Laser

Unfair advantage? Team BMW Oracle Racing takes 'wind mapping' technology to the America's Cup

By Loz Blain

20:31 February 4, 2010 PST

Imagine you're a competitive sailboat racer, about to go into the richest and most storied of all sailing races with a squillion-dollar boat and a razor-sharp crew. Now imagine somebody hands you a device that can quite literally map out the wind activity up to a kilometre out in front of you, showing wind speed, direction and turbulence - and giving you the almost superatural ability to adjust your sails and take maximal advantage of a wind pattern before you even reach it. It's almost an unfair advantage, isn't it? Well, this is the situation that BMW Oracle Racing's Russell Coutts finds himself in as the team gears up to take on defending champions Alinghi in the 2010 America's Cup. The device is called a Racer's Edge laser wind sensor, and it's built around a technology base that's being used to optimise wind power generators. We caught up with Phil Rogers, CEO of Catch the Wind, Inc, to find out more. Read More

World record 1 megajoule laser shot hits target

By Darren Quick

21:16 February 2, 2010 PST

In their quest to be the first to trigger a nuclear fusion reaction using lasers scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have delivered more than one megajoule of laser energy to a target. The peak power of the laser light, which was delivered within a few billionths of a second, was about 500 times that used by the United States at any given time and demonstrates the target drive conditions required to achieve fusion ignition. Read More

Wireless optical system offers one gigabit per second transmission

By Paul Ridden

19:31 January 28, 2010 PST

Sending and receiving data over a wireless network is generally undertaken via radio waves. But that's not the only method. Using the optical spectrum offers the advantage of better security and blisteringly fast transfer rates to boot. Engineers from Pennsylvania State University have now succeeded in moving data outside the usual line of sight restrictions at speeds of over one gigabit per second, more than double that achieved by Siemens recently. Read More

AirMouse - the mouse that fits you like a glove

By Ben Coxworth

12:36 January 27, 2010 PST

It’s no secret... Studies have shown that excessive mouse usage can cause repetitive stress injuries. Unfortunately for most of us, “excessive” can mean anything more than a few hours a day. Fortunately, however, there are alternative styles of mice out there designed to be easier on the hands and arms. One of the more interesting ones to come along in a while is the AirMouse, made by Canadian firm Deanmark Ltd. What makes it unique is the fact that you wear it like a glove. Read More

Casio Green Slim projectors - light, bright and mercury free

By Mick Webb

13:30 January 8, 2010 PST

Up until now, for a projector to pack a decent punch it has had to incorporate a high pressure lamp using mercury, which as we all know is a dirty word environmentally.

Casio has this week at CES announced the Green Slim range of mercury-free super slim high powered projectors that use a combination of LED, laser and fluorescent illumination capable of brightness up to 3000 lumens, as well as featuring wireless and USB capability. Read More

scoreLight musical instrument turns drawings into sound

By Dario Borghino

17:37 December 9, 2009 PST

Scientists at the University of Tokyo have found a curious way to translate drawings and three-dimensional shapes into music. The prototype laser-based musical instrument known as scoreLight uses 3D tracking technology to generate real-time sounds based on the shapes and colors it encounters along the way, transforming doodling into a truly synthesized experience. Read More

‘Black metal’ discovery could advance the use of T-rays for medical scanning

By Darren Quick

15:48 December 9, 2009 PST

Scientist Chunlei Guo discovered a way to change the surface of a variety of metals so they absorbed virtually all light by using intense laser light in late 2006. He followed up his “black metal” discovery in 2008 by discovering how to use the same basic process to alter surface properties to turn metals a variety of colors. Now Guo and his University of Rochester colleagues have discovered that the altered black metals can detect electromagnetic radiation with frequencies in the terahertz range, also known as T-rays, which have potential in medical and scientific scanning applications, as well as security scanners. Read More

New laser tuning method from MIT promises smarter airport scanners

By Gizmag Team

23:53 December 7, 2009 PST

New research out of MIT could lead to smarter airport scanners able to detect the presence of drugs and explosives. At the heart of the development is a new approach to laser tuning designed to harness terahertz rays so that they can be used to determine an object's chemical composition. Read More

No pain, no strain - the SmartFish ErgoMotion Mouse

By Mick Webb

13:47 November 24, 2009 PST

Ah, the humble mouse. Enabler of functions, the bridge between human and machine, and, evidently, the cause of much discomfort for millions of users the world over. With repetitive strain injury a major health problem linked to PC use, the long awaited Smartfish ErgoMotion Mouse is hoping to alleviate the pain. It features a tilting base that swivels in unison with a user’s natural hand and wrist movements, promoting circulation and comfort with the aim of reducing injury. Read More

'Time telescope' speeds up optical transmission by 27 times

By Dario Borghino

22:17 October 4, 2009 PDT

Most of today's telecommunication data is encoded at a speed of 10 Gbit/s, but researchers are constantly looking for new ways to push this limit even further. A group of researchers at Cornell University have recently come up with the "time telescope," a sophisticated system that can speed up optical communication by 27 times to an outstanding 270 Gbits/s by squeezing more information into a single flash of light and that, unlike previous solutions, does so in an energy-efficient manner. Read More

New advances in excitonics promise faster computers

By Dario Borghino

16:44 October 1, 2009 PDT

Much of today's research in electronics is geared towards obtaining faster computing and higher communication speeds. Researchers at UC San Diego are no exception, and have recently announced they have made another important step towards achieving exciton-based computation at room temperatures. Excitonics exploits the unique properties of excitons instead of the usual electrons, and promises much faster performance by interfacing more naturally with optical communications such as fiber optics. Read More

Intel predicts optical future for consumer gadgets with 10Gb/s Light Peak interface

By Paul Lester

06:44 September 28, 2009 PDT

Though it may not make it into everyone’s ‘top ten’ list of most desirable technological developments, replacing the spaghetti-junction of wires that typically gathers behind a desk or workspace would undoubtedly be a welcome advance. Wireless peripherals are helping the situation somewhat and wireless power will be a massive boon once perfected but, in the meantime, we’re looking to technologies like optical cables to handle high-volume data transfer. Intel’s recent research in this area should be of particular interest, since it’s designed to replace or augment connections used in consumer-based electronics, such as USB2.0, HDMI, Firewire, DVI and the like. Read More

Video: Laser/smoke microphone promises the world's most accurate sound capture

By Loz Blain

06:41 September 23, 2009 PDT

The quest for ever more realistic sound reproduction seems set to move to a whole new level. Traditional microphones convert sound to electrical signals by measuring the deflections that sound vibrations cause in a diaphragm. But each diaphragm has its own weight, inertia and resistance, which colors the sound that gets recorded. So American digital audio pioneer David Schwartz, who invented the MP3 sound format, has come up with a novel new type of microphone that virtually eliminates the microphone's mechanical interference with the sound. The laser/smoke microphone uses a laser to measure the deflections that sound makes in a steady stream of smoke - which is virtually weightless. Prepare for a new wave of high-fidelity microphone technology. Read More

Non-Lethal Thermal Laser prototype only works on nudists

By Darren Quick

01:07 September 22, 2009 PDT

Non-lethal weapons are intended to have reversible effects on personnel and material. They provide soldiers with another option when lethal force isn’t considered to be the best first response to a situation. One non-lethal weapon prototype that is being evaluated by U.S. military is the Thermal Laser System, which attaches to a rifle and uses a laser to create a heating sensation to repel adversaries. Unfortunately, current trials indicate that clothing nullifies the weapon's effectiveness. Read More

Nanoscale lasers continue to shrink, heralding new era in optical science

By Darren Quick

20:28 August 31, 2009 PDT

Breakthroughs are coming thick and fast – or should that be thin and fast – in the field of nanoscale lasers. It wasn’t even a month ago that we reported on the development of a laser emitting 'metal-semiconductor-metal sandwich', made up of a semiconductor as thin as 80 nanometers laying between 20-nanometer dielectric layers. But now researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have reached a new milestone in laser physics by creating the world's smallest semiconductor laser, capable of generating visible light in a space smaller than a single protein molecule. Read More

Boeing Airborne Laser ‘shoots down’ first missile

By Michael Mulcahy

20:19 August 23, 2009 PDT

On August 10, Boeing and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency were finally able to demonstrate that the US$1.1 billion Airborne Laser (ABL) program actually works. The ABL aircraft, a modified Boeing 747-400, took off from Edwards Air Force Base and located, tracked and fired on a target missile. Although a surrogate high-energy laser was used – rather than the megawatt-class laser that will ultimately arm it – instrumentation on the target verified the hit. Read More

Tiny lasers hold key to nano-circuitry

By Dario Borghino

18:31 August 23, 2009 PDT

Researchers at Cornell, Purdue and Norfolk State University have reported the successful creation of a 'spaser', a new kind of nanoscale laser that breaks dimensional limits previously thought to be insurmountable, leading the way to significantly faster and more efficient computer processing and data transfer rates. Read More

Treating tumors by blasting nanotubes with a laser

By Darren Quick

22:33 August 11, 2009 PDT

Current heat treatments for human tumors, such as radiofrequency, have shown promising results over the last couple of decades, even though they apply only a single-point of heat to the tumor. However, a new technique could prove much more effective by using nanotubes to apply heat throughout the tumor. Scientists found that by injecting the man-made, microscopic carbon tubes into tumors and heating them with a quick, 30-second zap of a laser, they were able to effectively kill kidney tumors in nearly 80 percent of mice. Read More

Nanoscale lasers are about to get even smaller

By Dario Borghino

20:48 August 4, 2009 PDT

In a collaborative effort between the Arizona State University and Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, researchers have found a way to make optical lasers much smaller than it was previously thought was possible, making dreams of speedier computers and faster Internet access closer to reality than ever before. Read More