Ennion made me. Those were the words that emerged as archeologists brushed centuries of dust off glass vessels in digs all over the classical world, again and again. But who was Ennion? And how, in the early years of the modern world, did he make so much glass? Read more…
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The First Brand Manager Was a 1st Century Roman Glassblower
Remember that no-stick ketchup bottle of the future an MIT professor made a few years ago? Well, the MIT team created a company to sell the super slippery technology, and Elmer’s recently signed an exclusive license to use it in their glue bottles. Pretty slick! (Sorry.) Read more…
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Crazy No-Stick Coating Is Coming to a Bottle of Glue Near You
It’s the Star Trek -inspired future we were promised—walls that glow and change color, perhaps with just a gentle voice command. And it’s finally (almost) possible thanks to a series of advances in OLED sheets. This new lighting solution also uses half as much energy than existing fluorescent lights. It is, however, pretty expensive. Read more…
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OLED Wallpaper Could Be the Future of Lighting
Batteries like this one with liquid electrolytes may eventually get a run for their money. pinkyracer Lithium batteries have become a very popular technology, powering everything from cell phones to cars. But that doesn’t mean the technology is without its problems; lithium batteries have been implicated in some critical technological snafus, from exploding laptops to grounded airplanes . Most of these problems can be traced back to the electrolyte, a liquid that helps ions carry charges within the battery. Liquid electrolytes can leak, burn, and distort the internal structure of the battery, swelling it in ways that can lead to a catastrophic failure. The solution, of course, would be to get rid of the liquids. But ions don’t tend to move as easily through solids, which creates another set of problems. Now, researchers have formulated a solid in which lithium ions can move about five times faster than any previously described substance. Better yet, the solid—a close chemical relative of styrofoam—helps provide structural stability to the battery. Don’t expect to see a styrofoam battery in your next cellphone though, as the material needs to be heated to 60°C in order to work. The problem with liquid electrolytes has to do with the fact that, during recharging, lithium ions end up forming deposits of metal inside the battery. These create risks of short circuits (the problem that grounded Boeing’s Dreamliner 787) and can damage the battery’s structure, causing leaks and a fire risk. Solid electrodes get around this because the lithium ions will only come out of the electrolyte at specific locations within the solid, and can’t form the large metal deposits that cause all of the problems. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Solid electrolyte may end the catastrophic failures of lithium batteries
Carbon nanotubes sit on top of features etched in silicon. IBM Research The shrinking size of features on modern processors is slowly approaching a limit where the wiring on chips will only be a few atoms across. As this point approaches, both making these features and controlling the flow of current through them becomes a serious challenge, one that bumps up against basic limits of materials. During my visit to IBM’s Watson Research Center, it was clear that people in the company is already thinking about what to do when they run into these limits. For at least some of them, the answer would involve a radical departure from traditional chipmaking approaches, swithching from traditional semiconductors to carbon nanotubes. And, while I was there, the team was preparing a paper (now released by Nature Nanotechnology ) that would report some significant progress: a chip with 10,000 working transistors made from nanotubes, formed at a density that’s two orders of magnitude higher than any previously reported effort. During my visit to Watson, I spoke with George Tulevski, who is working on the nanotube project, and is one of the authors of the recent paper. Tulevski described nanotbues as a radical rethinking of how you build a chip. “Silicoon is a solid you carve down,” he told Ars, “while nanoubes are something you have to build up.” In other words, you can’t start with a sheet of nanotubes and etch them until you’re left with the wiring you want. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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IBM prepares for end of process shrinks with carbon nanotube transistors