A team of Canadian and German scientists have found a way to fabricate a superconducting material, made of a silicon-hydrogen compound, that does not require cooling. They say that the breakthrough means we will be able to cut the power usage of all sorts of devices from refrigerators to cell phones.

This new material is super-compressed instead of being super-cooled like conventional superconductors, allowing scientists to create superconducting wires that work at room temperature.

Superconductors offer no electrical resistance, meaning that energy will not be lost while a current is traveling along a superconducting wire.

If the scientists can find a way to mass-produce this material, we could see a new age in electronics. Battery life would improve dramatically for all sorts of gadgets, and power usage would go down for anything that stays plugged in. Hopefully they can figure out the magic formula soon.

Today’s heads-up displays worn by soldiers are bulky and probably quite uncomfortable. DARPA is seeking to solve all that with contact lenses that sport a display to overlay graphics and information on top of the soldiers’ vision.

Specifically, the agency is looking for “information on technology areas for the creation of micro- and nano-scale display technologies for the purpose of creating displays that could be worn as transparent contact lenses”, and they want that information within three to five years.

This sounds like a very ambitious project, but with DARPA behind it maybe, just maybe, we’ll actually see it come to life. Perhaps this is a job for UW scientists and their contact lenses with circuits?

[via Gizmodo]

WiFi is commonplace in today’s large, booming cities. You can probably find a few hotspots walking around on any street. However, for rural areas, especially in undeveloped nations, WiFi and any other kinds of internet access are hard to come by.

Intel is trying to solve the problem with its Rural Connectivity Program (RCP). The company is utilizing a new technology consisting of a processor, software radios, and an antenna to enable wireless signals to travel up to 60 miles.

Wireless access is the way to go in these countries, as there are several problems with putting in wires. They are too expensive, too long for a good signal, and would often get dug up and sold.

So far, the RCP has been tested in India, Panama, Vietnam, and South Africa with successful results. “We’re seeing a lot of interest in the industry,” said Jeff Galinovsky, a senior platform manager at Intel. “Every time we talk about this, they say, ‘We need this yesterday’.”

This is a great program, and combined with efforts to make cheap laptops targeted at these countries will help them catch up to the information age. It will be great to see what the internet is like with so many more people with such different perspectives on board.

The University of Michigan has received a $10 million, five-year grant from the Army to develop a miniature spy bat complete with cameras, radar, recharging capability, a self-guidance system, and a radio to send surveillance data.

Scientists will try to shrink current electronics down to allow the bat to be six inches in length, weigh four ounces, and use only one watt of power. They will attempt to create a navigation system 1,000 times smaller and 1,000 times more energy efficient than today’s systems, and a communications system that’s one-tenth of today’s size. Read more »

The nice folks over at Thorn Micro Technologies have developed an awesome new laptop fan - the RSD5. It is a solid state fan (no moving parts!) that uses an electrical current to generate airflow. More airflow, in fact, than standard mechanical fans.

While typical mechanical fans generate a breeze of 0.7 - 1.7 meters per second, the RSD5 can output a cooler 2.7 meters per second. What’s more impressive is that it stays completely silent while cranking out this kind of airflow.

One of the best things about this fan is that it’s the size of a microchip. The researchers who developed it are hoping to one day build these solid state fans directly into other chips, creating self-cooling processors and other chips that stay cool on their own. The new fan is very cool (no pun intended), but it would be interesting to see what kind of effect this would have on laptop battery life.

Electrolux has unveiled their new Inspiro auto-adjusting oven. What is an auto-adjusting oven, you ask? It’s an oven that automatically detects optimal temperature and time settings depending on what is placed inside.

The company describes the technology as similar to auto-adjustment technology used in many modern cameras to figure out settings for aperture, focus, exposure time, etc. depending on what is in the frame. I know what you are thinking, and the answer is: yes, the Inspiro has a manual mode for those who want control over how their food is prepared.

This is a pretty cool idea, but we’re not entirely sure who the target audience is. Everyone I know who cooks on a regular basis likes to be able to tweak appliance settings. But who knows, perhaps this will be the next big thing and in a couple of years everyone will own one.

No word on price or release date as of now.

Samsung has announced an 8 MP CMOS camera module that it claims to be the thinnest of its kind, measuring a tiny 8.5 mm thin.

Notable features of the new module include anti-shake, a 1 cm macro, face tracking technology, and a smile shutter feature that knows to snap a picture when it detects people smiling.

The company expects the new module to replace the 5 MP cameras found in today’s high-end camera phones by the end of the year.

Cell phone cameras are quickly catching up to today’s digital cameras, which will probably become extinct in a matter of years. It seems that putting all sorts of gadgets in one box is the way to go these days, so if you are thinking of buying a new camera hold off for a few months and buy one of the 8 MP cell phones when they are released.

Oleksiy Pikalo seems to be getting bored with plain old coffee every morning, so he built a printer to put ornate designs on top of his daily cup of joe.

He bought a used Philips 8155 x-y flatbed plotter and modded it into a printer that shoots out edible ink. As a result, he can now decorate his coffee with detailed designs and could probably win a barista competition or two.

The only problem is that the coffee will probably get cold by the time printing is finished. Never mind though, because it’s completely worth it for the end result.

Check out a how-to here, and a video of the coffee printer in action after the jump. Read more »