new mclaren the super car

McLaren 570GT:

McLaren is best known for ultra-light and ultra-fast automobiles – that’s, pretty much, the calling card of the badge. This time around, they’re trimming down on the excess with the McLaren 570GT, a Grand Touring version of their 570S supercar.

While it can still take laps at blistering speeds, the newest McLaren is equipped for the long drive, embracing the traditional definition of Grand Touring by putting a premium on comfort and practicality. That means, it trades much of the carbon fiber for heavier aluminum panels, with the interior covered almost entirely in leather. It also gets an extra 7.8 cubic feet of room behind the seats, upping the vehicle total to 12.4, complete with a side-hinged glass rear hatch for loading your luggage through the back.

Those changes result in a heavier weight for the McLaren 570GT, which tips the scales at 80 pounds more than the 570S. As a result, while it houses the same carbon fiber tub and 3.8-liter V8 (562 horsepower and 442 pound-feet of torque), the 0 to 60 acceleration time gets reduced to 3.4 seconds (compared to 3.2 for the 570S), although top speed remains at 204 mph. To realize the car’s long-distance driving ambitions, it gets softer suspension (15 percent reduction in spring rates out front and 10 percent at the rear), a reduced steering ratio, a more compliant ride quality, a quieter exhaust system, and noise-absorbing Pirelli PZero tires. Other standard features include a panoramic sunroof, soft-closing dihideral doors, and a 320W eight-speaker audio system.

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Slated to go on sale later in the year, the McLaren 570GT is priced at $198,950 (from coolthings.com)

htc vive the virtual experience

The HTC Vive :

Impressed with what you’ve seen so far from HTC’s VR headset? Then, good news – the outfit just announced the official consumer version of the HTC Vive, bringing a full set of innovative features that should break new ground for the modern generation of gamers.

Packaged as a complete kit, the headset comes with a pair of wireless controllers, a pair of base stations, a Vive Link Box, and a pair of ear buds, ensuring you have everything you need to immerse yourself in your favorite VR games and content. Just hook it up to a compatible gaming PC and you’re set.

The HTC Vive comes with room-scale motion tracking, using 32 headset sensors to detect movement across a full 360 degrees, while a camera on the exterior allows it to blend real-world elements into the virtual experience. A 110-degree field of view allows for immersive visuals that are made even better by the 2,160 x 1,200 combined resolution and 90Hz refresh rate for seriously smooth-looking action. Interchangeable foam inserts and nose pads allow you to customize the fit to conform to the contours of your face, with enough room to accommodate your glasses, while an adjustable strap lets you cinch it for the most comfortable fit.

While it won’t play smartphone-based VR content, it can pair with phones, allowing you to receive and respond to texts (pre-made messages only) and calls (it comes with an integrated mic), as well as get notifications. It’s powered by Steam VR. 

Slated to come out in April, the HTC Vive is priced at $799  (from coolthings.com)

PRE-ORDER YOUR VIVE TODAY at  http://www.htcvive.com/us/product/

hoverboard that rides not touching the ground

Hendo Hoverboard:

It’s not quite the hoverboard we wanted, but given the absolutely barren list of choices, the Hendo Hoverboard is the one we want anyway.  Yes, someone finally made a real hoverboard that can lift a short distance off the ground while supporting the weight of an adult on top.

Unlike the one Marty McFly rode in the Back to the Future movies, you can’t exactly take this one out for a spin around the neighborhood.  That’s because it can only hover on top of surfaces made from copper, so until the roads of your neighborhood are paved with the expensive metal, you’ll be confined to specialty studios rigged up specifically to ride it.

The Hendo Hoverboard doesn’t rely on air cushions to keep it suspended in mid-air the way existing hovercrafts do.  Instead, it relies on the same magnetic levitation (maglev) technology that high-speed levitating trains have been using to reduce friction during travel.  Four maglev engines sit directly under the deck, along with the battery pack, giving it that needed lift to float an inch above any ferromagnetic-conducting surface. On the reverse, it comes with a pair footpads to help the rider keep his feet from slipping while he maneuvers the board over a minimal amount of friction.



As of now, the board still appears to be in the early prototype stage.  It’s a semi-working prototype, though, which is amazing.  As in, it can hover about half an inch and ride frictionless, although it’s a bit impossible to maneuver at the moment (you’ll basically glide to wherever momentum takes you until you crash or puke or both).  So far, it’s an impressive proof of concept, although it might take a while before we actually get a consumer version.

Arx Pax, the company developing the Hendo Hoverboard, is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to help fund it.  Pledges to reserve one of the first 10 hoverboards they produce is set at $10,000.(from coolthings.com)

hover board that coming soon:

 know more about the hoverboard  http://hendohover.com 

charge wirelessly from distance

Wirelessly Charge Devices From 15 Feet Away:

While wireless charging has been with us in consumer form since the Powermat debuted in 2009, current evolution of the technology still sees us tethered to the charging pad. There are, however, a handful of efforts seeking to liberate us from this current predicament and the WattUp appears to be one of the most likely to find success.

Made by Energous, it’s a wireless charging system that uses a mix of Bluetooth, RF signals, and some patent-pending tech to enable sending power wirelessly to devices as far as 15 feet away. That way, you just have to be within the vicinity of the charging device (which, in this case, looks and functions like a bigger WiFi router) in order to get your phones, tablets, and similar gadgets juiced.

The WattUp can work with any battery-operated device that requires less than 10 watts to charge. While that probably rules any current generation of laptops, it should be enough for mobile phones, tablets, and other mobile gadgets. It uses a transmitter called the Power Router, which sends the energy via RF signal to a WattUp receiver pre-installed in the device, which then converts the signal into battery power. Up to 12 receivers can be managed by the Power Router simultaneously, continuously charging them even while the gadgets are in motion, provided they stay within range.

As of now, Energous is working on licensing their technology to other companies who can then integrate it into their own products. They’re releasing a reference design for both the transmitter and the receiver in around six months, which licensees can then use to pattern their own charging systems.

True Mobility

Wire-free power delivers on the promise of true mobility, the freedom to roam where you want to without worrying about your mobile or battery powered devices running out of charge.  While power cords and charging pads require you to surrender your device to a stationary location, WattUp® gives you the freedom to receive a charge from anywhere within a 30-foot end-to-end charging envelope.

Charges Any Battery-Operated Device That Requires Less Than 10 Watts:

WattUp RF-based charging can be integrated to provide wire-free charging to a wide variety of electronic devices such as cell phones, tablets, wearables, cameras, wireless keyboards and mice, headsets, sensors, LED lights, remote controls and toys; in essence any battery-powered device in your home or office.

Works Like Wi-Fi:

A WattUp transmitter, or Power Router, sends energy via a radio frequency (RF) signal to your WattUp-enabled electronic devices when requested. A WattUp receiver in each device converts that signal into battery power.

The entire system is software controlled, so it's intelligent and customizable to your needs and environment. And, because it's designed to work invisibly in the background, WattUp can make low battery anxiety a thing of the past.

How Does it Work?

A Radio Frequency (RF) system, similar to a Wi-Fi system, delivers safe wire-free charging energy at a distance of approximately 15ft from a transmitter to a receiver device, such as a mobile phone, and maintains charging while the receiver is in motion.  12 receiver devices can be managed by the system simultaneously.

The Hardware:

Highly targeted pockets of energy are delivered via multiple miniature antenna arrays and custom control chips in the transmitter, or Power Router.  Energy harvesting of the micro energy beams from these pockets then takes place via paired antenna arrays and custom chips in the receiver devices.(from coolthings.com)

The Software:

The WattUp® software system ensures that the charging waveforms are dynamically directed, focused and controlled via proprietary algorithms.  Charging and communication between transmitters and receivers is intelligently managed using BLE and enterprise-class wireless networking protocols.

White laser

Scientists Create White Laser:

The future of home lighting could be lasers No, we don’t mean those headache-inducing laser light shows they use to give people even more stimulation in clubs and parties. Instead, we’re talking about lighting every place in your home, from the living room to the kitchen to the bedroom. Apparently, that’s possible now after a team of scientists recently discovered how to produce white laser.

In a study conducted at Arizona University, a team of researchers showed how a new breed of semiconductor lasers can emit light across the full visible spectrum, producing the full-range of colors necessary to generate white laser. The team used a thin layer of semiconductor with three parallel segments, each one emitting one of the three elementary colors. Depending on how their output is tuned, this layer can produce any color in the spectrum that, when combined, produces laser that is pristine white.

Lasers are brighter and more energy-efficient than the existing LED standard, apart from providing more accurate and vivid colors, making them an ideal candidate for the next-generation of lighting.  While this is merely a first step towards using lasers in that capacity, it’s a significant one.  Previous attempts at producing white laser used multiple hardware, whose light outputs were combined, whereas the Arizona University team’s white laser emanated from a single unit, making it more feasible for mainstream use. The researchers point out that their white laser technology can prove beneficial in many applications, including “solid-state lighting, full-color displays, visible color communications, and multi-color fluorescence sensing.

Creating White Laser:

   Monolithic semiconductor lasers capable of emitting over the full visible-colour spectrum have a wide range of important applications, such as solid-state lighting, full-colour displays, visible colour communications and multi-colour fluorescence sensing. The ultimate form of such a light source would be a monolithic white laser. However, realizing such a device has been challenging because of intrinsic difficulties in achieving epitaxial growth of the mismatched materials required for different colour emission. Here, we demonstrate a monolithic multi-segment semiconductor nanosheet based on a quaternary alloy of ZnCdSSe that simultaneously lases in the red, green and blue. This is made possible by a novel nanomaterial growth strategy that enables separate control of the composition, morphology and therefore bandgaps of the segments. Our nanolaser can be dynamically tuned to emit over the full visible-colour range, covering 70% more perceptible colours than the most commonly used illuminants(from coolthings.com)

samsung new 128GB RAM

New invention Samsung’s 128GB DDR4 RAM:

On the surface, this looks like a regular memory stick. Except, you know, there’s nothing regular about it, since that is Samsung’s upcoming 128GB DDR4 RAM chip. That’s right, there’s a whopping 128GB contained inside that slender frame.

Yes, we know, it’s overkill even for the most powerful gaming PCs. Then again, that’s not what Samsung is making these for. Instead, these are aimed squarely at data centers and enterprise servers, which can definitely use such an absurd amount of memory to accommodate the multitude of transactions they regularly handle.

Billed as a breakthrough not just in capacity but in energy efficiency, the Samsung 128GB DDR4 RAM ditches traditional wire bonding in favor of TSV circuitry, connecting the chip components using electrodes that pass through hundreds of fine holes. Each memory unit is composed of 144 DDR4 chips, arranged in 36 4GB packages, with a master chip on each one embedding the data buffer function, leading to optimized module performance and power consumption. It boasts twice the speed of existing memory systems, clocking in at 2,400 Mbps, while using 50 percent less power than any previous solution that offers this much memory.

No word on pricing, but the Samsung 128GB DDR3 RAM is now under production and likely to go on sale sometime next year.

Samsung Electronics:

Samsung Electronics announced that it is mass producing the industry’s first “through silicon via” (TSV) double data rate-4 (DDR4) memory in 128-gigabyte (GB) modules, for enterprise servers and data centers.

Following Samsung’s introduction of the world-first 3D TSV DDR4 DRAM (64GB) in 2014, the company’s new TSV registered dual inline memory module (RDIMM) marks another breakthrough that opens the door for ultra-high capacity memory at the enterprise level. Samsung’s new TSV DRAM module boasts the largest capacity and the highest energy efficiency of any DRAM modules today, while operating at high speed and demonstrating excellent reliability.

“We are pleased that volume production of our high speed, low-power 128GB TSV DRAM module will enable our global IT customers and partners to launch a new generation of enterprise solutions with dramatically improved efficiency and scalability for their investment,” said Joo Sun Choi, executive vice president, Memory Sales and Marketing, Samsung Electronics. “We will continue to expand our technical cooperation with global leaders in servers, consumer electronics and emerging markets, where consumers can benefit from innovative technology that enhances their productivity and the overall user experience.”

The 128GB TSV DDR4 RDIMM is comprised of a total of 144 DDR4 chips, arranged into 36 4GB DRAM packages, each containing four 20-nanometer (nm)-based 8-gigabit (Gb) chips assembled with cutting-edge TSV packaging technology.

Conventional chip packages interconnect die stacks using wire bonding, whereas in TSV packages, the chip dies are ground down to a few dozen micrometers, pierced with hundreds of fine holes and vertically connected by electrodes passing through the holes, allowing for a significant boost in signal transmission. In addition to capitalizing on the industry’s highest capacity and TSV’s advanced circuitry, Samsung’s 128GB TSV DDR4 module has a special design through which the master chip of each 4GB package embeds the data buffer function to optimize module performance and power consumption.

As a result, Samsung’s advanced 128GB TSV DDR4 RDIMM provides a low-power solution for next-generation servers with speeds at up to 2,400 megabits per second (Mbps), achieving nearly twice the performance, while cutting power usage by 50 percent, compared to using the previous highest capacity DRAM modules ─ 64GB LRDIMMs, whose four-chip package stacks are hampered by power and speed limitations caused by their use of conventional wire bonding.

Samsung is responding to growing demand for ultra-high capacity DRAM by accelerating production of TSV technology in the market and quickly ramping up 20nm 8Gb DRAM chips to improve manufacturing productivity. In solidifying its technology leadership and expanding the market for premium memory solutions, the company plans to provide a complete lineup of its new high-performance TSV DRAM modules within the next several weeks including 128GB load reduced DIMMs (LRDIMMs).

In addition, Samsung will continue to maintain its technology leadership by introducing TSV DRAM with higher performance. These will include modules with data transfer speeds of up to 2,667Mbps and 3,200Mbps that help to meet intensifying enterprise server needs, while expanding TSV applications into high bandwidth memory (HBM) and consumer products.( from coolthings.com)

turning off niagara falls

Department to turn off the water flowing over Niagara Falls

Plans are being discussed by the New York State Department to turn off the water flowing over Niagara Falls, well at least part of it anyway. The term Niagara Falls is actually a collective name for the three falls that straddle the border between America and Canada, the spectacular Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side, and the two smaller ones in the USA, The American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls.

The proposal is to divert water from the American side by diverting the flow over the Canadian Horseshoe Falls, over which 85% of the water already flows. This is to carry out essential work to replace the two 115-year-old stone arch bridges. The bridges were built to allow pedestrians’ access to Goat Island; these are deteriorating and temporary truss bridges were constructed due to safety concerns.

This will not be the first time it has happened if the plan is approved, as in 1969 the American side of the falls had its water diverted using what is referred to as a cofferdam. This 600-foot cofferdam was created by dumping 27,800 tons of rock and dirt until the flow was stopped completely. Some interesting things were found when the American Falls were “dry” including a body as well as numerous coins.

The diverting of the water is not expected to cause much effect on natural resources in the area, perhaps just de-locating a few birds from the shoreline. The New York State Department is hoping to have a design approval in place by this summer, following public comments, a final design for the project will begin when funding is in place.

The whole project could take as long as four years as it will be approximately two years before the final design, obtaining permits and approvals, and award the construction contract, plus a further two years to carry out the work.(from shockingtimes.co.uk)