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Sep 16, 2015
Researchers model graphene/nanotube hybrids to test properties
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: electronics, materials
Rice University researchers discovered that putting nanotube pillars between sheets of graphene could create hybrid structures with a unique balance of strength, toughness and ductility throughout all three dimensions.
Carbon nanomaterials are common now as flat sheets, nanotubes and spheres, and they’re being eyed for use as building blocks in hybrid structures with unique properties for electronics, heat transport and strength. The Rice team is laying a theoretical foundation for such structures by analyzing how the blocks’ junctions influence the properties of the desired materials.
Rice materials scientist Rouzbeh Shahsavari and alumnus Navid Sakhavand calculated how various links, particularly between carbon nanotubes and graphene, would affect the final hybrid’s properties in all directions. They found that introducing junctions would add extra flexibility while maintaining almost the same strength when compared with materials made of layered graphene.
Sep 15, 2015
Deep Learning Machine Teaches Itself Chess in 72 Hours, Plays at International Master Level
Posted by Phillipe Bojorquez in category: robotics/AI
In a world first, an artificial intelligence machine plays chess by evaluating the board rather than using brute force to work out every possible move.
Sep 15, 2015
Nanoscale Solar Cells Outperform Traditional Technology
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: computing, information science, materials, nanotechnology, solar power, sustainability
Scientists have designed a novel type of nanoscale solar cell. Initial studies and computer modelling predict these cells will outperform traditional solar panels, reach power conversion levels by over 40 percent.
Solar power cells work through the conversion of sunlight into electricity using photovoltaics. Here solar energy is converted into direct current. A photovoltaic system uses several solar panels; with each panel composed of a number of solar cells. This combines to create a system for the supply usable solar power.
To investigate what is possible in terms of solar power, the researchers have examined the Shockley-Queisser limit for different materials. This equation describes the maximum solar energy conversion efficiency achievable for a particular material, allowing different materials to be compared as candidates for power generation.
Sep 15, 2015
Virtual Reality To Be Worth $7 Billion By 2020: Deutsche Bank
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: virtual reality
Deutsche Bank projects that the Virtual Reality Segment would have a total addressable market of $7 billion in the next five years, with the medium gaining mainstream consumer adoption by next year.
Sep 15, 2015
NASA confirms there’s a global subsurface ocean on Enceladus
Posted by Sean Brazell in category: space
We’ve known there is water on Enceladus for a while now, but NASA has just confirmed a more recent theory about the icy moon of Saturn: it has a subsurface ocean that spans the entire globe. The news comes just a handful of months after the agency discovered evidence of hydrothermal vents, which are believed to be integral to the formation of life here on Earth.
The confirmation was made using research from Cassini — a spacecraft that arrived at Saturn in 2004 and has spent the last decade studying the planet and its many moons. (It was launched in 1997.) The researchers used Cassini to measure the wobble in Enceladus’ orbit of Saturn, something that “can only be accounted for if its outer ice shell is not frozen solid to its interior.”
Sep 15, 2015
Latest issue of the Proceedings of the Very Large Data Base Endowment | VLDB
Posted by Odette Bohr Dienel in category: big data
The Victoria Derbyshire programme’s Benjamin Zand goes on the search for immortality and meets the people who think we could live forever. This film is part of BBC’s ‘Intelligent Machines Week’.
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Sep 15, 2015
Augmented reality expert explains how AR will help humanity
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: augmented reality, futurism, virtual reality
We’ve been hearing and seeing plenty about augmented reality these days — from Microsoft’s HoloLens to the mysterious Google-backed startup Magic Leap — but aside from the gee-whiz factor, its benefits can sometimes feel almost as illusory as virtual images. Gaia Dempsey, managing director of DAQRI, which makes an AR-enabled smart hard hat, offers up a strong case for why augmented reality is more than just hype. In a new video for the upcoming Future of Storytelling Summit (which also produced the stunning video of animation legend Glen Keane drawing in VR), Dempsey explains how AR could fundamentally change the way we learn and experience the world. For example, it’s one thing to be told how the mechanics of a clock works in text or video, it’s an entirely different experience to be able to manipulate a moving set of clock gears in three dimensions.
Sep 15, 2015
This transparent solar-powered battery looks like a futuristic Tony Stark invention
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: mobile phones, solar power, sustainability
Remember Iron Man’s transparent smartphones They might become reality sooner than you think thanks to an unusual new type of battery that’s not only transparent, but it can also charge via solar power. The technology could also be used for other products in the future, such as smart office and home windows that would be able to let the sun’s light pass through them, but also recharge and store energy.
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Developed by a team of researchers at the Kogakuin Univeristy, the lithium ion battery is not entirely transparent, as it contains the same chemical compounds that make any battery work. Furthermore, when exposed to sunlight, the battery becomes slightly tinted, transmitting 30% less light – but it’s still transparent. When fully discharged, the light transmittance rises to approximately 60 percent, TechXplore reports.
