A transparent television might seem like magic, but both LG and Samsung demonstrated such displays this past January in Las Vegas at CES 2024. And those large transparent TVs, which attracted countless spectators peeking through video images dancing on their screens, were showstoppers.
Today's typical high-voltage power line, considering its essential role in the electrified world, is surprisingly dull. It's typically just a length of conductor (like aluminum) through which electrons flow from power source to end users. However, researchers have been testing clamp-on sensors to the lines, called power Neurons, that can report fundamentals like operating temperature and current back to grid operators. According to one study by Great River Energy in Minnesota, a pilot deployment of Neurons enabled the utility company to increase its electricity throughput by more than 40 percent. The Neuron's Norwegian creator, Oslo's Heimdall Power, says its sensors are an inexpensive and simple byway to tomorrow's smart grid-coming in at just 2 to 5 percent of the cost of replacing an aging line.
Today's typical high-voltage power line, considering its essential role in the electrified world, is surprisingly dull. It's typically just a length of conductor (like aluminum) through which electrons flow from power source to end users. However, researchers have been testing clamp-on sensors to the lines, called power Neurons, that can report fundamentals like operating temperature and current back to grid operators. According to one study by Great River Energy in Minnesota, a pilot deployment of Neurons enabled the utility company to increase its electricity throughput by more than 40 percent. The Neuron's Norwegian creator, Oslo's Heimdall Power, says its sensors are an inexpensive and simple byway to tomorrow's smart grid-coming in at just 2 to 5 percent of the cost of replacing an aging line.
We are entering an era when scavenging tiny amounts of power from the environment can power small devices to do extraordinary tasks. The needs of the Internet of Things and the advent of lower-cost components are moving energy-harvesting systems from niche applications to broad-scale practicality. This was the clear message of a conference sponsored by market research firm IDTechEx, held in Santa Clara, Calif., last November, where seven events took place at once. In addition to energy harvesting and storage, the topics covered were printed electronics, wearable technology, 3-D printing, supercapacitors, the Internet of Things, and graphene. These seemingly disparate fields are tightly linked; for example, as IDTechEx CEO Raghu Das pointed out, wearable devices were a strong driver for energy-harvesting technologies. Throughout the sessions and in the exhibit hall, other linkages were evident: Supercapacitors hold the potential to create highly efficient ways to store and release harvested energy, and 3-D printing plays a big role in creating prototypes and short-run custom production items.
OLEDs are no longer on the way; they're here. At Display Week 2014, not only did we get to see how they have become established in some markets, we also saw how the technology is advancing rapidly in ways that can only expand their appeal in the future.
Rumpelstiltskin had the admirable ability to convert low-cost straw into valuable gold. Today, display manufacturers are starting to reap the benefits of their own photonic alchemy, converting the light from cheap sources into the precise wavelengths needed for more efficient displays that can show sharper colors. This magic is accomplished using what are known as quantum dots. These are semiconductor nanocrystals that exhibit a range of unusual electrical and optical properties, but for decades they were largely confined to research laboratories. Now, quantum dots are being used in mass-produced displays for the consumer market, including such items as Sony flat-screen televisions and Amazon.com's Kindle Fire HDX e-reader. And the field is still rapidly growing and evolving. At the Display Week 2014 conference of the Society for Information Display this past June in San Diego, quantum dots were a hot topic, both in the exhibit hall and in presented papers; the symposium schedule included three separate sessions dedicated to the subject.
Presents information on the latest computer and engineering technologies and products.
Presents information on the latest computer and engineering technologies and products.
Information Display checks out the show floor at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Liquid‐crystal displays evolve in many directions.
The LCD is an antique technology by almost any measure. Liquid crystal material was first discovered in Austria in 1888, about 10 years before the invention of the cathode-ray tube. The first liquid crystal displays-in wristwatches-go back to the early 1970s. Today, we can make LCD flat-panel displays with diagonals of 70 inches or more. And yet we've hardly scratched the surface, so to speak, of ...
Liquid‐crystal‐display technology continues to dominate.
Pico projectors begin to come of age, and new projection technologies appear as well.
From the Publisher:Troubleshooting Your PC, Second Edition provides fast answers to problems that can arise when using a Microsoft® Windows® XP聳based PC. The book explains how to use the Microsoft Windows XP operating system to troubleshoot PC crashes, screen flaws, keyboard and mouse errors, glitches in floppy disk drives and CD-ROM drives, and many other hardware problems. Each section features a diagnostic chart with clear, step-by-step solutions to try right away, plus alternate solutions to try if the problem is more complex. Screen images illustrate what users see on their computer as they work through the steps. When PC users run into trouble, Troubleshooting Your PC, Second Edition helps them pinpoint the problem and identify a solutionfast! Easy-to-use book delivers fast solutions so users can fix their own hardware problemsno phone calls, no fruitless trial and error! Key Book Benefits: * Designed expressly to help beginning and intermediate users solve problems, Troubleshooting Your PC, Second Edition proceeds directly to the source of the problem and recommends a solution. * This book focuses on troubleshooting PCs running the newly released Windows XP operating system. It is a timely, relevant resource for thousands who are buying new PCs or upgrading to Windows XP. * With a choice of several ways to access informationTop 20 Problems, quick-reference and detailed tables of contents, and flowchartsusers can solve their problem without a lot of work and having to call technical support. Sidebars explain why the problem might have occurred and help users avoid the problem in the future. * Readers of otherTroubleshooting titles have praised how easy this approach makes it to find the information they need, because the books lay out a clear path from problem to solution.
From the Publisher:Trouble with your PC? What do you do if your hard disk crashes or all you see are black lines on your monitor? With this handy Troubleshooting guide, it聮s easy to pinpoint and solve your own hardware and software problems. Fast! Each section opens with a troubleshooting chart to help quickly diagnose the source of the problem. It offers clear, step-by-step solutions to try right away, plus a full chapter of things to do to stay out of trouble or learn a new trick. Continuous support via the Troubleshooting "Latest Solutions" Web site provides monthly updates on additional problem-solving information. Books in the Troubleshooting series are colorful, superbly organized, and easy to read, giving even novice users the confidence to fix it themselves without sending their PCs to the shop or wasting time on futile trial and error.
From the Publisher:You've got hardware troubles. Maybe Windows 95 has turned your "screamer" into a cement mixer and you need a RAM upgrade yesterday. Or you've finally decided to spring for a Pentium, and a little chip replacement surgery is in order. Or your old computer and new printer are not on speaking terms and you'd rather not pay some teenage know-it-all to mediate the dispute. Whatever. You're smart, reasonably coordinated, and you know that you should be able to do this yourself. But you hesitate, fearful of frying your hardware and sending up hundreds of hard-earned dollar in a puff of smoke. It's time to call in a specialist: Alfred Poor, hardware guru and do-it-yourself coach to millions, will help you face your motherboard with confidence. Get the executive briefing on every component of your system: CPU, memory, hard drive, monitor, printer, CD-ROM, sound card, keyboard, mouse, and more. Find out what it is, how it works, and how to tell a good one from a bad one. Apply Alfred's hands-on test to figure out where the problem is when things go wrong. Get how-to advice on upgrading any component and learn which upgrades will deliver a noticeable performance improvement, which aren't worth the money, and when it's best to just trade up for a whole new system. Most importantly, learn how to experiment intelligently with your PC to identify and fix just about any hardware problem you encounter! Every page has something you can use immediately. This book is packed wall to wall with advice, warnings, tips, bug reports, workarounds, and the kind of nitty-gritty explanations that could come only from someone who eats, sleeps, and breathes PC hardware.
