Charging your iPod by running

If you've forgotten to charge your iPod and a power plug is nowhere in sight, a simple run could help you get out of the trouble - if new technology being developed is successful.

Every step you take can generate electricity. By packing 20,000 nanowires into three square centimeters, Georgia Tech scientists have developed the world's first gadget powered solely by piezoelectric materials.

A piezoelectric material when pushed or pulled creates a mild electrical charge.

Within three to five years piezoeleectric nanowires, woven into a cotton shirt or placed in a shoe heel, could charge a cell phone or laptop battery after even a short walk.

"This is a key step to designing technology that will be useful in the near future," Discovery News quoted Z.L. Wang, a professor at Georgia Tech and co-author of two new papers in Nature Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, as saying.

Wang's group says piezoelectrics can generate voltages up to 1.26 volts, and can produce even higher voltages.

The team used plentiful and easy-to-manipulate zinc oxide nanowires to come up with their nanogenerator.

An individual zinc oxide nanowire is invisible to the human eye, measuring anywhere between 50 and 200 nanometers across and about five microns in length.

Twenty thousand nanowires, placed side-by-side and end-to-end, cover three square centimeters, with two thin electrodes hanging off either end.

The arrangement maximizes the electricity the piezoelectric nanowires can generate.

The wires work in sync, amplifying the electrical charge to record levels as the single layer is pushed back and forth with the slightest nudge.

Pushing the arranged nanowires harder or faster would enhance the power output up to 30 times without damaging the device.

And if gallium nitride replaced the cheap zinc oxide nanowires the power output could increase almost 10 times.

Piezoelectric-powered devices could also help detect fires and collect weather data in areas that are not within the reach of traditional power grids.

Pencil Printer - Save Paper

We've all seen our fair share of speed boats, as well as submarines. But what if you can come up with a product that combines the two? A submersible boat for use both below and on the water? It sounds like something from a futuristic movie, but in reality, a prototype for this kind of watercraft is being developed and researched.

The company behind the concept is Marion Hyper-Submersible Powerboat Design, and they are very proud of their Hyper-Sub Submersible Powerboat. It is dubbed as: "a revolutionary new vessel with a design flexible enough to open the seas to industry and to individuals in ways never before thought possible." The craft is built with capabilites to not only take on the high seas, but also to transform into a "self-charging, autonomous, one-atmosphere submarine." During testing in 2008, the Hyper-Sub prototype spent two months of testing in the water, and performed well.

In essence, you would be able to use this vessel to cruise on the water, as well as under the water, but looking at the photos, this does not seem like it will be a slow moving craft. It actually looks quite fast - even standing still. The protoype "Fathom", has a seating capacity for 5 people, including the pilot, is powered by twin 440 horsepower inboard Yanmar diesel engines, with a fuel capacity of 262.5 gallons. It comes with all the bells and whistles you can imagine - GPS, chart plotting, radar, forward as well as downward sensing sonar, and of course - autopilot. And that is just on the water surface.


When diving the propulsion system is electric over hydraulic, with twin main hydraulic thrusters capable of a maximum 60 hp. The vessel also boasts bow and stern steering thrusters for underwater maneuverability. It seems the vessel will be available in three different models once in production, with the 'HS-250 Sport' designed with individual owners and charter operators in mind, with strong surface and submerged performance and has a 180 degree view through an all acrylic canopy.


The HS-600 is intended for more of an industrial use - targeted to the salvage or governmental operations. It features an all-aluminum hull.

The HS-1200 is also a very rugged configuration, but offers deeper diving capabilities. It is not clear exactly when these vessels will go into production.

Marion Hyper-Submersible Powerboat Design, LLC is a Florida Limited Liability Company formed in 2005.

Surface Computing

Basic Idea Behind Fax Machines

Most of the early fax machine designs involved a rotating drum. To send a fax, you would attach the piece of paper to the drum, with the print facing outward. The rest of the machine worked something like this:

There was a small photo sensor with a lens and a light.
The photo sensor was attached to an arm and faced the sheet of paper.
The arm could move downward over the sheet of paper from one end to the other as the sheet rotated on the drum.
In other words, it worked something like a lathe.

© Chris Hondros/Getty Images
Fax machines are frequently used to send resumes and other important papers.
The photo sensor was able to focus in and look at a very small spot on the piece of paper -- perhaps an area of 0.01 inches squared (0.25 millimeters squared). That little patch of paper would be either black or white. The drum would rotate so that the photo sensor could examine one line of the sheet of paper and then move down a line. It did this either step-wise or in a very long spiral.

To transmit the information through a phone line, early fax machines used a very simple technique: If the spot of paper that the photo cell was looking at were white, the fax machine would send one tone; if it were black, it would send a different tone (see How Modems Work for details). For example, it might have sent an 800-Hertz tone for white and a 1,300-Hertz tone for black.

At the receiving end, there would be a similar rotating-drum mechanism, and some sort of pen to mark on the paper. When the receiving fax machine heard a 1,300-Hertz tone it would apply the pen to the paper, and when it heard an 800-Hertz tone it would take the pen off the paper.

Inner workings of todays modern technologies

Nanotechnology

How Circuits Work

Have you ever wondered what happens when you flip a switch to turn on a light, TV, vacuum cleaneror computer? What does flipping that switch accomplish? In all of these cases, you are completing an electric circuit, allowing acurrent, or flow of electrons, through the wires.
An electric circuit is in many ways similar to your circulatory system. Your blood vessels, arteries, veins and capillaries are like the wires in a circuit. The blood vessels carry the flow of blood through your body. The wires in a circuit carry the electric current to various parts of an electrical or electronic system.
Your heart is the pump that drives the blood circulation in the body. It provides the force or pressure for blood to circulate. The blood circulating through the body supplies various organs, like yourmuscles, brain and digestive system. A battery or generator produces voltage -- the force that drives current through the circuit.
Take the simple case of an electric light. Two wires connect to the light. For electrons to do their job in producing light, there must be a complete circuit so they can flow through the light bulb and then back out.
The diagram above shows a simple circuit of a flashlight with a battery at one end and a flashlight bulb at the other end. When the switch is off, a complete circuit will not exist, and there will be no current. When the switch is on, there will be a complete circuit and a flow of current resulting in the flashbulb emitting light.
Circuits can be huge power systems transmitting megawatts of power over a thousand miles -- or tiny microelectronic chips containing millions of transistors. This extraordinary shrinkage of electronic circuits made desktop computers possible. The new frontier promises to be nanoelectronic circuits with device sizes in the nanometers (one-billionth of a meter).
In this article, we'll learn about the two basic types of electric circuits:
• Power circuits transfer and control large amounts of electricity. Examples are power lines and residential and business wiring systems. The major components of power circuits are generators at one end and lighting systems, motors, heating systems or household appliances at the other end. In between are power lines, transformers and circuit breakers.
• Electronic circuits process and transmit information. Think computers, radios, TVs,radars and cell phones.

Nanotechnology, sometimes shortened to nanotech

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3D - The New Home Entertainment Medium?

Well, it seems this past week's focus on technology was pretty much centered around the dawning age of 3D television - never mind 3D Cinema. With the worldwide release and success of James Cameron's 'Avatar', it seems 3D technology may be opening up a whole new dimension in home entertainment.

3D television may become a very definite reality within the next few years, but also conceding that the industry might be a little slow to catch on to the technology as far as production is concerned. After all, having a 3D home television wouldn't help much unless industry, responsible for producing television content, do not produce content available in 3D.

However, DreamWorks, Direct TV, ESPN, and Discovery are all getting ready to be 3D compatible later this year. Consumers may be a bit overwhelmed - considering HD TV is only now starting to get some momentum in the marketplace.

One thing is clear though, 3D television seems to be set as the future of home entertainment. The two big hurdles to overcome seem to be pricing of these 3D television sets (estimates roughly in the same region of high-end HD television sets - initially, at least) and secondly, getting the market audience to embrace 3D in their homes. Now judging by the success of the above mentioned movie 'Avatar', it seems consumers are hungry for this new entertainment medium.

It does also seem as if the content producing industry (the film and program makers) will eventually be leaning towards producing programming in 3D, with the announcement of Sony's 3D camera, capable of capturing high quality images at 240fps (that's frames per second) in early October 2009.

Panasonic also recently announced their twin-lens, full HD 3D camcorder (which is a world first) set to be available towards the end of 2010. It comes at a bit of a price though - at US$21,000 they don't seem to be targeting the average tourist - so maybe home-made 3D movies are still a little way off

Interestingly enough though, as with all new technologies, 3D will be expensive at first, but will most likely become more affordable over time.

NETGEAR Push2TV - View Media From Your PC On Your HD TV

Sharing your favorite photos and videos is a great way to bring people together. However, crowding around a 17 inch screen is not the right way to do it. NETGEAR has taken notice and is offering the Push2TV digital media receiver. What this does is it transmits your PC's display to your HDTV wirelessly. To do this, you need one tiny thing: a WiFi-enabled computer that uses Intel's wireless display technology. It sounds simple, but this means that you need the newest Intel-based computers with an i3, i5, or i7 processor. Translation: the Push2TV is not backwards compatible or for folks with AMD processors.

Setup is real easy. Just find an open outlet and a HDMI input to hook it up. Everything else is done on the PC you're using with it. While the Push2TV is meant for home use, the receiver itself is light enough to take on the road as well. Imagine going to the hotel that you're staying in and being able to watch whatever you can find on the net, blown up onto the HDTV in your room. For some it may not mean much, but NETGEAR's wireless receiver would help those who have WiFi, but can't get certain channels (or stuck with bad TV reception).

As far as what you can view through the Push2TV, you're only limited by the PC you use with it. The WiFi connection ensures the best for transmitting the PC display, but you might see some short hiccups from time to time. Aside from that, picture quality on the Push2TV just about matches what you see on the computer. Some may have to adjust the resolution to fit their TV screen properly, but it's nothing too difficult to do.

The fact that NETGEAR didn't make this backwards compatible or AMD friendly is a shame. It's the only thing that keeps the Push2TV recommendable to everyone. However, if you have the right Intel processor, this wireless receiver works as promised. The connection is stable, but make sure to stay in the same room to keep the entertainment going.

NETGEAR may have shot itself in the foot, but their Push2TV media receiver is a great product for those that have the right processors from Intel. Plus, you don't need to spend an hour to hook it up to the TV like some of their rivals. The price is around $200 and will be available in stores this year. Yes, this still hasn't been released yet, but many websites have already gotten one and tested it vigorously. However, you don't need a review to know that this won't work with some computers. NETGEAR just let it out and even state that this will only work if you have the right hardware. So, if you have the right stuff, the Push2TV media receiver is a great buy. For everyone else, there are plenty of others that will work just as well or even better.

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