optics
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Intel's 50Gbps Silicon Photonics Link shines a light on future computers (video)
Using copper cables to transfer data around a computer? Get your head out of the sand, Grandpa! Intel thinks that's on the outs and is touting its recent accomplishments with Silicon Photonics and integrated lasers, using light pulses to move data at 50Gbps (last time we heard Intel tout the tech was when it hit 40Gbps speeds in 2007). The emphasis is on low-cost, high-speed fiber optics, the removal of cable clutter, and with the speed boost, the ability to try new system designs by being able to space chips and components farther apart from one another without as much hit on speed -- all theoretical at this point, of course. Researchers hopes to hit terabit per second speeds further down the line. As for John Q. Consumer, enjoy the progress from afar but don't count on seeing this technology hit Newegg anytime soon. Video after the break.
Nokia N8 fights back with heavenly HD video sample (updated)
Nokia is doing its best to rewind the negative spin placed on its flagship N8 after one of its children went missing. As part of the effort, it just published the first un-retouched 720p video captured by a pre-production N8's Carl Zeiss lens as followup to the first sample images released yesterday. We downloaded the H.264 video's .MP4 container to view natively (that's a 600 pixel wide screencap above) and sure enough came away impressed -- though we're curious to hear the original audio that was replaced by a dramatic soundtrack. Now, we're not saying it's better or worse than other similarly equipped smartphones shooting well-lit video -- without seeing side-by-side video of the same footage it's difficult to tell. But Nokia, a company known for using decent optics, sensors, and flash units in its N-series devices, certainly won't be disappointing impromptu photogs making their first jump into Symbian^3. Just imagine what Nokia hardware coupled with a killer user experience could do. Could do. Embedded video sample after the break. Update: All About Symbian has a marvelously detailed breakdown of the N8's camera that dives deeply into the phone's optics, mic, flash, and more.
Lensbaby Composer, Fisheye and Soft Focus review: creativity abounds
Lensbaby lenses have been out and about for a long while now, but we were just recently able to sit down with a few of the company's best and brightest in order to form our own opinions of the (admittedly overlooked) creative devices. For those unaware, Lensbaby makes a handful of lenses and optics that help users engage in selective focus photography, and frankly, create all sorts of wild images that would be otherwise difficult or impossible to create within Photoshop. There's no question that these are hobby lenses through and through -- you wouldn't want to hinge your business on these -- but are they worth the comparatively low asking prices? Read on to find out. %Gallery-88228%
Germanium lasers offer ray of hope for optical computing
Bandwidth scarcity, is there any more pressing global issue that we're faced with today? We think not. Given the exponential growth in both computing power and software's exploitation and expectation of greater resources, it's no surprise that at some point we'll have to look beyond simple electrical currents as the transporters of our data. One bold step taken in that direction has been the demonstration of an operational germanium-on-silicon laser by researchers at MIT. By tweaking the electron count in germanium atoms with the help of some added phosphorous, they've been able to coax them into a photon-emitting state of being -- something nobody thought possible with indirect bandgap semiconductors. Perhaps the best part of this is that germanium can be integrated relatively easily into current manufacturing processes, meaning that light-based internal communication within our computers is now at least a tiny bit closer to becoming a reality.
Time Telescope greatly improves optical data transmission, won't undo your past mistakes
Researchers at Cornell have developed a "time telescope" from silicon waveguides that work like the two lenses of a telescope (or microscope) to compress and decompress data. Using the method, they were able to shift a 24-bit light pulse from 2.5 nanoseconds to 92 picoseconds in length without losing any information -- delivering the it to its destination 27 times faster than traditional fiber optics. Of course, the current 24-bit limit is too small for real world use, but it is a start -- and since this uses industry-supported fabrication technology, there's a chance that we may actually get our hands on one of these things in the not-too-distant future. Insert your own Marty McFly joke here.[Via Slashdot]
Ultra-powerful laser could make incandescent light bulbs more efficient
Look, LED light bulbs are fanciful, great for Ma Earth and a fine addition to any home, barber shop or underground fight club. But let's be honest -- even the guy that bikes through blizzards to get to work and wears garb that he grew in his basement isn't apt to shell out $120 a pop to have what's likely the most efficient light bulb American dollars can buy. Enter Chunlei Guo from the University of Rochester, who has helped discover a process which could morph a traditional incandescent light bulb into a beacon of burning light without using nearly as much energy as before. In fact, his usage of the femtosecond laser pulse -- which creates a "unique array of nano- and micro-scale structures on the surface of a regular tungsten filament" -- could enable a bulb to increase output efficiency in order to emit 100-watts worth of light while sucking down less than 60-watts of power. Per usual, there's no telling when this new hotness is likely to hit the commercial realm, but one's thing for sure: we bet GE's paying attention.[Via Physorg]
Researchers develop technique to unscramble light for a much sharper picture
Trying to circumvent the need to choose between getting a wide-angle shot and zooming in for details, a team of researchers at Princeton led by electric engineer Jason Fleischer have developed a new method to get the best of both worlds, by passing the light through a "nonlinear crystal" that would normally distorts the picture. A computer algorithm then pieces together the data and, as they claim, produces a wide-view image that also manages to capture the finer points otherwise missing when using conventional techniques. The goal is to build "super-resolution" microscopes for better medical diagnostics, but the group also sees uses in the fields of data encryption and lithography / microchip production. Is it too much to ask that our next Canon or Nikon have this a standard feature? [Via PhysOrg]
Researchers find ways to squeeze light into spaces never thought possible
It looks like a team of UC Berkeley researchers led by mechanical engineering professor Xiang Zhang (pictured) have found a way to squeeze light into tighter spaces than ever though possible, which they say could lead to breakthroughs in the fields of optical communications, miniature lasers, and optical computers. The key to this new technique, it seems, is the use of a "hybrid" optical fiber consisting of a very thin semiconductor wire placed close to a smooth sheet of silver, which effectively acts as a capacitor that traps the light waves in the gap between the wire and the metal sheet and lets it slip though spaces as tiny as 10 nanometers (or more than 100 times thinner than current optical fibers). That's apparently as opposed to previous attempts that relied on surface plasmonics, in which light binds to electrons and allows it to travel along the surface of metal, which only proved effective over short distances. While all of this is still in the theoretical stage, the researchers seem to think they're on to something big, with research associate Rupert Olten saying that this new development "means we can potentially do some things we have never done before.
Artificial corneas could save eyesight
While there's been no shortage of research surrounding the saving of one's eyesight, the EU-funded CORNEA project has now developed an artificial cornea that is showing promise in trials. Reportedly, scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP in Potsdam and the Department of Ophthalmology at the University Hospital of Regensburg have created a device that is "based on a commercially available polymer which absorbs no water and allows no cells to grow on it." Put simply, the cornea implant can "firmly connect with the natural part of the cornea, while the center remains free of cells and therefore clear." Apparently, early versions have already been successfully placed in the eyes of rabbits, and if ongoing testing goes smoothly, they'll be headed for humans as early as next year.
kameraflage enables your digicam to see more than you
While we've already seen what tricks cameras can play right before our very eyes, kameraflage is a slightly different flavor of optical illusion. The patent-pending technology exploits the fact that cameras can see a broader spectrum of colors than our meager eyes, and as the creator puts it, "by rendering content in these invisible colors we are able to create displays that are invisible to the naked eye, yet can be seen when imaged with a digital camera." Currently, it's being applied to garments in able to for cameraphone addicts to find surprises all over while pointing their sensors at unsuspecting humans, and the tech will even be on display at the upcoming 2007 ACM SIGGRAPH Unravel fashion show in San Diego. Best of all, custom orders will be fielded as early as September, and if we've got any interested VCs in the crowd, give this man a holler.[Via c0nn0r]
Scientists perform quantum computer simulation on vanilla PC
We've seen what (little) a quantum computer can do, but a pair of curious scientists flipped the equation around and sent a humdrum PC to do a supercomputer's work. Professor Peter Drummond and Dr. Piotr Deuar were able to "successfully simulate a collision of two laser beams from an atom laser using an everyday desktop computer," which would typically only be attempted on a substantially more powerful machine. Notably, the achievement wasn't entirely without flaw, as the purported randomness in the testing eventually "swamped everything" and forced the simulation to be halted in order to gather any useful data whatsoever. Unfortunately, we're all left to wonder exactly what kind of machine was used to chew through such grueling calculations (Compubeaver, perhaps?), but feel free to throw out your suggestions below. [Via Physorg, image courtesy of ACQAO]
Researchers condense entire image into single photon
A team of researchers has managed to find a way to store a large amount of data in a single photon of light. Although the first stored item -- an image of the characters "UR" -- implies that the inventor was a 13 year old girl dealing with an extremely low text messaging limit, the image was in fact intended to signify the institution which developed the technology, the University of Rochester (either that or it's the shortest example of the "UR IN MY ... " meme that we've seen in the while.) Apparently the system works because "instead of storing ones and zeros" (a la binary code), the team has figured out how to store an entire image in a single photon, which sounds sort of impossible to us. Funny, because that's exactly what John Howell, the leader of the team said about the system. One of the key components of the process is the particle-wave duality nature of light: by firing a single photon of light through a stencil -- we presume one heckuva small one -- the wave carries a shadow of the image along with it at a very high signal-to-noise ratio, even with low light levels. The light is then slowed down in a cell of cesium gas, where it is compressed to 1 percent of its original length. This is where the storage aspect of the device comes in, as the researchers hope to be able to delay a single photon almost permanently, resulting in a device that can store "incredible amounts of information in just a few photons": an enticing thought for a world currently satisfied with a maximum of 1TB hard drives based on physical platters. A pity then that the world is completely distracted by the potential for "Photon on photons" jokes that this throws into the ring.
Diminutive cable holds promise in medical, solar realms
We tend to prefer our electronics to be as far from invasive as possible, and that definitely includes cabling. While we'd take wireless over the corded approach any day, tethered applications still have their place, and a diminutive new cable is showing bigtime promise in a few prominent fields. A research team has developed a cable that resembles that of an old fashioned coaxial strand, yet it's reportedly "much thinner than a human hair" and can transmit visible light. By constructing a cable about 300-nanometers wide which houses an inner wire of carbon surrounded by an insulator and an outer wire of aluminum, visible light can pass through, paving the way for its use in highly efficient solar energy cells, or furthermore, "miniature electrical circuitry and microscopic light-based switching devices for optical computing." Researchers even suggest that it could be used in retinal implants or "detecting single molecules of pathogens in the body." We're not yet sure just how potent or powerful these itty bitty cables can be, but judging by size alone, we're halfway sold already.
Researchers develop metamaterial with negative refractive index
We've got next-to-invisible objects and cameras with ridiculously large sensors, and thanks to a team of brilliant researchers over in Germany, now we've got "an exotic material with a negative refractive index for visible light." Gunnar Dolling and his colleagues at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany have created a metamaterial with layers of silver sandwiching a thin sliver of nonconducting magnesium fluoride on a glass sheet, and once an array of square holes were etched in, his tests showed that the "structure had a negative refractive index of -0.6 for light with a wavelength of 780-nanometers," besting the previous record of 1,400-nanometers. While the scientific babble may not mean much to you, the long and short of it is that this discovery could "lead to further breakthroughs in invisibility cloaks, which could hide objects from the human eye" and make escaping your troubles quite a bit easier. Moreover, the technology could be used in "superlenses" to see details "finer than the wavelength of visible light," but Dolling is reportedly more interested in studying the effects of his discovery than attempting to build any mystical devices, which is probably for the good of mankind, anyway.[Via Slashdot]
LG and Schneider-Kreuznach for better cameraphones
Angelina's got Brad, Nokia's N90 has Carl Zeiss, and now LG has Schneider-Kreuznach. After working together on the Shine, LG has decidedly joined forces with the German lens manufacturer to provide better optics for their cellphones. Their previous collaboration resulted in a very lustworthy and capable cameraphone, so we're hoping it only gets better from here. With the hopefully better image quality in the cards from yet another high profile manufacturer, perhaps we're another step closer to starting to leave those full-size cameras at home.[Thanks, Sam]
UK scientists seek to restore sight
We're confident that between all these brilliant minds, restoration of sight in humans isn't too terribly far off. Scientists housing their research in Glasgow University are working towards incorporating a device similar to a digital camera (surgery cost based on megapixels and zoom?) into those who have lost their vision due to "age-related macular degeneration or retinitis pigmentosa." More specifically, an imaging detector would be used to detect light sources that would electrically stimulate the retina in the shape of the given image(s). From there, the process is fairly natural as the brain receives an image via the optic nerve that it can comprehend. So what differentiates this study from the rest? If successful, the image detectors will have memory chips that could allow for slow motion viewing and instant replays of what humans equipped with the device see, possibly giving a whole new meaning to the phrase "double-take."
