Nanotech Pinball and Miniature Engines 171
glenmark writes "Researchers at the Solid State Electronics Laboratory at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have developed the world's smallest pinball game. The video is fascinating. The flippers are electrostatically-actuated monocrystalline silicon cantilevers. I hope Pat Lawlor and Steve Ritchie see this. I have a feeling they would get a kick out of it." And in another nanotech story, psmears writes "Three hundred times more powerful than ordinary batteries, but much lighter and smaller? Researchers at the University of Birmingham have developed a micro-engine that will allow people to charge mobile phones using lighter fluid. Further information at Research-TV including photos and a film."
But, geez (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But, geez (Score:1)
Actually, not so much (Score:2, Interesting)
I know you're just being a smartass, but actually I'd say that this thing is less susceptible to tilt and more to "surface" forces like friction and electrostatics compared to it's larger counterparts.
But nice gag all the same.
Re:But, geez (Score:3, Funny)
TILT!!! TILT!!!!
*Puts down unit and gently picks up unit*
TILT!!! TILT!!!
GEEZ! I'm not bumping or tilting you dumbass! What's wrong with you??!!??
*result of yelling* TILT!!! TILT!!!
Re:WILL YOU FREAKING MODERATORS LEARN THE TERMS!!! (Score:2)
This is great news (Score:5, Funny)
Umm... (Score:5, Funny)
Where is the quarter slot?
TMNT quote (Score:2)
Re:Umm... (Score:1)
Thanks a heap. There go all my dirty pinball jokes.
Re:Umm... (Score:2)
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Funny)
I think the token-machine is out-of-order right now though
And the nobel prize goes to... (Score:2, Funny)
Solid State Electronics Laboratory for the smallest balls known to exist!
Wow ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember the old days (Score:4, Funny)
Some people still do. They call them MPEGS.
Do you use DOS? (Score:1)
I don't recall great difficulties playing divx-files under any of these systems.
Perhaps you are still using DOS?
Re:Do you use DOS? (Score:1)
Re:Do you use DOS? (Score:2, Informative)
VLC (Score:2, Informative)
Indeed it does.
I also have mplayer, but I find VLC far better.
I have "installed" the Divx-codec for mac, but Quicktime seems to disregard it.
I prefer that the Divx codec is used over all that MS-mediaplayer crap. Although Xvid [xvid.org] would even be better.
Re:Do you use DOS? (Score:2)
Ok, don't use it myself (OSx doesn't run on any of my boxen). But I've never had a problem with Mplayer. Ocassional teething problems in compilation, but if your on Mac hardware, those nice people behind Fink [sourceforge.net] have taken care of all that.
If there's something you don't like about mplayer, you could look at xine. Might be more to your tastes.
Re:Remember the old days (Score:5, Informative)
It is an MPEG codec. DivX is an implementation of MPEG-4. If you want source code for a decoder see the ffmpeg [sourceforge.net] (as libavcodec) or xvid [xvid.org] codecs. Between then, I've not see an OS with a POSIX layer that's not been able to compile a decoder engine. Granted, there are large bunches of optional parts that the various decoders don't all cover, but I've not yet see any problems with ffmpeg decoder.
If by MPEGS you mean MPEG-1, then yes - that is slightly more portable than MPEG-4 codecs, but not noticably (better support on embeded systems). They do however, have poorer picture quality, and larger bitrates. So, it's not really a good choice for internet distribution. MPEG-2 would also be better than MPEG-1, but it's also not quite as good as MPEG-4, interms of low bitrate quality. And for a web demo, the lower the bitrate, the better.
If you've got a particular platform in mind, then drop a line, and I'll see if I can find a pre-compiled setup for it.
Re:Remember the old days (Score:2)
Don't worry, it doesn't run on MSWindows either. I just fired up my MSWin box to look at it, and it complained that I didn't have ActiveX enabled. Well, I don't, and I'm not going to enable it just to see a movie.
Looks like a matrix arcade - here's the music (Score:5, Funny)
"Electostatic actuation" - now maybe they could drive the music for it through nano-elctrostatic speakers:
"He's a nano wizard
There's got to be a spin
A nano wizard
S'got monocrystalline"
New Casting Roles (Score:3, Funny)
David Spade; the world's smallest pinball wizard.
Side discussion: (Score:5, Insightful)
Will the Diamond Age begin in our lifetimes?
I'm personally of the opinion that when the nanotech revolution starts, it'll happen so shockingly fast that applications, society and governance will take decades to catch up -- think internet x10.
In a world of pervasive nanotech, I suspect the next really big industry will be power generation; it'll require a step up in juice unlike any seen since the start of the century. Fortunately, nanotech will hopefully solve some technical problems (superconducting power transmission, materials suited to support fusion, etc) at the same time it's demanding this huge level of power generation.
Of course, in a world of pervasive nanotech, our existing governmental and societal structures are in a lot of trouble... We live, as the ancient Chinese said, in interesting times (and I mean that in the spirit in which they did).
Re:Side discussion: (Score:5, Insightful)
While nanotechnology has many great potentials, they are still in a hazy future. Lasers were once seen as the technology that would transform the world. Same with Computers. Yet the bulk of the world is still relatively unchanged by either of these. Certainly the developed nations have changed substantially, but in many respects they have not changed much if at all.
I get up in the morning, go to work from 8-5 every weekday morning for 40 hrs a week. Same as my dad did, and same as my kids will. How we do our work has changed, but the simple pattern of society in which we work to earn money to pay for housing, food, et al. has remained unchanged.
In the bulk of the world, life is much closer akin to my grandfolks time. People work from sunrise to sunset to scratch out a living, and their sustenance, from the land. Nano technology is not going to dramatically change their lives. Drought or other climatic changes will be the key variable to their lives.
We do indeed live in interesting times, but I do not think that our time is any more interesting on an individual level than any other time. We live in a time that has seen the average american progress steadily further from the basic compnents of survival. How many average americans would be able to fend for themselves in the "wild?" The "interesting" past of our American lives is when all the artificial walls separating us from basic needs come crashing down.
Nanotechnology then does but attempt to fortify those walls and afford us protection from our fear of being without. Earlier times had the same fear, the difference being that they lived closer to their fear than we do.
Lasers (Score:5, Insightful)
And they were right - they did. Not then, and not in the laser death ray way they thought back then, but now. I read a compelling article a while back (probably here) that proposed that the tech boom of the 90's was not the result of computer, the Internet or anything else. It was about lasers becomming cheap enough to be put in everything. Lasers are in millions of things. We don't even think about them - CD, DVD, fibre networks, SP/DIF..etc.
The transformations don't happen until the price point comes down. Nanotech is more like the way people think about the Internet - it starts inexspensivley from the get go (wouldn't have without those cheap lasers though). Once the first practical molecular assemblers are created (assuming they can be) it will boom very very quickly.
Re:Side discussion: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Side discussion: (Score:2, Insightful)
I wrote the reply more as a
Re:Side discussion: (Score:2)
Changes in the past and present
1. It is a fact that humans haven't changed much in the past 10 thousand years. As I understand, we have essentially same physical and intellectual capability as our remote ancestors had. Our brains and bodies haven't changed much. So the basic
Re:Side discussion: (Score:2)
I agree that it is important to consider the causes for failures of earlier civilisation. Unfortunately, I think not enough attention is paid to that and we do not have a clear understanding yet of why every one of them failed except for the modern European (later Western) societies and whether there are some risks that we should pay special attention to.
I want to note that a
Re:Side discussion: (Score:1)
You mean as in the curse "May you be born in interesting times".
Well it does concern me - just look at the trouble Crusher started, having to set traps for them in the mess. I don't want these things in my food - I'm sure they'd make it taste burnt.
Neal Stephenson's book was captivating but a little troubling. And a leap does seem to be taking place now. Over what chasm I don't know.
But that pinball game shows more dexterity than I'd imagined was curren
Re:Side discussion: (Score:5, Interesting)
Firstly, look at some of the stories set now, written 50 years ago. How many of them have an even part way accurate description of, well, anything?
So, when your talking about nanotech, what are you actually thinking of?
What I'm thinking of is something that will be a bit like a cross between mechanical engineering and chemistry - make the various mechanical parts small so that they tend to operate in a chemicaly relevent length scale. That's the sort of thing that these micro-engines are.
Think about biology for a moment, and about the sorts of biochemical reactions that go on in a living being. Those are the sort of things that nanotach can do. I do not believe that we will see a "Universal constructor" type device for many centuries, if ever.
Note that the two examples that you give have been solved without the use of nano tech. Superconducting powerlines are in use in europe. They are unfortunatly only cost effective for short range (around 100 miles or so) high power transfers - but that's improving.
The problem with fusion is not materials. You cannot get a material that will contain a fusion reaction - instead they use magnetic containment. And the problem is keeping the thing stable. I cannot see how nanotech devices would assist in this.
So, in sumary, you are thinking of the effects of something, but I've no idea what.
Re:Side discussion: (Score:3, Interesting)
Better materials would help substantially with magnetic confinement fusion. In particular, something with a high tensile strength and a superconductor with high breakdown field strength would make many of the difficulties with magnetic confinement fusion magically
Re:Side discussion: (Score:2)
a) Containment vessels for magnetic confinement fusion are toroidal (or variants thereof), not spherical.
b) Precise containment vessel geometry doesn't much affect stability. Plasma turbulence causes stability to degrade. Hence, the active compensation mechanisms that were played with in recent memory.
Please read any of the available FAQs on magnetic confinement fusion.
Re:Side discussion: (Score:1)
I officially petition that the membership rolls of
Then, later after some nanophages reduce Darl C. McBride into a pile of steaming goo. I propose that we work dilligiently at getting the hell off this planet!
Re:Side discussion: (Score:5, Interesting)
-War (over who should use it and how it should be used.)
-New nanotech based "diseases" caused by their proliferation
-Political and ethical issues that no one can even dream of right now
The usual stuff to be sure, but nonetheless the kind of thing that someone like me would never think about. I think you are correct in your assertion that society and governance will have trouble catching up. They are already having trouble with the Internet alone. (Think spam regulation)
On another subtopic: I think that nanotech in it's current form is very much akin to the early days of computing when the first nixie tubes were being used as a display device. They displayed information in a very rudimentary fashion that still required human intervention to be interpreted to the common man.
What I think will be interesting in the future of nanotech is when we can manipulate matter as we do pixels in today's 3d rendering engines. Think of it as rendering reality... with filters... and the ability to manipulate textures... colors... etc.
I would suggest that all the algorithms we've been developing for 3D rendering will be the very fundamentals of matter manipulation software. Of course there are many other factors that we currently ignore in 3D that will be essential to real matter. (Don't want hollow object for one thing)
Just imagine the possibility of applying encryption and compression algorithms on matter.
From the technical angle, it's going to be a lot of fun. From the societal angle it's going to be very tumultuous.
Personally, I think that eventually waste dumps are going to become goldmines for discarded matter to use in the manufacturing of new materials. If I were interested in making money long term, I'd probably buy a few garbage dumps now and keep them in the family.
Re:uhm. think again. (Score:2)
The beginning of the end (Score:5, Funny)
It's all good science until ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's all good science until ... (Score:5, Informative)
See, the micro-engine charges the cellphones. Combustion + ear = ear on fire. That was his joke. Even if you thought it unfunny, it was on-topic.
Posted with a bonus in hopes that someone will see this.
Lighter fluid (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, and thank you for noting.
Re:Lighter fluid (Score:3, Funny)
"Carl, you see if you can figure out what's wrong with this thang. It won't crank up and ever'thang seems to be put together right."
"It ain't got no gais in it!"
Re:Lighter fluid (Score:3, Funny)
Apparently their ear is resistant (up to 2700K).
Maybe yours would become too ceramic too - after the first bake.
Wait, and there is more - some solid propellants, used by military and in shuttle SRBs have pretty high energy/weight index ratio too. And it is easy to operate and get a great thrust from a small ammount of stuff. [Once you lit the fuse
Re:It's all good science until ... (Score:2)
Then it's a FoxTV special -- When Cell Phones Attack!
--
Micro-engines in cell phones? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Micro-engines in cell phones? (Score:1)
Researchtv needs to research site development (Score:5, Funny)
When I tried to watch the film, I got this javascript "error":
There seems to be a problem with your system. Browser not Microsoft Internet Explorer
That's a problem?
We'll find WMD's in Iraq as soon as we plant them there.
Re:Plant them? (Score:1)
http://www.free-market.net/spotlight/fbi2/
Way To Be Flaming... (Score:5, Funny)
Mini and Micro Rotary Engines (Score:5, Informative)
naming (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:naming (Score:2)
I think they are naming it after the size of the moving parts...
Also... MIT Gas Turbine Lab Micro-Turbines [mit.edu]
Re:naming (Score:1)
They're not talking about unit prefixes.
And even if they were, if you had something that was 10 mm big, would you have to stop calling it a milli-engine and change the name to a centi-engine?
Or how about when nanotech gets smaller then 1nm, are we going to have to the change that name too?
And according to you, I guess we'll have to change the names micrometer and microscope, because they're much bigger then a micro meter.
Re:naming (Score:4, Insightful)
Or how about when nanotech gets smaller then 1nm, are we going to have to the change that name too?
Given that atoms are on the order of 0.1 to 0.3 nm and given the strong limitations imposed by nuclear physics (particularly the strong force), I don't think there is much risk.
Re:naming (Score:2)
You're wrong: nanotechnlogy is not about the size of the object produced but about the accuracy used to create the object.
If you created a very big object, by controling precisely the position of each molecules of the object, it would be nanotechnology, even if the object is very big.
But you're right: these object are not nano at all: these are MEMS.
Re:Mini and Micro Rotary Engines (Score:2, Interesting)
For the Micro Fallingwater Game Room (Score:5, Interesting)
My two cents (Score:5, Interesting)
"These micro-engines have over 300 times more energy than an ordinary battery" is meaningless. If they mean total energy delivery over whatever time period you like, then microengines can beat batteries by a factor of a million trillion zillion, as long as you hook them up to a big enough fuel tank. In actual power capacity, though, microengines aren't anything special at all, yet.
The aim is little turbines the size of a sugar cube that run from butane or propane or whatever, and have several watts of output power; prototypes of such things have been spinning for a while now. The microengines shown in the U of B release, though, are minuscule piston units which have power output in the microwatts, if that. Heck, the ones shown in the release don't even have generators attached to them, so their electrical output at the moment is zero!
For your amusement: A reader also pointed this [indiatimes.com] out to me; it's a reprint of a piece on the subject from the British "Sun" tabloid, and it reads as if they took the U of B press release and put it through a Markov chain [san-francisco.ca.us] program, or something.
It's good to know that alcoholism in the press is alive and well.
Re:My two cents (Score:1)
Nanoscale... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nanoscale... (Score:2)
I got to it just fine!
Re:Nanoscale... (Score:2)
But if this is indeed the current standard of Slashdot (implied joke here - Slashdot users are stupid - ha-ha) I might as well try it. Imagine a Beowulf cluster (implied joke) of unfunny [goatse.cx] (implied joke) jokes.
Now moderate this into oblivion (implied modappeal), I have ka
300 times more energy than an ordinary battery...? (Score:5, Interesting)
"These micro-engines have over 300 times more energy than an ordinary battery and are much lighter and smaller."
So a cellphone that needs a daily charging will now need a refill once a year?
I would wager that this claim carries a degree of exaggeration.
Re:300 times more energy than an ordinary battery. (Score:2)
It's just very carefully selected semantical dodges.
It is talking about how much energy is contained inside these systems. (I'm assuming there's talking either per unit volume, or per unit mass. Other wise, well, it's totally meaningless).
That's a different number from how much energy you cet get out of the systems. In fact, my gut instinct is that they are comparing the energy you can get out of a battery to the total energy available from the fuel with the micro-
Re:300 times more energy than an ordinary battery. (Score:2)
So a cellphone that needs a daily charging will now need a refill once a year?
I would wager that this claim carries a degree of exaggeration.
The 300x almost certainly refers to energy density (per unit mass or per unit volume; pick one). This is consistent with switching from batteries to chemical fuels (though still a bit optimistic). The thing is, a fuel cell will do the same thing with _ze
Re:300 times more energy than an ordinary battery. (Score:2)
The thing is, a fuel cell will do the same thing with _zero_ moving parts...
Or on the order of 10^23 moving parts, depending on how you look at it.
-- MarkusQ
Mirror for the movies? (Score:1)
New title for worlds smallest webserver (Score:1)
exploding cell-phones anyone? (Score:3, Funny)
Great. Now I can add my laptop and cell phone, along with nail clippers and wooden slupting tools, to list the of things you can be detained Airport Security guards can pull me out of line and strip search me down for...
on the other hand I wonder what MacGuyver could do with one of these, a pack of toothpicks and some loose sweater yarn...
Slupting?!? (Score:2)
Even googling hasn't helped.
What is slupting?
Re:Slupting?!? (Score:2)
Maybe he's rekindled the long lost art of wood slupting!
No, it was wooden slupting tools (Score:2)
(Google thought is was scultping also).
I'm a Pinball... I mean Unix Wizard (Score:5, Funny)
Ever since I heard of Unix
I've always had a ball,
From Berkeley up to Linux
I must've run 'em all;
But I ain't seen nothing like him
On systems large or small
That tired, squinting, blind kid
Sure makes a mean sys call!
He sits just like a statue,
Like part of the machine,
Feeling all the limits,
Knows what signals mean,
Hacks by intuition,
His process never stalls,
That tired, squinting, blind kid
Sure makes a mean sys call!
He's a Unix Wizard,
I just can't get the gist
A Unix wizard's
Got such a mental twist.
How do you think he does it?
I don't know!
What makes him so good?
Ain't got no distractions,
Don't hear no biffs or bells,
Don't see no lights a flashin'
Ignores his sense of smell,
Patches running kernels
Dumps no core at all,
That tired, squinting, blind kid
Sure makes a mean sys call!
I thought I was
The process table king,
But I've just handed
My root password to him.
Even on my own hot boxes,
His hacks can beat my best.
The network leads him in,
And he just does the rest.
He's got crazy Finger servers
Never will seg-fault...
That tired, squinting, blind kid
Sure makes a mean sys call!
Re:I'm a Pinball... I mean Unix Wizard (Score:2)
new version of song needed... (Score:2)
(Sounds like Mork from Ork joke eh?)
Steam engine??? (Score:1)
Who would play tiny pinball? (Score:1)
In other news: Nano-guitars! (Score:4, Interesting)
lighter fluid = fumes? (Score:2)
No flammables on aircraft (Score:2)
Unfortunately, you can't take flammable liquids like lighter fluid aboard aircraft, so it isn't going to help much on those long flights unless they change the regs. I don't see that hapening in the current security climate.
Re:No flammables on aircraft (Score:2)
Well.. you aren't supposed to be using your mobile phone aboard aircraft either!
Re:No flammables on aircraft (Score:2)
You can't? I've never been stopped from taking my Zippo or Bic on board. Of course, it's been years since I've flown and I know that they could of changed this by now, but I would assume that as long as you don't try to take the lighter fluid bottle on board, they are not going to question your cell phone or laptop.
Video Mirror (Score:5, Informative)
pinball_720x540_(divx).avi [btrig.com]
NanoTech Engines (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:NanoTech Engines (Score:3, Interesting)
What they probably meant is that a battery of a given mass is only able to st
Re:NanoTech Engines (Score:2, Interesting)
Serban
torrent (Score:1)
Game Over. (Score:4, Funny)
It's slashtilted...
Nanotech Engine... still vapourware (Score:2)
The nanotech engine looks very far from production ready - two or three unclear images, and an interview, that's it. The video is mainly marketing for Birmingham Uni, AFAICS, and almost entirely void of technical details or facts.
I'll be impressed when I see a prototype actually working, or any kind of technical detail. This looks nothing more than an artist's impression and some smoke designed to drive funding.
There is also a very big hole in the design a
Ruled out by flame quenching (Score:2, Informative)
Hear, Hear. Miniature engines are sexy projects for demonstrating micro-machining capabilities but they invariably disappear from the radar after the initial media flurry. The inventors are so excited about their projects that they overlook the inevitable effects of downscaling
Slashdot should run a BitTorrent tracker (Score:2)
I can't see the pinball!
Tim
Numbers Please!!! (Score:2)
The article [bham.ac.uk] about the micro engine was frustrating. "300 times more eneergy". Bah! 300 times more energy than a watch battery or a car battery? Obviously, they mean power but how much power? 300 times x? What's x?
Also, since this thing consumes fuel, it might be helpful to compare power-to-weight ratios with the smallest gas engines widely available (e.g., model airplane engines).
Thanks a lot, U Birmingham, for dumbing the article so far down that all it conveys is "oooohhh look, neat new thing".
Re:note about the publishing world (Score:2)
Well duuuuh, but in order for them to get those "clicks" I have to have at least some hope of getting something useful in return. For example, The Drudge Report carries stuff that, for the most part, doesn't interest me.
If they wanted to attract me, they'd have to start posting stuff that interests me and that I find imformative. If Slashdot totally loses its ability to provide me with anything worth reading, I will, eventually, stop reading it.
So I don't see how you can invalidate my complaint just b
Not NANO, not even MICRO, just very small... (Score:2)
I believe the 300x figure would be for electricity generated in a cubic inch... Though the article seems to actually trying to state that it would be based on cost, that the energy requirement for making the battery far exceeds the amount of electricity that comes out of the battery over it's entire life.
So that these little engines would be very cheap to manufacture. And I need a little assurance that these aren'
Physicsweb link (Score:2)
Lighter fluid: combustion byproducts? (Score:2)
The article is very light on the technical details of how lighter fluid will generate the energy, other than that the device be "a few millimetres wide". But the MSDS for Ronsonol Lighter Fluid [k12.ok.us] goes into quite a bit of detail:
* 95% Light Aliphatic Naptha
* 5% Medium Aliphatic Naptha
* <30ppm Benzene
* Hazardous Decomp Products:
mirror, incase it gets slashdotted (Score:2)
Re:nanotech (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:No video (Score:2)
I must've been imagining things when I went there with Mozilla and copied the URL for the video into FlashGet for downloading. (I wasn't prompted about any cookie, either...first-party cookies prompt for saving, while third-party cookies are rejected.) I also must've been imagining things when I played it in Media Player Classic (not Windows Media Player)...had to do
Re:I Love Pinball = i am an Analog dork (Score:2)