May 23

Innovation is answer to poverty: inventor

  • Taiwanese inventor Gordon Teng on Saturday received the highest honor at the 22nd International Invention, Innovation and Technology Exhibition held in Malaysia over the weekend.
  • Teng said that he hoped poor children would follow in his footsteps and use inventions to create a better life for themselves.
  • Teng, who is now the head of Taichung-based Asia University’s Creative Design and Invention Center, recalled how he often went hungry growing up in a single-parent family.
  • However, his life changed at the age of 17 with his first invention — an infrared sensor for flushing toilets that made him NT$1.5 million (US$52,050). He has since invented another 300 devices.

The above are extracted from http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2011/05/23/2003503902

May 21

New method ‘confirms dark energy’

  • First results from a major astronomical survey using a cutting-edge technique appear to have confirmed the existence of mysterious dark energy.
  • Dark energy makes up some 74% of the Universe and its existence would explain why the Universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate.
  • The concept of dark energy was first invoked in the late 1990s by studying the brightness of distant supernovas – exploding stars.
  • “The action of dark energy is as if you threw a ball up in the air, and it kept speeding upward into the sky faster and faster,”
  • While dark energy makes up about 74% of the Universe, dark matter – which does not reflect or emit detectable light – accounts for 22%. Ordinary matter – gas, stars, planets and galaxies – makes up just 4% of the cosmos.

The above was extracted from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13462926

May 05

Intel’s 3-D Transistors

  • Intel announced on Wednesday that it had made the production of 3-D transistors a commercially viable reality and further claimed that in so doing, the company would continue to meet or beat the promise of Moore’s Law for years to come.
  • As they’re used in integrated circuits like microprocessors, transistors can be thought of as switches, when they’re on, current flows, when they’re off, no current flows. The goal of the transistor designer is to make the perfect switch, lots of power can flow when turned on, absolutely no power flows when turned off, and the switch can change states very quickly, requiring very little power to do so.
  • Using the valve analogy, you can immediately understand some truisms about transistors. Leaky ones are bad, and smaller ones can usually open and close faster than bigger ones, but they let less water (or current in the case of transistors) through.

The above are extracted from http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/processors/229402837

Apr 24

Laser Spark Plug

  • Car engines could soon be fired by lasers instead of spark plugs, researchers say.
  • The approach would increase efficiency of engines, and reduce their pollution, by igniting more of the mixture.
  • The team has been developing a new approach to the problem: lasers made of ceramic powders that are pressed into spark-plug sized cylinders.

The above are extracted from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13160950

Apr 24

LED Lightbulb

  • Historically, LEDs have faced three challenges. They cast a bluish hue rather than the pleasing yellowish light of incandescent bulbs, they ran hot, and they were too expensive.
  • The new bulbs emit a more attractive light (around 2,700 Kelvin) and have space-age cooling fins reminiscent of those used to cool computer CPUs. The result is that the heat associated with LEDs, which can shorten their lifespan, is dissipated evenly, allowing them to be used in any standard fixture.

The above are extracted from http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/04/22/let-leds-american-inventor-builds-better-light-bulb/


Apr 14

The WIPO Magazine 1/2011 (February) issue

The WIPO Magazine 1/2011 (February) issue
is now available on the WIPO website.

This WIPO Magazine focuses on:

  • 6th Global Congress on Combating Counterfeiting & Piracy
  • Interview with Lawrence Lessig
  • Penguin turns 75
  • Online Music Licensing – A Way Out of the Maze
  • Parmesan – The King of Cheeses

Also in this issue:

  • Vaccine delivery breakthrough
  • Outreach in West Africa
  • FESMAN III – A Global Celebration of African Culture
  • Access to Knowledge in Africa: the role of copyright?

Mar 31

Scientists Create World’s 1st Practical Artificial Leaf 10x as efficient as the real thing

  • …creating the world�s first practical photosynthesis device…
  • The playing-card-sized photosynthetic gadget creates uses sunlight to split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen, which can then be used to produce energy, and is reputedly 10 times more efficient than a natural leaf.
  • If the device is placed in a one-gallon bucket of water in bright sunlight, it can reportedly produce enough electricity to power a house in a developing nation.
  • This new artificial leaf uses nickel and cobalt, which are relatively cheap, and has so far operated continuously for at least 45 hours, making it the first practical artificial leaf.

Click on the following link for more detail…

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/03/28/scientists-create-worlds-1st-practical-artificial-leaf-10x-as-efficient-as-the-real-thing/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+80beats+%2880beats%29

Feb 21

Entrepeneurs get hands-on with ideas at TechShop

  • The massive DIY workshop occupies a 15,000-square-foot space in San Francisco’s South of Market neighboorhood, and it’s already a thriving community oozing with ideas. With staff and classes that help bring concepts to reality, there’s just about everything here, including gizmos and facilities you might otherwise never get a chance to use: laser cutters; a sheet metal shop; a wood shop; and machines for injection molding, vacuum forming, and textiles; as well as application-filled computers and an electronics lab.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30252_3-20033408-246.html

Continue reading

Feb 17

Japanese inventor builds machine that turns plastic bags into fuel

  • Japanese inventor Akinori Ito claims to have that solution. He has created a machine that can turn plastic bags into fuel. Plastic bags are made from crude oil, after all, and Ito’s machine can revert the plastic to its original state.
  • His invention is actually a non-polluting, fully contained process that heats up the plastic, traps the vapors and channels them through an intricate system of pipes and water chambers.

More detail at
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dailyloaf/2011/02/16/japanese-inventor-builds-machine-that-turns-plastic-bags-into-fuel/

Continue reading

Feb 09

The WIPO Magazine 1/2011 (February) issue

The WIPO Magazine 1/2011 (February) issue
is now available on the WIPO website.

(http://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/)

This WIPO Magazine focuses on:

Also in this issue:

Continue reading