EyeCurrent

Earlier this week Apple Inc. garnered a deal with LiquidMetal Technologies that they’re trying to keep under wraps.

LiquidMetal Technologies, a Caltech spinoff in California, is granting Apple a perpetual, exclusive license to use its liquid metal alloys in their consumer product lines, while keeping the rights for their own purposes.

First, let me tell you a little about liquid metal. Made largely out of exotic materials like beryllium and platinum; molten metal alloys are cooled producing a material that’s more like glass than a metal at all. Although liquid metal is not translucent as well as a LOT stronger than any glass product, it has the ability to be cast so precisely that there is almost no need to machine the cast after it has cooled.

Now, we all know Apple uses a lot of metal in the designs of their laptops, iPhones, and iPods; but they are currently using aluminum. In order to produce the skin for a laptop or one of their desktops they use one large piece of aluminum which is then hollowed out. Liquid metal can now make this process a lot easier by allowing them to use a cast for all of their metal parts with almost no need to machine or smooth out after. But the use of liquid metal in mass produced consumer electronics is still quite a way off, partly due to the price tag of the materials needed to create the metal in the first place.

So far the use of liquid metal in consumer gear has been in luxury items like watches and phones, some medical devices, and even some high priced tennis rackets and skis; all meant for the very well off. Even if they do bring the cost of liquid metal down, I’m willing to bet the price of an Apple laptop, phone, or iPod will only go up from here but not for quite some time.

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There is free and there is not so free. When  it comes to software there is more to being free than the monetary costs.

Blogger,  provided a method of publishing a blog, that was easy cheap and free. Well maybe not so free.. It didn’t cost any many, but we, the consumer, had no control over the process. Some of us who took control of our own domains, and hosting so that  We could actually take possession of the the data and our blogs but we the updating and authoring process all went through blogger.

The moral of the story, is be careful of Greeks bearing gifts.  When you purchase technology, it’s important to understand what you really own, and what control you have given up.  This isn’t just true about blogging, Whether its a DCS system or an Ipod ,users may sometimes be surprised to find out that they don’t always have complete ownership of their data and software.

Well, its a new fresh start, and we at PCO hope that our readers find our little blog interesting and informative.

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On Tuesday, Apple Inc. introduced a new peripheral, the Magic Trackpad, and refreshed its line of iMac and Mac Pro computers, as well as the Apple Cinema Display.

The Magic Trackpad, a multi-touch trackpad for Macintosh computers, allows end users to use certain gestures to control on-screen actions. It supports gestures already seen on the MacBook and MacBook Pro trackpads, as well as the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, such as swiping, tap-to-click, and pinch-to-zoom. However, the Magic Trackpad also supports physical clicking and supports one- and two-button commands. The Magic Trackpad, which is retailed for US$69, connects wirelessly to a computer using Bluetooth technology and has a claimed four months of battery life. At 5.17 inches (13.13 centimetres) long and 5.12 inches (13 centimetres) wide, the glass and aluminium device is slightly larger than Apple’s laptop trackpads.

In addition to the Magic Trackpad, Apple also began selling the US$29 Apple Battery Charger accessory, a charger pack with six rechargeable batteries usable in the Magic Trackpad, Apple Wireless Keyboard, and Apple Magic Mouse. Apple claims that the nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries can last up to ten years before they lose their ability to hold a charge. The Magic Trackpad uses two AA batteries, and can be used with any Bluetooth-enabled Macintosh computer running Mac OS X 10.6.4.

Another major announcement that came on Tuesday was the first iMac update since last fall. The update included mostly internal upgrades, giving consumers a choice of newer Intel processors: the dual-core Core i3 and Core i5, and the quad-core Core i5 and Core i7. In addition, the SD card slot was expanded to allow support for the Secure Digital Extended Capacity (SDXC) format. The iMac is still available at 21.5-inch (54.61-centimetre) and 27-inch (68.58-centimetre) display options, but has upgraded graphics cards as well. The screens use in-plane switching (IPS) technology, allowing for a greater viewing angle. The base model is still priced at US$1,199.

Apple’s line of Mac Pro computers were also given a refresh on Tuesday. Consumers now have the option to purchase a Mac Pro with twelve processing cores, using two six-core Intel Xeon processors. Four-, six-, and eight-core options are still available. The update also includes the choice of adding up to four, 512GB solid state drives, instead of conventional hard drives. The base model is priced at US$2,499 and will be sold starting in August.

Apple also released a new, 27-inch (68.58 centimetre) LED Cinema Display, a 60 percent increase in display area from the older 24-inch (60.96 centimetres) Cinema Display. The new monitor can reach a resolution of 2560-by-1440 pixels, or Wide Quad High Definition, and has a built-in microphone, webcam, speakers, USB hub, and ambient light sensor, which changes the display’s brightness based on external lighting levels. It is priced at US$999 but will not be available for purchase until September.

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There is a new project in the works funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to research new ways to generate fuel from sunlight. Researchers at Caltech and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been awarded $122 million to establish a research center in California for this project. The ultimate goal being is to produce and commercialize fuel produced using sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide.
The same way a plant is able to produce fuel for itself using photosynthesis, researchers believe there is a possibility we may be able to make our own fuel using a similar process. Scientists have been exploring ways to recreate this type of reaction for years now, but advancements have been slow. With the new research center in place they will be employing rapid, automated experimentation methods to accelerate the process of discovering new catalytic and photovoltaic materials. Team leader of the project and professor at Caltech, Harry Atwater, says “So instead of the few dozen choices for catalysts that we have, we want to be in a position to choose from millions of different candidates.”

Sun-soaked silicon: Researchers at the new Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis will work to optimize light-trapping silicon microwires, like these, to produce fuel from solar energy.

The hardest part of all of this research seems to be the lack of collaboration between researchers who have been working on their own on different parts of the photosynthesis for fuel equation. Two years ago Dan Nocera, at MIT, made one of the biggest breakthroughs in this area when he developed a cheap catalyst that split water while releasing oxygen. In that time, other researchers have been working on things such as designing materials that would trap light more efficiently, synthesizing catalysts for water-splitting that will be cheap and easy to make, and creating membranes to separate the fuels from the starting compounds.
The new center is aiming to try to correct the lack of collaboration in this research and bring many different researchers together in two facilities; where over 150 researchers and 30 principle investigators will work full-time on the project over the next five years. The two facilities will be spread with one on Berkeley Laboratory Campus and one on the Caltech Campus, and both will work to develop better catalysts, light absorbers, energy-storage materials, and on finding a way to assemble the various parts into a small prototype solar fuel generator. Nate Lewis, director of the center and a chemistry professor at Caltech adds, “There are various individual groups making progress on different fronts, but there is no one benchmarking these catalysts to determine which one is better that the other ones. To see solar energy become a scalable, economically viable reality collaboration is essential.”

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