Archos to announce Android tablet on September 15, specs revealed, I drool

Archos to announce Android tablet on September 15, specs revealed, I drool: "

Ooh la la. A real deal Android tablet this summer? Am I dreaming? No! I’m so in love with this OS it’s disgusting. Put aside my sickening love for a freaking OS and consider taking a gander at AppsLib? It’s the Application Store for Android launched by Archos, which states that registration will begin on September 15 “following the launch of this initiative”. If that isn’t enough to whet your appetite then how about some specs for the Archos Android tablet?

The tablet will rock a 5-inch 800×480 screen that plays back 720p content natively. And lest we forget, the Archos 5 Internet Tablet (that’s what they’re calling it on the AppsLib site) will have an HDMI out and comes with natively embedded OpenGL libraries.

What Is This? [Aerospace]

What Is This? [Aerospace]: "

What in the name of every single goddamn fruitbat is this? Did someone create a cybernetic Dune sandworm and equip it with anti-gravity engines? I wish. In reality, it's the Sanswire-TAO STS-111, a new kind of airship.

The Sanswire-TAO STS-111 is a 111-foot long, 11-foot tall multi-segmented, non-rigid airship. The design of this ultralight UAV—Unmanned Air Vehicle—allows it to fly on its own for extremely long period of times. It uses gas-cell power for propulsion and electricity generation.

Why do we want these air worms? They will be able to provide people on the ground with communication networks, and also serve as terrain vigilantes. Because that's what we want up there: Giant worms watching over us. Preferably ones that can spew acid, and have laser cannons. [Sanswire via Flight Global]

iConvert Video Converter – VHS to digital, no computer needed

iConvert Video Converter – VHS to digital, no computer needed: "

iConvert Video Converter lets you turn your golden oldie VHS video tapes into glorious digital format via an SD memory card

World's Smallest Laser, The Spaser, Unveiled

World's Smallest Laser, The Spaser, Unveiled: "

A research team from Norfolk State University and Purdue has built on the work of Mark Stockman of Georgia State and David Bergman of Tel Aviv University to create a laser on the nanoscale. Though light can't be focused past around half its wavelengths, plasmons (quantum of plasma oscillations) can exist at much smaller scale while having the frequency of light. By stimulating gold nanoparticles to emit surface plasmons, the Norfolk State researchers were able to amplify them and in effect create a nano laser.

Nanophotonics may usher in a host of radical advances, including powerful 'hyperlenses' resulting in sensors and microscopes 10 times more powerful than today's and able to see objects as small as DNA; computers and consumer electronics that use light instead of electronic signals to process information; and more efficient solar collectors.
'Here, we have demonstrated the feasibility of the most critical component - the nanolaser - essential for nanophotonics to become a practical technology,' Shalaev said. [Vladimir Shalaev, the Robert and Anne Burnett Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University --ed.]

The 'spaser-based nanolasers' created in the research were spheres 44 nanometers, or billionths of a meter, in diameter - more than 1 million could fit inside a red blood cell. The spheres were fabricated at Cornell, with Norfolk State and Purdue performing the optical characterization needed to determine whether the devices behave as lasers.

The findings confirm work by physicists David Bergman at Tel Aviv University and Mark Stockman at Georgia State University, who first proposed the spaser concept in 2003.

'This work represents an important milestone that may prove to be the start of a revolution in nanophotonics, with applications in imaging and sensing at a scale that is much smaller than the wavelength of visible light,' said Timothy D. Sands, the Mary Jo and Robert L. Kirk Director of the Birck Nanotechnology Center in Purdue's Discovery Park.

The spasers contain a gold core surrounded by a glasslike shell filled with green dye. When a light was shined on the spheres, plasmons generated by the gold core were amplified by the dye. The plasmons were then converted to photons of visible light, which was emitted as a laser.

Spaser stands for surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. To act like lasers, they require a 'feedback system' that causes the surface plasmons to oscillate back and forth so that they gain power and can be emitted as light. Conventional lasers are limited in how small they can be made because this feedback component for photons, called an optical resonator, must be at least half the size of the wavelength of laser light.

The researchers, however, have overcome this hurdle by using not photons but surface plasmons, which enabled them to create a resonator 44 nanometers in diameter, or less than one-tenth the size of the 530-nanometer wavelength emitted by the spaser.

'It's fitting that we have realized a breakthrough in laser technology as we are getting ready to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the invention of the laser,' Shalaev said.

Purdue press release: New nanolaser key to future optical computers and technologies...

The Most Amazing Photo of the Universe, Now In 3D [Hubble]

The Most Amazing Photo of the Universe, Now In 3D [Hubble]: "

Showing 10,000 galaxies, the overwhelming Hubble Ultra Deep Field is the most amazing, most humbling image in history, demonstrating how tiny and precious we are. This video explains how it was taken, and shows it in three dimensions.

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Dell Inspiron Zino HD: Eat It, Mac Mini [Dell]

Dell Inspiron Zino HD: Eat It, Mac Mini [Dell]: "

Can't tell you the specs or price on this thing, but I can show you the back of the Inspiron Zino HD, which should tell you almost everything you want to know about it.

Now, I doubt it'd have an HDMI port and be called the Zino HD if it didn't output HD video. It's a little bit taller than the Mac Mini, but not by much. Not too shabby at all.

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Liquid OLED Tech Could Lead to More Reliable, More Flexible Displays [Oled]

Liquid OLED Tech Could Lead to More Reliable, More Flexible Displays [Oled]: "

We've already told you that legitimate flexible OLED displays really are coming now, but thanks to some Japanese researchers they could be more reliable—and flexible!—than we first imagined.

In layman's terms, the innovation arrives thanks to a liquid semiconducting layer that potentially bends and flexes more reliably than the 'vacuum thermal evaporation' technique employed by Samsung.

In the researchers' case, the liquid, officially known as ethylhexyl carbazole (EHCz), will constantly deliver a fresh supply of semiconductors to the emitting layer. To you and me that means better, more flexible screens that might not degrade as quickly as once thought, if and when they arrive in the (near?) future. Just don't try and drink one. [PhysOrg via OLED Info - Thanks, Ron]

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