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Researchers have fashioned ultrathin silicon nanoantennas that trap and redirect light, for applications in quantum computing, LIDAR and even the detection of viruses.

Light is notoriously fast. Its speed is crucial for rapid information exchange, but as light zips through materials, its chances of interacting and exciting atoms and molecules can become very small. If scientists can put the brakes on light particles, or photons, it would open the door to a host of new technology applications.

Now, in a paper published on August 17, 2020, in Nature Nanotechnology, Stanford scientists demonstrate a new approach to slow light significantly, much like an echo chamber holds onto sound, and to direct it at will. Researchers in the lab of Jennifer Dionne, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford, structured ultrathin silicon chips into nanoscale bars to resonantly trap light and then release or redirect it later. These “high-quality-factor” or “high-Q” resonators could lead to novel ways of manipulating and using light, including new applications for quantum computing, virtual reality and augmented reality; light-based WiFi; and even the detection of viruses like SARS-CoV-2.

The internet has transformed most areas of our lives over the last few decades, and the technology keeps improving: researchers just set a new record for data transmission rates, logging an incredible speed of 178 terabits per second (Tbps).

That’s around a fifth faster than the previous record, set by a team of researchers in Japan, and roughly twice as fast as the best internet available today.

With 4K movies about 15GB in size, you could download about 1,500 of them in a single second at the new speed.

Engineers in London just smashed the world’s data transmission rate with a speed a fifth faster than the previous record. They hit a rate of 178 terabits a second, beating the previous 172 terabits.

The world’s fastest data transmission rate has been achieved by a team of University College London engineers who achieved internet transmission speed a fifth faster than the previous record.

Working with two companies, Xtera and KDDI Research, the research team led by Dr. Lidia Galdino (UCL Electronic & Electrical Engineering), achieved a data transmission rate of 178 terabits a second (178,000,000 megabits a second) – a speed at which it would be possible to download the entire Netflix library in less than a second.

The record, which is double the capacity of any system currently deployed in the world, was achieved by transmitting data through a much wider range of colors of light, or wavelengths, than is typically used in optical fiber. (Current infrastructure uses a limited spectrum bandwidth of 4.5THz, with 9THz commercial bandwidth systems entering the market, whereas the researchers used a bandwidth of 16.8THz.)

First and foremost, I would likd to reiterate that Elon Musk is not motivated by money. Elon Musk uses his wealth to make a difference to mankind. Yes he makes billions (and deservedly) but he invests his billions for other projects too. From Tesla to Neuralink; from Starlink to The Boring Company. And for me the ever exciting SpaceX. My only wish is I live long enough to witness his many inventions and projects.

Four months ago when I did the video below and predicted that Elon Musk would be the World’s First Trillionaire, most people laughed and ridiculed the video especially as at that time Elon was only the 35th Richest Man in the World with a net worth of around the $30 Billion mark.

Continue reading “Elon Musk World’s 1st Trillionaire (after Making $57.2B in 2020)” »

Light is notoriously fast. Its speed is crucial for rapid information exchange, but as light zips through materials, its chances of interacting and exciting atoms and molecules can become very small. If scientists can put the brakes on light particles, or photons, it would open the door to a host of new technology applications.

Now, in a paper published on Aug. 17, in Nature Nanotechnology, Stanford scientists demonstrate a new approach to slow light significantly, much like an echo chamber holds onto sound, and to direct it at will. Researchers in the lab of Jennifer Dionne, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford, structured ultrathin silicon chips into nanoscale bars to resonantly trap light and then release or redirect it later. These “high-quality-factor” or “high-Q” resonators could lead to novel ways of manipulating and using light, including new applications for quantum computing, virtual reality and augmented reality; light-based WiFi; and even the detection of viruses like SARS-CoV-2.

“We’re essentially trying to trap light in a tiny box that still allows the light to come and go from many different directions,” said postdoctoral fellow Mark Lawrence, who is also lead author of the paper. “It’s easy to trap light in a box with many sides, but not so easy if the sides are transparent—as is the case with many Silicon-based applications.”

On August 18th, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket on its sixth mission to space, breaking the company’s record for reflights of a single booster. The rocket launched 58 of SpaceX’s internet-beaming Starlink satellites and three hitchhiking satellites from Planet.

Lift-off from the site in the US state of Florida is scheduled for 1431GMT.

Source: SpaceX/AP

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Continue reading “SpaceX launches its Falcon 9 rocket for its 11th Starlink mission, which will include 58 Starlink satellites and three of Planet’s SkySats” »

Behind all this doom and gloom, the current COVID-19 viral threat, dreaded climate disasters and feared robocalypse, it’s hard to see a bigger and amazingly brighter picture. Are we evolving into a new species with hybrid thinking, interlinked into the Global Mind? Once our neocortices are seamlessly connected to the Web, what will that feel like to step up one level above human consciousness to global consciousness? Any crisis, including the current one, is an opportunity to transcend the quagmire of status quo.

Are we evolving into a new species with hybrid thinking, interlinked into the Global Mind? At what point may the Web become self-aware? Once our neocortices are seamlessly connected to the Web, how will that feel like to step up one level above human consciousness to global consciousness?

In his book “The Global Brain” (2000) Howard Bloom argues that hyperconnected humans and machines resemble a lot the neurons of the “global brain,” and the coming Internet of Things (IoT) with trillions of sensors around the planet will become effectively the nervous system of Earth. According to the Gaia hypothesis by James Lovelock, we have always been an integral part of this “Meta-Mind,” collective consciousness, global adaptive and self-regulating system while tapping into vast resources of information pooling and at the same time having a “shared hallucination,” we call reality.

Continue reading “Holo Syntellectus: Are We Evolving into a New Cybernetic Species Interlinked into the Global Mind?” »