World records for QinetiQ Zephyr UAS now official
By Paul Ridden
07:20 December 29, 2010
The three world records that QinetiQ applied for after its Zephyr High-Altitude Long-Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle completed a successful 14-day flight in July 2010, have been confirmed by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. The aircraft has now officially been ratified as staying in the air longer and achieving the highest altitude of any surveillance craft in its class, and setting the absolute duration record of 14 days and 21 minutes.
The ultra-lightweight carbon-fiber aircraft trounced the duration record set by Global Hawk in 2001 by a factor of 11, and managed to rise a good 5,000 feet (1,524 meters) higher (NASA's Helios Prototype, although in a different class, did get a tad higher in 2001). QinetiQ claims that the Zephyr could also help governments, companies and universities cut costs, saying that the vehicle can be produced at "one tenth of the cost of other unmanned aerial vehicles and one hundredth of the cost of a satellite."
http://www.gizmag.com/qinetiq-zephyr-world-records-ratified/17396/
Uma câmara de vídeo com 1 Pixel!
Single-pixel camera captures high-quality, encryptable imagesBy Bridget Borgobello
17:58 December 29, 2010
In the crowded digital camera market, camera makers are continually pushing pixel counts higher and higher to attract consumers who have been led to believe that, the more pixels, the better the image. Proving that this is not necessarily the case, a team of researchers from Spain’s UJI (Universitat Jaume I) Optics Research Group (GROC) has developed a sensor of just one pixel with the ability to record high quality images.CCDs
The CCD (charge-coupled device) sensors at the heart of today’s digital cameras record the electrical signals generated via the photoelectric effect in a large number of image points, known as pixels. This allows the light falling on a specific point on the sensor to be converted to a digital value. The CCD was invented in 1969 at AT&T Bell Labs by Willard Boyle and George E. Smith, with the two eventually recognized for their achievements by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded them the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2009.
Como carregar um telemóvel do ar!
http://survivingthemiddleclasscrash.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/make-your-own-electricity-out-of-thin-air-for-2-00/
E o primeiro Aparelho Quântico!
Scientists build world's first quantum machine
by Terrence Aym
Can something be in two places at once? Can something be in two separate states at once? According to Einstein and the weird Twilight Zone rules of the quantum world the answer has always been a definite maybe.
The math supported the concept and scientific study of the quanta relies upon it being true.
Now, two scientists have proved it in what's being hailed by the journal Science as the scientific breakthrough of the year. Although a laudable sentiment, that praise might just be a bit of an understatement because what physicists Andrew Cleland and John Martinis from the University of California at Santa Barbara achieved is possibly the foundation for the technological applications of quantum theory-a veritable quantum revolution.
