We met Loughborough-based Intelligent Energy at CES, where they showed us a hydrogen-powered iPhone 6 that lasts for a week without a charge.
“Greetings. We are from the future. Everything is going to be alright. The future is a beautiful place. But you will need some training in order to get there…”
This is a nice concept especially when you’re on vacation or traveling and need to be mobile.
A new portable fuel cell charger can charge a smartphone or tablet by combining saltwater and oxygen, say while you’re basking in the sun on the beach.
The Sun is still active enough to generate high-energy super X-class flares, according to new multi-spectral analyses of other nearby sun-like stars being presented at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Florida.
Satellite-destroying X-flares from our own Sun are likely to occur only once every 250 to 350 years, but they could still have catastrophic effects on satellites, astronauts, and power grids, Edward Guinan, a Villanova University astronomer and the research lead, told me from Orlando.
“For the present Sun, statistically, we estimate about one X100 solar flare once per 300 years and a flare ten times larger as [happening] once every 18,000 years,” said Guinan.
Researchers reveal a new mechanism to create hydrogen fuel that could power environmentally clean cars.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=TiZuG9K_xso
NASA recently provided $10 million in funding to Ad Astra Rocket Company of Texas for further development of its Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR), an electromagnetic thruster capable of propelling a spaceship to Mars in just 39 days. NASA’s funding was part of the “12 Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnership.” Ad Astra’s rocket will travel ten times faster than today’s chemical rockets while using one-tenth the amount of fuel.
The VASIMR system would cut the trip to Mars by months according to Franklin Chang Diaz, a former MIT student, NASA astronaut, and now CEO of Ad Astra.
Continue reading “NASA’s New VASIMR Plasma Engine Could Reach Mars in 39 days” »
A milestone in the history of cybersecurity?
Cyberattacks on the power grid just became a much more real threat, according to researchers.
Walls and floors can seriously limit the range of your wireless network, but the WiFi Alliance thinks they’ve come up with a fix. Their new 802.11ah standard aims to deliver superior penetration and power savings to boot.
How will 802.11ah do that? By operating in the unlicensed 900MHz spectrum. Today’s WiFi gear operates at either 2.4GHz or 5GHz. Their higher frequencies make it harder for the signals to maintain their strength as they pass through obstructions. That’s one reason Google wants you to pretty up your OnHub router: so that you stick it somewhere out in the open where walls won’t get in the way.
Way down at 900MHz, though, things like walls, floors, and doors won’t be as much of a problem. According to the WiFi Alliance, 802.11ah will also achieve nearly double the range of current standards. There’s another bonus, too. Because the signal doesn’t degrade as much when it passes through objects, devices don’t consume as much power while sending and receiving data.
The Osterhout Design Group, which has been making high-end night-vision goggles for years, has begun shipping its R-7 augmented reality glasses for enterprise applications. The $2,750 smartglasses are a sign of things to come, as the company eventually hopes to bring the technology to the masses at consumer prices.
Augmented reality is expected to become a $150 billion market by 2020, according to tech advisor Digi-Capital. But first, it has to become cheaper, lighter, and otherwise more practical. The R-7 represents ODG’s best trade-off between capability and cost. The company is showing the R-7 at the 2016 International CES, the big tech trade show in Las Vegas this week.
The ODG R-7 shows heads-up display images on the inside of the lenses, so you can see stereoscopic 3D or other animated imagery on top of objects in the real world. The company is targeting applications in health care, energy, transportation, warehouse, logistics, and government.
The Wi-Fi Alliance branded its next-generation 802.11ah wireless protocol as Wi-Fi HaLow. It is targeted at the Internet of Things (IoT), which includes the smart home, connected car, and digital healthcare, as well as industrial, retail, agriculture, and smart-city environments. Unlike the older and more familiar 802.11 protocols, which mostly use the 2.4 or 5GHz bands, 802.11ah is a sub-gigahertz protocol that uses the 900MHz band. It has an enviable combination of characteristics.
