Integrados de nanotubos

Sí, la moda son los nanotubos de carbono....


http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/24236/?a=f

Baterías de metal líquido

por Engadget: artículo original: link

artículo MIT: link

MIT researchers develop liquid metal battery for the grid and the home

By Joseph L. Flatley

We've see plenty of green power research over the years, from solar plants to underwater turbines , but relying on the sun or the sea for electricity is not without its challenges: the sun doesn't always shine, for instance, and sometimes the water is calm. A group at MIT led by professor Donald Sadoway is developing grid-scale storage solutions for times when electricity isn't being generated. Since these batteries are intended for the power grid instead of cellphones and Roombas, the researchers can use materials not feasible in consumer electronics -- in this case, high temperature liquid metals. Besides being recently awarded a grant from ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency, Energy) to put these things in green power facilities, MIT has just embarked on a joint venture with the French oil company Total to develop a smaller-scale version of the technology for homes and office buildings.

Xerox Desarrolla una tinta que permite imprimir circuitos electrónicos funcionales (inglés)

Artículo original por VentureBeat: http://digital.venturebeat.com/2009/10/26/xerox-developers-a-silver-ink-that-can-be-used-to-wearable-or-throwaway-electronics/

Xerox develops silver ink for wearable or throwaway electronics

October 26, 2009 | Dean Takahashi |

Xerox researchers have invented a kind of ink that can conduct electricity and be used to put electronic circuits on top of plastics, film, and textiles. That means in the coming years we’ll be able to wear or bend our electronics. You could even print out your electronic gadget on plastic sheets, as if you were printing a document.

Silicon chips have long been too expensive or heavy to use in devices that are extremely lightweight. The Xerox team solved this fundamental problem with lighter materials, and it plans to sell the new materials to other businesses that could make wearable electronics.

With plastics, you can unroll a sheet and then deposit electronic circuitry on top of it, building it up layer after layer. It helps to have conductive ink. That is, you need something that contains metal but that you can print with or spray on. The Xerox team created what they call a “silver bullet.” It’s a silver ink that melts at 140 degrees celsius.

Normally, metals melt at 1,000 degrees or so. But plastic itself melts at 150 degrees. So an ink laid on top of plastic can’t melt at a higher temperature or it will melt the plastic, said Paul Smith, lab manager at Xerox Research Toronto, Canada.

“This opens a whole new world for electronics,” said Angele Boyd, an analyst at IDC. “With printable electronics, the future of electronics will include plastics and fabric. The Xerox technology opens up opportunities for lower cost applications in traditional electronics and for new applications around plastics and fabric.”

The applications include plastic circuits could be used to build plastic electronic book readers, such as one being built by Plastic Logic, that are flexible enough to bend and can withstand damage. They would also be very lightweight. The plastic circuits could be used to weave a computer into your clothing or make intelligent boxes for pills that could tell you whether they’ve been tampered with during shipping.

Scientists have dreamed of this for a long time, and Xerox has been researching it since 2001. Hewlett-Packard has also been working on plastic electronics for a decade. Xerox says it has now been able to fabricate cheap and lightweight components that are necessary to print circuits on plastic: a semiconductor, a conductor and a dielectric element.

The fabrication plants for these kinds of plastic chips will be cool. The circuits can be printed by printers, just like a document, without the need for an elaborate clean room as is used in current chip factories. Xerox has research samples available now and is in discussions with manufacturers who could use the plastic electronics.

Beyond the applications we’ve mentioned already, Xerox says the printed plastic circuits could be used in low-cost radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, light and flexible signs, sensors, solar cells and novelty fashions.

Parlantes direccionales

Estos parlantes tienen un grosor de 1mm y son muy direccionales. fueron creados por Yamaha y presentados en la expo CEATEC de Japón.


video: http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/705/

fuente : http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/09/yamahas-1mm-thick-prototype-speaker-is-made-from-cloth-highly/

Electricidad inalámbrica

Sony presenta sistema de transferencia de energía inalámbrica muy eficiente

from ALT1040 by Elias Notario

A estas alturas parece bastante claro que en no mucho tiempo comenzaremos a ver montones de gadgets con sistemas de transferencia de energía inalámbrica. Ya hay casos de aparatos que usan tecnología inalámbtica para cargarse, como por ejemplo la Palm Pre o el Dell Latitude Z, pero aún queda mucho por avanzar en este campo.

Según se ha podido saber la empresa Sony se sube al carro de los que trabajan en dar con mejores sistemas de energía wireless y presentan sus primeros resultados. Han conseguido transferir hasta 60 vatios de energía eléctrica a una distancia de 50 cm gracias a el uso combinado de varios nuevos avances que les permitieron mejorar la eficiencia y la velocidad de transferencia. Llegaron incluso a transportar electricidad entre dos puntos separados por 80 cm con una eficiencia del 80% gracias a que intercalaron entre ambos un “artilugio” bautizado como “Passive Extender Unit”.

Aún nos falta pero personalmente deseo ver el día donde todo funcione con sistemas similares al de Sony, de lo que se deduce servidor no se lleva nada bien con los cables, al igual que muchas personas más y por esa razón varias empresas son las que investigan este interesante campo.

link al artículo original: http://alt1040.com/2009/10/sony-presenta-sistema-de-transferencia-de-energia-inalambrica-muy-eficiente

JP: Si el viejo Tesla viviera....

Placas Madre "híbridas"

Para inaugurar el blog quisiera difundir el link de una nota realizada por la gente de Engagdet, sobre una nueva placa madre que tiene la singularidad de poder utilizar 2 procesadores distintos, sobre la base de un sistema Nvidia ION y un chipset intel P45.

El sistema ION cuenta con un procesador Atom onboard, y su contraparte P45, asiste a un procesador de 775 pines, lo que abarca la familia dualcore, core2duo y core2quad de intel. Los dos procesadores comparten algo del hardware base de la placa madre, pero conservan su independencia funcional, pudiendo ejecutar 2 sistemas operativos separados simultaneamente.

La ventaja del contar con 2 procesadores es principalmente ahorro energético (que es a lo que apunta este producto) , pero se suma también robustez y fiabilidad. Se puede apagar un procesador mientras que el otro continúa funcionando.

La utilidad de un sistema de esta clase va desde contar con un sistema redundante de bajo costo, a tener una PC de bajo consumo para continuar las descargas por la noche ( :) ).

El fabricante taiwanés DFI, piensa lanzarla al mercado en el último trimestre del 2009, y según dicen en el video de la nota, su precio rondaría los u$$400.


Link al artículo original (en inglés) en Engadget, incluye el video de la nota:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/18/video-dfi-hybrid-motherboard-runs-two-whole-systems-simultan/