teamwork is essential. You can pick a custom or quick game, and then tweak options to alter each game significantly - change weapon types (all handguns for instance or only snipers), add or subtract police, traffic, pedestrians, or blips (i.e., enemy location).
In team Deathmatch, you can set up an equally balanced 8-on-8 battle or a 2-on-14 fight. GTA Race is just the same as previous GTA single-player campaigns, the only difference is that now up to 16 people can play in a no-holds barred lap race to the finish. Although unlike past GTA games, now cars are destructible, and drivers can arm themselves with pistols, machine guns, rifles, and more. Drive anything you like or just walk across the race line, it's allowed! GT mode, on the other hand, is a straight weaponless race.
Reports say that there is a lot of variety in gameplay types with hundreds of custom options including character creation, and the organic integration of full world online maps including vehicles such as cars, boats, and helicopters.
The Multiplayer-capable GTA IV does sounds like fun. We are eagerly waiting for the game, and when it's time, we will provide you with our very own detailed GTA IV review.
Gran Turismo 5: Prologue
There are games and there are experiences; there are good-looking games and there is Gran Turismo. This is a legendary franchise, a game that satisfies critics and gamers alike, a game that sells millions of copies without guns, gore, or strippers. Developers could learn a thing or two from Polyphony Digital, as the GT games have consistently improved game after game. Gran Turismo isn't enjoyed by everyone; it's a simulation, aptly called the Real Driving Simulator -- and with good reason. GT4 was a major hit and sold millions of copies worldwide; fans of the series are eagerly awaiting GT5. The full game is still a year away, but we can get a glimpse of the real deal by spending some quality time with GT5 Prologue. This isn't a mere demo, but not a full game either.
Friday, April 04, 2008
The death of the silicon computer chip
www.youthsprouts.blogspot.com
The reign of the silicon chip is over, according to physicists who predict that the conventional silicon chip has no longer than four years left to run.
Meeting at the Institute of Physics’ Condensed Matter and Material Physics conference this week, researchers speculate that the silicon chip will be unable to sustain the same pace of increase in computing power and speed as it has in previous years.
Just as Gordon Moore predicted in 2005, physical limitations of the miniaturised electronic devices of today will eventually lead to silicon chips that are saturated with transistors and incapable of holding any more digital information.
Scientists are now investigating alternative components that may pave the way to faster, more powerful computers of the future and potentially extend Moore’s Law of technological advancement.
One team of researchers at the Leeds University in the UK have proposed to replace silicon chips with carbon nanotubes, which are electrically-conducive tubes of pure carbon that are tens of times thinner than a human hair.
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Networks promise 'accident-free' cars
The sensors promise to help negotiate dangerous traffic
Embedded sensor networks are designed to replace existing networks that can only share information that has already been captured and stored.
Sensor networks instead take information from several individual nodes - potentially thousands of them in different locations - in real time, and can act on it accordingly.
This means that during a journey, vehicles could monitor each other's speed and position - and therefore dramatically cut the risk of accidents.
"I think that we may, in the future, go beyond just communication to using the network to interact with the environment," Professor PR Kumar of the Convergence Lab at the University of Illinois told BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme.
"For example, cars on a highway may talk to each other and find out each others' speeds. So a sensor in that context could just be the speedometer on a car, which could talk to surrounding cars.
"These cars could then co-operate with each other to avoid accidents and so on."
Changing speed
Most advanced networks currently work on an ad hoc basis - established through links between laptops, for example, which can share information between them.
But embedded sensor networks represent a shift away from computers communicating purely over a network, to sensors which communicate with each other.
And the next stage is an "actuator network" - where computers are able to act on the information they receive from the sensors. This could mean, for example, reducing speed in advance if slower traffic conditions are detected.
 Heathrow's forthcoming driverless pods work using sensors |
"Interaction is a two-way process, so I don't just want to know what speed it is; I want to change the speed.
"This gives rise to sensor-actuated networks, which are deployed over a wireless network. That could be the kind of system we are headed towards."
He said that these systems represent "the convergence of communication, computation, sensing and actuation."
However he conceded that a lot of issues remain to be sorted out before such a network could be put into practice on the roads.
__Robot space truck docks with ISS
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News
Station camera shows moment ATV docks with ISS
Europe's sophisticated new space truck, the ATV, has docked with the International Space Station (ISS).
The unmanned vessel carries just under five tonnes of food, water, air, fuel and equipment for the orbiting platform's three astronauts.
The Automated Transfer Vehicle used its own computerised systems to make the attachment at 1445 GMT.
Ground control and the ISS crew were on alert just in case there was a problem - but it was a textbook docking.
Post
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Monday, March 31, 2008
Worlds First Pocket sixe DJ System--- youthsprouts.blogspot.com
Swedish tech company Tonium Laboratories unveil the Pacemaker, the world’s first professional pocket-sized DJ system, first of its kind anywhere in the world.
For the first time in history, everyone can have the power to create their own music. Imagine walking into a party with every record you own in your pocket, stored on the huge 120GB Pacemaker hard drive, plugging into the nearest sound system and DJ’ing like a professional. Envision the next time you’re on a bus or subway, instead of simply listening to your music you can completely interact with it, creating mixes of your favorite tunes, beat matching and using effects; the possibilities are only limited by your own imagination.
__Converting moving traffic into electricity
MagKinetics unveil a patent pending technology for converting moving traffic into electricity. They believe this practical and logical technology has the potential to solve a large portion of the world’s energy crisis. They are confident that if they can continue working with Physicists and Engineers to develop the technology further, this technology will lower Green house gas emissions, create unlimited electricity, create thousands of jobs and eliminate the need to alter the landscape as other renewable technologies require.
The implementation of the technology for generating electricity is “built into the road itself.” “Without any modification to the traveling vehicle, driving options or personal freedoms, our technology can be used to produce clean, efficient, and substantial electrical energy from merely driving in the normal course,” said the inventor and business partner co-founder, Mark Nejmeh.
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Saturday, March 29, 2008
DIGITAL CANDLE
Everyone has a fond memory of turning off electricity and lighting a candle. One can enjoy the mysterious yet peaceful and comforting ambience radiating from a small, flickering luminance that is often absent in modern lighting apparatus. A light switch in a room does not add any aesthetic value to interior design to the room. Switch Candle brings back the fond memory, adding not only to the interior design but providing a soothing ambience in the dark room.
The small holes at the top of the switch are designed to assume a candle’s wick when LED is on. When the user blows on the holes, it activates a sensor which discriminates the degree of airflow. Gentle airflow makes the LED flicker as if real candle flame dances in air. Strong airflow turns the LED off, effectively granting the user a sense of blowing a candle off.
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Silicon chips stretch into shape. ELASTIC CHIPS
The stretchy circuits could be
used in wearable health monitors
Enlarge ImageNormally fragile and brittle silicon chips have been made to bend and fold, paving the way for a new generation of flexible electronic devices.
The stretchy circuits could be used to build advanced brain implants, health monitors or smart clothing.
The complex devices consist of concertina-like folds of ultra-thin silicon bonded to sheets of rubber.
Writing in the journal Science, the US researchers say the chip's performance is similar to conventional electronics.
"Silicon microelectronics has been a spectacularly successful technology that has touched virtually every part of our lives," said Professor John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, one of the authors of the paper.
But, he said, the rigid and fragile nature of silicon made it very unattractive for many applications, such as biomedical implants.
"In many cases you'd like to integrate electronics conformably in a variety of ways in the human body - but the human body does not have the shape of a silicon wafer."
Silicon wave
The chips build on previous work by Professor's Roger's lab.
In 2005, the team demonstrated a stretchable form of single-crystal silicon.
 | BUILDING BENDABLE CHIPS  1. Plastic sheet is bonded to a rigid substrate with adhesive 2. Complex circuits are built using conventional silicon fabrication techniques 3. Adhesive is dissolved, allowing circuits embedded on plastic sheet to be peeled away 4. Sheet is bonded to pre-strained rubber, creating bendable silicon chips |
"That demonstration involved very thin narrow strips of silicon bonded to rubber," explained Professor Rogers.
At a microscopic level these strips had a wavy structure that behaved like "accordion bellows", allowing stretching in one direction.
"The silicon is still rigid and brittle as an intrinsic material but in this accordion bellows geometry, bonded to rubber, the overall structure is stretchable," he told BBC News.
Using the material, the researchers were able to show off individual, flexible circuit components such as transistors.
The new work features complete silicon chips, known as integrated circuits (ICs), which can be stretched in two directions and in a more complex fashion.
"In order to do this, we had to figure out how to make the entire circuit in an ultra-thin format," explained Professor Rogers.
The team has developed a method that can produce complete circuits just one and a half microns (millionths of a metre) thick, hundreds of times thinner than conventional silicon circuits found in PCs.
"What that thinness provides is a degree of bendability that substantially exceeds anything we or anyone else has done at circuit level in the past," he said.
__Thursday, March 27, 2008
Art cars, Future cars, Technology cars, Muscile cars and more
We thought we’d take a little break from the usual and take a look at some cool art cars that geeks have modded into their own visions of coolness. So here’s some random pimped out tonnage of pure nerd love coming at ya. When a nerd has a car, all things are possible…Though it will usually end up having something to do with the Star Wars universe.
VW Microbus Ball-A piece of art by Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top fame. He took a vw microbus and made it into a VW ball. Truly a thing of beauty. The tires unfold when you need em. This is what we need to see more of on the road. Or in the sky for that matter.
Circuit Board Car-Someone went a little crazy with circuit boards. This one must be blinding in direct sunlight. You have to wonder how much weight the boards added to the car in total.
The Pyramid Car-This pyramid electric car weighs 8,000-pounds and is powered by 80-batteries, with four engines. It can supposedly reach speeds of up to 45mph. I love how the canopy pops open like a Colonial Viper from Battlestar Galactica. It was built by a Father and his two sons.
The Pac-Man car-This is the best way to outrun ghosts that I have seen yet. And it attracts the ladies.
The Subaru Outback Ecto-1-This guy started a thread on the NASIOC forums (North American Subaru Impreza Owners Club) to showcase his 2003 Subaru Outback which he’s converted into a slightly smaller version of the Ecto-1 from the Ghostbusters films.
The Floppy Disk car-A 1998 Honda Civic covered with computer keys and, of course, floppy disks.
U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-7 Shuttlecar-Now this is truly a geek ride. The only thing that could make it better is if they sold Ice cream from the back of this thing.
Star Wars Landspeeder-You probably remember this one from a while back. The vehicle was actually licensed in California. It just needs a few droids and your Uncle dressed as Ben Kenobi.
Jawa Sandcrawler-I had no idea that Jawas attended Burning Man. I hope they collected enough robot parts to really stick it to the Skywalkers this season.
The X-Wing…car-A California guy modded his Honda del Sol into Luke’s X-Wing Fighter. It even has R2 astromech droid in the rear, some burns, and the Rebel insignia, and laser blasters on the car doors.
Battlestar Galactica Viper-Dean Shorey built this car, based on the Vipers from classic Battlestar Galactica, by hand. I would love to see this thing coming down the street.
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