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Earth

Coral-Repairing Robots Take a Step Closer To Reality 39

Posted by samzenpus from the we-can-rebuild-it dept.
Zothecula writes "Since humans are responsible for much of the damage to coral reefs, it makes sense that we should try and help repair them. That's exactly what a team from the Herriot-Watt University's Centre for Marine Biodiversity and Biotechnology is attempting to do with the development of underwater "coralbots." Now anyone can add their support to this worthy effort with the launch of a Kickstarter campaign that will help make the robots a reality."
Power

Researchers Report Super-Powered Battery Breakthrough 244

Posted by Soulskill from the when-will-they-be-in-my-phone dept.
another random user writes with news that researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are reporting a breakthrough in battery technology. They say: "With currently available power sources, users have had to choose between power and energy. For applications that need a lot of power, like broadcasting a radio signal over a long distance, capacitors can release energy very quickly but can only store a small amount. For applications that need a lot of energy, like playing a radio for a long time, fuel cells and batteries can hold a lot of energy but release it or recharge slowly. ... The new microbatteries offer both power and energy, and by tweaking the structure a bit, the researchers can tune them over a wide range on the power-versus-energy scale (abstract). The batteries owe their high performance to their internal three-dimensional microstructure. Batteries have two key components: the anode (minus side) and cathode (plus side). Building on a novel fast-charging cathode design by materials science and engineering professor Paul Braun’s group, King and Pikul developed a matching anode and then developed a new way to integrate the two components at the microscale to make a complete battery with superior performance. With so much power, the batteries could enable sensors or radio signals that broadcast 30 times farther, or devices 30 times smaller. The batteries are rechargeable and can charge 1,000 times faster than competing technologies – imagine juicing up a credit-card-thin phone in less than a second. In addition to consumer electronics, medical devices, lasers, sensors and other applications could see leaps forward in technology with such power sources available."
Power

Harvard Grid Computing Project Discovers 20k Organic Photovoltaic Molecules 125

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the by-your-powers-combined dept.
Lucas123 writes "In June, Harvard's Clean Energy Project plans to release to solar power developers a list of the top 20,000 organic compounds, any one of which could be used to make cheap, printable photovoltaic cells (PVCs). The CEP uses the computing resources of IBM's World Community Grid for the computational chemistry to find the best molecules for organic photovoltaics culled the list from about 7 million. About 6,000 computers are part of the project at any one time. If successful, the crowdsourcing-style project, which has been crunching data for the past two-plus years, could lead to PVCs that cost about as much as paint to cover a one-meter square wall." The big thing here is that they've discovered a lot of organic molecules that have the potential for 10% or better conversion; roughly equivalent to the current best PV material, and twice as efficient as other available organic PV materials.
Displays

Google Glass Specs Hit the Web 198

Posted by timothy from the for-your-fashion-needs dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes "Google has issued the specifications for its spectacles. The search-engine giant's Google Glass, an augmented-reality headset that allows wearers to view information on a tiny screen embedded in one of the lenses, features a camera capable of snapping 5-megapixel photos and 720p video. That aforementioned screen, in the words of Google's just-released specs sheet, "is the equivalent of a 25-inch high definition screen from eight feet away." Google Glass is compatible with any Bluetooth-capable phone. Its MyGlass app, which enables SMS messaging and GPS, requires a companion device running Android 4.0.3 (the "Ice Cream Sandwich" build) or higher. Google claims the battery will provide a "full day of typical use," although the company warned in the specs sheet that certain functions—most notably video recording and Hangouts—could drain the battery faster. Despite those neat features, Google Glass also raises some thorny questions about surveillance culture, and whether people really want whole crowds recording every moment of our collective lives. But those are the sort of conundrums that will only become more clear when Google Glass is actually released sometime later this year."
Power

U.S. Offshore Wind Farm Receives $2 Billion From Japanese Banks 185

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the moar-power dept.
kkleiner writes "The Bank of Tokyo has invested $2 billion into Cape Wind, the 130-turbine wind farm that is inching closer to becoming a reality. The project is vying to the first offshore wind farm in the U.S. after a decade-long campaign mired by red tape in order to receive approval. Proposed to be installed in Nantucket Sound, the wind farm is estimated to have a capacity of 468 megawatts."
Android

Ouya Performance Not Particularly Exciting 305

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the indrema-repeats-itself dept.
hypnosec writes "Results of recent benchmark tests reveal that Ouya is not up to the mark and there are over 70 other ARM devices that perform better than the gaming console. Futuremark, which is known for its benchmarks like 3DMark and PCMark, benchmarked mobile devices and the Tegra 3 powered Ouya has been ranked 73rd." Of course, most of the those devices cost a lot more than $100 without carrier subsidies.
Power

Memory Effect Discovered In Lithium-Ion Batteries 157

Posted by samzenpus from the a-little-less dept.
rwise2112 writes "Lithium-ion batteries have long been thought to be free of the memory effects of other rechargeable batteries. However, this appears to be not the case. Scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, together with colleagues from the Toyota Research Laboratories in Japan have now discovered that a widely-used type of lithium-ion battery has a memory effect."
Data Storage

Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Way To Preserve a "Digital Inheritance"? 191

Posted by samzenpus from the won't-somebody-please-think-of-the-children? dept.
First time accepted submitter ron-l-j writes "The last few months a digital inheritance idea has been floating around in my head, and I am sure the thought has crossed your mind as well. With Google talking about the inactive account program it made me wonder, how do I make sure my children get my iTunes, and amazon movies? I have plenty of mp4 movies on my server that will just set itself to admin with no password after I do not log in within a 6 month time frame. But what about the huge amount spent on digital content every year? What's the best way to make sure your "digital inheritance" gets passed down?"
Microsoft

Microsoft Working With Suppliers on Designs for Watch-Like Device 260

Posted by samzenpus from the wind-it-up dept.
An anonymous reader writes with news that Microsoft may be working on a smartwatch. "The modern smartwatch market hardly even exists, and yet it's already starting to feel very crowded. Hot on the heels of plans (official and otherwise) from Apple and Samsung, the Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft has also been shopping around for parts to build a 'watch-style device.' While details are scarce as to what that would entail, unnamed supplier executives tell the newspaper that Microsoft has been asking for 1.5-inch touchscreens. We wouldn't count on seeing an ultra-small Surface anytime soon, however -- these executives say they've visited Microsoft's campus, but they don't know whether the Windows developer is fully committed to its wrist-worn endeavor or just experimenting. If the project exists at all, of course. Still, there's finally a glimmer of hope for anyone who's still mourning the loss of their beloved SPOT watches."
Editorial

The Hacker Lifecycle 77

Posted by Soulskill from the pollination-fertilization-budding-and-dispersal dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Hacker Benjamin Smith deconstructs the cycle of education, production, and rest that will be familiar to many software and hardware engineers. He breaks it down into four steps: 1) Focused effort toward a goal, 2) structured self-education, 3) side-projects to sharpen skills, and 4) burnout and rest. He writes, 'As my motivation waxes at the beginning of a cycle, I find myself with a craving to take steps towards that goal. I do so by starting a project which focuses on one thing only: building a new income stream. As a result of this single-mindedness, the content or subject of the project is often less interesting than it otherwise might have been. ... [Later], I almost always decide to teach myself a new technical skill or pick up some new technology. ... This is usually the most satisfying period of my cycle. I am learning a new skill or technology which I know will enhance my employability, allow me to build things I previously could only have daydreamed about, and will ultimately be useful for many years to come. ... [In the burnout phase], I'll spend this period as ferociously devoted to my leisure activities as I was to my productive tasks. But after a few months of this, I start to feel an itch...'"
Businesses

Why PC Sales Are Declining 564

Posted by timothy from the people-pretty-satisfied-mostly-for-the-price dept.
First time accepted submitter Benedick writes "I have a four year old desktop and a three year old notebook. Why haven't I upgraded to a new machine? Because they still work great. PC sales aren't declining because of Windows 8. They are declining because our PCs are so good, they last a lot longer. Will Oremus of Slate explains it better than I can."
Hardware

Rhombus Tech 2nd Revision A10 EOMA68 Card Working Samples 57

Posted by Soulskill from the hardware-in-compliance dept.
lkcl writes "Rhombus Tech and QiMod have working samples of the first EOMA-68 CPU Card, featuring 1GByte of RAM, an A10 processor and stand-alone (USB-OTG-powered with HDMI output) operation. Upgrades will include the new Dual-Core ARM Cortex A7, the pin-compatible A20. This is the first CPU Card in the EOMA-68 range: there are others in the pipeline (A31, iMX6, jz4760 and a recent discovery of the Realtek RTD1186 is also being investigated). The first product in the EOMA-68 family, also nearing a critical phase in its development, will be the KDE Flying Squirrel, a 7-in, user-upgradeable tablet featuring the KDE Plasma Active operating system. Laptops, desktops, game consoles, user-upgradeable LCD monitors and other products are to follow. And every CPU that goes into the products will be pre-vetted for full GPL compliance, with software releases even before the product goes out the door. That's what we've promised to do: to provide Free Software developers with the opportunity to be involved with mass-volume product development every step of the way. We're also on the look-out for an FSF-Endorseable processor which also meets mass-volume criteria, which is proving... challenging."
Power

A Tale of Two Tests: Why Energy Star LED Light Bulbs Are a Rare Breed 314

Posted by samzenpus from the one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other dept.
cylonlover writes "Just over a week ago Gizmag reported that Philips' 22 W LED light bulb, designed as a like-for-like replacement of a 100-W incandescent light bulb, was the first LED bulb of its type to receive the stamp of approval from Energy Star. But looking at the Energy Star requirements reported by Philips in its press release, it seemed a little strange that Philips' product is the only one to have been certified – given that products long on the market appear, at face value, to meet those requirements. Since then, Gizmag has spoken to LED light bulb makers Switch Lighting and other industry players to find out why they're apparently playing catch-up."
Graphics

Jolla Ports Wayland To Android GPU Drivers 90

Posted by timothy from the cross-platform-the-hard-way dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A Jolla Sailfish OS engineer has ported Wayland to run on Android GPU drivers. The implementation uses libhybis with the Android driver so that the rest of the operating system can be a conventional glibc-based Linux operating system, such as Mer / Sailfish OS. The code is to be LGPL licensed. The reported reasoning for making Wayland support Android GPU drivers was difficulty in ODM vendors not wishing to offer driver support for platforms aside from Android."
Input Devices

Not Even Investors Know What Google Glass Is For 496

Posted by timothy from the no-wireless-less-space-than-a-nomad-lame dept.
bdking writes "Google says it plans to ship its Google Glass Explorer Edition by the end of April to developers and consumers who paid $1,500 to test the computer-enabled eyewear, with vague plans for a general release (at a lower price) by year's end. But what will you really be able to do with Google Glass, beyond having information presented before your eyes? Even investors who are set to spend millions funding apps development for Google Glass have no clue. Is Google Glass being overhyped as a 'transformational' device?" I bet every real estate agent in the world would like one of these hooked up to a database of houses for sale, so they could instantly scan all the relevant information.
Bitcoin

Open Source Radeon Gallium3D OpenCL Stack Adds Bitcoin Mining 140

Posted by timothy from the top-priority dept.
hypnosec writes "The open-source Radeon Gallium3D OpenCL stack has been modified to support Bitcoin mining through the use of mining application 'bfgminer.' To mine Bitcoins using the open source GPU driver, one must use Tom Stellard's non-stock branches of Mesa, LLVM and libclc OpenCL library. Further, bfgminer must be patched as well. Once the patches are applied and modified code of the stack is used, users will be able to mine Bitcoins using the Radeon HD 5000 and Radeon HD 6000 graphics cards; however the cards have to be pre-HD6900 Cayman in case of the HD 6000 series."
Businesses

Where Will Apple Get Flash Memory Now? 245

Posted by timothy from the stealing-american-jobs-by-jingo dept.
An anonymous reader writes "EE Times examines whether Samsung could be about to control the equipment output of Apple by putting the Cupertino company on a rationed supply of NAND flash as the non-volatile memory goes into short supply in 2013. The analysis argues that Apple may need to put down billions of dollars of cash to fund a guaranteed NAND flash supply plan, something that Samsung did in the middle of the last decade."
Intel

Intel Unveils New Atom and Xeon Processors and Future Rack Scale Architecture 73

Posted by samzenpus from the take-a-look dept.
MojoKid writes "Intel recently revealed a number of details regarding future Atom and Xeon processors and proposed server rack-level enhancements to improve efficiency and ease upgrades. The company will soon refresh its Xeon and Atom processor lines with new products manufactured using Intel's 22nm process node, which offer improved performance per watt characteristics and expanded feature sets. In total, Intel revealed details of three new low-power, Atom-branded SoCs for the data center, all coming in 2013. Intel is also updating the Xeon E3, E5, and E7 product lines. The Atom processor family will see new SoCs based on designs codenamed Briarwood, Avoton, and Rangeley, while the more powerful Xeons will be updated with Haswell, Ivy Bridge EP, and Ivy Bridge EX-based designs. Xeon E3s will leverage the increased graphics performance of Haswell to improve performance in multimedia-related workloads, like HD video transcodes. OHaswell-based Xeon E3 processors will also offer improved performance per watt over existing Sandy and Ivy Bridge-based designs and Intel will offer Xeon E3 processors with TDPs as low as 13 watts, approximately 25% lower than the prior generation."
Windows

Windows 8 Killing PC Sales 1010

Posted by samzenpus from the you're-not-helping dept.
yl-roller writes "IDC says Windows 8 is partly to blame for PC sales suffering the largest percentage drop ever. 'As if that news wasn't' troubling enough, it appears that a pivotal makeover of Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows operating system seems to have done more harm than good since the software was released last October.' According to a ZDNet article, IDC originally expected a drop, but only half the size."

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