Sony increases holographic storage read/write speeds
May 28, 2007
After increasing the storage capacity of their holographic storage system, Sony’s only direction to go was to increase read and write speeds. Sony has managed to increase the holographic storage systems speed from crappy 3mpbs to 92mbps(read) and 107mbps(write). The hard to believe advancement in read and write speeds has been attributed to a new image stabilization technique, with an improved CMOS sensor. Sony isn’t finished yet, promising to increase rates to 1gbps.
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Free Energy For The Masses?
April 18, 2007
To physicists or engineers, anyone who can claim to have found a source of free, clean and constant energy is thought of as a god…. or a complete nutbar. In essence, this would be like creating a perpetual motion machine; a physical impossibility according to the first law of thermodynamics.
Over the years, many people have invested their time, money and energy (pardon the pun) attempting to develop perpetual motion. Well a company in Ireland called Steorn Ltd. claims to have done this, and is challenging the scientific community to review it’s claim. They claim to have developed a product, branded “Orbo” that uses yet-unspecified technology to produce “free, clean and constant” energy.
An advertisement in The Economist read, “we have developed a technology that produces free, clean and constant energy. Our technology has been independently validated by engineers and scientists — always behind closed doors, always off the record, always proven to work.”
According to CEO Sean McCarthy, Steorn is ”now seeking twelve of the most qualified and most cynical from the world’s scientific community to form an independent jury, test the technology in independent laboratories and publish their findings.”
They are so confident in their technology that they have promised a public demonstration in July 2007, in London. As an engineer working in the electricity sector, I have to see this claim through very very dark glasses because it simply violates everything I learned during my studies. I mean, how can you create energy out of nothing? In my opinion (and that of 99.9% of academics around the world) it is impossible and I expect the independent verification to prove this. I do, however, keep hope that I will be proved wrong and that this technology will revolutionize how the world works. Until that point though, I am calling their bluff.
More information can be found at the Steorn website www.steorn.com, or at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn. If nothing else, it’s still interesting and exciting to read about!
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Holy German Machinery Batman
April 13, 2007
If you already thought the illustrious Audi brand had outdone itself by creating the elegant yet monstrous R8, think again. There has been official announcement of something even more redonkulous. Behold the ABT Tuned R8.
Can you afford one? Likely not. Will you drive one? Likely not. Will you want one? YES.
If you are an Audi fan like myself or Darren Mark (see correspondence) this could potentially be one of your dream cars. From a DNA pedigree tracing to the original Quattro, but more closely matched to the Le Mans champions as of late, this vehicle possesses the contours and the performance of a race-bred machine. The only thing is, now ABT has tweaked this engineering brilliance to an even faster machine capable of turning heads twice over. A supercharger delivers over 100 more horsepower than the stock engine while the 20-inch wheels help keep all that power grounded on the pavement (or impressing gangta-asses like Ludacris).
Check out this beast and maybe even place an order for one….if you can afford it.
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Time for a Phlogging. Coined from Physics Blogging.
March 26, 2007
There’s a fad going on about telescoping technologies and lifetimes etc. As in, things don’t really happen linearly as we try to measure it all. Looking at the evolution of man from the stone age through the industrial revolution and now that information era, we can all be excited to be living in such a crazy time.
Then there’s the same thing on a smaller scale… an amoeba live for maybe a few hours while an ant lives for a few days.. and a rabbit for about a decade, humans for about a century, and our wonderful earth has a life that’s millions of years old.
Then on a personal level.. an hour would seem like ages to a baby.. and a day seems like ages to a 4 yr old.. but as you get older, the weeks, months and I suppose eventually, even the years will seem to fly by. This telescoping can also be experienced through our memories. Stuff I did three years ago seems like it was yesterday… but when I was 8 years old, stuff I did when I was five was a distant memory.
So let’s expand on this. Can a baby really remember what happened to it a week ago? Or is it too far in the past? When you read a book to a child does it seem like that 10 minutes were like an hour to him or her? What this amounts to is that we’re all leading lives surrounded by others who are most likely at different stages of this telescopic effect. How time is passing for anyone you’re interacting with could be completely different. So if by general relativity, all of our spacial dimensions and time (being considered as a parameter), we must abide by E=mc^2. Which may seem cliche (to the layman) to mention now.. but the point is that our energy must be conserved within these three dimensions and time. So, if time is speeding up as we get older in life, does that mean that our spacial dimensions become harder to move through? Read more
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Tyan 40 Core Personal Supercomputer
March 22, 2007
Recently, I was discussing the problem with buying a new computer system and trying to make sure it is future-proof. Well, I think the gods (I mean god) was listening to my words carefully.
Introducing (the now Available) Tyan T-600 series supporting quad-core CPUs.
Power consumption = 1400 watts
Small Form factor case w/wheels = transportable
Low noise production = 52db
60GB of Ram = Uncontrollable drool
40 Core CPU (10x Intel quads) = Crysis just try and touch my system
Price = $20,000US
Now I am not sure why you would want to move this thing around but at least you have the option to! Oh god, I wish I had a first born child to trade for this personal super computer. Imagine your bragging rights on S.E.T.I.
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New Radiation Symbol??
March 21, 2007
What do you think of when you hear the word radiation?
Most of us think of a nuclear bomb, or a nuclear power plant, or a scary drum of unknown liquid with a single symbol painted on the side. You know the one I am talking about.
Well, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the International Standards Organization (ISO) have recently released a new symbol which hopes ”to help reduce needless deaths and serious injuries from accidental exposure to large radioactive sources.” Here is the link to the official release from the IAEA website: http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2007/radiationsymbol.html .
I have to ask myself, who in the world is being exposed to these large radioactive sources that is not well educated about the effects of ionizing radiation, and at LEAST the symbol?! I guess the new symbol (shown below) does help to educate anyone stupid enough to be playing with “large radioactive sources” without proper training. It basically spells it out for you: A propellor-shaped cloud will precipitate rain and snow down on anyone who is either dead or running extremely quickly. Who makes this stuff up? Are they serious?! If the argument is that nobody understands the original symbol, how are they going to know what this new one means?
I feel bad for historians from the future doing research into “ancient” 21st century life. At least we will stump them, like the ancient Egyptians did to us! I guess it can’t hurt to try to be more clear on serious stuff like this if people don’t understand, but come on… The old one was fine!
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Netdevils – Warmonger to be free
March 8, 2007
Netdevils description:
“Warmonger© is a breakthrough in the first person shooter genre, the first step in NetDevil’s pursuit of a vision that will change the way shooters are played.
Leveraging the experience gained through Auto Assault’s physics implementation, NetDevil engineers have taken a bold new step towards breaking one of the primary the gameplay molds: game flow.
With a procedurally-generated rigid body destruction system, the environments in Warmonger can be devastated. If it looks like it should be vulnerable to the weapon you have, it finally is. You can say goodbye to the titanium fence forever! Imagine being able to create your own flow in a level, not limited by the flow that the level editor made for you. If your ally is covered by a second story sniper, now you can blow a hole in the wall and sneak into the building the sniper is hiding in, but you should know that he’s probably blown the stairs behind him!
We’re calling it “the conscious use of destructive power.” But whatever we call it, you’ll use it to create tactical advantages that were non-existent, as well as take your enemy’s advantages away.
Warmonger is entering its final development cycles now, and details on release will be coming soon.“
Not only does this game look absolutely amazing but it offers us something that we have always wanted. A “fully” destructible environment. Plus, you can’t go wrong with a price-tag of $0.
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