Tag: Technology

Robotic Trousers

Posted on by Neal Asher

Seeing this, I cannot help but think about the Wallace and Gromit ‘The Wrong Trousers’. However, this sort of thing is seriously cool and is only going to get better. Reminds me of a piece I did for Nature Magazine in which I had a guy going to a museum to see one particular exhibit there: a wheelchair. Let’s hope that sort of thing happens in the near future. I wonder if, in my lifetime, it’ll cease to be compulsory to have wheelchair access to new-build houses?

An Israeli entrepreneur has invented robotic ‘trousers’ that can help paraplegics walk again.

Amit Goffer was paralysed in a car crash in 1997 and immediately set out to invent a device that could replace the wheelchair.

He has invented ‘ReWalk’: robotic trousers that use sensors and motors to allow paralysed patients to stand, walk and even climb stairs

Where's my Hammer?

Posted on by Neal Asher

Bloody televisions!

Our old TV was still a 26 inch tube, with a chip in the screen and was generally not as clear as it used to be. The only freeview we had available was through a Sky box (though we no longer subscribe to Sky), and the old DVD & hard disk recorder has been playing silly buggers for some time. So, also bearing in mind that VAT his going to shoot up, we decided it was time to invest in some new equipment. We got a Sony LCD flat screen (with integral freeview) and a Panasonic DVD & hard disk recorder. And I haven’t even got to the stage of turning on the second of these on.

I unplugged about twenty metres of various cobwebby cables and detached all the other equipment, then got the new TV and recorder in place – nice and simply connected with an HDMI cable. All a lot neater, lighter, better…

The instructions were of course pretty simple. They always are until something goes wrong. I ran the automatic tuning on the thing and all seemed hunky dory and the picture was superb. Then I checked the digital program list and found ITV, Channels 4 & 5 and numerous other channels missing. I tried again, but they were still missing. I tried the manual retune but could make neither head nor tail of it until I researched it on the Internet. Meanwhile Caroline turned on the TV in the bedroom only to discover heavy interference on all channels. We searched out the manual for that, retuned it, but with no luck.

Tomorrow I’m going to have to call up ‘Academy Aerials’ since, it seems, either the connections in the co-ax in the loft are causing problems, or we need a new aerial. But I’m still not sure how that relates to the problems with the bedroom TV.

Aaargh!

Super Capacitor Advance

Posted on by Neal Asher

I picked up some info on graphene from a newpaper article this year, but haven’ pursued it much. Anyway, this is looking pretty cool:

These energy density values are comparable to that of the Ni metal hydride battery. This new technology provides an energy storage device that stores nearly as much energy as in a battery, but can be recharged in seconds or minutes. We believe that this is truly a breakthrough in energy technology.

Iron Man

Posted on by Neal Asher

I picked up the DVD of Iron Man in the supermarket about a year ago and have only just got round to watching it. What can I say? It was great fun and, if you haven’t seen it, I recommend you do.

Of course the usual big hole was there: power supply. In this they got round it by ‘genius creates a palm-sized fusion reactor in a cave’. It’s the kind of thing we saw a lot in SF many decades ago but we’re too wise to go with now … or could it be that we’re too cynical and pessimistic? Thinking on this sort of thing let me to You Tube where I note that military exoskeletons are getting closer:

However, note the power cables. Power storage is always going to be a problem … unless of course you actually wear the battery?

Antimatter

Posted on by Neal Asher

I just received an email from ‘spaceoperaghost’:

‘Thought this might interest you if it hasn’t been emailed or otherwise brought to your attention already. CERN trapped antimatter! I suppose it’s too soon to start demanding warp drives and clean energy, but it’s still awesome.’

Yeah, I think we can safely assume that this is of interest to me.

Geneva, 17 November 2011. The ALPHA experiment at CERN1 has taken an important step forward in developing techniques to understand one of the Universe’s open questions: is there a difference between matter and antimatter? In a paper published in Nature today, the collaboration shows that it has successfully produced and trapped atoms of antihydrogen. This development opens the path to new ways of making detailed measurements of antihydrogen, which will in turn allow scientists to compare matter and antimatter.

Here’s a link to the article at CERN, and here’s the press release. It’s all rather dry, but then, I have become rather tired of ‘scientists’ who step over the line into politics, produce self-aggrandizing press releases and start making ludicrous predictions based on their work.

Update:
CERN created the first nine atoms of antihydrogen in 1995, and then started to produce atoms in large quantities in 2002, as part of the ATHENA and ATRAP experiments. This is the first time that scientists have been able to trap antihydrogen atoms for a long enough time to study them, keeping them at 9 degrees kelvin (-443.47 degrees Fahrenheit, -264.15 degrees Celsius), suspended in a magnetic field inside this Ghostbusters-style machine. The other reason why this is an important step is its potential to solve our need for unlimited energy. When antihydrogen touches matter—as shown in the image above—it releases a huge amount of energy. Many scientists speculate that antimatter may be the key to provide unlimited power capable of driving machines that are unthinkable right now. Eventually, it could be the stuff that could power new engines capable of taking us to the stars at near-light speed.

Um, so why the present press release?

Reading Science.

Posted on by Neal Asher

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Ah, I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I must recommence reading and inwardly digesting more science (and a bit less politics). I’ll have to do this by picking and choosing from the Internet because magazines I used to read a decade or so ago, like New Scientist and Scientific American, became highly politicized advocacy platforms
In fact, during yesterday’s trip to Asda and while Caroline was having her hair done, I picked up a copy of the former magazine, popped into the nearby pub, bought a pint of IPA (my first in something like eight months) and sat down to read it. Straight away the cover was off-putting with its depiction of ‘Urban Utopia’ and the connected article the usual exercise in dead horse flogging. Sure, cram people together and they use less energy. Here’s an idea, why not bury the cities underground and assign each human a three metre box to live in. Why not genetically modify humans into rose-blood four-fingered nebbishes so each uses up less resources … if you haven’t read it, get old of T. J. Bass’s Half-Past Human.
However, that being said, there was a lot less environmental hectoring.than there was a decade and a half ago. Maybe I will pick up a few copies of the above mentioned magazines over ensuing months and consider renewing a subscription.

Currently I’m selectively reading articles from Science Daily, Science News (on the Internet) and generally fishing about with Google for anything interesting. So, if any of you guys come across something of interest, please let me know here.

Printers

Posted on by Neal Asher

I’ve finally given up on the ink jet printer. These things are fine if you’re using them steadily, but if you’re living in two countries and therefore leaving your printer alone for seven months, it ain’t so good. I tried the technique of sealing the cartridges in a plastic bag, but they’ve dried up. Time I think to put away the bottles of ink and the syringe, and time to stop having to bleach ink off my fingers.

The best printer I ever had was an Oki monochrome laser, zero problems with it until the image drum reached the end of its long life. But I wanted colour and, last I recollected, colour laser printers were bloody expensive. Not the case now, so I’ve ordered a Samsung CLP-325 colour laser printer.

VSS Enterprise Completes First Manned Glide Flight

Posted on by Neal Asher
I signed up quite a while ago for news updates from Virgin Galactic, which have been interesting but infrequent. Two I received while in Crete I really should have mentioned here, but a lot of other stuff was going on and I didn’t get round to it. Now I will.

VIRGIN GALACTIC’S SPACESHIPTWO ACHIEVES MAJOR MILESTONE IN ITS PROGRAM TO BECOME WORLD’S FIRST MANNED COMMERCIAL SPACE VEHICLE.

 While most of the media of the world concerns itself with a sick economy, various apparently pointless wars, and a mid-term president who seems to be losing his grip, it’s heartening to know that this project is on course and doing well.

VSS Enterprise achieves manned free flight from over 45,000 ft (13,700 metres) and successfully glides to land at Mojave Air and Spaceport.10th October 2010, Mojave, CA. Virgin Galactic, the US company developing the world’s first commercial manned space flight system and tourism business, is delighted to announce the successful completion today of the first piloted free flight of SpaceShipTwo, named the VSS Enterprise. The spaceship was released from its mothership at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13,700 metres).

Reading that last bit I can’t help but wonder about reality catching up with fiction, and the way that science fiction can be swiftly put out of date. Isn’t there a scene in one of the Star Trek Films where one of the Enterprise captains (Picard?) shows off a display case full of models of ships called Enterprise? It strikes me that now that display is short one model.

During its first flight the spaceship was piloted by Pete Siebold, assisted by Mike Alsbury as co-pilot. The two main goals of the flight were to carry out a clean release of the spaceship from its mothership and for the pilots to free fly and glide back and land at Mojave Air and Space Port in California.
Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, who was present during the first successful flight, added “This was one of the most exciting days in the whole history of Virgin. For the first time since we seriously began the project in 2004, I watched the world’s first manned commercial spaceship landing on the runway at Mojave Air and Space Port and it was a great moment. Now, the sky is no longer the limit and we will begin the process of pushing beyond to the final frontier of space itself over the next year.”

Good on you Mr Branson, it’s excellent to know that someone with money and power shares the dream. However, bringing things thumping back down to Earth, much as I admire what you’re doing, I’m still comparing that BT broadband offer against what I pay for my Virgin account…

Go check out the Virgin Galactic site.