CHANGE OF HEART: Fibre optic cables contain strands of silica glass at the core that can transmit more than a terabyte of data per second. A semiconductive zinc selenide core, created by Penn State University, will allow more colours of light and longer-wavelength infrared light. And that could lead to fibres that can serve as infrared lasers for military or surgical purposes. What might the military do with infrared lasers? More at Gizmag.
MORE SHIP LESS CARBON: A new container ship with capacity of 18,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) containers will be the largest in the world. South Korea is building 10 of them over the next 3 years for Danish shipper Moller-Maersk. Each vessel is 400 metres long, 59 metres wide and 73 metres tall. Compare that to the Queen Mary 2 transatlantic ocean liner at 345 metres by 41 by 72. Carbon emissions for the new cargo ship will be half the industry average for Asia-Europe trade. It's really just all about more stuff though. Details at Google.
ROSE COLOURED CAMERA LENSES: Panasonic's Lumix FX77 point and shoot camera includes Art Retouch and Beauty Retouch modes. A Smart Touch Screen lets you touch an area to tell the camera what to focus on. The Retouch modes let you make up faces with lipstick or eye shadow, whiten teeth and other cosmetic changes. Intelligent Auto Mode, which includes Face Recognition, applies sophisticated settings according to what the camera sees. Never trust a photo, even fresh from the camera. More at Panasonic and video (in Japanese) on YouTube.
VIDEO ALL THE WAY: Cisco's latest Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast claims that the world used 2.6 times as much mobile data in 2010 as in 2009, but that within the next 5 years it'll be 26 times as much. Their chart shows usage in 2010 at 0.24 exabytes and in 2015 at 6.3 exabytes. They also point out that 48 million people have a mobile phone but no electricity at home. They expect two thirds of the world's mobile data traffic to be video by 2015. That's a lot of YouTube. More at ArsTechnica.
SELECTIVE VISION: The astronauts on Discovery are trying out new Superfocus glasses. As we age the lenses in our eyes become less flexible, making it harder to focus close up. Superfocus glasses use an outer lens to hold a distance prescription and an inner lens filled with water. A slider on the bridge of the glasses adjusts the fluid to allow the wearer to focus closer or further away. They should make a remote for the specs. More at Space.
- Miraz Jordan knowit.co.nz
Tech Universe: Tuesday 8 March
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