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Tag: invention
Trio Win Nobel Prize In Physics For Blue-Light Emitting Diodes

Trio Win Nobel Prize In Physics For Blue-Light Emitting Diodes

By Dpa Correspondents, dpa

STOCKHOLM — Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics Tuesday for inventing blue-light emitting diodes, which the Nobel Prize Committee said would illuminate the 21st century in a more environmentally-sustainable manner.
“Red and green LEDs have been around for many years, but the blue was really missing,” committee member Per Delsing said during the prize announcement. LED is an acronym for light-emitting diodes, which are electro-conductors.
“If you combine these colors you get white light. This is something that Isaac Newton showed already in 1671. Thanks to the blue LED, we can now get white light sources that have very high energy efficiency and a very long lifetime.”
Responding to the announcement, Nakamura, a Japan-born U.S. national, said winning the Nobel prize “is unbelievable.”
Nakamura, who was woken up at 3 am (1000 GMT) in California, was speaking by phone to reporters at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.
Organizers had been unable to immediately contact another co-winner, Amano of Japan, who was on a plane from Japan to France, secretary Staffan Normark of the academy said. Akasaki is also a Japanese national.
White light LEDs are widely used in smartphone devices. LEDs are a recent development in the history of lighting, only having been developed in the 21st century after light bulbs dominated much of the 19th century. They use far less electrical energy than traditional light bulbs.
Almost one-fourth of electrical consumption in industrialized countries is devoted to illumination, the prize committee said. With the development of diodes, more light can be emitted for less energy without the need for mercury.
The prize committee lauded the scientists specifically for developing gallium nitride crystal in the geometrical formations necessary to build diodes.
“The structure of these lamps is very similar to what you have at the base of your semi-conductor electronics that’s driving the information technology,” the prize committee said.

Photo via Wikicommons

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Apple Unveils Two Big-Screen iPhones

Apple Unveils Two Big-Screen iPhones

San Francisco (AFP) — Apple on Tuesday unveiled two new versions of the iPhone, boosting the screen size of the iconic smartphone to 4.7 and 5.5 inches.

Unveiling the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, Apple chief Tim Cook said the company was launching “the biggest advancement in the history of iPhones.”

Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller, speaking in Cupertino, California, said the new iPhones were “simply stunning” with polarized glass displays and bodies that are “thinner than ever before.”

“These are the best phones ever made,” Schiller said, as he described the new devices at a major set-piece event streamed live online.

The new iPhone 6 will start at the same price of existing iPhones at $199 for U.S. customers while the iPhone 6 Plus will be at $299 with a two-year contract.

Schiller said the devices would be available in at least 115 countries by the end of the year.

Apple will cut the price of existing iPhone 5S and 5C with the launch.

Apple’s move, expanding the latest iPhone with a four-inch screen, comes as consumers are switching to handsets with bigger displays to watch videos and browse the Internet.

Observers say the timing is right for Apple to introduce a generation of iPhone 6 models with screen sizes stretched to tap into users’ love for “phablets” that combine the features of smartphones and tablets.

AFP Photo/Justin Sullivan

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Tesla Chief Says Self-driving Cars Just Around Corner

Tesla Chief Says Self-driving Cars Just Around Corner

Tokyo (AFP) — U.S. electric car maker Tesla is developing technology that could see vehicles run on “full auto pilot” in as little as five or six years, according to its chief executive Elon Musk.

The colorful entrepreneur said his firm was stepping on the accelerator in the race against rivals such as Google and Volvo to create a driverless car, which could revolutionize the road by drastically cutting mortality rates.

“The overall system and software will be programmed by Tesla, but we will certainly use sensors and subcomponents from many companies,” Musk told reporters in Tokyo Monday.

“I think in the long term, all Tesla cars will have auto-pilot capability,” added Tesla’s 43-year-old head.

There are no self-driving cars on the market yet, but several automakers have been working on autonomous or semi-autonomous features, such as self parking, which are seen as a major advance for the auto sector.

Musk’s comments suggest that the arrival of self-driving cars could be closer than previously thought — a January report by the research firm IHS said they could start hitting highways by 2025 and number as many as 35 million globally by 2035.

On Monday, Musk also said electric car maker Tesla hopes to sign a new battery supply with Toyota in the next few years, as an existing program comes to an end.

Musk was in Tokyo to announce the release of Tesla’s Internet-connected Model S sedan in Japan.

The luxury electric car costs 8.23 million yen ($77,000) and comes equipped with batteries made by Panasonic.

The collaboration between Tesla and the Japanese giant on the Model S precedes the planned joint construction of the world’s largest lithium-ion battery plant in the U.S. state of Nevada.

Tesla will run operations at the $5.0 billion “gigafactory” while Panasonic will make battery cells destined for the plant and invest in equipment and machinery.

The factory will employ 6,500 workers directly and another 16,000 indirectly, Tesla said.

The electric car market in Japan, as in other countries, has been growing slowly, hindered by high prices and a lack of locations for drivers to charge vehicle batteries.

AFP Photo/Max Whittaker

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