STANDARD UNIVERSAL PHONE CHARGER

The main association of mobile phone manufacturers, GSMA (Groupe Speciale Mobile Association) has recently announced a plan to standardize all phone chargers with a microUSB connector.

What does that mean? It means that there will no longer be a myriad number of charging cords, with all those tips that are not compatible with each individual cellular phone manufacturer.

One of the motivations of this new agreement is to stop the environmental damage caused by the waste of old cellular phone chargers. Did you know that there is 51,000 tons of cell phone chargers being discarded a year? A standardized charger could reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from this waste by 13.6 to 21.8 million tons.

Another economical and environmental improvement by the standardized charger is that they are projected to consume up to fifty percent less power.

The plan is to implement this sweeping change to the mobile phone industry by the year 2012. Isn’t when the world is coming to an end, according to some Mayan calendar? At least according to some new film by Roland Emmerich, the guy who gave us Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow.

So, by the time we have standardized phone chargers, it may be too late. Here is a list of those cellular phone companies who will be part of the deal: AT&T, KTF, LG, mobilkom Austria, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile, Vodafone, and 3 Group.

SCIENTISTS WORKING ON DEATH STAR LASER......BUT FOR ENERGY,NOT BLOWING UP

The National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is working on creating a laser which can compress and heat a single fuel capsule to more than 180 million degrees in order to trigger a thermonuclear reaction. In short, they’re building a Death Star Laser. But for good, not evil. The idea is to create a kind of miniature sun on earth that would supply “limitless, safe, and carbon free energy.”

Normally, fusion – which is the bonding together of heavy atoms to create energy – takes place in hot environments like stars, but with 192 giant lasers, the NIF is attempting to create the same kind of reaction here on earth. The reaction will be accomplished by superheating the outside of a fuel capsule contining about one millionth of a pound of deuterium and tritium. This will cause the interior of the capsule to compress while the exterior explodes much like a star does. The biggest challenge? Containing the reaction as 180 million degrees will melt just about any known substance here on earth. But the reaction itself may be the key to containing it as, according to the NIF, the reaction consumes the cooler outer region faster than the capsule can release the hotter elements, thereby containing it.

Serious ignition testing is scheduled for next year. Then its’ bound to be a horse race to see if it can beat the Hadron collider in destroying the planet.

TOUCHABLE HOLOGRAPH? ALMOST.....

It’s cool enough to have holograms, but what if you could actually touch them? This was a project that some researchers at the University of Tokyo took on, and have achieved some interesting results.

You can watch a video of what they have done after the jump, but here is a quick summary. First, they used two Wiimotes (yes, Wiimotes) to track a holographic object in realtime and space. So when that hand that you see in the picture tries to dribble that tiny ball, it responds like a real superball would.

Ultrasounds are then given so the hand can actually “feel” the impact. Experiements have shown that the ultrasounds can disrupt things from a distance, and if focused properly, they can create a sense of touch. At the end of the video is that hand underneath some raindrops, and it can apparently “feel” them.

This is definitely one of those “this could change everything” technologies, but it is still in its fetal stage. In other words, don’t be dreaming about having your own holodeck from Star Trek TNG anytime soon. By the way, I believe that technology used energy and matter conversion.

Man, I am such a geek sometimes. I’ll prove it yet again by saying that this technology reminds me of a short-lived show called Automan. It was about a guy who created a holographic man who others could actually feel. He even had an Autocar and Autoplane which were also tangible holograms.

Yeah, we are a long way holograms that we can feel. I suppose if they had this touch holograms in Star Wars, then Luke Skywalker could have felt Princess Leia saying “help me Obi-Wan Kenobi”.

Oh, that is so wrong.

ACER TO OFFER NETBOOKS POWERED BY ANDROID

Acer to launch world's first Atom based Android Netbook

Since the launch of the Google G1 smart phone running Android, there has always been talk that Android could be a great mobile platform for small notebooks. And with the popularity of Netbooks being sky high - the most popular selling computers so far this year - there has been talk that sooner or later, there will be an Android driven netbook on the market. And it looks like Acer is goin’ for it in a huge way.

Scheduled to ship this fall, the Acer Android netbook will be based on the Aspire One with the Atom processor and 10 inch screen. Unveiled at the Computex Electronics show last June, Acer showed that not only can the Aspire run Android, but it can also run in a dual boot configuration with Windows XP. This can be especially advantageous until more Android based Netbook applications come online.

Acer is the first company to offer an Android based netbook running the Atom processor, and the advantage that Android has over a Windows configuration is it’s open source community development which would translate into a more affordable netbook.

No word on how much the Aspire Android will run, but it’ll be here this Fall.