Bendable Bridgestone e-Book Reader

Bendable Bridgestone e-Book Reader » My Digital Life

Bridgestone, the name synonymous with tires and Formula 1, has got the e-book market into a frenzy lately through its new invention. It claims that it has pioneered the design of the world’s first flexible e-book reader. The e-book reader has a 10.7-inch-screen and measures 5.8mm thick, half the thickness of Kindle. It can display color pages and be bent to a certain extent. Both the circuit board and electronic board are flexible. While Bridgestone has announced that it has no plans to commercialize the product yet, the technology is set to make e-book readers more appealing and versatile for users.

Enermax Aurora Micro Wireless Keyboard Review

Enermax Aurora Micro Wireless Keyboard Review | Hardware Secrets

Conclusions

* Top-notch looks.
* High-quality trackball.
* Scroll wheel is an excellent addition.
* Works out of the box with video game consoles like Playstation 3.
* No extra software is needed to operate the multimedia and function keys.
* You can feel and hear the keys being pressed.
* Low battery indicator.

Weak Points

* Price
* It could be based on Bluetooth technology.

OLED Prices to be Lower than LCD in 2016

DailyTech – OLED Prices to be Lower than LCD in 2016

Consumers will have to wait until 2016 to see the price of OLED panels drop below the price of LCD panels. The reason is that a stable supply of large OLED panels at a low cost is unavailable today. Big challenges for OLED panels today include driver elements, organic EL materials, and the sealing process.

Kim said, “We will be able to use a low-temperature polycrystal silicon with the sixth-generation size glass substrate.” He continued, “However, for 40-inch and larger panels, we have to use the eighth-generation size glass substrate. Therefore, we have to develop equipment that can deal with an SPC process at a temperature of more than 700°C.”

According to LG, its OLED panels will use florescent materials until 2011 and then move to phosphorescent materials after 2012. When 2016 rolls around OLED panels will be 20-30% lower in material cost and have an equivalent yield to LCD panels today. In 2012, the OLED panel will have a 50% higher material cost and 30% lower yield than LCD panels.

12 Must-Know Windows 7 Shortcuts – How To

12 Must-Know Windows 7 Shortcuts – How To by ExtremeTech

If you’ve been using computers a long time, you can remember the days when you needed the keyboard for everything. Some of us have never given up the habit, and still use keyboard shortcuts in Windows with great regularity. Depending on what you’re doing, they can really speed you up. So if you’ve either bought a new system using Windows 7, or if you’ve bought the OS and installed it yourself on a computer you already have, you may be wondering what new keyboard and mouse shortcuts on it can make your life easier. Here’s a look at 12 of them.

Ultracapacitor Startup Gets a Big Boost

Technology Review: Ultracapacitor Startup Gets a Big Boost

Riccardo Signorelli, first a graduate student and later a postdoc in Schindall’s lab, developed a way to replace the activated carbon with vertically oriented nanotubes. This significantly increases the surface area and voltage of an ultracapacitor electrode, which in turn boosts the amount of energy that an ultracapacitor can store. Schindall’s group hopes to develop ultracapacitors that can store five times more energy than those on the market now, bringing their capacity up to one-quarter of the amount stored by lithium-ion batteries. Because ultracapacitors can be charged and discharged thousands of times more than a rechargeable battery, however, Schindall and Signorelli believe that reaching that goal would make ultracapacitors a viable and cost-effective solution for hybrid vehicles. In fact, hybrid buses and heavy-duty vehicles are the first market FastCAP plans to target.

Signorelli cofounded FastCAP to commercialize the nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitors, and he is the company’s president. While working at MIT, he has demonstrated electrodes that deliver the power density that the company pitched in its ARPA-E grant application. The ARPA-E grant, he says, will enable FastCAP to complete the process of putting the electrode into a packaged device that operates as predicted. Additionally, by the end of the grant term he plans to have determined the process that will be used for manufacture, built a pilot-scale production plant, and tested the devices in vehicles. Signorelli calls the ARPA-E grant “instrumental” to achieving these plans.

High-Energy Batteries Coming to Market

Technology Review: High-Energy Batteries Coming to Market

A Swiss company says it has developed rechargeable zinc-air batteries that can store three times the energy of lithium ion batteries, by volume, while costing only half as much. ReVolt, of Staefa, Switzerland, plans to sell small “button cell” batteries for hearing aids starting next year and to incorporate its technology into ever larger batteries, introducing cell-phone and electric bicycle batteries in the next few years. It is also starting to develop large-format batteries for electric vehicles.

The battery design is based on technology developed at SINTEF, a research institute in Trondheim, Norway. ReVolt was founded to bring it to market and so far has raised 24 million euros in investment. James McDougall, the company’s CEO, says that the technology overcomes the main problem with zinc-air rechargeable batteries–that they typically stop working after relatively few charges. If the technology can be scaled up, zinc-air batteries could make electric vehicles more practical by lowering their costs and increasing their range.

The unromantic truth about why we kiss – to spread germs

The unromantic truth about why we kiss – to spread germs | Mail Online

It is an international symbol of love and romance. But the kiss may have evolved for reasons that are far more practical – and less alluring.

British scientists believe it developed to spread germs.

They say that the uniquely human habit allows a bug that is dangerous in pregnancy to be passed from man to woman to give her time to build up immunity.

Mecanismele evoluţiei vieţii pe Terra

Mecanismele evoluţiei vieţii pe Terra

În cadrul seriei dedicate evoluţiei vieţii pe Terra am prezentat dovezi în favoarea teoriei evoluţionismului. În continuare vom explora mecanismele care fac posibilă evoluţia formelor de viaţă. Pentru a realiza acest lucru, este nevoie să găsim răspunsurile la doar două întrebări:

1. Cum apare diversitatea în cazul genomului indivizilor care fac parte din acelaşi grup (aceeaşi specie)?

2. Care este modul prin care această diversitate conduce la apariţia unor noi specii?