Welcome to The Tesla Tales blog! (Read about its namesake, Nikola Tesla, here). Here is some of the latest information on wireless and energy technologies in the marketplace, plus an occasional off-topic post that's just plain interesting. Got an opinion you want to share? Send us an e-mail.
Thursday, May 9, 2008
 New wi-fi devices warn doctors of heart attacks
The ability to constantly monitor a person medically during their everyday activities will free a great many people. Remote 24/7 heart monitoring will benefit those with marginal health conditions who still wish to live a life outside of a health maintenance facility. This device heralds full-body telemetry using a myriad of devices implanted throughout the body. There are ramifications in the area of privacy that would need to be addressed, though. (Shameless plug – my science-fiction novel deals with computing MEMS devices in the brain.)
The Bluetooth wireless technology that allows people to use a hands-free earpiece while making a mobile telephone call could soon alert the emergency services when someone has a heart attack, Ofcom predicts.
The communications regulator said that sensors could be implanted into people at risk of heart attack or diabetic collapse that would allow doctors to monitor them remotely.
If the “in-body network” recorded that the person had suddenly collapsed, it would send an alert, via a nearby base station at their home, to a surgery or hospital.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Image courtesy UC Santa Cruz
"Memory Resistor" Circuit Proven to Exist
Theorized in the 1970s by Leon Chua of UC Berkeley, a memory resistor (or memristor) is a fourth type of basic passive circuit. This demonstration by Stanley Williams and his team proving that such a circuit could actually exist in reality is a major leap in our understanding of electronics.
It took about 40 years to find it, but scientists at Hewlett-Packard said on Wednesday they discovered a fourth basic type of electrical circuit that could lead to a computer you never have to boot up. The finding proves what until now had only been theory -- but could save millions from the tedium of waiting for a computer to find its "place," the researchers said.
Williams likens the property to water flowing through a garden hose. In a regular circuit, the water flows from more than one direction. But in a memory resistor, the hose remembers what direction the water (or current) is flowing from, and it expands in that direction to improve the flow. If water or current flows from the other direction, the hose shrinks.
"It remembers both the direction and the amount of charge that flows through it. ... That is the memory," Williams said.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
 Images from the 2008 Embedded Systems Conference
This year's Embedded Systems Conference was a good one, with a lot of great technology and devices on the cutting edge of computing, processor, and software technology. There was some engineer eye candy, like Kontron's walking mechanical giraffe that they used to highlight their computing technology. There is an slideshow available on the event site, but we thought you might like some of these pictures we took at the event.
Floor traffic was relatively light at times, but most exhibitors said they had a number of quality leads. Our interpretation is that the traffic reduction was due to the absence of the makers of peripheral technologies that usually exhibit when the market is doing well. The SBC and processor people were well represented, but there weren't as many intelligent sensor, imaging or other intelligent subsystem OEMs as in the past.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
 Building a multi-ton mechanical calculator... from 19th-century plans
Sometimes you just have to scratch the builder’s itch. While this device may not be at the cutting edge, it does remind us of our technological history and provide us with both information and entertainment.
Starting in May, many will have the opportunity to see for themselves how they did computing the old-fashioned way: with lots of gears, a big crank and some muscle.
The Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, Calif., will unveil a new construction, the first in the United States, of the 19th century British mathematician Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine No. 2, an improved version of his earlier mechanical digital calculator.
Babbage finalized the design in the late 1840’s but it was not built during his lifetime, or for a long time afterward. Finally, in the late 1980’s, London’s Science Museum launched the first and until now only full-blown construction project, based on Babbage’s original detailed drawings, and in 1991 unveiled the completed calculator, 11 feet long, 7 feet high, with 8,000 parts in bronze, cast iron and steel, weighing about 3 tons.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
 Building-Block Storage Technology Promises Improved Reliability and Performance
Storage is a problematic issue for everyone, no matter the level of computer system involved. Scalability, reliability, and performance are always at the mercy of the drive media and how it is configured. Intelligent Storage Element technology promises to significantly reduce storage issues by integrating power, control, and cooling into each media module so they can be configured as building blocks scalable from a terabyte to a petabyte of storage.
Xiotech will be unveiling the fruits of five years' labor by Seagate's Advanced Storage Architecture Group, acquired by the Eden Prairie, MN-based storage vendor last year. The technology is called ISE, for Intelligent Storage Element. From where I'm sitting, it is potentially the most disruptive introduction in the storage world since the hard disk.
ISE is, for lack of a non-trademarked metaphor, a Lego building block for storage. Think of it as a compact brick of disk drives arranged into two sets, called datapacs. The brick comprises either ten 3.5-inch drives or 20 2.5-inch drives of any type, which are configured in a grid that leverages 75 hardware and software patents, including a high-performance RAID algorithm combined with disc firmware changes for data protection.
Friday, April 4, 2008
 Using molecules as processable semiconductors
The world of microprocessors is a place of fine circuits at insane scales. As we reach the limits of what we can do with silicon and related materials in circuit creation, we look to natural materials for solutions (no pun intended). The low processing temperatures, self-assembling proclivity, and low environmental impact of organic semiconductors can be harnessed to create molecular circuitry. If we follow this approach our products will become more sophisticated while also being more efficient and environmentally friendly.
Contrary to amorphous silicon, which is widely used in solar cells and flat screen displays, organic materials offer the benefits that they can be deposited on plastic substrates at low temperature by employing solution-based printing techniques, which would result in a dramatic reduction of the manufacturing costs. Another benefit is the reduced environmental impact: Organic transistors and other printed electronics allow transistors to be formed by printing directly onto the substrate. This means that manufacturing processes can be dramatically simplified in comparison to conventional semiconductors; waste materials and carbon dioxide emissions generated through manufacturing processes can be reduced.
Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) have been mainly based on two types of semiconductors: conjugated polymers and small conjugated molecules. A recent review, published in Chemical Society Reviews, provides a general introduction about the current standing in the area of OFETs focusing on the new processable small molecules that have been recently reported for their use as organic semiconductors ("Novel small molecules for organic field-effect transistors: towards processability and high performance" http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1039/b614393h – free access article).
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
 Engineers make first 'active matrix' display using nanowires
The dirty little secret about alternative display technologies is that no matter how innovative, flexible, colorful, exotic, or inexpensive a display technology is, it still needs an active backplane in order to deliver a quality image. Each pixel needs to be driven independently (an "active"display) in order for the image to have a satisfactory level of performance. Using nanowire transistor technology to create an inexpensive flexible active-backplane can enable the commercialization of a great number of technologies, not all display related.
Purdue postdoctoral research associate Sanghyun Ju, sitting, and professor David B. Janes work at a "micro-manipulation probe station" in research using nanotechnology to create transparent transistors and circuits. The transistors are made of "nanowires," tiny cylindrical structures that are assembled on glass or thin films of flexible plastic. The researchers used nanowires as small as 20 nanometers - a thousand times thinner than a human hair - to create a display containing organic light emitting diodes, or OLEDS..
Monday, March 28, 2008
 Milestone in sound heard 148 years later
I always believed that the first analog data recording device (the printed word is a language code) was the phonograph, and I always thought I knew my tech history. I doubt I was the only one surprised by the existence of the phonautograph, a device created by Parisian Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville 17 years before Edison’s breakthrough. Edison’s device was superior in that it could also play back the sounds it recorded, but homage must also be given to that earlier analog data capture technology (this technique would have worked equally well with pressure transducer data, for example).
THOMAS Edison's 1877 phonograph established him as the father of recorded sound, but American researchers have now played back a French inventor's recording made 17 years earlier.
Parisian Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville recorded the traditional song Au Clair de la Lune in 1860 on a device called a phonautograph, an invention that converted sound waves into etchings on a sheet of paper, but could not play them back.
But using technology to create a virtual stylus that could read Scott's paper recordings, scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California were able to play back the 10-second recording of a woman singing the French folk song, effectively crediting Scott with the first-ever recording of a human voice.
Monday, March 24, 2008
 Pea-sized high-intensity plasma bulb challenges industry
Ever since Tesla’s and Edison’s rivalry at the turn of the previous century, scientists and engineers have tried to create a better light bulb and topple incandescent technology from its perch as the dominant illumination technology. Solid-state technology promises to deliver inexpensive, efficient, and high-quality light eventually but the commercialization of the technology has been hampered by its high development costs. This new approach from Luxim (a video of the tech in action can be found HERE) using charged plasma may yet leapfrog LEDs and other electroluminescents to become the dominant illumination tech for architectural lighting..
LUXIM Corp. is pleased to announce the introduction of its new LIFI™ Entertainment solid state high intensity light source product line. The new module outputs up to 12,000 lumens from a small emitter in a forward intensity pattern with a color rendering index (CRI) of 91 and a 20,000 hour lifetime.
In applications like moving heads, scanners and follow spots, LIFI™ Entertainment light sources enable 50% higher fixture efficiency than conventional lamps. As a result, designers of entertainment lighting can increase beam intensity and reduce optical system size. In addition, LIFI™ Entertainment systems last seven times longer than those using conventional HID lamps and are safe to use in any application since they do not experience explosions or broken glass.
More info URL:
www.luxim.com
Wednesday, March 20, 2008
 EU backs Nokia standard for mobile TV
Standards can help an industry by establishing a common operating framework for inter-relating technologies and devices. However, it is very important to ensure that the proposed standards address all the issues of the affected application areas.
The European Commission moved to simplify the nascent mobile phone TV sector by adopting a standard backed by Finland's Nokia, but mobile operators said Brussels was acting too quickly.
The Commission said setting the Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld (DVB-H) as the preferred European Union standard would give the industry a boost.
"For mobile TV to take off in Europe, there must first be certainty about the technology," European Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding said in a statement on Monday.
DVB-H is the only standard with a global presence although South Korea, Japan, the United States and China are embracing local rivals, such as one set by U.S. company Qualcomm.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
 Single-Crystal Semiconductor Wire Built into an Optical Fiber
As optical fibers become more and more ubiquitous in electronics, increasing their functionality without losing their size advantage is a daunting task. Advances like this one promise to create “intelligent” active optical fibers for sensing and communications applications.
An international science team from Penn State University in the United States and the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom has developed a process for growing a single-crystal semiconductor inside the tunnel of a hollow optical fiber. The device adds new electronic capabilities to optical fibers, whose performance in electronic devices such as computers typically is degraded by the interface between the fiber and the device. The research is important because optical fibers -- which are used in a wide range of technologies that employ light, including telecommunications, medicine, computing, and remote-sensing devices -- are ideal media for transmitting many types of signals.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
 The Cult of the Volt
This blog’s eponymous inspiration was one of the most influential inventors in the fields of energy generation and transmission while doing the same for radio. We still use the three-cycle power methodology Tesla developed, and he has finally been recognized as the legitimate father of modern radio. (Nikola Tesla was one of the first to patent a means to reliably produce radio frequency currents. Tesla's U.S. Patent 447,920 , "Method of Operating Arc-Lamps" was filed on March 10, 1891.) Repressed by his competitors back in the day, he is finally getting some of the recognition he truly deserves.
There's a scene in the film "Coffee and Cigarettes" where Jack and Meg White, of the band the White Stripes, are discussing the Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla. The two hipsters are slouched at a table in a café, staring moodily at Jack's homemade Tesla coil, a high-voltage transformer that looks like something from a 1950s sci-fi movie. Talking about the inventor, the usually taciturn Jack becomes animated with enthusiasm for his unsung hero's accomplishments. Without Tesla, White explains, our world would look and sound radically different: we'd have no radio, no television, no AC electricity, no induction motors, no X-ray technology, no fluorescent lights. Meg nods in agreement, and then adds, "Or the band Tesla."
Such is the tragicomic legacy of a scientist who was a celebrity in his time but is today overshadowed by his rivals Guglielmo Marconi (often credited with inventing the wireless radio) or Thomas Edison (DC electricity), while being most often linked to an '80s hair band. Yet to a growing group of artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers, Tesla has become an inspiration.
Friday, March 14, 2008
 GE Demonstrates World's First "Roll-to-Roll" Manufactured Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs)
Ever since OLEDs burst out of the labs to tantalize the display industry at the turn of the century, the potential to create a large-scale rool-to-roll manufacturing process for flexible OLED displays has been a highly-desired goal. If this process can be made commercially viable it will generate an entirely new category of flexible and potentially conformable displays.
GE Global Research, the centralized research organization of General Electric (NYSE: GE), and GE Consumer & Industrial, today announced the successful demonstration of the world’s first roll-to-roll manufactured organic light-emitting diode (OLED) lighting devices. This demonstration is a key step toward making OLEDs and other high performance organic electronics products at dramatically lower costs than what is possible today.
OLEDs are thin, organic materials sandwiched between two electrodes, which illuminate when an electrical charge is applied. They represent the next evolution in lighting products. Their widespread design capabilities will provide an entirely different way for people to light their homes or businesses.Moreover, OLEDs have the potential to deliver dramatically improved levels of efficiency and environmental performance, while achieving the same quality of illumination found in traditional products in the marketplace today with less electrical power.
"Researchers have long dreamed of making OLEDs using a newspaper-printing like roll-to-roll process,"
said Anil Duggal, manager of GE's Advanced Technology Program in Organic Electronics. "Now we’ve shown that it is possible. Commercial applications in lighting require low manufacturing costs, and this demonstration is a major milestone on our way to developing low cost OLED lighting devices."
Duggal continued, "Beyond OLEDs, this technology also could have broader impact in the manufacturing of other organic electronic devices such as organic photovoltaics for solar energy conversion, sensors and roll-up displays."
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
 Counterfeit electronics can cause more than performance issues
According to security experts, not only can counterfeit parts cause problems in system reliability and performance, they can also provide a back door to the unscrupulous. This gives us yet another reason to validate our components and sources.
Software vulnerabilities and online scams receive plenty of public attention. Viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, phishing schemes that trick people into providing financial data—all have made headlines in recent years. The emerging hardware threat is different. Imagine buying a computer, printer, monitor, router or other device in which malevolent instructions, or at least security loopholes, are etched permanently into the silicon. MORE...
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Student Develops First Polarized LED
The need for polarized light in many display and illumination applications has always been satisfied by using filters that significantly reduce the optical output of the system involved. This breakthrough by an RPI student promises to create better LCD backlights and other polarized illumination products by providing light with a much higher efficiency than existing means.
Martin Schubert, a doctoral student in electrical, computer, and systems engineering, has developed the first polarized LED, an innovation that could vastly improve LCD screens, conserve energy, and usher in the next generation of ultra-efficient LEDs. Schubert’s innovation has earned him the $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize.
Schubert’s polarized LED advances current LED technology in its ability to better control the direction and polarization of the light being emitted. With better control over the light, less energy is wasted producing scattered light, allowing more light to reach its desired location. This makes the polarized LED perfectly suited as a backlighting unit for any kind of LCD, according to Schubert. Its focused light will produce images on the display that are more colorful, vibrant, and lifelike, with no motion artifacts. MORE...
Monday, March 3, 2008
New Hampshire Startup Makes World's Largest Sheets of Carbon Nanotubes
By Neil Savage
Ever since scientists first figured out how to make carbon nanotubes—tiny cylinders of carbon with diameters of a few tens of nanometers—they've been touted as the material of the future: as strong as steel but far lighter, with the ability to conduct electricity in useful ways. The problem is that because they're so small, it's been difficult to make them at scales that would be useful to industry. You can't really build a lightweight airplane a few microns at a time, after all.
Now a New Hampshire company, Nanocomp Technologies of Concord, says it has overcome that limitation, producing sheets of carbon nanotubes that measure three feet by six feet and promising slabs 100 square feet in area as soon as this summer.
"From the get-go, we wanted to build something that would be manufacturable," says Peter Antoinette, CEO and co-founder of Nanocomp. "We're out to make value-added components out of that material." MORE...
Monday, March 3, 2008
 MIT Fights for Clean Power With Holy Grail of Fusion in Reach
MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) is about as Hollywood-worthy as science gets. The stakes, after all, could hardly be higher. If fusion can be perfected, it could mean a golden age for power production, with systems providing all of the benefits of nuclear reactors—but none of the drawbacks. Fusion is, to some extent, the exact opposite of fission: Instead of splitting atoms, fusion combines them, creating larger atoms and releasing a massive amount of energy in the process. MORE...
|
Blog Archive RSS
May 9, 2008 – New wi-fi devices warn doctors of heart attacks
May 1, 2008 – "Memory Resistor" Circuit Proven to Exist
April 24, 2008 – Images from the 2008 Embedded Systems Conference
April 17, 2008 – Building a multi-ton mechanical calculator... from 19th-century plans
Wireless Resources
ACM Special
Interest Group on Mobility
Bluetooth SIG
Cellular
Telecommunications & Internet Association
Centre for Wireless Network Design
IEEE
IETF mailing list
European Telecomm.
Standards Institute
Fierce
Wireless
Portable Computer
and Comms. Association
Something
different!
Sun Microsystems
Java
WiFi Alliance
WiMax Forum
Wireless Broadband Alliance
Wireless
Communications Association
Wireless LAN
Association
ZigBee Alliance |
