Looking cooler when heated, a thin coating tricks infrared cameras Cambridge, Mass. – October 21, 2013 – Active camouflage has taken a step forward at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), with a new coating that intrinsically conceals its own temperature to thermal cameras. In a laboratory test, a team of applied […]
Displays
Wagon-wheel pasta shape for better LED
‘Rotelle’ molecules depolarize light; more efficient than ‘spaghetti’ SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 29, 2013 – One problem in developing more efficient organic LED light bulbs and displays for TVs and phones is that much of the light is polarized in one direction and thus trapped within the light-emitting diode, or LED. University of Utah physicists […]
Bright, laser-based lighting devices
New low-heat, high-efficiency white lighting options described in the journal ‘AIP Advances’ WASHINGTON D.C. Sept. 27, 2013 — As a modern culture, we crave artificial white lights — the brighter the better, and ideally using less energy than ever before. To meet the ever-escalating demand for more lighting in more places and to improve the […]
Tiny camera records details of scene without losing sight of the big picture
New system could be used to build a camera that pans and zooms with no moving parts WASHINGTON, Sept. 25, 2013—To capture all the details of a crime scene, you might take many photos at close range. To get the whole scene at once, you could use a wide-angle or fisheye lens; but without an […]
UCLA engineers develop a stretchable, foldable transparent electronic display
Imagine an electronic display nearly as clear as a window, or a curtain that illuminates a room, or a smartphone screen that doubles in size, stretching like rubber. Now imagine all of these being made from the same material. Researchers from UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a transparent, elastic […]
Researchers use machine learning to boil down the stories that wearable cameras are telling
AUSTIN, Texas — Computers will someday soon automatically provide short video digests of a day in your life, your family vacation or an eight-hour police patrol, say computer scientists at The University of Texas at Austin. The researchers are working to develop tools to help make sense of the vast quantities of video that are […]
Toward a truly white organic LED
Utah physicists develop polymer with tunable colors SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 13, 2013 – By inserting platinum atoms into an organic semiconductor, University of Utah physicists were able to “tune” the plastic-like polymer to emit light of different colors – a step toward more efficient, less expensive and truly white organic LEDs for light bulbs […]
Butterfly wings inspire new technologies: From fabrics and cosmetics to sensors
A new study has revealed that the stunning iridescent wings of the tropical blue Morpho butterfly could expand the range of innovative technologies. Scientific lessons learnt from these butterflies have already inspired designs of new displays, fabrics and cosmetics. Now research by the University of Exeter, in collaboration with General Electric (GE) Global Research Centre, […]
New kind of ultraviolet LED could lead to portable, low-cost devices
Light shines bright at precise frequencies that suit commercial applications COLUMBUS, Ohio—Commercial uses for ultraviolet (UV) light are growing, and now a new kind of LED under development at The Ohio State University could lead to more portable and low-cost uses of the technology. The patent-pending LED creates a more precise wavelength of UV light […]
Breakthrough in sensing at the nanoscale
Researchers have made a breakthrough discovery in identifying the world’s most sensitive nanoparticle and measuring it from a distance using light. These super-bright, photostable and background-free nanocrystals enable a new approach to highly advanced sensing technologies using optical fibres. This discovery, by a team of researchers from Macquarie University, the University of Adelaide, and Peking […]