A materials breakthrough could lead to radically smaller phones that are more powerful and energy-efficient.
What if your earbuds could do everything your smartphone can do already, except better? What sounds a bit like science fiction may actually not be so far off. A new class of synthetic materials could herald the next revolution of wireless technologies, enabling devices to be smaller, require less signal strength and use less power.
The key to these advances lies in what experts call phononics, which is similar to photonics. Both take advantage of similar physical laws and offer new ways to advance technology. While photonics takes advantage of photons – or light – phononics does the same with phonons, which are the physical particles that transmit mechanical vibrations through a material, akin to sound, but at frequencies much too high to hear.
In a paper published in Nature Materials (“Giant electron-mediated phononic nonlinearity in semiconductor–piezoelectric heterostructures”), researchers at the University of Arizona Wyant College of Optical Sciences and Sandia National Laboratories report clearing a major milestone toward real-world applications based on phononics. By combining highly specialized semiconductor materials and piezoelectric materials not typically used together, the researchers were able to generate giant nonlinear interactions between phonons. Together with previous innovations demonstrating amplifiers for phonons using the same materials, this opens up the possibility of making wireless devices such as smartphones or other data transmitters smaller, more efficient and more powerful.
Superradiant atoms offer a groundbreaking method for measuring time with an unprecedented level of precision. In a recent study published by the scientific journal Nature Communications, researchers from the University of Copenhagen present a new method for measuring the time interval, seconds, that overcomes some of the limitations that even today’s most advanced atomic clocks encounter. This advancement could have broad implications in areas such as space exploration, volcanic monitoring, and GPS systems.
The second, which is the most precisely defined unit of measurement, is currently measured by atomic clocks in different places around the world that together tell us what time it is. Using radio waves, atomic clocks continuously send signals that synchronize our computers, phones, and watches.
Oscillations are the key to keeping time. In a grandfather clock, these oscillations are from a pendulum’s swinging from side to side every second, while in an atomic clock, it is a laser beam that corresponds to an energy transition in strontium and oscillates about a million billion times per second.
At the end of the day it just got too expensive to make games, and too risky to release bad ones. Not to mention the political nonsense. AI is now in the wings poised for a take over game development. Will of mostly taken over around 2030. And, it will quickly be back to the old days.
There’s one topic that’s stayed on my mind since the Game Developers Conference in March: generative AI. This year’s GDC wasn’t flooded with announcements that AI is being added to every game — unlike how the technology’s been touted in connection with phones and computers. But artificial intelligence definitely made a splash.
Enthusiasm for generative AI was uneven. Some developers were excited about its possibilities, while others were concerned over its potential for abuse in an industry with shattered morale about jobs and careers.
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The Rabbit R1 handheld AI device is a simple Android device, and a developer made the AI run on an iPhone.
The Rabbit R1 offers the ability to answer queries and perform tasks using AI, instead of using an iPhone directly. However, the work of one enterprising developer has resulted in a clone of the “iPhone-killer” which can run on an iPhone.
In X tweets on Monday, Will Hobick of Flutterflow posted that he would be posting a “cloneable template” of the Rabbit R1 app later in the week. In a follow-up post on Tuesday, he demonstrates a version of the app running on an iPhone.
We’re not even halfway through 2024, but it’s already an interesting year in the world of gadgets. Though tech giants usually release the typical assortment of new phones, smartwatches, laptops and tablets on an annual (or semiannual) basis, this year saw the debut of a few firsts.
Apple and Samsung, the world’s two largest smartphone makers, both expanded into new categories, with the iPhone maker releasing its Vision Pro mixed reality headset and the Korean tech giant announcing the Galaxy Ring, a wellness tracker meant to be worn around the finger. Startups Rabbit and Humane AI also generated plenty of hype with their AI-fueled gadgets, both of which require you to dictate commands to portable AI agents rather than swiping on screens.
So what do the Apple Vision Pro, Samsung Galaxy Ring, Rabbit R1 and Humane AI Pin have in common? Not much it seems, at least on the surface. But all these gadgets share one common goal: to change our relationship with screens.
Some online scams are more conspicuous than others, but the most insidious can be especially tricky to spot. For instance, last week, cybersecurity firm ThreatFabric uncovered a new Android malware family that cleverly disguises itself as a Google Chrome update. Before you click a link claiming to provide updates for Chrome, be sure that it isn’t fake.
ThreatFabric analysts found the malware — which they dubbed Brokewell — on a fake browser update page designed to fool people into downloading a malicious app. If the page manages to fool you, you’ll end up downloading seriously dangerous malware.
A smartphone shutting down on a sweltering day is an all-too-common annoyance that may accompany a trip to the beach on a sunny afternoon. Electronic memory within these devices isn’t built to handle extreme heat.
As temperatures climb, the electrons that store data become unstable and begin to escape, leading to device failure and loss of information. But what if gadgets could withstand not just a hot summer day but the searing conditions of a jet engine or the harsh surface of Venus?
In a paper published in the journal Nature Electronics, Deep Jariwala and Roy Olsson of the University of Pennsylvania and their teams at the School of Engineering and Applied Science demonstrated memory technology capable of enduring temperatures as high as 600° Celsius—more than twice the tolerance of any commercial drives on the market—and these characteristics were maintained for more than 60 hours, indicating exceptional stability and reliability.
