Energy-Efficient Processors
This month
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) unveiled six 45-watt processors meant for the desktop to reduce power consumption. The processors are primarily targeted to system builders and OEMs who want to give customers a low heat and low noise system.
The processors will be similar to the Athlon X2 dual-core processor, with improvements made for better multi-tasking performance with an energy conscience system. There are also designs for their other Athlon and Sempron single core processors that affects the performance and the price of the processors.
The energy-efficient processors lessens the amount of energy the PC's consume, which has great affect on the need for cooling and, frankly, the price of the end product be it just the board itself or the computer that it is being used in. But this low price will not have any hand in the overall speed of the processor, AMD said it expects the performance to be equal to other similar solutions, the only change is the reduced power consumption.
Lastly, AMD said the processors will meet and exceed the system requirements from the EPA's Energy Star Version 4 computer specification.
50 years of Space
On October 4th 1957, the old USSR launched Sputnik. This event triggered a series events leading to the formation of NASA, and the space race. Perhaps even more important it demonstrated what what could be done and the importance of math and science in our schoolrooms. Sputnik not only opened opened our eyes to the promise of new technology. It frightened us with its potential. This project took only three months from inception to implementation, has shaped much of where we are today.
Capacitor Powered Powertools
Capacitors are being looked at closely as part of our energy solutions.
NASA Tech Briefs mentions a project, where they connect up a half dozen ultra-capacitors and used the caps to power their electric drill. The list of potential benefits are multitude among those listed are:
- Fast recharge times seconds vs hours
- excelent cold temperature performance,
- Low restance to discharge High currents
- Reliability in in Milions of Charge/Discharge cycles vs 300 to thousand on batteries
- Simplified charging circuits
- Environmentally friendly. The long life expectancy and the lack of heavy metal make end of life issues greener.
- Capacitors don't mind being discharged and stored for long periods of times like batteries.
- Efficiency Batteries run at about 50% efficiecy for ther charge discharge cycles. Capacitors at around 50%
Ultra Caps haven't reached the Energy per time ratios that are achieved with modern batteries. Something like the electric drill though it might not matter if one conciders it only takes a few seconds to get a complete charge.
For the cordless drill, a dedicated charger is used to fully realize the advantages of the ultracapacitors as energystorage devices. Because of the non-critical nature of charging and discharging of ultracapacitors, this charger is less complex and less costly than would be a battery charger for the same power drill. More spectacularly, taking advantage of the unique charging characteristics of ultracapacitors, this charger can make the ultracapacitor-powered cordless drill ready for operation in seconds, in contradistinction to the several hours needed to recharge batteries.
There have been a few potential breakthroughs in ultra capacitor science in the past few months. The newer technologies promise more power and energy storage for a given weight and volume. that might gain the energy vs mass ratios. EESTOR has received some investment capital and has created some
industry excitement with their claims.
Ultracapacitors have advantages over traditional electrochemical batteries. Unlike batteries, ultracapacitors can completely absorb and release a charge at high rates and in a virtually endless cycle with little degradation.
Where they’re weak, however, is with energy storage. Compared with lithium-ion batteries, high-end ultracapacitors on the market today store 25 times less energy per pound.
This is why ultracapacitors, with their ability to release quick jolts of electricity and to absorb this energy just as fast, are perfect as a complement to batteries or fuel cells in electric-drive vehicles. The power burst that ultracapacitors provide can assist with stop-start acceleration, and the energy is more efficiently recaptured through regenerative braking.EEStor ’s system, called an Electrical Energy Storage Unit (EESU), is based on an ultracapacitor architecture that appears to escape the traditional limitations of such devices. The company has developed a ceramic ultracapacitor with abarium-titanate dielectric, or insulator, that can achieve an exceptionally high specific energy—the amount of energy in a given unit of mass.
The company’s system claims a specific energy of about 280 watt hours per kilogram, compared with around 120 watt hours per kilogram for lithium-ion and 32 watt hours per kilogram for lead-acid gel batteries. This leads to new possibilities for electric vehicles and other applications, including for the military.
The trick is to modify the composition of the barium-titanate powders to allow for a thousand fold increase in ultracapacitor voltage in the range of 1,200 to 3,500 volts, and possibly much higher.
EEStor claims, using an automated production line and existing power electronics, it will initially build a 15-kilowatt-hour energy-storage system for a small electric car weighing less than 100 pounds, and with a 200-mile driving range. The vehicle, the company said, will be able to recharge in less than 10 minutes.
Its not clear what the future holds for what most technician consider a most humble component. But what isn't clear yet is just how these super capacitors are going to effect the way we do things with our control circuitry. We can count on these caps making our circuits more reliable and able to withstand almost any power blip, What could prove interesting though new ways to transfer and use the large amounts of capacitive power that will become available to us.
Make That Picture An Ultra Wide
Scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center have been working with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University to build a robotic device that gives any digital camera the ability to take gigapixel (billions of pixels) panoramas, which are named, GigaPans. With this device on your camera anyone can shoot interactive panoramas that, if put on the Internet; enable you to examine the photos in great depth and detail.
The device makes the digital camera take a quick series of photos that are later "stitched" together, to create a digital panoramic image. The resulting images can then be uploaded to a public website and looked at closer so you can actually see many things you've never noticed before. Lets stop and think about this for a second; on average any digital camera you find will be around 7 megapixels, meaning it can take standard sized photos with a resolution of up to 7 million pixels. Now, the GigaPan lets you take PANORAMIC photos using a full GIGAPIXEL. That's a photo that is at least 140 times the pixels than most average cameras can take when they are right out of the box.
Project Scientist from Carnegie Mellon West, Randy Sargent, stumbled upon his idea for GigaPan as a technical staff member at NASA's Ames Research Center while he was helping to develop software for stitching pictures into panoramas that came from Mars Exploration Rovers. He was quickly convinced that the same technology could open the public's eyes to the diversity of their own planet.
Sargent thinks the GigaPan could become an important tool for ecologists, biologists, and other scientists. The researchers have already worked with Google and created a GigaPan layer on Google Earth. Now anyone who uses Google Earth can fly into these GigaPan panoramas to explore the terrain of the world.
So now I offer a question, What shuttle would you take to get to Sunset? GigaPan Of The Golden Gate Bridge.
$10 Laptops!!!
Initially, computer executives scoffed at the idea of building $10 laptops for children in developing countries. With screens costing upwards of a $100, how could you produce a laptop for that price?
Fortunately Ms. Mary Lou Jepsen, who is a former Intel chip designer, figured out that by modifying laptop displays you could lower the cost to around $40. This also resulted in a reduced power consumption of 80 percent, and a display that is even visible in sunlight.
The nonprofit project One Laptop Per Child has accepted this proposition along with many other designs that others have contributed, to make the goal of giving millions of students in developing countries access to not only a great learning tool but also the Internet and basically the world. So far the countries of Argentina, Brazil, Libya, India, Nigeria, and Thailand; have committed to provide these laptops to their students. And with production expected to start in mid-2007 by Quanta Computer this commitment will soon become a reality for millions of students.
Although the laptop does not include a hard drive (it uses solid state memory 500MB, which has no moving parts and is cost effective), or Microsoft Windows (uses the readily available Linux OS); it will be able to use many different methods to connect to the Internet. With the use of satellite downlinks, long range Wi-Fi antennas, or utilizing current cellular data networking the laptop will be able to connect and use the Internet in almost any condition or country. And if none of that helps your connection, you still have the option of getting closer to someone who has a laptop with a connection, because each laptop can become an Internet repeater letting the Internet flow from one computer to another up to a third of a mile. The users are able to use a map like view of others who are connected nearby. Imagine an endless string of laptops connecting to one another, and it just keeps growing.
As for battery power, that’s a whole different monster. Knowing that at some point the laptops will need to recharge in places where power outlets are not a common sight the designers have pocketed a few alternatives such as a foot pedal and a hand-pulled device that resembles a salad spinner.
This train seems like its never derailing.
With added features such as a video-camera lens, it will still include a low-fi web browser, a word processor and a growing number of learning programs.
The goal being a $10 laptop, currently the cost is close to $45. As good as a hardy, low-tech, Internet anywhere laptop sounds there are no plans to make it available to consumers. Quite honestly I’ll stick to my Mac G5.
