Tata Flat Packed $720 House should have broader deployment soon

Economic Times of India - This is a follow up on the Tata Group flat-pack house that costs just $700 and can be built in a week.

The Tata group, maker of the $2,500 Nano car, said that the 20-square-metre (215-square-foot) home comes from a pre-fabricated kit that includes doors, windows and a roof.

"We have already prepared two-three different designs based on discussions with users and are gathering more feedback," Sumitesh Das, the head of the project at Tata.

The basic model of a so-called "Nano" house will cost 32,000 rupees ($720) and will use coconut fibre or jute for wall cladding and interiors. It has a life expectancy of 20 years.

The house, which is being tested in the state of West Bengal, will also be available in a larger 30-square-metre version and with additional features such as a solar panel for the roof and a verandah.

Tata hopes to sell the house to private buyers who have a plot of land available and also to state governments planning mass residential schemes for India's millions of destitute and homeless.

Nobel prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek predicts Time Crystals

Techology Review - If crystals exist in spatial dimensions, then they ought to exist in the dimension of time too, says Nobel prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek

There is a low energy solution associated with the precipitation of a solid from a solution—the formation of crystals, which have a spatial periodicity. In this case the spatial symmetry breaks down.

Spatial crystals are well studied and well understood. But they raise an interesting question: does the universe allow the formation of similar periodicities in time?

Today, Frank Wilczek at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Al Shapere at the University of Kentucky, discuss this question and conclude that time symmetry seems just as breakable as spatial symmetry at low energies.

This process should lead to periodicities that they call time crystals. What's more, time crystals ought to exist, probably under our very noses.

Let's explore this idea in a bit more detail. First, what does it mean for a system to break time symmetry? Wilczek and Shapere think of it like this. They imagine a system in its lowest energy state that is completely described, independently of time.

Because it is in its lowest energy state, this system ought to be frozen in space. Therefore, if the system moves, it must break time symmetry. This is equivalent tot he idea that the lowest energy state has a minimum value on a curve on space rather than at a single isolated point

Arxiv - Quantum Time Crystals (6 pages)

Difficulties around the idea of spontaneous breaking of time translation symmetry in a closed quantum mechanical system are identified, and then overcome in a simple model. The possibility of ordering in imaginary time is also discussed.

Arxiv - Classical Time Crystals (5 pages)

We consider the possibility that classical dynamical systems display motion in their lowest energy state, forming a time analogue of crystalline spatial order. Challenges facing that idea are identified and overcome. We display arbitrary orbits of an angular variable as lowest-energy trajectories for nonsingular Lagrangian systems. Dynamics within orbits of broken symmetry provide a natural arena for formation of time crystals. We exhibit models of that kind, including a model with traveling density waves.

Defkalion would accept Dick Smith test challenge and other independent tests start February 24th, 2012

Defkalion energy has indicated that they would accept any $1 million challenge to test their Hyperion energy catalyzer from Dick Smith

So far we have not officially received (through a telephone, letter, fax or e-mail) any such offer published in different sites. If the offer and the "donor" are real, we will accept the challenge, performing a test under the protocol we have announced in our last Press Release (viewtopic.php?f=4&t=926&start=210).

In case this is a real proposal, we will accept an official letter and a proof of donated funds from a prime bank before any such testing.

Also note that our first independent official tests are starting on 24th of February 2012. No "donations" or any money where required or offered for these independent tests.

New system allows robots to continuously map their environment

Robots could one day navigate through constantly changing surroundings with virtually no input from humans, thanks to a system that allows them to build and continuously update a three-dimensional map of their environment using a low-cost camera such as Microsoft’s Kinect

The system, being developed by researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), could also allow blind people to make their way unaided through crowded buildings such as hospitals and shopping malls.

To explore unknown environments, robots need to be able to map them as they move around — estimating the distance between themselves and nearby walls, for example — and to plan a route around any obstacles, says Maurice Fallon, a research scientist at CSAIL who is developing these systems alongside John J. Leonard, professor of mechanical and ocean engineering, and graduate student Hordur Johannsson.

The researchers used at PR2 robot, developed by Willow Garage, with a Microsoft's Kinect sensor to test their system.
Image: Hordur Johannsson

GPS enhanced with cheap cameras and cheap computers

Australian researcher are making more reliable Global Positioning Systems (GPS) using camera technology and mathematical algorithms would make navigating a far cheaper and simpler task.

"At the moment you need three satellites in order to get a decent GPS signal and even then it can take a minute or more to get a lock on your location," he said.

"There are some places geographically, where you just can't get satellite signals and even in big cities we have issues with signals being scrambled because of tall buildings or losing them altogether in tunnels."

The world-first approach to visual navigation algorithms, which has been dubbed SeqSLAM (Sequence Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping), uses local best match and sequence recognition components to lock in locations.

"SeqSLAM uses the assumption that you are already in a specific location and tests that assumption over and over again.

Lower Cost carrier grade Wireless Backhaul communication technology

In the developing world, 96 percent of all households have no internet access. Even in Germany, many regions are still without broadband connectivity. But in future, a revolutionary new technology for wireless networks will allow the gaps in rural internet provision to be closed at significantly less cost.

WiBACK (wireless backhaul) provides the technology to connect infrastructure edge nodes to (many) user access points.

Examples for this deployment include temporary wireless networks for large events, fast network deployment in disaster areas, broadband Internet services for rural areas, and wireless wide-area infrastructures in emerging regions.

A researcher positions a WiBACK network antenna. © Fraunhofer FOKUS

Key features that make Fraunhofer’s WiBACK unique are the combination of

* a wireless network that can span huge distances (several hundred km);
* provisioning of carrier-grade (guaranteed) service qualities for voice and data traffic;
* low capital expenditure (CAPEX) due to the use of commercial off-the-shelf hardware (typically IEEE 802.11 mass-market components);
* low operational cost (OPEX) due to auto-configuration and self-management capabilities, as well as low energy consumption;
* the possibility to run most nodes in the network on solar energy due to their energy efficient hardware and software, and the integrated solar charger.

WiBACK is not an alternative to a mobile operator network. It provides a transport infrastructure and complements existing technology, rather than replacing it. While WiBACK supports different types of access technologies (including GSM) at the user front-end, it expects an IP-based network at the back-end. Typical mobile-operator services such as roaming or hand-over need to be implemented on-top of WiBACK.

York researchers create ‘tornados’ inside electron microscopes

Researchers from the University of York are pioneering the development of electron microscopes which will allow scientists to examine a greater variety of materials in new revolutionary ways.

The team, headed by Professor Jun Yuan and Professor Mohamed Babiker, from the University’s Department of Physics has created electron beams with orbital angular momentum – electron vortex beams – which will open the way to many novel applications including the more efficient examining of magnetic materials.

Electron microscopes use a beam of electrons to illuminate a specimen and produce a magnified image, allowing scientists to investigate atomic arrangements. Compared to conventional electron beams, electron vortex beams improve the resolution and sensitivity of imaging, which is key when determining the structure of biological specimens such as proteins. They also have applications in the manipulation of nano-scale objects such as atoms and molecules.

As the electron vortex consists of moving charged particles, there is a magnetic field associated with the vortex. This magnetic field will be invaluable in examining magnetic materials, enabling the nanoscale magnetic structure to be imaged.

The York team has created a design for a holographic mask to generate an electron vortex beam and now plans to use this to improve the imaging capabilities of the electron microscope in its York-JEOL nanocentre.

Arxiv - Quantised orbital angular momentum transfer and magnetic dichroism in the interaction of electron vortices with matter