Noctua 140mm/150mm Case Fan Roundup Review
Noctua 140mm/150mm Case Fan Roundup
Read More ...
Frame Capture and Analysis Tools Review Read More ...
Building a Better Quantum Dot Solar Cell Though just about every solar cell you see today utilizes silicon, the photoelectric effect is present and strong in many materials. Some of these materials offer advantages to silicon, such as being cheaper to produce and responsive to a greater amount of light. One class of materials, quantum dots, has particularly peaked researchers', including those at MIT who have recently developed a better cell using them. Quantum dots are specially designed semiconductor crystals which can be made to react to any frequency of light; a powerful property for any solar cell. Unfortunately a quantum do solar cell, like all solar cells, need to strike a careful balance between thickness and conductivity. Thicker solar cells are able to convert more light into electricity, but the thickness of the material means less of the electrical current escapes to do anything useful. The researchers have found a way overcome this though by growing a forest of nanowires, with quantum dots interspersed within. As the dots created an electric current, it was easily able to jump to a nearby nanowire and be of use. This design allowed the thickness and conductivity of the solar cell to be decoupled, ultimately enabling it to reach 5% efficiency. That may not seem high, especially as 10% is considered the minimum for a commercially viable cell, but it is a record for this specific kind of cell, and with optimizations, it could be pushed much higher. Source: MIT Read More ...
Steam Box Software Beginning to Take Shape The team at Linux enthusiast site Phoronix has discovered some software packages that can be found on the SteamPowered web-server in a repository, similar to those used by Debian based Linux distributions. This new repository contains some basic packages including an experimental NVIDIA Linux graphics driver and a new boot splash screen. Previously, only the Steam application and launcher were available on the public repository. This further enhances speculation that the Steam Box will be based on a version of the Ubuntu distribution, and I am even more excited at the prospect of not having to use Windows. Source: Phoronix Read More ...
Mechanical Qubit Designed Someday quantum computers are going to run algorithms modern electronic computers are simply incapable of calculating. That day is still in the future though as many of the necessary components for a quantum computer still have challenges to overcome. Researchers at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen however have developed a new qubit technology which is not subject to some common challenges because it operates in a completely different way. The typical qubit is a charged particle of one kind or another that has been electromagnetically trapped with information encoded onto it. Because the particle is charged though, it is susceptible to interference from external electromagnetic forces. What the researchers suggest is a qubit based on a vibrating carbon nanotube. As the nanotube is electrically neutral and the vibration is mechanical, the data stored by it would be protected from the interference that plagues the others. Electrodes on either side of the nanotube are able to optoelectronically select the vibrational state of the nanotube, thus reading and writing information to it. In theory this design is completely feasible for a quantum computer, as the information could be stored for a long enough time to prove useful. An added benefit to this design though is that it is viable with current technology, and thereby could bring quantum computers closer to reality. Source: Technische Universitaet Muenchen Read More ...
Hardware Roundup: Tuesday Edition We have another full slate of reviews for you to enjoy today. Starting things off are a pair of video card reviews. First up is the ASUS GeForce GTX 660 DirectCU II OC edition card that comes with a factory overclock. From the other camp we have a review on the PowerColor PCS+ HD 7850 2GB card. We also have a pair of coolers on tap today with reviews on units from Thermalright and DeepCool. You can check out these and all the reviews using the links below. Cooling Thermalright True Spirit 120M CPU Cooler @ Madshrimps DeepCool Frostwin Heatsink @ Frostytech Gaming BioShock Infinite Performance, Benchmarked @ TechSpot Mobile Seidio Surface for Nexus 4 @ LanOC Reviews Storage/Hard Drives ADATA DashDrive HV610 1TB USB 3.0 Hard Drive @ ThinkComputers Video ASUS GeForce GTX 660 DirectCU II OC Video Card @ [H]ardOCP PowerColor PCS+ AX7850 2GBD5-2DHPP Radeon HD 7850 2GB @ Bjorn3D Read More ...
Available Tags:Steam , Hardware ,
No comments:
Post a Comment