Hardware

Via New Scientist

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(Image: Surrey Satellite Technology)

Small satellites capable of docking in orbit could be used as "space building blocks" to create larger spacecraft, says UK firm Surrey Satellite Technology. Not content with putting a smartphone app in space, the company now plans to launch a satellite equipped with a Kinect depth camera, allowing it to locate and join with other nearby satellites.

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft is the latest of many large-scale vehicles to dock in space, but joining small and low-cost craft has not been attempted before. Surrey Satellite Technology's Strand-2 mission will launch two 30cm-long satellites on the same rocket, then attempt to dock them by using the Kinect sensor to align together in 3D space.

"Once you can launch low cost nanosatellites that dock together, the possibilities are endless - like space building blocks," says project leader Shaun Kenyon. For example, it might be possible to launch the components for a larger spacecraft one piece at a time, then have them automatically assemble in space.

Researchers have also previously suggested that Kinect could calculate the mass of astronauts in zero gravity on board the International Space Station, as traditional scales do not work in orbit.

via dvice

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Via Phys Org

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A paper-based touch pad on an alarmed cardboard box detects the change in capacitance associated with the touch of a finger to one of its buttons.

The keypad requires the appropriate sequence of touches to disarm the system. Image credit: Mazzeo, et al.

The touch pads are made of metallized paper, which is paper coated in aluminum and transparent polymer. The paper can function as a capacitor, and a laser can be used to cut several individual capacitors in the paper, each corresponding to a key on the touch pad. When a person touches a key, the key’s capacitance is increased. Once the keys are linked to external circuitry and a power source, the system can detect when a key is touched by detecting the increased capacitance.

According to lead researcher Aaron Mazzeo of Harvard University, the next steps will be finding a power source and electronics that are cheap, flexible, and disposable.

Among the applications, inexpensive touch pads could be used for security purposes. The researchers have already developed a box with an alarm and keypad that requires a code to allow authorized access. Disposable touch pads could also be useful in sterile or contaminated medical environments.

Via Slash Gear

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Green plants use photosynthesis to convert water and sunlight into energy used to help the plant grow. Scientists have created the first practical artificial leaf that mimics the natural process and holds promise for sustainable green energy. The key to this practical artificial leaf is that unlike earlier devices it doesn’t use expensive components in its construction.

The new artificial leaf is made from inexpensive materials and uses low-cost engineering and manufacturing processes making it much more practical. The artificial leaf has an component to collect sunlight sandwich between two films that generate oxygen and hydrogen gas. When the artificial leaf is placed into a jar of water and placed in sunlight, it bubbles, releasing hydrogen that can be used by fuel cells to make electricity. Previous designs needed expensive materials like platinum along with expensive manufacturing processes.

The new artificial leaf replaces the costly platinum with a less expensive nickel-molybdenum-zinc compound. The opposite side of the leaf has a cobalt film that generates oxygen gas. The hope is that this sort of device can be used to generate electricity for remote places that are off the electrical grid. The tech could also be used to power all sorts of devices including phones and more.

“Considering that it is the 6 billion nonlegacy users that are driving the enormous increase in energy demand by midcentury, a research target of delivering solar energy to the poor with discoveries such as the artificial leaf provides global society its most direct path to a sustainable energy future,” he says.

Via Extreme Tech

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According to reports from various industry sources, the Chinese government has begun the process of picking a national computer chip instruction set architecture (ISA). This ISA would have to be used for any projects backed with government money — which, in a communist country such as China, is a fairly long list of public and private enterprises and institutions, including China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the world. The primary reason for this move is to lessen China’s reliance on western intellectual property.

There are at least five existing ISAs on the table for consideration — MIPS, Alpha, ARM, Power, and the homegrown UPU — but the Chinese leadership has also mooted the idea of defining an entirely new architecture. The first meeting to decide on a nationwide ISA, attended by government officials and representatives from academic groups and companies such as Huawei and ZTE, was held in March. According to MIPS vice president Robert Bismuth, a final decision will be made in “a matter of months.”

China has a long history with MIPS and Alpha. Loongson processors, which power millions of Chinese school computers, use MIPS — and the ShenWei processors (pictured right) found in China’s first homegrown supercomputer, the Sunway Bluelight MPP, are based on the Alpha ISA. MIPS Technologies (the company) hasn’t been doing very well recently, and it’s rumored that the Sunnyvale-based company could be up for sale — a purchase I’m sure the Chinese government could afford.

According to EE Times, there are some 34 ARM licensees in China, but at $5 million for a single Cortex-A9 core license, it’s unlikely that ARM will be China’s choice. The Power ISA is cheaper, but lacks the software ecosystems that ARM and MIPS enjoy. ShenWei/Alpha is also a possibility, but again it cannot compete with MIPS’ installed base.

The other option, of course, is developing a brand new ISA — a daunting task, considering you have to create an entire software (compiler, developer, apps) and hardware (CPU, chipset, motherboard) ecosystem from scratch. But, there are benefits to building your own CPU architecture. China, for example, could design an ISA (or microarchicture) with silicon-level monitoring and censorship — and, of course, a ubiquitous, always-open backdoor that can be used by Chinese intelligence agencies. The Great Firewall of China is fairly easy to circumvent — but what if China built a DNS and IP address blacklist into the hardware itself?

Taking a leaf out of South Korea’s hardcore gaming scene, what if the Chinese government decided to implement a hardware-level 10pm curfew for video games? Or some code that automatically turns negative mentions of Hu Jintao (the Chinese president) into positives, and inserts a few honorifics at the same time. Or a latent botnet of hundreds of millions of computers that can be activated upon the commencement of World War III. Or, or, or…