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Taos deploys a cut-through mechanism at the pixel level, so the encoder does not need to wait for an entire frame to be present before it starts coding.

Early digital video compression solutions primarily focused on applications that do not require real-time interaction, such as in TV broadcast, video-on-demand and DVD playback. In these applications the latency between the source and the decoded video is not important and can easily extend to several seconds. However, in applications where there is a closed feedback loop, such as video conference and videophone, latency is the most crucial aspect of the system, as it determines whether the system will be stable or not. Keeping the latency of a video codec in such systems as minimal as possible is the proper approach. In many such applications latency measured in sub 10 milliseconds is crucial and it takes a radically different approach from traditional ones to achieve a low latency implementation of the popular H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (Part 10) video coding standard.
Latency and zero latency defined
Simply put, video codec latency is defined here as the time lapse between the first pixel of video appearing in the source and the first pixel of decoded video appearing at the destination. Latency-sensitive video applications require that the time lapse between source and decoded video is extremely small. How small depends on the application, but as a guideline, keeping latency down to sub 10ms is a good idea. For convenience we will call such low latency "zero" latency. This is in contrast with the orders of magnitude higher latency found in non latency-sensitive applications.

Figure 1: Latency between source and decoded video
Latency sensitive video codec applications
In video conferencing and video telephony, noticeable delay makes a conversation impossible, unless a "walky-talky" like protocol is strictly followed. This makes the conversation unnatural and cumbersome. In these applications sub 33ms latency for the video codec is required.

Figure 2: Implications of latency in video conferencing
Home networks and other applications
An emerging application with high sensitivity to latency is wireless video networking in the home. This application has recently gained a lot of interest from CE manufacturers and aims to eliminate the HDMI cable between the HDTV set and video source, such as a settop box, DVD player or game box. A similar compelling case exists for the computer industry, where the link between laptop and flat panel monitor is replaced by a wireless connection.
In these applications user interaction with the remote control, game pad, keyboard or mouse, must result in instant screen updates, otherwise the solution is rendered entirely useless. Since transmission at multi-gigabit per second rates over a highly unpredictable RF link is impractical, video compression is required. In these applications sub 10ms latency for the video codec is a critical requirement.

Figure 3: Implications of latency in wireless video networking applications
Another example with a high emphasis on the importance of low latency is digital video surveillance for mission critical applications. The challenge here is to match the inherently low latency of analog video surveillance systems, as their digital counter parts replace them. In case of securing valuables, such as money in a bank, priceless artifacts in a museum, or merchandise in a store, it is important that the area or building where the intrusion occurs is instantly secured.
In multiple-camera-tracking, video feeds from several cameras are stitched together chronologically into a single feed, which tracks one or more moving objects of interest. Too much latency in the video feeds makes stitching these together a complicated task and renders the application useless for rapid response action. In all these surveillance applications sub 10ms latency for the video codec is a critical requirement.

Figure 4: Implications of latency in video surveillance applications
Lastly, a less obvious example is in electronic newsgathering or ENG. In these applications cameras in the field capture live action and transmit the video for live broadcast to a nearby satellite uplink truck, where it is edited in real-time prior to up linking. Video feeds from multiple cameras and camera panning/zooming actions need to be interpreted in real-time by the production crew.

Figure 5: Implications of latency in ENG applications
Very low latency in the video feeds is necessary to provide inherent synchronization between all the different video feeds and with panning/zooming actions of the cameras. In this application sub 33ms latency for the video codec is highly desirable.
Unexpected benefits of "zero" latency video codecs
"Zero" latency can drastically simplify systems design in applications where added latency due to other parts in the system, such as transmitters, receivers, video capture an rendering subsystems is negligible. In these cases complicated A/V time stamping and synchronization schemes are not needed as the extremely low latency of the video stream with respect to the audio stream provides inherent synchronization between the two streams. Such extremely low latency A/V systems strongly mimic the way A/V communication occurs in the natural world -- without complicated time stamping and synchronization.
Inside zero latency H.264 video encode-decode processing
In traditional approaches the encoding process starts when a complete frame of video is present, introducing at least 33ms of latency at the encoder and another 33ms at the decoder. In combination with multi-pass motion estimation, multi-pass rate control and frame-based noise filtering, traditional methods of implementation can easily exhibit in excess of 200ms encode-decode latency.
In contrast, W&W Communications has taken a radically different approach to the implementation of H.264 video codecs with its recently announced Taos architecture. By making heavily use of inherent pipelining - among other techniques - in the H.264 video coding standard, Taos is optimized to achieve extremely low encode-decode latencies of sub 2ms, between the source video and the rendered decoded video.

Figure 6: Taos high-level architecture block diagram
The low latency does not come at the expense of the video quality. No "corner-cutting" takes place in the encoder and decoder, which results in high quality video, within 2-5% of the JVT's JM (Joint Model) results.

Figure 7: Taos HD video quality compared to JVT JM results
Taos implements fine-grain pipelining at the macro-block level, single-pass advanced bit rate prediction and in-loop spatial and motion-compensated temporal filtering. Taos deploys a cut-through mechanism at the pixel level and therefore the encoder does not need to wait for an entire frame to be present before it starts coding. This comes with the extra benefit that very little memory is needed for buffering. To avoid buffer under-run the latency can be adjusted.

Figure 8: Affecting latency through implementation choices
The extremely low latency does not include transmission and external processing delay. The following table lists latency as a function of the source video resolution and frame rate.
Taos video encode-decode latency
From the table below it follows that the latency increases with lower resolutions or lower frame rates. This is due to the time required to scan in and out the video on Taos' video ports. Hence, the end-to-end codec latency is only pixel-clock dependent, i.e., frame rate and resolution dependent. It does not come at the expense of the video quality.
Taos offers an elegant method to overcome the higher latency at lower frame rates by allowing the source video to be supplied at a higher frame rate and down sampling internally to the desirable frame rate. For instance, by supplying a 720p60 stream instead of a 720p30 stream, and down sampling the frame rate internally by a factor of two, the latency of the 720p30 stream appearing at the decoder's output is halved to sub 1.5ms instead of sub 3ms.

Table 1: Resolution table
Conclusion
Taos H.264 codec architecture provides video processing functionality highly optimized for latency-sensitive applications, such as in video surveillance, video conferencing, video telephony, wireless video networking and electronic newsgathering applications. Its "zero" latency capabilities make it possible for the first time to implement these systems in ways that allow natural interactivity, without sacrificing video quality. By removing the latency normally introduced by video compression-decompression systems, Taos opens up many more opportunities for H.264 video coding beyond the here mentioned target applications - in all sorts of visually interactive, real-time applications, including automotive and robotics.
Taos builds on the legacy of the W&W Communications low latency WW10K and WW20K H.264 HD codec chipsets. For more information on Taos and these chipsets, contact W&W Communications at www.wwcoms.com or write email to info@wwwcoms.com.

About the author
Kishan Jainandunsing is VP Marketing at W&W Communications. He has over 20 years of high-tech management, marketing, business development and R&D experience. Over the course of his career he held VP Technology, Business Development, Marketing, General Manager and R&D manager positions at several microelectronics and systems companies, including IME (Singapore), Analog Devices, Inc., C-Cube (LSI) and Fujitsu (PFU). He has a background in digital speech, audio and video processing and earned a CES 2001 Best Product Award for the launch of industry's first multi-stream MPEG-2 HD codec. Kishan earned both a PhD and MS in Electrical Engineering from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He can be reached at kishan@wwcoms.com.



http://www.digitaltvdesignline.com/G...1804929&pgno=1

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3D face scan comparing the "average" face of someone with Williams syndrome with someone with no genetic known genetic condition (r) (Image: Peter Hammond)

Conditions like Williams syndrome (l) affect facial traits
(shown here next to an unaffected child)
3D face scans are set to speed up the diagnosis of rare genetic conditions in children, UK scientists say.
More than 700 genetic syndromes affect facial traits, but some are difficult to spot because few cases exist.
Now new software that compares an individual's face with a bank of 3D images of people with known conditions is aiding diagnosis.
The technology, presented at the BA Festival of Science in York, had a 90% success rate, the scientists said.
Peter Hammond, a computer scientist at the UCL Institute for Child Health in London who carried out the research, explained: "There are many conditions where the face can have unusual features arising from alterations in the genes."
'Average face'
While individuals with Down's syndrome can be easily recognised, there are more than 700 known genetic conditions that can alter how a person looks.
For example, people who have Williams syndrome, which occurs in between one in 10,000-20,000 births, have a short, upturned nose, a full mouth and a small jaw.
3D image comparing "average" face of someone with Smith-Magenis syndrome with someone with no genetic known genetic condition (r) (Image: Peter Hammond)
The 3D face of Smith-Magenis (l) shows the flatter nose and lifted lip
Individuals with Smith-Magenis syndrome, which occurs in one in 25,000 births, have a nose with a very flat bridge and a lifted lip. While those with Fragile X syndrome, which has an incidence of about one in 4,000, have long, narrow faces and large or protruding ears.
For some genetic conditions, facial differences can be very subtle and cases can be rare, making initial diagnosis extremely difficult.
To help, Professor Hammond has collected 3D images of children with known problem and has created software that combines the images to create an "average face" of a child with different genetic conditions.
In the same way, he has also built up the average face of a child with no known genetic disorder for comparison.

Each composite image is made up of between 30 to 150 images.

Faster diagnosis
Professor Hammond said: "When we have a child with an unknown condition, we take a 3D picture of their face and we have developed techniques that allow us to compare their face with these averages.
3D face scan comparing the "average" face of someone with Fragile X syndrome with someone with no genetic known genetic condition (r) (Image: Peter Hammond)

People with Fragile X (l) have long, narrow faces
"And the one that is the most similar is the
prime target as the condition that might explain
their unusual facial features.
"Then the geneticists can do the more appropriate genetic testing, if such a test exists, to further confirm this."
So far, the technique is currently being applied to more than 30 conditions with an average success rate of 90% and Professor Hammond is collecting more images to encompass even more genetic conditions.
Using the software would speed up diagnosis and reduce the number of genetic tests a child might need, he said.
Professor Hammond is currently using the technology at his hospital in London, but would like it to be rolled out across the UK.
This would involve more 3D cameras in hospitals or technology that could convert 2D images to 3D.
In the future, Professor Hammond is looking to compile enough data to build average images of genetic diseases for different sexes and ethnicities.
In work soon to be published, Professor Hammond has also used the software to examine the facial characteristics of people with autism spectrum disorder and has identified unusual facial asymmetry in children with the condition.
These children are more likely to have a slight protrusion of the right temple, possibly reflecting a larger area of the brain known as the right frontal pole.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6982030.stm

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NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy should pursue the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM) as the first mission in the "Beyond Einstein" program, according to a new report from the National Research Council. Beyond Einstein is NASA's research roadmap for five proposed mission areas to study the most compelling questions at the intersection of physics and astronomy. The committee that wrote the report added that another proposed mission to detect gravitational waves using the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) should eventually become the flagship mission of Beyond Einstein, given that it is likely to provide an entirely new way to observe the universe. However, LISA needs more testing before a launch can be planned, whereas the Joint Dark Energy Mission is ready now for a competitive selection of mission concept proposals.
Prompted by Congress and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, NASA and DOE asked the committee to assess the five proposed mission areas and recommend one for first development and launch. NASA�s Beyond Einstein program, set to begin in 2009, is comprised of two astronomical observatories, Constellation-X and LISA, as well as a series of probes: the Inflation Probe (IP), the Black Hole Finder Probe (BHFP), and JDEM.
"All of the mission areas in the Beyond Einstein program have the potential to fundamentally alter our understanding of the universe," said committee co-chair Charles F. Kennel, distinguished professor and director of the Environment and Sustainability Initiative at the University of California, San Diego. "But JDEM will provide direct insight into a key Beyond Einstein science question, and is the most technically feasible option for immediate development."
Of particular interest to researchers is whether the acceleration of the expansion of the universe varies over time. So far, three specific mission plans have been studied in this area: the Supernova Acceleration Probe (SNAP), the Dark Energy Space Telescope (DESTINY), and the Advanced Dark Energy Physics Telescope (ADEPT), but the eventual JDEM could be any one of the three or be based on a different option altogether. The committee found that the underlying technology for a dark energy mission is, for the most part, in the prototype phase, and will require less development than most of the other missions. The potential gains for JDEM also outweigh its scientific risks, such as the possibility that the mission may not provide substantial insight beyond that provided by telescopes on the ground. The report recommends that NASA and DOE proceed immediately with a competition for mission proposals that will investigate the nature of dark energy with high precision.
The committee also recommended that NASA invest additional Beyond Einstein funds in technology development of the LISA program. LISA, which is funded through a partnership between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), is designed to detect gravitational waves arising from, among other phenomena, the merging of black holes. The committee found that LISA will open up new ways of observing the universe, but must await results from ESA's "LISA Pathfinder" mission first. Scheduled for launch in 2009, LISA Pathfinder will test many of the new technologies required for the LISA program. Yet, some critical technologies, such as extended use of micro-Newton thruster technology, will not be tested. The report recommends that the development of these technologies should be a high priority for the Beyond Einstein program.
The report indicates that the three elements of Beyond Einstein that are not being recommended for immediate implementation are still important endeavors that should receive continued support. The committee found that because the Constellation-X mission is a general-purpose x-ray observatory capable of broad contributions to astrophysics, it should be funded and assessed in a broader context than the Beyond Einstein program. The Black Hole Finder Probe and Inflation Probe missions will also make important scientific contributions; however, because of scope and technical readiness issues, they fell behind JDEM and LISA. The committee recommended that Constellation-X, Black Hole Finder Probe, and Inflation Probe receive continued support to prepare them for the next decadal survey of astronomy and astrophysics.


http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...a-er090607.php

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On September 10, 2007, the OpenOffice.org community welcomed IBM as a community member. As well as immediate code contributions, IBM has pledged ongoing software engineering support to the community and plans to further leverage the open source technology in its own products.
I've been downloading and dabbling with the OpenOffice.org software suite for a year or two now, and liked what I saw but didn't adopt it because, like so many others, I've been using the Microsoft Office suite for so long that nothing more than sheer inertia stopped me from changing course.
"If it's free, how good can it be?" was also a question hovering around in the back of my mind. There's also the consideration that my main use is for editing text documents, with only occasional use for spreadsheets and other features. I used to use Lotus WordPro for a time during the mid-1990s -- remember that? Then Microsoft Word 97 came along and this offered me more than enough features, certainly all the essential ones to meet my needs, with the newer releases such as Word 2003 being icing on the cake rather than (for me, anyway) having essential new features.
So I've been happily using Word 2003 for three or four years, and -- not in any reactionary way -- frankly see no compelling need to upgrade to Microsoft's new wunderkind: Microsoft Office 2007, launched publicly along with Windows Vista on January 30 this year. The new graphical user interface, with the so-called Ribbon replacing the earlier menus and toolbars, certainly is innovative and not too hard to get used to, but is it worth the changeover costs?
That's a question a lot of enterprises are already asking, and I suspect that Microsoft will have it's task cut out to convince them to upgrade. Right now I'm doing some work at an organisation that still has Windows 2000 and Office 2000 deployed, and frankly they are perfectly adequate for the job in hand. It's the perennial marketing dilemma: how to persuade your existing customers to purchase next year's bright, shiny new model when last year's model is still meeting nearly all of their needs.
Getting back to OpenOffice, several months ago I decided to bite the bullet and use it for a serious job instead of just playing with it. After months of intensive development and testing, I was ready to release a new version of my NotesTracker product. his involved taking a fairly large document, importing it from Word 2003 format into OpenOffice 2, making extensive changes and additions (weeks of careful editing), and finally creating a PDF final form of the document for download by NotesTracker users.
My impression of the OpenOffice Writer product? Extremely competent indeed, and I really appreciated the fact that creating a PDF output document is a standard feature whereas for Word I had to install a PDF virtual printer. I likes the fact that the table of contents in the PDF file had live hyperlinks, so that users clicking on a topic in the TOC are taken directly to the corresponding page in the body of the PDF document. (There may well be one, but I couldn't find a virtual printer that provided this essential feature.)
But it does do a number of operations differently from the Microsoft Office 2003 suite. I must admit that did struggle for a while finding out how OpenOffice Writer did some things -- even some simple actions like how to jump directly to a specified page number -- but all in all the Writer was quite okay to use. Certainly no more of change than having to learn how Microsoft Office 2008 does things.
Will I stop using Microsoft Office and use OpenOffice exclusively? Silly question. Of course not. ... Will Qantas or other airlines stop using Boeings t, and fly only Airbus aircraft? Will motorists stop driving their GM or Ford vehicles in favour of Toyotas or Volkswagens? What do you think?
The recently released IBM Lotus Notes 8 includes what is essentially IBM's own implementation of the OpenOffice tools, for creating documents, spreadsheets and presentations. These go under the name of IBM productivity tools and they may be optionally selected during installation of the Notes 8 client software.
The press release for the announcement should encourage those considering a move to the OpenOffice suite, as well as those who've already been using it.
"This is great news for the tens of millions of users of OpenOffice.org and the thousands of individual members of the community", said John McCreesh, OpenOffice.org Marketing Project Lead. "We welcome IBM's contributions to further enhancing the OpenOffice.org product. But equally important is IBM's future commitment to package and distribute new works that leverage OpenOffice.org technology supporting the ISO OpenDocument Format standard. ODF is a once in a generation opportunity for the IT industry to unify round a standard, and deliver lasting benefit to all users of desktop technology."


http://www.itwire.com/content/view/14406/1127/1/0/

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NASA researchers have designed and built a new circuit chip that can take the heat like never before.
In the past, integrated circuit chips could not withstand more than a few hours of high temperatures before degrading or failing. This chip exceeded 1,700 hours of continuous operation at 500 degrees Celsius - a breakthrough that represents a 100-fold increase in what has previously been achieved. The new silicon carbide differential amplifier integrated circuit chip may provide benefits to anything requiring long-lasting electronic circuits in very hot environments.
Such highly durable integrated circuitry and packaging are being developed to enable extremely functional but physically small circuitry for hot sections of jet engines. In the future, such electronics will enhance sensing and control of the combustion process that could lead to improved safety and fuel efficiency as well as reduced emissions from jet engines. Similar benefits are also possible for automotive engines. Additional potential benefits of long-lasting high temperature integrated circuitry extend to oil and natural gas well drilling and anything requiring long lasting electronic circuits in very hot environments, including robotic exploration on the hostile surface environment of Venus.
"It's really a significant step toward mission-enabling harsh environment electronics," said Phil Neudeck, an electronics engineer and team lead for this work by the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. "This new capability can eliminate the additional plumbing, wires, weight and other performance penalties required to liquid-cool traditional sensors and electronics near the hot combustion chamber, or the need to remotely locate them elsewhere where they aren't as effective."
This successful project is a combined effort of the Aviation Safety and Fundamental Aeronautics programs under NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. For more information, visit: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/SiC



http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007...icon_Chip.html

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Age & disability correspondent, BBC News website
The avatar was developed by the University of East Anglia
Technology that translates spoken or written words into British Sign Language (BSL) has been developed by researchers at IBM.
The system, called SiSi (Say It Sign It) was created by a group of students in the UK.
SiSi will enable deaf people to have simultaneous sign language interpretations of meetings and presentations.
It uses speech recognition to animate a digital character or avatar.
IBM says its technology will allow for interpretation in situations where a human interpreter is not available.
It could also be used to provide automatic signing for television, radio and telephone calls.
'Disenfranchised citizens'
The concept has already gained the approval of the Royal National Institute for Deaf people (RNID).
"RNID welcomes any development that would make the information society a more equal place for deaf and hard of hearing people," said the charity's director of new technologies, Guido Gybels.
"Sign language users are among the most disenfranchised citizens as a result of services and products not being designed with their needs in mind."
But Mr Gybels says there is still a long way to go before such prototypes are in everyday use.
IBM runs a yearly initiative called Extreme Blue which invites technically-minded and business students to collaborate for 12 weeks.
"We had a profoundly deaf mentor, so he kept a close eye on what was being done and checking whether our translation corresponded to real BSL," said Maria Vihljajeva, the student who developed the business plan for SiSi.
The students used two signing avatars developed by the University of East Anglia.
One of them signs in BSL and the other uses Sign Supported English - a more direct translation using conventional syntax and grammar.
Converting SiSi to use other languages should also be straightforward, according to Tom Klapiscak, another student who had technical input into the project.
"We designed the SiSi architecture in such a way that new translation modules can easily be plugged into the system," he said.
"Obviously this would involve the work of creating the translation module itself - which is no small task."
Mr Gybels of the RNID says he is "very impressed" with what the students were able to achieve in just twelve weeks.
"Creating a system that can actually bridge the gap between hearing people who speak English and deaf people who use BSL is very important."



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6993326.stm

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Physicists at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at Michigan State University have made a unique measurement of an exotic oxygen nucleus, leading scientists one step closer to deciphering the behavior of the element at its limits of existence.
The finding, published in Physical Review Letters, confirms a relatively new theoretical model that predicts dramatic changes in structure as one looks at heavier and heavier oxygen nuclei.
In the experiment, researchers measured a never-before-seen energy state of oxygen 23—one of the heaviest oxygen isotopes that exist.
"It was very exciting to see an experiment that was able to observe this [energy] state very close to where we predicted," said Alex Brown, a professor at NSCL who was involved in the shaping of the theory.
Atomic nuclei are composed of protons and neutrons, only certain combinations of which can exist. Each element—determined by the number of protons in its nucleus—comes in a variety of flavors with different numbers of neutrons, creating isotopes. The search for the maximum number of neutrons that can fit into a given element's nucleus lies at the forefront of nuclear physics research.
Moving towards the limit of nuclear stability often leads to strange behavior, such as unexpected changes in nuclear structure.
"We thought we understood the nuclear forces well," said Andreas Schiller, an assistant professor at Ohio University and lead researcher on the study. "But it turns out, when we go to extreme ratios of neutrons and protons, the forces in those areas still hold surprises."
While oxygen 23 contains 8 protons and 15 neutrons, stable form of oxygen, making up the bulk of the oxygen found on Earth, has only 8 neutrons.
A few years ago, scientists tweaked an older version of the theory of atomic nuclei to try to explain some startling phenomena among the heavier oxygen isotopes. The new calculations predicted more dramatic changes in structure among the heavier oxygen isotopes. The experiment, which was conducted at NSCL, confirms these predictions.
Looking at the excited states of a nucleus—reached by adding extra energy into it—is a good way to understand the forces inside it, said Michael Thoennessen, associate director of nuclear science at NSCL and co-author of the paper.
The result paves the road to studying the neighboring oxygen 24—the heaviest possible oxygen isotope.
Many more mysteries remain to be explored, physicists say. As many as 8,000 nuclei are predicted to exist, but so far only 2,000 have been observed.
The experiment, funded by the National Science Foundation, was the first to yield new information from two tailored NSCL tools, which came on line only recently. One device, the Modular Neutron Array, detects neutrons with high efficiency, and the other, the sweeper magnet, uses NSCL's superconducting magnet technology to allow a higher percentage of sought-after particles to pass.
These devices make it possible to explore isotopes farther towards the extreme edges of existence, by making experimental run times up to seven times shorter.
"Without them you couldn't do the experiments," Thoennessen said.



http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-npe091307.php

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The $US30 million Google Lunar X Prize challenges private sector engineers and entrepreneurs to put a robotic rover on the Moon's surface by 2014.
Three goals must be achieved in order to win the $US20 million grand prize: a spacecraft must be soft-landed on the Moon; the rover must travel at least 500m; and certain data must be transmitted back to Earth.
That data is to include high-resolution 360-degree panoramas, self-portraits of the rover, near-real time video taken as the rover travels across the lunar surface, HD video, and a data set loaded prior to launch.
The $US20 million prize holds until December 31, 2012. After that date it reduces to $US15 million until the closing date of December 31, 2014. The conditions do allow for a extension of the competition period.
A $US5 million second prize will be awarded to another team that achieves the competition goals by December 31, 2014. The idea is to encourage continuing activity after the main prize has been won.
The remaining $US5 million is up for grabs by teams that complete tasks beyond the minimum for success. Examples include roving further than 5km, imaging man-made artefacts, and discovering water ice.
Competition rules are subject to a public review process before finalisation.
SpaceX will offer reduced-cost use of its Falcon launch vehicle to Google Lunar X Prize contestants, while the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array will provide a no-cost downlink.
"The Google Lunar X Prize calls on entrepreneurs, engineers and visionaries from around the world to return us to the lunar surface and explore this environment for the benefit of all humanity," said Peter Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation. "We are confident that teams from around the world will help develop new robotic and virtual presence technology, which will dramatically reduce the cost of space exploration."



http://www.itwire.com/content/view/14450/1066/

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A silent revision to Microsoft Update has caused a flurry of concern from users who thought they had an opportunity to approve all updates before they are installed.
There is some debate about what is actually happening. According to Scott Dunn at Windows Secrets wrote "The Automatic Updates dialog box in the Control Panel can be set to prevent updates from being installed automatically. However, with Microsoft's latest stealth move, updates to the WU executables seem to be installed regardless of the settings — without notifying users."
Nate Clinton, Windows Update program manager at Microsoft, disputes this: "WU does not automatically update itself when Automatic Updates is turned off, this only happens when the customer is using WU to automatically install upgrades or to be notified of updates," he wrote in the Microsoft Update Product Team Blog.
Yet Vista product manager Nick White wrote in the Windows Vista Blog "This self-updating is done regardless of whether the user has enabled automatic checking, download and/or installation of updates."
It seems that Dunn and White might have phrased their remarks too loosely, as apparently Clinton has got it right and if Windows Update is set to neither install nor notify it will not self-update. Furthermore, this is nothing new: Windows Update has updated itself several times previously.
Taking Microsoft's explanation - that Windows Update needs to keep itself updated so that it can handle subsequent updates - at face value, it still seems reasonable that users are notified before the update is applied, given the chance to decline it, and warned of the consequences if they do. Not everyone goes along with the idea of applying patches as soon as possible - some prefer to wait a day or two so that others can be the guinea pigs. If a latent flaw in a new version of Windows Update prevented subsequent self-updates, recovery could be time-consuming.
But in any case, shouldn't an old version of Windows Update still be able to detect any new updates for Windows and associated software, even if it could not download and install them until it had updated itself?


http://www.itwire.com/content/view/14451/53/

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A few days ago I suddenly realized Microsoft was dead. I was talking to a young startup founder about how Google was different from Yahoo. I said that Yahoo had been warped from the start by their fear of Microsoft. That was why they'd positioned themselves as a "media company" instead of a technology company. Then I looked at his face and realized he didn't understand. It was as if I'd told him how much girls liked Barry Manilow in the mid 80s. Barry who?
Microsoft? He didn't say anything, but I could tell he didn't quite believe anyone would be frightened of them.
Microsoft cast a shadow over the software world for almost 20 years starting in the late 80s. I can remember when it was IBM before them. I mostly ignored this shadow. I never used Microsoft software, so it only affected me indirectly—for example, in the spam I got from botnets. And because I wasn't paying attention, I didn't notice when the shadow disappeared.
But it's gone now. I can sense that. No one is even afraid of Microsoft anymore. They still make a lot of money—so does IBM, for that matter. But they're not dangerous.
When did Microsoft die, and of what? I know they seemed dangerous as late as 2001, because I wrote an essay then about how they were less dangerous than they seemed. I'd guess they were dead by 2005. I know when we started Y Combinator we didn't worry about Microsoft as competition for the startups we funded. In fact, we've never even invited them to the demo days we organize for startups to present to investors. We invite Yahoo and Google and some other Internet companies, but we've never bothered to invite Microsoft. Nor has anyone there ever even sent us an email. They're in a different world.
What killed them? Four things, I think, all of them occurring simultaneously in the mid 2000s.

• The most obvious is Google. There can only be one big man in town, and they're clearly it. Google is the most dangerous company now by far, in both the good and bad senses of the word. Microsoft can at best limp along afterward.
• When did Google take the lead? There will be a tendency to push it back to their IPO in August 2004, but they weren't setting the terms of the debate then. I'd say they took the lead in 2005. Gmail was one of the things that put them over the edge. Gmail showed they could do more than search.
• Gmail also showed how much you could do with web-based software, if you took advantage of what later came to be called "Ajax." And that was the second cause of Microsoft's death: everyone can see the desktop is over. It now seems inevitable that applications will live on the web—not just email, but everything, right up to Photoshop. Even Microsoft sees that now.

Ironically, Microsoft unintentionally helped create Ajax. The x in Ajax is from the XMLHttpRequest object, which lets the browser communicate with the server in the background while displaying a page. (Originally the only way to communicate with the server was to ask for a new page.) XMLHttpRequest was created by Microsoft in the late 90s because they needed it for Outlook. What they didn't realize was that it would be useful to a lot of other people too—in fact, to anyone who wanted to make web apps work like desktop ones.
The other critical component of Ajax is Javascript, the programming language that runs in the browser. Microsoft saw the danger of Javascript and tried to keep it broken for as long as they could.
[1] But eventually the open source world won, by producing Javascript libraries that grew over the brokenness of Explorer the way a tree grows over barbed wire.
The third cause of Microsoft's death was broadband Internet. Anyone who cares can have fast Internet access now. And the bigger the pipe to the server, the less you need the desktop.
The last nail in the coffin came, of all places, from Apple. Thanks to OS X, Apple has come back from the dead in a way that is extremely rare in technology.
[2] Their victory is so complete that I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows. Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops. It was the same in the audience at startup school. All the computer people use Macs or Linux now. Windows is for grandmas, like Macs used to be in the 90s. So not only does the desktop no longer matter, no one who cares about computers uses Microsoft's anyway.
And of course Apple has Microsoft on the run in music too, with TV and phones on the way.
I'm glad Microsoft is dead. They were like Nero or Commodus—evil in the way only inherited power can make you. Because remember, the Microsoft monopoly didn't begin with Microsoft. They got it from IBM. The software business was overhung by a monopoly from about the mid-1950s to about 2005. For practically its whole existence, that is. One of the reasons "Web 2.0" has such an air of euphoria about it is the feeling, conscious or not, that this era of monopoly may finally be over.
Of course, as a hacker I can't help thinking about how something broken could be fixed. Is there some way Microsoft could come back? In principle, yes. To see how, envision two things:
(a) the amount of cash Microsoft now has on hand, and
(b) Larry and Sergey making the rounds of all the search engines ten years ago trying to sell the idea for Google for a million dollars, and being turned down by everyone.
The surprising fact is, brilliant hackers—dangerously brilliant hackers—can be had very cheaply, by the standards of a company as rich as Microsoft. They can't hire smart people anymore, but they could buy as many as they wanted for only an order of magnitude more. So if they wanted to be a contender again, this is how they could do it:

• Buy all the good "Web 2.0" startups. They could get substantially all of them for less than they'd have to pay for Facebook.
• Put them all in a building in Silicon Valley, surrounded by lead shielding to protect them from any contact with Redmond.

I feel safe suggesting this, because they'd never do it. Microsoft's biggest weakness is that they still don't realize how much they suck. They still think they can write software in house. Maybe they can, by the standards of the desktop world. But that world ended a few years ago.
I already know what the reaction to this essay will be. Half the readers will say that Microsoft is still an enormously profitable company, and that I should be more careful about drawing conclusions based on what a few people think in our insular little "Web 2.0" bubble. The other half, the younger half, will complain that this is old news.


http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

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Artist's impression of the hub
The wave hub could generate electricity for 14,000 homes
The government has given planning approval for the world's first large-scale wave farm off the coast of north Cornwall.
Sited about 10 miles (16km) out to sea off Hayle the hub, which would collect energy from wave turbines, could generate electricity for 14,000 homes.
It should deliver electricity to the national grid by 2009.
It is hoped the project could generate £330m for the regional economy over 25 years.
Generating electricity
The official consent announcement will be made on Monday by John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.
The wave hub - a seafloor "socket", will connect wave energy machines to the mainland.
The proposed power station will involve up to 20 sets of machines, with pumps, pistons and turbines, about 10 miles (16km) out to sea off St Ives Bay, generating electricity for 14,000 homes.
There was some objection to the scheme amongst surfers who were worried the farm would reduce wave height on the beaches.
But Dr Kerry Black, a New Zealand-based physical oceanographer, concluded in June that the impact on wave height would be less than 5% - far less than the 11% feared previously by some surfers.
The environmental campaign group, Surfers Against Sewage, has said it supports the wave energy project.
The implications of the project for the region's economy are considerable according to Claire Gibson from the South West RDA.
"It's a really exciting project for the region," she said.
"It's really going to position us as the place to be."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/6998199.stm

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Five dual-channel, 2GB kits from Corsair, Kingston (2), OCZ, and Super Talent each with different rated speeds and timings, ranging from 1333MHz to 1800MHz.

We are only four months removed from the launch of Intel's P35 chipset - the first desktop chipset to support DDR3 memory - and already the market is rife with high-end memory kits that dramatically outperform the initial offerings that arrived alongside Intel's new platform. DDR3 memory kits are still substantially more expensive than even some of the fastest DDR2 kits, and they certainly don't represent the best value in desktop memory, but with the amount of innovation going on in this space we thought it was time to pull together a handful of fast DDR3 memory kits for a first look.

*

There are four key things at work in Corsair's Dominator memory kits that result in the product you see pictured above. With the Dominator series, the memory's PCB has been heightened and there are thermally conductive vias and traces running through the PCB and connected to the ground plane, to help dissipate heat from within the board itself. Heatsinks are then bonded to both sides of the upper portion of the PCB to further aid in heat dissipation.
The memory chips on both sides of the PCB are outfitted with their own dedicated, oversized heatsinks to help cool the chips as well. Having two paths from which heat can be drawn out of the modules is what Corsair is calling DHX technology, or Dual-Path Heat Xchange. And the Dominator fan included with the kit is the third component that aids in cooling, which in turn enhances stability, longevity, and overclockability.
In addition to DHX, Corsair is aggressively binning the memory chips used on the Dominator kits and is using only select samples th at can operate reliably at their rated latencies and frequencies. The culmination of Corsair's efforts is a 2GB memory kit that's rated for operation at over 1.8GHz with 7-7-7-20 timings. We should note, however, that the TWIN3X2048-1800C7DF memory requires 2.0v to operate at its rated speed whereas many other DDR3 kits require only 1.7v to 1.8v.
Features:

• 2048 Megabytes of DDR3 memory
• Two matched CM3X1024-1800C7D G modules
• Using DHX technology providing maximum cooling
• Comes with Airflow Fan for maximum thermal transfer
• 100% tested at 1800MHz in high performance DDR3 motherboards
• Lifetime warranty

Specifications:

• Each module pair is tested together at 1800MHz
• Tested and packaged in pairs
• Packaged together immediately following system test
• Tested together at 1800MHz, Vdimm = 2.0V, at latency settings of 7-7-7-20 on ASUS P5K3 motherboards
• Must use sockets DIMM A2 and DIMM B2 (”black sockets”) to achieve this performance
• SPD programmed at:
• JEDEC standard 9-9-9-24 values at 1333MHz

**

The matched paid of 1GB DIMMs used in the OCZ3P1600EB2K kit are adorned with OCZ's XTC (Xtreme Thermal Convenction) heat spreaders, which feature a perforated honeycomb design that's meant to increase surface arean and allow for air to circulate through the heat spreader to the PCB and chips beneath. This kit also features OCZ's EVP (Extended Voltage Protection). What EVP does is allow overclockers and power users to increase the memory voltage to as high as 1.95V without invalidating OCZ's Lifetime Warranty.
"The PC3-12800 EB (Enhanced Bandwidth) Edition is built with ardent enthusiasts in mind, featuring the ideal balance of sheer DDR3 speed and enhanced timings. This memory is specially designed and optimized for the latest generation of ASUS motherboards. As one of OCZ’s legendary Enhanced Bandwidth (EB) editions, the DDR3-1600 Platinum EB increases effective memory bandwidth through the optimization of memory latencies between the system memory, the chipset, and memory controller. At 1600MHz, the PC2-12800 EB edition is rated for 7-6-6 timings on ASUS platforms."
Features:

• XTC (Xtreme Thermal Convection) heatspreaders optimize the thermal management of memory modules by promoting greater airflow by means of micro-convection throughout what is usually the dead air space inside conventional heatspreader designs. In this manner, build-up of heat is avoided and thermal dissipation of the memory components is offloaded more efficiently through the honeycomb design. At the same time, mechanical stability is maintained.
• OCZ EVP (Extended Voltage Protection) is a feature that allows performance enthusiasts to use a VDIMM of 1.95V without invalidating their OCZ Lifetime Warranty.

Specifications:
1600MHz DDR3
CL 7-6-6-20 (CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS)
Available in 1GB and 2GB Modules
Unbuffered
Platinum Z3 XTC Heatspreader
Lifetime Warranty
1.9Volts
240 Pin DIMM
Optimized for ASUS boards
Special Features 1.95V EVP

***

"Kingston's KHX11000D3LLK2/2G is a kit of two 128M x 64-bit 1GB (1024MB) DDR3-1375 CL7 SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) memory modules, based on sixteen 64M x 8-bit DDR3 FBGA components per module. Each module pair has been tested to run at DDR3-1375MHz at a low latency timing of 7-7-7 at 1.7V. The SPDs are programmed to JEDEC standard latency DDR3-1066Mhz timing of 7-7-7 at 1.5V. Each 240-pin DIMM uses gold contact fingers and requires +1.5V. The JEDEC standard electrical and mechanical specifications are as follows:"
Features:

• JEDEC standard 1.5V ± 0.075V Power Supply
• VDDQ = 1.5V ± 0.075V
• 533MHz fCK for 1066Mb/sec/pin
• 8 independent internal bank
• Programmable CAS Latency: 5,6,7,8,9,10
• Posted CAS
• Programmable Additive Latency: 0, CL - 2, or CL - 1 clock
• Programmable CAS Write Latency(CWL) = 7(DDR3-1066)
• 8-bit pre-fetch
• Burst Length: 8 (Interleave without any limit, sequential with starting address “000” only), 4 with tCCD = 4
• which does not allow seamless read or write [either on the fly using A12 or MRS]
• Bi-directional Differential Data Strobe
• Internal(self) calibration : Internal self calibration through ZQ pin (RZQ : 240 ohm ± 1%)
• On Die Termination using ODT pin
• Average Refresh Period 7.8us at lower then TCASE 85°C, 3.9us at 85°C < TCASE . 95°C
• Asynchronous Reset
• 1066Mbps CL7 doesn’t have backward compatibility with 800Mbps CL5
• PCB : Height 1.180” (30.00mm), double sided component

Performance:

• CL(IDD) = 7 cycles
• Row Cycle Time (tRCmin) = 50.63ns (min.)
• Refresh to Active/Refresh Command Time (tRFCmin) = 90ns
• Row Active Time (tRASmin) = 37.5ns (min.)
• Power TBD W (operating per module)
• UL Rating = 94 V - 0
• Operating Temperature = 0oC to 85oC
• Storage Temperature = -55oC to +100oC

****

"Kingston's KHX11000D3ULK2/2G is a kit of two 128M x 64-bit 1GB (1024MB) DDR3-1375 CL5 SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) "ultra low latency" memory modules, based on sixteen 64M x 8-bit DDR3 FBGA components per module. Each module pair has been tested to run at DDR3-1375MHz at a low latency timing of 5-7-5 at 1.8V. The SPDs are programmed to JEDEC standard latency DDR3-1333Mhz timing of 8-8-8 at 1.5V. Each 240-pin DIMM uses gold contact fingers and requires +1.5V. The JEDEC standard electrical and mechanical specifications are as follows:"
Features:

• JEDEC standard 1.5V ± 0.075V Power Supply
• VDDQ = 1.5V ± 0.075V
• 667MHz fCK for 1333Mb/sec/pin
• 8 independent internal bank
• Programmable CAS Latency: 5,6,7,8,9,10
• Posted CAS
• Programmable Additive Latency: 0, CL - 2, or CL - 1 clock
• Programmable CAS Write Latency(CWL) = 8(DDR3-1333)
• 8-bit pre-fetch
• Burst Length: 8 (Interleave without any limit, sequential with starting address “000” only), 4 with tCCD = 4 which does not allow seamless read or write [either on the fly using A12 or MRS]
• Bi-directional Differential Data Strobe
• Internal(self) calibration : Internal self calibration through ZQ pin (RZQ : 240 ohm ± 1%)
• On Die Termination using ODT pin
• Average Refresh Period 7.8us at lower then TCASE 85°C, 3.9us at 85°C < TCASE . 95°C
• Asynchronous Reset
• 1333Mbps CL8 doesn’t have backward compatibility with 800Mbps CL5
• PCB : Height 1.180” (30.00mm), double sided component

Performance:

• CL(IDD) = 8 cycles
• Row Cycle Time (tRCmin) = 48ns (min.)
• Refresh to Active/Refresh Command Time (tRFCmin) = 90ns
• Row Active Time (tRASmin) = 36ns (min.)
• Power = TBD W (operating per module)
• UL Rating = 94 V - 0
• Operating Temperature = 0oC to 85oC
• Storage Temperature = -55oC to +100oC

*****

"The W1600UX2G7 is an extreme performance 2GB kit of low latency DDR3-1600 DIMMs that supports 1600MHz+ clock speeds. It is ideal for gamers, power users and overclockers, and is perfectly suited for motherboards based on the new Intel P35 chipset. This kit has been tested and is guaranteed to operate at 1600MHz at very aggressive 7-7-7-18 latencies at 1.8 volts. It has been tested as a matched pair of modules in a dual channel motherboard to ensure ultimate reliability, compatibility and performance. These modules are clad in our custom black cast aluminum high-efficiency (HE) heatspreaders for optimum thermal performance. Efficient cooling is essential to optimize speed and to preserve the life of the DIMMs."
Module Feautres:

• 2x 240-pin DDR3 DIMMs
• Non-ECC, Unbuffered
• 2GB kit (2x 128Mx64)
• DDR3-1600, 7-7-7-18 latencies
• Single rank
• Chip Architecture: 2 x 8 chips, 128Mx8
• Cast aluminum high-efficiency (HE) heatspreader
• SPD*: DDR3-1066, 7-7-7-18 latencies
• Made in USA
• Super Talent Lifetime Warranty

Test Specs:

• These modules are tested and guaranteed to operate at these specs.
• DDR3-1600 / PC3-12800
• 7-7-7-18 Latencies (CAS, tRCD, tRP, tRAS)
• Test Voltage: 1.8V
• Tested on Asus P5K3 Deluxe
• Tested as a matched pair in a dual channel motherboard

http://www.hothardware.com/articles/...Talent/?page=1

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IBM has become the latest company to release a free suite of office software with hopes of challenging Microsoft’s market dominance in the productivity software market. As of this morning, IBM is offering its IBM Lotus Symphony apps suite for free through its website.
Lotus Symphony is based on open source software from the OpenOffice.org project and comprises word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications. As an Open Office derivative, Lotus Symphony employs the Open Document Format to ensure cross-application portability of data. The suite can also import and edit Microsoft Office documents and save them as ODF files.
To date, OpenOffice has failed to put much of a dent in Microsoft's multi-billion dollar office software business. However, OpenOffice isn't the only challenge to Microsoft's dominance in this space. Google also extended its free range of online office tools today by adding a simple presentation tool as a rival to Microsoft PowerPoint. Although Microsoft Office won't lose its dominance in the desktop applications market any time soon, Google seems to enjoy a significant lead when it comes to web-based productivity applications and services, which seems to be where the market is headed.


http://www.techspot.com/news/27096-I...-software.html

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Pat Gelsinger Talks Enterprise
Pat Gelsinger is a very recognizable figure inside Intel and his keynote addresses are always good for a brief look into the future of the enterprise level markets and even enthusiast performance platforms. This year my main interest in his talk focused on some non-Intel developed technologies as well.

As a member of the PCI-SIG, Intel is one of the main contributors to the PCI Express development of the past several years and Gelsinger showed some of the specs behind the future PCIe 3.0 design; even though PCIe 2.0 is barely on the tip of the horizon already. Where PCIe 2.0 will double the bandwidth of the current PCIe 1.0 specifications, 3.0 will double it yet again while maintaining backward compatibility with PCIe 2.0 and even PCIe 1.0.

What's that hiding behind Pat on stage...it looks like a skull with an Intel logo in it...and quite few cores seem to be running in that Task Manager window back there too....

Another interesting bit of news that was revealed in Gelsinger's talk was the move to USB 3.0 and the features it will offer. How does a 10x performance increase sound over current USB 2.0 speeds? It is made possible by a cable that combines optical data as well as standard copper wire data transmission and will still be backwards compatible with USB 2.0 as well; presumably with a simple connection adaptor.

Staying with the high-level material, Gelsinger showed off this slide with the first bit of AMD comparison information for performance metrics. The main point here is that Intel is showing how their move to 45nm Penryn-based parts is going to improve their performance over current 65nm CPUs, but it is also interesting to note that even in the memory-intensive SPECfp benchmark where AMD usually excels, the 45nm Penryn passes it.

No, it's not a great picture, but this is the Skulltrail system on display at IDF. The system features dual 3.0 GHz Yorkfield processors on the Xeon-based Stoakley motherboard platform. This of course means it is using FB-DIMMs which is a bit of a let down, but we can deal with it for the performance the system is able to get. The CPUs are liquid cooled; a setup that Intel claims will be standard for all Skulltrail systems. The motherboard does have support for up to four PCIe slots and graphics cards though this one was only running two NVIDIA cards in SLI mode.

This slide was shown previously at the spring IDF in China, but it's worth looking at it again. It's the summary of feature improvements and architecture changes that will come with the release of the Nehalem core next year. Notables include the return of SMT (two threads for every core), dynamic core power management, an integrated memory controller, optional integrated graphics and more.

Here we can see the first time Intel has shown QuickPath, their answer to AMD's HyperTransport. I am curious though, as there was very little information on this interconnect, such as what kind of speeds and bandwidth we are talking about in this technology. But, just like HT, QuickPath will allow processors to communicate with each other without a front-side bus and increase the speed to which the CPUs communicate with the outside world of the system.
QuickPath is also apparently set up for multiple "drops" as AMD's Athlon 64 and Opteron processors are - the system diagram on the left shows a two CPU system with two QuickPath connections each while the quad-socket system has processors with four connections.

Ending the hurrah that is Nehalem for today, Intel showed working A0 silicon running not just Windows, but a very impressive looking graphics benchmark in the fore ground with lots of other things in going on behind. Notice the 16 threads running in Task Manager...yummy.

Of course Intel isn't going to stop after Nehalem and they already have plans for the "tick" of the Westmere core (a 32nm transition of the Nehalem architecture) and the "tock" of the Sandy Bridge core (a new 32nm architecture). Nothing was really mentioned about them of course, but you can expect details to emerge as me move down the roadmap into 2008 and 2009.



http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=454

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MIT team experimentally demonstrates wireless power transfer, potentially useful for powering laptops, cell phones without cords

Imagine a future in which wireless power transfer is feasible: cell phones, household robots, mp3 players, laptop computers and other portable electronics capable of charging themselves without ever being plugged in, freeing us from that final, ubiquitous power wire. Some of these devices might not even need their bulky batteries to operate.
A team from MIT's Department of Physics, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN) has experimentally demonstrated an important step toward accomplishing this vision of the future.
The team members are Andre Kurs, Aristeidis Karalis, Robert Moffatt, Prof. Peter Fisher, and Prof. John Joannopoulos (Francis Wright Davis Chair and director of ISN), led by Prof. Marin Soljacic.
Realizing their recent theoretical prediction, they were able to light a 60W light bulb from a power source seven feet (more than two meters) away; there was no physical connection between the source and the appliance. The MIT team refers to its concept as "WiTricity" (as in wireless electricity). The work will be reported in the June 7 issue of Science Express, the advance online publication of the journal Science.
Late-night beeps
The story starts one late night a few years ago, with Soljacic (pronounced Soul-ya-cheech) standing in his pajamas, staring at his cell phone on the kitchen counter. "It was probably the sixth time that month that I was awakened by my cell phone beeping to let me know that I had forgotten to charge it. It occurred to me that it would be so great if the thing took care of its own charging." To make this possible, one would have to have a way to transmit power wirelessly, so Soljacic started thinking about which physical phenomena could help make this wish a reality.
Radiation methods
Various methods of transmitting power wirelessly have been known for centuries. Perhaps the best known example is electromagnetic radiation, such as radio waves. While such radiation is excellent for wireless transmission of information, it is not feasible to use it for power transmission. Since radiation spreads in all directions, a vast majority of power would end up being wasted into free space.
One can envision using directed electromagnetic radiation, such as lasers, but this is not very practical and can even be dangerous. It requires an uninterrupted line of sight between the source and the device, as well as a sophisticated tracking mechanism when the device is mobile.
The key: Magnetically coupled resonance
In contrast, WiTricity is based on using coupled resonant objects. Two resonant objects of the same resonant frequency tend to exchange energy efficiently, while interacting weakly with extraneous off-resonant objects. A child on a swing is a good example of this. A swing is a type of mechanical resonance, so only when the child pumps her legs at the natural frequency of the swing is she able to impart substantial energy.
Another example involves acoustic resonances: Imagine a room with 100 identical wine glasses, each filled with wine up to a different level, so they all have different resonant frequencies. If an opera singer sings a sufficiently loud single note inside the room, a glass of the corresponding frequency might accumulate sufficient energy to even explode, while not influencing the other glasses. In any system of coupled resonators there often exists a so-called "strongly coupled" regime of operation. If one ensures to operate in that regime in a given system, the energy transfer can be very efficient.
While these considerations are universal, applying to all kinds of resonances (e.g., acoustic, mechanical, electromagnetic, etc.), the MIT team focused on one particular type: magnetically coupled resonators. The team explored a system of two electromagnetic resonators coupled mostly through their magnetic fields; they were able to identify the strongly coupled regime in this system, even when the distance between them was several times larger than the sizes of the resonant objects. This way, efficient power transfer was enabled.
Magnetic coupling is particularly suitable for everyday applications because most common materials interact only very weakly with magnetic fields, so interactions with extraneous environmental objects are suppressed even further. "The fact that magnetic fields interact so weakly with biological organisms is also important for safety considerations," Kurs, a graduate student in physics, points out.
The investigated design consists of two copper coils, each a self-resonant system. One of the coils, attached to the power source, is the sending unit. Instead of irradiating the environment with electromagnetic waves, it fills the space around it with a non-radiative magnetic field oscillating at MHz frequencies. The non-radiative field mediates the power exchange with the other coil (the receiving unit), which is specially designed to resonate with the field. The resonant nature of the process ensures the strong interaction between the sending unit and the receiving unit, while the interaction with the rest of the environment is weak.
Moffatt, an MIT undergraduate in physics, explains: "The crucial advantage of using the non-radiative field lies in the fact that most of the power not picked up by the receiving coil remains bound to the vicinity of the sending unit, instead of being radiated into the environment and lost." With such a design, power transfer has a limited range, and the range would be shorter for smaller-size receivers.
Still, for laptop-sized coils, power levels more than sufficient to run a laptop can be transferred over room-sized distances nearly omni-directionally and efficiently, irrespective of the geometry of the surrounding space, even when environmental objects completely obstruct the line-of-sight between the two coils. Fisher points out: "As long as the laptop is in a room equipped with a source of such wireless power, it would charge automatically, without having to be plugged in. In fact, it would not even need a battery to operate inside of such a room." In the long run, this could reduce our society's dependence on batteries, which are currently heavy and expensive.
At first glance, such a power transfer is reminiscent of relatively commonplace magnetic induction, such as is used in power transformers, which contain coils that transmit power to each other over very short distances. An electric current running in a sending coil induces another current in a receiving coil. The two coils are very close, but they do not touch. However, this behavior changes dramatically when the distance between the coils is increased. As Karalis, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, points out, "Here is where the magic of the resonant coupling comes about. The usual non-resonant magnetic induction would be almost 1 million times less efficient in this particular system."
Old physics, new demand
WiTricity is rooted in such well-known laws of physics that it makes one wonder why no one thought of it before. "In the past, there was no great demand for such a system, so people did not have a strong motivation to look into it," points out Joannopoulos, adding, "Over the past several years, portable electronic devices, such as laptops, cell phones, iPods and even household robots have become widespread, all of which require batteries that need to be recharged often."
As for what the future holds, Soljacic adds, "Once, when my son was about three years old, we visited his grandparents' house. They had a 20-year-old phone and my son picked up the handset, asking, 'Dad, why is this phone attached with a cord to the wall?' That is the mindset of a child growing up in a wireless world. My best response was, 'It is strange and awkward, isn't it? Hopefully, we will be getting rid of some more wires, and also batteries, soon.'"
This work was funded by the Army Research Office (Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies), National Science Foundation (Center for Materials Science and Engineering), and the Department of Energy.



http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/wireless-0607.html