Microsofts New Surface Computing Table

If you haven’t already heard about Surface from Microsoft you definitely need to check it out. This computer, shaped like a small table, takes the touch sensitive screen to an entirely new level. It has the potential to actually start blurring the line between the real world and the digital one. Imagine just dropping your digital camera onto Surface and having the photos you’ve taken spill out onto the table top. If you want to transfer a couple of those pictures to your phone, just place it on the table and drag the pictures you want over to it. It’s that simple and intuitive. This technology probably won’t replace desktop PC anytime in the near future, but the commercial applications for Microsoft’s Surface are incredible. You can check all of this out on Microsoft’s website: http://www.microsoft.com/surface/ The videos there are a great indication of the potential for this technology.

Evnironmentally Friendly Mach 5 Passenger Jet

Reaction Engines Limited is currently working on a design for an airliner capable of cruising at hypersonic speeds. The design, dubbed the A2, would be able to travel at Mach 5 (about 3,400 mph) for prolonged periods and carry 300 passengers. The engines on the A2 would be have two operating modes, one to get the jet up to about Mach 2.5, and another for traveling at hypersonic speeds. This would solve one of the key problems that plagued the Concord: it’s engines where very inefficient at subsonic speeds. The A2’s Scimitar engines employ an advanced ramjet design for hypersonic travel. The A2 would also run on liquid hydrogen, rather than traditional jet fuels, meaning that the airliner’s exhaust would be primarily water vapor with a small percentage of nitrous oxide. Don’t expect to get a good view cruising around at Mach 5 though, there aren’t any windows on the A2. Only the windows on the space shuttle could withstand the heat generated by hypersonic travel inside the atmosphere, and they’re far too heavy to put on an airliner. While there are still a number of technical hurdles to overcome, the technology behind this is fundamentally sound. I really hope this project comes to fruition. The idea of shrinking a 22 hour flight down to a 4.6 hour flight is just to good to pass up. You can check out Popular Science’s article on the A2 here and find more conceptual illustrations on Reaction Engines site for their LAPCAT Project. (Long-Term Advanced Propulsion Concepts and Technologies)

GPS Navigation in a Heads Up Display

The Virtual Cable system in development from Making Virtual Solid aims to bring GPS navigational directions off of small screens and bring them into the real world. Or at least so they appear to be. The system projects a 3-D image onto the windshield that will appear to the driver as though it were a part of the land scape. HUD technology in cars is certainly not new, nor is GPS navigation. Combining the two however is somewhat tricky since the projected image must accurately correspond to the drivers view. The technology is still under development, but a “working proof of concept” has been built. If they can really make this work, it wouldn’t surprise me to see this technology become commonplace in cars within a couple of years. The advantages over regular GPS navigation systems are huge.

Tesla Roadster Finally Ready to Start Production

Last weeks Tesla Motors announced that the series production of the Tesla Roadster will begin on March 17th of this year. According to the press release, they have now received all of the regulatory approvals needed to begin production on the Tesla Roadster.There are a battery of tests new cars need to pass before they can go into production including Federal safety standards, EPA, and DOT tests. The large expense associated with these tests is a major obstacle faced by start up car companies, and one of the key reasons there are so few successful startups. Malcolm Powell, a VP for Tesla, has pictures (albeit rather painful ones to look at) of the crash tests posted on his blog.
Another reason for the long delay of the Tesla Roadster were the problems with the original two speed transmission. The transmissions were apparently failing after only a few thousand miles. The first production Tesla Roadsters will feature a “an interim transmission that meets durability requirements but limits acceleration to 5.7 seconds from 0 to 60 mph.” The final transmission will be a single speed transmission that will deliver on 4 second 0-60 mph time originally stated by Tesla.

Personal Jetpack for only $100,000

Thunderbolt Aerosystems announced last week the availability of their Thunderpack TP-R2G2 for “a price under $100,000.” For that $100K you will get about 75 seconds of flight time at up to 75mph on a hydrogen peroxide dual fuel mixture. The company hopes that they will be unveiling a jet propelled variant, dubbed Thunderjet, before the end of the year that will offer up to 35 minutes of flight for around the same price. It seems to me like they’re making real progress in this field, they still have a long way to go. While it’s an impressive technical accomplishment, 75 seconds of flight for 100k is pretty absurd. Even at 35 minutes of flight time the price tag will have to come down significantly for it to be adopted for widespread use in “a host of defense, commercial and personal purposes, including support of military missions, disaster relief efforts, border patrol assignments, and even overcoming those snail-paced commutes.”

Silicon Nanowires could offer a 10x improvement in battery life

Researchers at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University have successfully incorporated silicon nanowires into lithium ion batteries effectively offering a tenfold increase in the amount of charge they can store. Lithium-ion batteries currently use graphite as the anode, silicon however has a significantly greater charge capacity than graphite. According to Professor Yu Cui who led the research silicon “has the highest known theoretical charge capacity” and “is more than ten times higher than existing graphite anodes.” A performance increase of this magnitude would be incredible to say the least. Laptop batteries could potentially last 40+ hours instead of just 4 hours. For an electric car that uses lithium-ion batteries like the Tesla Roadster, the range could potentially be increased from 200 or so miles to over 2000 miles on a single charge! You can read more about this here:

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html

Or if you’re feeling really ambitious you can try reading the Journal article published in Nature and Nanotechnology here:

High-performance lithium battery anodes using silicon nanowires

WildCharge could change the way we recharge our phones

Or it could be just another interesting tech novelty. It’s a little too soon to tell, but the technology is certainly intriguing. You can charge your phone (and soon other mobile devices like iPods) by simply placing it on the WildCharger pad. The pad can also charge as many devices as you can fit on the pad simultaneously. To use the WildCharger pad you need to install an adapter on your phone that replaces the battery cover and plugs in to the mini-USB port. As of now the only phone they have an adapter for the Motorola RAZR V3 but are promising more very soon. Personally I kind of like the idea of just dropping my cell and iPod on my desk at the end of the day and knowing they’ll have a full charge in the morning. You can check out cNet’s review of the WildCharger and the company’s website below.

http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phone-and-smart/wildcharger-bundle-at-t/4505-6448_7-32821393.html

https://www.wildcharge.com/

LED Contact Lenses

Researchers at the University of Washington have apparently created the prototype for a contact lens with a built in LED display. An array of red light emitting diodes no more that 1/3 of a millimeter thick and an electronic circuit are contained in the prototype contact lens. There is no power source contained in the lens as yet so the diodes don’t light up, but a operational prototype isn’t too far off according to scientists. The device could theoretically be powered by a combination of solar cells and radio frequency power. The applications of a fully functional high resolution display are almost limitless. It may be a while till the full potential of this technology is reached, but in the meantime it’s certain fun to imagine all the possibilities this technology has to offer. Check out the link below for more details.

Source: http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=39094