LI-FI

Li-fi record data transmission of 10 Gbps achieved
A Mexican software company has managed to transmit audio, video and Internet across the spectrum of light emitted by LED lamps - at a data transfer rate of 10 gigabytes per second.
The technology can illuminate a large work space, such as an office, while providing full mobile Internet to every device that comes into the range of the light spectrum.
The Li-Fi device circulates data via LEDs that emit an intermittent flicker at a speed imperceptible to the human eye.
"As Wi-Fi uses cables to spread our connections, wireless transmission Li-Fi uses LED lamps that emit high brightness light," said Arturo Campos Fentanes, CEO of Sisoft in Mexico.

Another advantage in comparison to Wi-Fi is that there is no way to hack the signal since the internet is transmitted by light, there is no way to "steal it”.

by:-Swati Kumari

How to build your own RGB LED BRICKS

MAKING OF RGB LED BRICKS

 

      for more details contact: pratikkumarbadu@gmail.com

Body Armor With Built-in Stun Gun, Flashlight and Cameraphone Charger

The Armstar Bodyguard 9XI-HD01 looks a bit like that scary black body armor that Christian Bale wears in the recent Batman movies. And it is kind of like that, actually.

The Bodyguard, which was patented by a California inventor in 2007 under the title of "wearable shield and self-defense device," is designed to be a shield, a non-lethal weapon and a communications device all in one. The flexible arm, which is armored with Kevlar and hard plastic, contains a rechargeable lithium battery pack that powers an "electronic deterrent" device built into the arm's artificial skin. All the user has to do is pull a pin, and an assailant who grabs his or her arm is going to get zapped with electricity. The Bodyguard is also equipped with a bright LED flashlight, an HD camera capable of transmitting pictures, and a charging slot into which an iPhone apparently fits nicely.We could see this gadget becoming an indispensible tool for law enforcement officers and bodyguards of the future, but given that you have to inquire about it to get a price quote, we're guessing that it'll be too costly to make much of a dent into the everyday suburban adventurer market.



by:-AAKSHI SAHOO

PERPETUAL PRINTING

Printing has come a long way since the computer landed on the desktop. First, there were daisy-wheel printers, then dot-matrix printers, then inkjet and laser printers. The problem with all of these output devices, of course, is that they require paper -- lots of it -- and expensive consumables, like toner. Why can't someone invent an inkless, tonerless printer that allows the operator to reuse paper?As it turns out, this isn't a new idea. Xerox has been working with so-called electronic paper since the 1970s. Its most promising solution is a type of paper called "Gyricon." A Gyricon sheet is a thin layer of transparent plastic containing millions of small oil-filled cavities. A two-colored bead is free to rotate inside each cavity. When a printer applies a voltage to the surface of the sheet, the beads rotate to present one colored side to the viewer, offering the ability to create text or pictures. The images will remain on the paper until it's fed through the printer once again.A Japanese company, Sanwa Newtec, is offering its version of inkless, tonerless and rewritable printing technology. Its product is called the PrePeat rewritable printer, which, like the Xerox solution, requires plastic paper. But PrePeat uses a different technique to produce an image. Each sheet of paper comes embedded with leuco dyes, which change color with temperature -- colored when cool and clear when hot. The PrePeat printer, then, heats and cools the paper to first erase an image and then create a new image in its place. According to the company, a single sheet of paper can be reused 1,000 times before it needs to be replaced.

BY:-Aakshi Sahoo

Towards a new way to keep electronics from overheating

Summary:

Computer technology has transformed the way we live, but as consumers expect ever more from their devices at faster speeds, personal computers as well as larger electronic systems can overheat. This can cause them to slow down or worse, or even completely shut down. Now researchers are reporting in the ACS journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research that liquids containing nano-particles could help devices stay cool and keep them running.

Details:

Rahman Saidur and colleagues pointed out that consumers demand a lot out of their gadgets. But that puts a huge strain on the tiny parts that whir away inside desktops and mainframe computers, which do the major data crunching for us. The result is overheating. Recent research has shown that substances called nanofluids have the potential to help keep electronics cool. They are made of metallic nanoparticles that have been added to a liquid, such as water. But there are many different kinds, and past research on their coolant abilities has been limited. To help sort through them, Saidur's team set out to determine which ones might work best.

Using something called a microchannel heat sink to simulate the warm environment of working electronic systems, they analyzed three nanofluids for the traits that are important in an effective coolant. These include how well they transfer heat, how much energy they lose, the friction they cause and their pumping power. All three performed better than water as coolants with the nanofluid mixture of copper oxide and water topping them all.

by:-Sweta Singh                                                                                                                                          

Chemical sensor on a chip created to test chemical composition of liquids

Just a drop is enough to test the chemical composition.

Summary:

A tiny laser and a corresponding light detector has been developed in one production process, on a single chip. The light is transported from the laser to the detector on a specially designed waveguide. That way, the chip can measure the chemical composition of the liquid in which it is submerged

Description:

Using miniaturized laser technology, a tiny sensor has been built at the Vienna University of Technology which can test the chemical composition of liquids.

They are invisible, but perfectly suited for analyzing liquids and gases; infrared laser beams are absorbed differently by different molecules. This effect can for instance be used to measure the oxygen concentration in blood.

Specially designed quantum cascade lasers and light detectors are created by the same production process. The gap between laser and detector is only 50 micrometres. It is bridged by a plasmonic waveguide made of gold and silicon nitride. This new approach allows for the simple and cheap production of tiny sensors for many different applications.

Now a method has been developed to create a laser and a detector at the same time, on one single chip, in such a way that the wavelength of the laser perfectly matches the wavelength to which the detector is sensitive. As both parts are created in one step, laser and detector do not have to be adjusted.

Leading the Light to the Detector

In conventional systems, the laser light has to be transmitted to the detector using carefully placed lenses. Alternatively, optical fibres can be used, but they usually transport all the light inside, without letting it interact with the environment, and therefore they cannot be used as sensors.

In the new element created at the Vienna University of Technology, the optical connection between quantum cascade laser and detector works in a completely different way. It is a plasmonic waveguide, made of gold and silicon oxide. The light interacts with the electrons in the metal in a very special way, so that the light is guided outside the gold surface.That is why the light can be absorbed by the molecules on its way between laser and detector.

The sensor chip can be submerged in a liquid. By measuring the decrease of the detected light intensity due to the presence of light absorbing molecules, the composition of the liquid can be determined. The sensor was tested with a mixture of water and alcohol. The water concentration can be measured with an accuracy of 0.06%.

As the wavelength can be influenced by changing the design of the layered structure, this sensor concept can be applied to a wide variety of molecules such as carbohydrates or proteins, for many different applications in chemical, biological or medical analytics.

BY :-Sweta singh

WATER BASED ORGANIC BATTERY

Although a portable, rechargeable electronics commonplace has been made by Li-ion batteries, they do have some glaring drawbacks, including heat issues, being made with rare, toxic elements, and the fact the technology doesn't scale up very well, which limits their applications. A team of scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) is working on an alternative in the form of a water-based organic battery that is not only cheaper and more environmentally friendly, but also holds the potential for scaling up for use in wind and solar power plants as a means to store large amounts of energy.

The technology developed by the USC team is what’s called an organic redux flow battery. It’s a bit like a fuel cell, and a similar one was developed for NASA’s Helios electric-powered drones. It consists of two tanks containing solutions of electroactive chemicals. These are pumped into a cell, which is divided by a membrane. The solutions interact through the membrane and electricity is produced .The tanks can be of any size in comparison to the cells, so the total amount of energy that the system can store depends on how large the tanks are. The flow battery also has a better life span than lithium-ion batteries and its variants

"The batteries last for about 5,000 recharge cycles, giving them an estimated 15-year lifespan," says Sri Narayan, professor of chemistry at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “Lithium ion batteries degrade after around 1,000 cycles, and cost 10 times more to manufacture.”

The key to the new flow battery is the electroactive materials used. Instead of metals or other toxic materials, the USC team used organic compounds. By trial and error, the researchers were able to develop materials based on oxidized organic compounds called quinones, which are found in plants, fungi, bacteria, and some animals and involved in photosynthesis and cellular respiration.

Specifically, the quinones used in the new battery are anthraquinone-2-sulfonic acid or anthraquinone-2,6-disulfonic acid on the negative side, and 1,2-dihydrobenzoquinone- 3,5-disulfonic acid on the positive side of the cell.

This technology would one day lead to large “mega-scale” battery banks that are cost-effective and environmentally friendly. The quinones used in the flow battery are currently produced from naturally occurring hydrocarbons, but the team hopes one day to derive them directly from carbon dioxide. However, the immediate goal of the team is to scale up the technology to make it more practical.


by:- Swati Kumari

GPS Watch

Now-a-days GPS tracking for kids has become increasingly popular keeping in mind the part of being a kid-playing outside and exploring. The hereO watch is the latest GPS tracking device aimed at providing parents with peace of mind since it’s impossible to keep an eye on your children at all times.

The hereO is by no means the first GPS watch for kids. This device has a common voice call feature that allows parents to call their kids, including some clever features of its own.

The device pairs with a smart phone or tablet app that shows where a child is at any given moment. It focuses very much on family though, and will also show where other family members are by connecting with the apps on their devices. Apps will be made available for iOS and Android first, followed by Windows Phone and Blackberry in late 2014.

One particularly useful piece of functionality is the ability for parents to draw a "virtual fence" around specific areas, such as gardens or a school, using the map in the hereO app. A notification will then be sent if the child moves outside one of the predetermined areas.

Messages can be broadcast to other family members from within the app, and the watch uses an accelerometer to send an alert when it is shaken horizontally five times. The time is presented digitally using an e-ink display, and the watch is designed to be hardwearing and waterproof. hereO says its battery will provide 50 hours of usage between charges.

In order to deliver this functionality, the watch incorporates a SIM card and is sold with a monthly mobile contract for machine-to-machine provider Wyless. The SIM will apparently work in over 120 countries without roaming charges. The first run of watches has already been produced.

The hereO watch will retail for US$149 with a 3-month contract included – a $4.95 monthly charge takes effect thereafter. Earlybird pledges on Indiegogo can receive the watch for $99 with a 6-month contract included, assuming the campaign is successful. It is expected to begin shipping in July.

by:-Swati Kumari