Ryan Greene: Engineering

Interesting Read

Mon, 06 Jan 2003 13:33:04 GMT

Interview with the Creator of Asimo.

It's really cool to see how he approached creating this robot, he approached the Vatican to get their opinion, as well as surveying Europeans. He doesn't want this to change the world, or to replace man, it exists simply to assist us in our lives. A good (fast) read.

Asimo's father.

The Daily Yomiuri has an interview with Yoshiaki Sakagami, chief engineer of Honda R&D, and the man behind Honda's Asimo robot. Along with Sony's SDR-4X, these new humanoid robots are the next wave of robotics, and are going to start showing up in people's homes within a year or two.
Read [Via BoingBoing]
[Gizmodo]

Wireless Campuses Changing the Face of Learning

Fri, 13 Sep 2002 18:19:03 GMT

One Glimpse Of The Wireless Future [Slashdot]

Wired article on how college campuses are providing wireless access to students, and how the students and professors are in turn innovating the tech to change campus life and learning. Pretty cool stuff.

A Good Start for Solar

Fri, 13 Sep 2002 11:32:31 GMT

A Role for Solar, but It's a Cameo. BP Amoco has 157 solar-powered gasoline stations in the United States and 220 throughout 16 other nations, with plans for more. By Phil Patton. [New York Times: Science]

I'm glad to see someone doing this, as I think local co-generation is the way to go in the future. Being able to both generate (via solar/wind) and store (flywheel) energy locally will go a long way towards both lowering the cost of such installations as well as minimizing brownouts during peak load times.

Earthships

Mon, 12 Aug 2002 14:01:39 GMT

Be It Ever So Humble: Trash Home. Earthships, a radical building design concept that uses garbage as the principal construction material, have landed in Europe. By Daithí Ó hAnluain. [Wired News]

While I find the thought of tire fires in my home to be less than desirable, I think that the Earthship ideas regarding thermal mass, cisterns, and greywater are good, especially for remote areas that are off the grid. For a cabin/retreat, I think the system is ideal, as well as in desert areas, as the structures need as little as 10" of rainwater annually to support life.

A Memory Stick in Every Device

Thu, 08 Aug 2002 10:00:16 GMT

Big Screens Ready to Show Pictures on Memory Sticks. Many of the larger televisions to be introduced by Sony this summer and fall have a built-in Memory Stick slot on the control panel that allows viewers to insert a small removable storage card and look at digital photographs right there on the big screen. By J.d. Biersdorfer. [New York Times: Technology]

Sony is going for ubiquity in with their Memory Stick technology. I could have used this last night as I fumbled through my four sticks trying to find a particular shot to show a friend last night.

Fri, 02 Aug 2002 14:36:24 GMT

Honey, Who Shrank the Circuits?. In a breakthrough that sets the stage for integrating devices into the wires themselves, scientists report new advances in nanotechnology. By Lakshmi Sandhana. [Wired News]

Um, wow. W O W. This is like the holy grail of nanotech, being able to build itty bitty devices right on the wires. Die sizes will either shrink, or the dies as we know them will simply cease to be, and the largest parts on you computer will be the display and the batteries. Then again, in some of the MEMS based power generators come to be, you'll just need to top off the tanks every so often, not unlike a refillable butane lighter.

Yet Another Reason to Get a PS2

Wed, 31 Jul 2002 14:06:55 GMT

Hey Bruce - Want To Play??!!. A New Use for the PS2

"It requires the ethernet adapter due out at the end of the month, but the BroadQ - QCast Tuner looks very slick. It will play mp3s and divx videos off of your computer over your PS2. I'm seriously considering picking this up so I can watch DiVX files on my TV. How very cool." [life - listed chronologically]

Hurry and order one today before the company is sent to court and shut down! This may actually spur me to upgrade to the PS2, especially since I already have a wireless network in place.

[The Shifted Librarian]

Pretty cool, too bad they don't have something similar for my Dreamcast, I bought the ehternet modem kit for it, and that little system would be great for this. Hmmm, it is CE based, I wonder if anyone has done anything along these lines...

Mon, 22 Jul 2002 12:42:04 GMT

Shape Memory Alloy May Be Ready for Market. Nanomuscle, a private company 45 miles northeast of San Francisco, uses shape-memory for a number of high-tech applications. Investors and analysts are eagerly watching. By Barnaby J. Feder. [New York Times: Technology]

Nitinol is an alloy that has been around since the early 60's. What makes this alloy unique is it's ability to change shape based on the temperature that it is exposed to. So, you heat the metal and form it into one shape, and then cool it and form it into a second. From then on, all you need to do is re-heat the metal to get it to "pop" into it's original heated state. Nitinol can also be made to change shape by applying an electrical charge to heat the metal. The metal can only contract about 4-5% of it's length, so this somewhat limits it's applications.

Toy makers have already comitted to developing toys for the 2003 christmas season that will have this technology in it. The medical device market has been using this product since the 1990's, and it has also has been used for remote telecom switches as well as in shower heads to prevent scalding.

Possible Uses: To unfurl an umbrella in the heat of the day, the expand a radiatior when it gets hot/constrict the vanes when it is cold, to power the legs on a mechanical insect.

Tue, 16 Jul 2002 18:57:20 GMT

Ars Technica has a review of the Honda Civic Hybrid. I like seeing this tech, and would love to see larger vehicles make use of it as well. While I don't expect to see SUVs that get 55 MPG any time soon, this is a good start. Also, you can get a $2000 federal tax deduction for buying one of these. Something to consider if you are in the market for a compact car.

Signs I need to switch to decaf

Sat, 13 Jul 2002 05:58:38 GMT

FCC Chief Slams TV Makers on Digital TV Conversion. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell slammed consumer electronics makers on Friday for an inadequate commitment to accelerating the transition to higher quality digital television. By Reuters. [New York Times: Technology]

The digital transition, which was designed to be completed by 2006, has been slowed in part by limited available content, potential piracy of content, and high-priced equipment needed to receive the higher-quality signals. (emphasis mine)

I've spent far too much time lusting after the HDTVs they have at the local Best Buy, and you know what? Pirating content isn't one of my plans, for the same reason that I rarely watch movies on my PC: It looks like crap. I want to see the full blown, super crisp picture that God (and the folks who made the content) intended. I don't want to have my movie hiccup because I'm getting an email, or my system is checking for an update, or my screen-saver is trying to take over. I want to see it in frighteningly crisp, clear video that is going to serve as the glue that keeps my butt in the la-z-boy and my hand in the popcorn. I want to hear it in sphincter thrumming bass that makes the windows rattle, along with my belly. I want to turn down the lights, crank the volume, and look over my shoulder when I hear a gun cock behind me in surround sound.

"But Ryan" you say "You can get than on your computer." Excuse me, did you read the second sentence of my post? I'm on a plane, a bus, whatever, fine, laptop it is. I'm at home, I want to be able to reach into my cooler, grab a cold one*, put my feet up, and enjoy. I don't want to worry about how warm my UPS is, or what cord I have trapped between my toes. I want to sit back, and enjoy the movie, and you know what? I CAN'T, because some team of industry lackeys has decided that I, the consumer, am more likely to pirate their precious content than buy it. Never mind the collection of 200 movies that I have, half of which are on DVD. Let's ignore the mountain of CDs, the cassette tapes, and the LPs. I won't even get into my rental habits because I think you get the idea. As far as these bastards are concerned, I'm a pirate, and their afraid that I'm going to use my DSL connection to try to view some grainy, reduced quality version of their works, without watching the commercials, without paying for the content that they have slaved to create in an attempt to garner my attention. God knows that they are just paying out the ass for those airwaves, Hey wait, aren't a lot of these content creators on cable? How does that work? What kind of broadcast fee structure are they under? Doesn't matter.

Simply put, Gimme. I want my MTV, my VH1, my HBO, my Discovery channel, animal planet HGTV food network jumping monkey gator catching high speed chase from a helicopter in full surround sound on an HDTV that I can watch with funky 3d shutter lenses and I want it all and I want it right now. I am your market folks, I just bought the laptop equivalent of a ferrari and it'll be here soon. I work hard and dammit, I play hard too. Get your product out, drop the freaking early adopter tax and just like Ozzy, I'll put it in every room of my house. Because if you don't folks, if you big companies drop the ball that you've been bobbling since 1994 when I first read that a standard had been agreed to in Video Toaster magazine, folks you will be well and truly fucked, because you're already losing your precious eyeballs. Most of my friends don't watch TV, and when they do it's a special event like the Super-bowl. Mostly they play games, or surf the net. Your one way conversation is more boring than a lecture from a droning college professor, and we ain't being graded for watching this one bubbah.

We're too busy working on our homes, building up our own businesses, and getting our next degrees to be bothered with you old boy. We grew up watching you and we know all of your tricks. This is why Survivor was such a hit: It broke the formula of set up and payoff, it introduced a random element into the very structured programming that you've been throwing at us for years. What's sad is that a show can now consist of nothing but homages to other things you've thrown at us and we'll think it's irreverent and new, instead of the thinly veiled retread that it knows itself to be. Bore us and we flip flip flip away from you, surfing the channels and using the remote one handed like the extension of ourselves that we know it to be.

But you can change all that. Make a better mousetrap. Give us the bigger, bolder prettier spiraling shape and we'll pick it up and call it wonderful and denounce it and play with it and love it and hate it but more importantly, we'll buy the damned thing if you'll just get it out there. The longer you sit there in your board rooms and worry about the things that we, the unwashed masses of scurvy ridden entertainment pirates, are going to do with your precious content, the less likely we are to be here to buy it when it comes out.

You're not the only game in town anymore boss, and really, you never were. And for every day that you sit back and bicker, we're going elsewhere to be distracted from how bored we are by you. Every day that you snipe, we start entertaining ourselves. Photoshop tennis is just the start, wait until home video editing hits critical mass. Then you're going to see an explosion of crazy, half baked, wild and entertaining indeciferable, beautiful madness the likes of which you've never seen, let alone approved from your office in the sky. Jackass was the first flake of snow, the first drop of rain in a torrent that is coming. We've learned at your feet, the tools got cheap, and you no longer control the means of production OR distribution. We've got peer to peer video on demand 24-7 and every time you knock out a channel, another three pop up daddy. This is the hydra all over again, and this time, you ain't got a torch Herc.

This isn't to say that you're dead, oh no, we still need heroes to watch, doing things we can't do, someone to follow for fashion and lingo. We love paying five bucks for ten cents worth of popcorn, and sitting in small seats to gather and watch what you tell us is acceptable. You tell us who to love and like dutiful soldiers, we'll follow your commands until it's time for something new to come along. Then you'll act all suprised until you can either co-opt it and drown us in it, or sic your lawyers and political hacks on it till it's dead. But that'll only last until we figure out another way to go around you. Our desire is like water, it goes wherever it can, either wearing away or going around it's obsticles, roaring when the resistance overcome, and wiping itself out when the momentum takes us too far.

*Sadly, this is either Gatorade or Poland Spring bottled water of late

(I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas today, just finished Gonzo Marketing, and am starting Hot Text. This may well explain a lot about this post.)

Thu, 11 Jul 2002 16:38:34 GMT

SJ Merc: "Sales of the Segway, priced at $8,500 each for now, have been anemic." [Scripting News]

The price-point on this has to drop for mass market adoption, down to the $2k range at least. Even for the SUV version with the beefier tires, battery, and power, it should not be more than $4k, or else they are going to price themselves out of the market.

I am looking forward to the stirling powered version of this, and I wonder if it will be able to go even faster.

What I find interesting in this article is that one of the investors only has a fiduciary interest in the balancing technology that has been developed, not in any other part of Kamen's businesses. I would live to see this tech deployed in cars, as it would serve to massively increase skidpad ratings, as well as smoothing out bumpy and or uneven roads. I know that similar tech has been around for years now, pioneered by Citroen, I think, and deployed in the Catera from Cadillac, but to see it in other vehicles would be very cool.

Thu, 11 Jul 2002 06:12:11 GMT

A Gadget King Lives by His Own Devices. Scott A. Jones has always liked the idea of being wired; his English Tudor-style home, outside Indianapolis, is dedicated to that idea. By John Leland. [New York Times: Technology]

Contrast this with my last post: This gentleman has a house that he is using as a testbed for a lot of the tech that I have gone on about. Touchscreen controls for the home systems, fingerprint biometrics for the doors. He's willing to live with the bugs in the system:

Locks with fingerprint sensors didn't recognize his children because their hands were dirty. "I've been locked out of the bedroom for a day," he said. "I've had no idea how to turn off lights in a room. Fireplaces won't go off. Gates open and close with a mind of their own. My maid had a horrible time getting into my bedroom."

In fact, he's got a CIO for his home to keep everything running smoothly. He also runs a set of companies that develops and markets the tech that he's living with. While the products are cool, they also come with a steep price, the 200 disc DVD manager is $7,500. I think I can live with getting up and walking across the room for that price.

Regardless, it is cool to see someone who is willing to make things better by really living with the tech as an effort to get it to improve.

Sun, 30 Jun 2002 13:45:37 GMT

I was just reading about Boeing's "new" "Blended Wing Body" or BWB jet. The plane is one massive wing, reducing crag, and thereby increasing fuel efficency. Since the entire surface is a lifting body, the plane cuts through the air more efficently.

I know that the flying wing form factor has been attempted before, and there were problems with stability under certain circumstances. I hope that these engineers can get this new design to overcome these issues that existed in the past and get this plane up there. It is more fuel efficient than an Airbus A380-700, and would weigh around 19 percent less.

Pics here , homepage for the design on geocities here.

Sat, 29 Jun 2002 13:37:55 GMT

Why New Cell Jammer Won't Fly. Japanese scientists recently created building material that blocks cell phones from working. Would it ever be implemented in the United States? By Elisa Batista. [Wired News]

Follow up to yesterday's story. At issue is the fact that doctors, police, firefighters, and other emergency personell need to be in touch via wireless. While the wood does not jam the signal actively, it does block it, which makes it a decision of the courts as to it's legality. (note to self, have coffee, then post)

Thu, 27 Jun 2002 14:40:00 GMT

Magnetic wood blocks mobile phone signals. Theatres and restaurants could use the new wood to stop people using their cellphones without resorting to signal jammers [New Scientist]

First of all, it's not magnetic wood, it's a sandwich of wood and a ferrite substrate. Thank's for teasing me there folks. But what is cool about this is the fact that it can be used to block cell phone signals, allowing a builder to make a signal free zone without installing the illegal signal jammers.

Possible uses mentioned in the article: Theaters, restaurants, residential for limiting access to different networks in a confined area.

My thoughts: Homespun Faraday cages for privacy and for those who don't like the idea of being bombarded with differing wavelengths. Appliance garage for a microwave oven. To minimize intereference when shooting a movie in digital (I seem to recall that Lucas had to make a studio stage into a massive faraday cage as there was a lot of interference form outside sources while he was shooting his latest film.) Sheathe a home in the material to minimize RF intereference from outside devices.

Smart insulation

Wed, 26 Jun 2002 03:46:36 GMT

"Gah". Thought for the day: Nanotube (or larger) system that forms capilaries on the outside of a building.

How it works:

As the capilary heats up, it expands, the increase in diameter drawing water up into itself from a ground tank. This water is cooler, which helps shrink said capilary, and the water drops down into the tank as a result. There is a return feed at the top of the capilary system as well, so that water is the automatically returned once it has reached it's maximim temperature. All the capilaries feed one way only, so that when the constrict, the water goes out a side vent and returns to the tank.Since the tunes are flexible, freezing should not be an issue.

Since a cell can only return water if it's compromised, it becomes easy to notice problem areas.

Application: passive cooling system for the sunny side of a house in summer, to help keep the structure itself cool.

Problems:

How does paint adhere to a constantly expanding and contracting structure?
How do you attach it to a building without compromising the system?
What happens if the water becomes an anaerobic germ farm?
Durability: What happens when a large object strikes the surface?
How is leaking handled?

Possible solutions:

Material is grown in an overlapping series of fractals, and is set in place in sheets that automatically self align and repair (nano machines?) on installation. Applying a slight charge to system reactivates the bots and gets them to repair leaks. Solar cells (or house current) attached to the fabric then jolt them to life from time to time for periodic maintenence.

Material is applied beneath other siding materials (under aluminum, over foam board), and given it's small size the expanding/shrinkage is dealt with by having small spacers to offset the actual siding from the tubing.

Mon, 24 Jun 2002 15:31:19 GMT

Government agency considering asking for changes in 5 GHz band rules.

Government agency considering asking for changes in 5 GHz band rules: in a transparent move by the executive branch's spectrum policy stalking horse, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration is considering asking the FCC for rule changes in the 5 GHz band in which 802.11a operates. The rule changes might restrict use to indoors only and significantly decrease range by limiting power. (A couple of the changes they ask for are already required in Europe, and manufacturers actually believe they're useful to begin with.) The reasons cited are vague, and in an era of increased government secrecy, may remain so.

... [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

The petition would articulate some government agencies' concerns that such radios could interfere with essential services such as radar. The NTIA is readying the proposal on behalf of the Department of Defense and NASA.

So wouldn't it be better to test and see if there is interference rather than simply wipe out a potentially huge market by crippling what it can do?

Fri, 21 Jun 2002 17:28:34 GMT

NewLogic Goes WiLD, Combining Bluetooth, 802.11x. WiLDBOOST integrates NewLogic's 802.11a/b/g IP solution with its established BOOST Bluetooth baseband as a single solution. [allNetDevices Wireless News]

I was talking about Blutooth to my wife last night, and explaining that I was hesitant to start getting the devices becaus of the current price point. I then pointed out that I was willing to get a enw type of network interface only once it was in the $50.00 range, and I realized that this was the sweet spot in pricing. You are no longer paying the "early adopter tax", and likely, the system has then hit market saturation to the point that you will have enough of a variety of vendors to allow you to choose one that you prefer.

By integrating the Bluetooth and various 802.11 standards into on chipset/core, you get into some pretty crazy economies of scale, since you no longer need a set of chips to handle networking. If NewLogic can this chipset adopted as a standard piece by some of the larger Electronics Manufacturing Services, they will then have an in with the market that will allow them to flourish.

Fri, 21 Jun 2002 15:18:53 GMT

How did I miss this? a material that is 12x stronger than steel, assembled in a matrix of traingles and pyramids. It's a carbon fiber.fiberglass composite. Given that it's a composite, I imagine that it will have better vibration handling abilities, so for vehicles there would be less chance of failure due to ongoing usage.

Combine this with flyweight (flyash) concrete, and you have a lightweight structure that is better suited for handling heavy loads, as well as long term stress on structures and lasting durability.

Thu, 20 Jun 2002 10:16:50 GMT

Are we starting to see a Moore's law at work in power?

Business Week: >>>Good news is ahead, however: Unlike the relatively mature internal combustion technologies, fuel cells are improving in efficiency by about 30% a year, according to McNeil. "It's moving so fast," says Joseph Cargnelli, the vice-president for technology at Toronto fuel-cell concern Hydrogenics. "that a fuel-cell engine that we developed a year ago is outdated today due to new materials, more power density, and more robust construction."<<< Note that fuels cells represent a jump in substrate for personal power generation. As a result, the price performance improvements may accumulate quickly. Right now, it is on a 2.5 year doubling rate. Further, by decentralizing power production (fuel cells that run in the basement for $2 k a pop), transmission loss is eliminated. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

I particularly like the rack mount generator from Hpower. 500W maximimum output, and it'll fit in a standard 19" server rack. Put a couple of these in your basement, coupled with your home servers, and you'll never have to stop surfing when the power goes out.

Alternately, if you have greater needs, and don't like the thought of hydrogen in your home, you can go with this unit. 3 to 10 kW and it runs of propane.

Having reliable power is a key part of helping business and industry thrive in rural and developing areas/nations. If you have the infrastructure where you can get propane delivered, this makes local power generation a possibility. Also, harsh winters where the power lines can break due to ice formation are no longer as issue, as again, you can locally generate your electricity (and heat) with these modules.

Wed, 19 Jun 2002 03:12:53 GMT

Teaching Language to a Robot. An article by National

Geographic talks about teaching language to a robot. In some of the experiments they used a modified AIBO. [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service][National Geographic]

Interesting, left to their own devices, the robots (modified AIBOs) would develop their own language from a set of arbitrary syllables.I wonder what would happen should the robots each be taught a different language, and then were to meet? Would they form a pidgin/creole in order to communicate? Time will tell.

Tue, 18 Jun 2002 22:31:03 GMT

Wired: "For a perfect example of the changing dynamic between the GPU and CPU, look at the Xbox. It uses a special version of Nvidia's nForce chipset, built around a tricked-out GeForce3 to handle graphics and sound. Microsoft paid Nvidia more than it did Intel for its 733-MHz Pentium III. For Huang, it's a proof of concept." [lawrence's notebook]

Tue, 18 Jun 2002 22:30:44 GMT

Why I am buying Nvidia's stock (Wes, do you agree?):

Graphics processors are chewing up cycles faster than the flatlined PC CPU. Usage equals demand. Control of the interface is extremely important.
The parallel architecture of graphics processors allow it to boost price performance at a 2 to 1 rate over PC CPUs. A doubling rate of 6 vs. 18 months. Nvidia's chips have twice the number of transistors the Pentium 4 has.
There is going to be convergence between the graphics used to create movies and games. This is going to be huge. Imagine if the Star Wars game looked as good as the movie -- the sales would be huge.
Nvidia will likely acquire AMD to add CPU functionality as a side feature of its chips (to move beyond their joint venture). That means over time the price of a multimedia PC using an AMD/Nvidia combined chip could be 30% lower than an Intel powered model.
Microsoft is likely to create a home server that is tightly integrated (following on the heals of the Xbox's second generation). An AMD/Nvidia chip could be central to that new box. It's also likely that the brand of the chip used will be subsumed into the general conumer electronics style marketing that this new home server will use. That loss of branding will hurt Intel.
[John Robb's Radio Weblog]

Tue, 18 Jun 2002 22:15:07 GMT

Toshiba's iPod Competitor [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters]

Interesting, it has a removable 5 GB drive. Assuming that it's in a format that allows you to put in a larger sized drive, and the 5 GB is more a matter of price to market consideration, you'll be able to fit all your data on a small removable disk, and since the disks are the same size/format as PC cards, I imagine you could easily swap them out as needed. Given that Kensington's version of these disks can handle up to 200G of operating shock, I think there is little to worry about in terms of dropping/data loss.

Mon, 17 Jun 2002 15:43:50 GMT

One system for all handhelds?. Two Singapore programmers say they have created an operating system able to run programs written for Windows as well as Linux on a handheld device. [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service][Cnet]

Interesting, run the handheld as a terminal that only handles the commands that it is able to, everything else is handled back at the server, with said server intercepting calls that it should take care of.

They expect to release the software at the end of this year, so we will what it is capable of then.