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Facebook used 86 percent renewable energy in 2019
In 2019, Facebook's operations used 86 percent renewable energy, up from just 35 percent in 2015.
Ford disinfects police cruisers by 'roasting' them
Ford's software cranks the heat in police cruisers to disinfect them and slow the spread of COVID-19.
Jaguar’s ‘sensory steering wheel’ heats up to deliver notifications
Much of the technology developed for new cars has to do with safety, and that's for good reason -- in 2017, distracted driving killed 3,166 people in the US. Like other manufacturers, Jaguar Land Rover hopes it can prevent fatalities, but the way it wants to get there is unique. The company has developed a steering wheel that heats up to give drivers signals, like when to turn or that they're approaching an intersection. According to Jaguar, the "sensory steering wheel" will help drivers keep their eyes on the road.
Crystals could be the answer to keeping our gadgets cool
Crystals won't do anything to cure diseases, despite the latest health craze floating around, but here's something they can do: cool down your computer. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Texas, Dallas, have engineered crystals that can counter the heat that electronics generate. The results will be published in Science, though the article was not online at the time of writing.
Plastics breakthrough could improve your car's mileage
A new thermal engineering process could make it viable to use lighter plastic product components in things such as vehicles, LEDs and computers. Until now, the material has been overlooked for certain applications because of its limitations in dissipating heat, but scientists from the University of Michigan have found a way to change plastic's molecular structure, making it as thermally conductive as glass. This advanced plastic could make products lighter, cheaper and more energy-efficient, and would be particularly useful in electric vehicle manufacturing since weight has a direct bearing on range.
Researchers find a new way to convert heat into electricity
When we think about ways to make existing power plants more efficient, we typically look at waste heat. It's something almost everything generates -- coal plants, automobiles and even your refrigerator loses a sizeable amount of energy to lost heat. Capturing and using this heat to generate electricity with can save money and reduce fossil fuel consumption, but capturing power from that heat has always been a challenge. Now, researchers have created a new material that could represent a major step forward in thermoelectric electricity production.
New material can store solar energy to warm you up later
Solar projects are usually focused on generating electricity, but we could arguably save more power by storing heat. Scientists from MIT have created a new type of solid material that does exactly that. When exposed to sunlight, it assumes a "charged" state that can be maintained for long periods of time. However, when triggered with a small burst of heat, the material reverts to its original chemical composition, releasing a much larger amount of heat energy. Since the film is thin and transparent, scientists think it could be useful in the near future for defrosting your car's windshield and could one day heat your home or even your clothes.
'3D' white graphene could revolutionize gadget cooling
Graphene seems to be the new millennium's wonder material: it can be used to build more powerful processors, more efficient solar cells, better sounding headphones and, apparently, can even be deep-fried to create long-lasting batteries. Now, researchers at Rice University think that a "3D" variant of the material could change the way we cool our gadgets.
MIT's new material opens the door to squishable, shape-shifting robots
Robots tend to be either very rigid or very soft, but neither extreme is ideal; ideally, machines could both squish themselves into tight spaces and remain sturdy for strength-dependent tasks. They just might, thanks to a team-up between MIT and Google's Boston Dynamics. The two have developed a composite material that can switch between hard and soft states on the fly. The design mates a compressible foam inside with an external wax coating. If a robot needed to deform, all it would have to do is soften the right joints with a bit of heating. It could even heal damage by heating and cooling an affected area.
MIT's Local Warming system warms you while you wander
Thought experiment time, folks: what would do you if you wanted to warm up a few people in a big, chilly room? Prevailing logic says to crank up the heat, but let's be honest here: sometimes the prevailing logic sucks. The folks from MIT's Senseable City Lab project have cooked up a more efficient (if slightly kookier) way to go called Local Warming. Their approach? To create a prototype LED spotlight that shoots a beam of heat at you as you walk around the room. In case you were curious, yes, it's all much safer than it sounds.
Heat-sensitive solar cell could lead to much more on-demand energy
It's tough to build solar cells that capture both heat and light -- most of these multi-talented devices can't trap more than one percent of the energy they receive. However, MIT has just blown past that limitation with a prototype chip that absorbs warmth through an outer layer of carbon nanotubes. The tubing heats up photonic crystals so much that they glow with an intense light, giving an attached solar cell more energy than it would collect through sunlight alone. The technology is already efficient enough to extract 3.2 percent of the energy it gets, and MIT believes that it could reach 20 percent with more development. While that's not necessarily more effective than conventional technology, it's much easier to store heat than electricity; a future nanotube-based panel could provide a lot more on-demand energy than we typically get today. There's no estimate for when a finished product might reach the market, but it might not be long before solar panels have plenty of reserve power.
WRUP: A hot weekend and the anticipation of a patch
It seems most of the country is blanketed in sweltering heat. If you find yourself outside in the sizzling temperatures, take care to stay hydrated and not hurt yourself. Heat like this isn't something to take lightly, and we don't want any of you to get hurt. We like you! So while polling your intrepid WoW Insider staff about their weekend plans, we thought we'd take a few moments to ask what they think of the patch so far. Opinions are varied, of course. That's just as well. If we all had the same opinion, that would make for pretty boring reading. So jump on behind the cut and see what your favorite WoW bloggers are into.
Insert Coin semifinalist: Radiator Labs wants to help you control your heat
Just about any apartment-dwelling urbanite can tell you that radiators are a bit of a necessary evil in the world of city living. What if there was a way to control the heat to individual rental units, without relying entirely on a landlord's temperature-controlling omnipotence? The Radiator Labs team has developed a device to help realize this dream. It's essentially a housing that sits on top of an individual radiator unit, controlling heat transfer to a room. Turn it off, and the insulation hampers the heat from making a room too hot. Turn it on, and the ducted fan spreads the heat out to the room. Radiator Labs has a bit more info on its page, which you can check out in the source link below. You can also view graphical breakdown of the technology after the break. Check out the full list of Insert Coin: New Challengers semifinalists here -- and don't forget to pick a winner!
Shader Printer uses heat-sensitive 'paint' that can be erased with low temperatures (hands-on video)
Lovin' the bold look of those new Nikes? If you're up to date on the athletic shoe scene, you may notice that sneaker designs can give way long before your soles do. A new decaling technique could enable you to "erase" labels and other artworks overnight without a trace, however, letting you change up your wardrobe without shelling out more cash. A prototype device, called Shader Printer, uses a laser to heat (at 50 degrees Celsius, 120 degrees Fahrenheit) a surface coated with a bi-stable color-changing material. When the laser reaches the "ink," it creates a visible design, that can then be removed by leaving the object in a -10 degree Celsius (14 degree Fahrenheit) freezer overnight. The laser and freezer simply apply standard heat and cold, so you could theoretically add and remove designs using any source. For the purposes of a SIGGRAPH demo, the team, which includes members from the Japan Science and Technology Agency, Keio University, the University of Tokyo and MIT, used a hair dryer to apply heat to a coated plastic doll in only a few seconds -- that source doesn't exactly offer the precision of a laser, but it works much more quickly. Then, they sprayed the surface with -50-degree Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit) compressed air, which burned off the rather sloppy pattern in a flash. There were much more attractive prints on hand as well, including an iPhone cover and a sneaker with the SIGGRAPH logo, along with a similar plastic doll with clearly defined eyes. We also had a chance to peek at the custom laser rig, which currently takes about 10 minutes to apply a small design, but could be much quicker in the future with a higher-powered laser on board. The hair dryer / canned air combo offers a much more efficient way of demoing the tech, however, as you'll see in our hands-on video after the break.
MIT researchers develop chip that can harvest energy from multiple sources
We've seen a number of different devices that can harvest energy from various sources, but none quite like this new chip developed by a team of MIT researchers. It's able to harvest energy from three different sources simultaneously: light, heat and vibrations. The key to that is a sophisticated control system that's able to rapidly switch between the three sources at all times to prevent any of that energy from going to waste (and not draw too much power itself), with energy from the secondary sources stored in capacitors to be picked up later -- as opposed to existing systems that simply switch between sources based on what's most plentiful. As doctoral student Saurav Bandyopadhyay explains, efficiently managing those disparate sources could be a "big advantage since many of these sources are intermittent and unpredictable," and it could in turn lead to the chip being used in a range of different applications where batteries or existing energy harvesting methods just aren't enough: everything from environmental sensors in remote locations to biomedical devices.
Apple Store now selling Nest Thermostat: automated toastiness to cost $250
Apple liked it so much, it's decided to let the Nest Thermostat share shelf-space in its bricks-and-mortar stores and online. Following rumors that Tony Fadell's latest project would appear at his former employer's store, it's now been confirmed with an online listing. Following some brief downtime on the Cupertino corp's retail site, the unit is set to retail for $250. Aside from sharing some design DNA, the thermostat unit can also be controlled from iPhones, iPads, iPods and Macs -- we presume that Android functionality is still there. Those that like their summers extra comfortable can hit the store link below.
Intel caught using cheap thermal paste in Ivy Bridge?
For all the good stuff it brings, Ivy Bridge has also been running a little hotter than reviewers and overclockers might have liked -- and that's putting it mildly. A few weeks back, Overclockers discovered a possible culprit: regular thermal paste that sits between the CPU die and the outwardly-visible heatspreader plate. By contrast, Intel splashed out on fluxless solder in this position in its Sandy Bridge processors, which is known have much greater thermal conductivity. Now, Japanese site PC Watch has taken the next logical step, by replacing the stock thermal paste in a Core i7-3770K with a pricier aftermarket alternative to see what would happen. Just like that, stock clock temperatures dropped by 18 percent, while overclocked temperatures (4GHz at 1.2V) fell by 23 percent. Better thermals allowed the chip to sustain higher core voltages and core clock speeds and thereby deliver greater performance. It goes to show, you can't cut corners -- even 22nm ones -- without someone noticing, but then Apple could have told you that.
Consumer Reports puts iPad at top of the list, despite heat issue
A few weeks ago, Consumer Reports caused a stir when it claimed the new iPad ran twelve degrees hotter than its predecessor and reached 116 degrees. Now the consumer watchdog company is back to say the heat problem is not a cause for concern. Consumer Reports acknowledges the iPad gets warm, but says this heating only occurs under select circumstances. The group noted that the heat climbed when the device was used on full brightness while playing a graphics-heavy, CPU-intensive game. Despite the occasional heat issue, Consumer Reports gave the iPad a top rating and said it was impressed with the Retina display and the 4G LTE connectivity on Verizon. [Via Reuters]
Researchers working on thermal cloak, Predators trill their disapproval
Slathering yourself with mud to avoid head-hunting aliens is great and all, but it ain't exactly the paragon of good personal hygiene. Fortunately, researchers have concocted a cleaner and less cakey defense against Predators that's more likely to be mom approved. Fresh on the heels of the microwave invisibility project at the University of Texas at Austin, French researchers have found a way to make a cloak that can hide a subject from thermal imaging devices. The concept uses alternating materials with varying rates of diffusion to move heat around and create a thermally invisible region. Conversely, the technique can be used to concentrate heat in one spot so it gets hot rapidly. Although it doesn't quite have the wow factor of Cornell's invisibility project, the thermal research may prove to be more practical because it also can be used to manage heat and improve cooling in components such as computer chips. Of course, the question now is, can it be used to cloak an entire tank?
Dell issues BIOS update A03 for XPS 13 Ultrabook, gets a handle on fiesty fans
Can't say we noticed an extraordinary amount of blowing from our XPS 13 Ultrabook review unit, but for those with an optioned Core i7 model, you may want to give the source link a look. Down there, you'll find a download link to the A03 BIOS update, which delivers "an updated thermal table which dictates fan speeds and trigger temperatures." Evidently, these machines have a tendency to kick the fans into high gear prematurely (it's okay Dell, we all get excited sometimes), but thankfully, a 4MB package is all that's required to remedy it. 'Preciate it, technology.
