Depending on where you live and what gas stations you frequent, finding a pump that will let you pay after filling up is getting tougher and tougher. In an effort to curb absconders who drive off without paying, gas station owners have been forced to ratchet up security measures, leading most to go prepay only, whether that’s inside the store or by swiping one’s card at the pump.

But prepaying can be an inconvenience – particularly if you’re settling up with cash – resulting in multiple trips to the storefront to plunk down dollars, then to return for the change and receipt. It’s a small thing, but it can be an annoyance – particularly in places that experience real winters like Michigan. Thus, it should come as no surprise that a Saginaw, Michigan Marathon station is one of the first to try out a new anti drive-off security measure called Post-Pay. The system allows motorists to fill up their vehicle without paying first – provided they swipe their driver’s license into the card reader.

Bob Hohn, President of Paxson Oil Company, invented the measure, having grown tired of his stores losing hundreds of dollars a week to drive-offs. According to a report by WJR-TV, the Connecticut-made Post-Pay system does not keep the buyer’s information on file unless he or she is reported as a drive-off, at which point both the police and gas station are furnished with the offender’s particulars. In fact, the station attendant never even sees the consumer’s information under normal circumstances. Naturally, the Post-Pay system still accommodates people who’d rather pay with cash or card up front.

In the two months since the system was adopted, WJR-TV reports that the Marathon station has had just one drive off – as opposed to the three or four it averaged weekly before Post-Pay was installed. What’s more, the would-be thief was subsequently caught, as his license information allowed police to track him down.

Check out WJR-TV News’ story in the video after the jump. Read more…

Kvetching about your PND’s inability to get a proper lock could soon become a thing of the past, thanks in large part to a fresh breed of GPS satellites designed by the whiz-kids at Lockheed Martin. The program — which is estimated to eventually cost around $5.5 billion to complete — is set to hit its prototype phase by 2014, with a pathfinder being recently delivered to the same Colorado facility. The Block III prototype (more accurately known as the GPS III Non-Flight Satellite Testbed), won’t actually be hurtled into space, but the Air Force is slated to launch 32 of the final versions over the next few years. The aforementioned birds should improve power, reliability and accuracy, while also promising to be “harder for enemies to jam and easier for receivers to tune in, especially in urban canyons or under thick tree canopies.” Moreover, they’re expected to enable both denizens and military users to grab a position within three feet, compared to ten feet using today’s technology. In other news, they’re sure to cause LightSquared all sorts of new headaches.

Read more…

Yes, that awesome new 8-core chip in your PC is the fastest thing on the block, but it’s got your utility meter spinning accordingly. Fortunately, researchers from Penn State have come up with a new high performance transistor that may turn future chips from power hogs into current-sipping silicon. The group, in cooperation with semiconductor manufacturer IQE, has created a high-performance transistor capable of significantly reducing power demand whether it’s idle or switching. Doctoral candidate Dheeraj Mohata’s the one who made it happen by inventing an alternative to traditional MOSFET (metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors) technology capable of turning on and off using far less power. Mohata’s method uses a tunneling field effect transistor crafted from dissimilar semiconductor materials to provide instant on-off capability at 300 millivolts — compared to MOSFET’s one volt requirement — to provide a power savings of 70 percent. You can dig deeper into the technical transistor details at the source, but all you really need to know is that the ladies love a PC with paltry power consumption.

SOURCE via Penn State University

Ever ask yourself, “What am I doing with my life?” No? Well, a little existential crisis is in order then. Because while you and the rest of Team teen America were busy dressing like Gaga, dancing to the Bieber and playing Angry Birds, high school senior Angela Zhang was killing cancer. Yes, this 17-year old medical prodigy from Cupertino was just awarded the Siemens Foundation grand prize — a $100,000 payday — for her work “Design of Image-guided, Photo-thermal Controlled Drug Releasing Multifunctional Nanosystem for the Treatment of Cancer Stem Cells.” It’s certainly a mouthful, but this nanotech is what one fellow researcher’s calling the “Swiss Army knife of cancer treatment,” as her gold and iron-oxide nanoparticle does double duty delivering the drug salinomycin to a tumor site, in addition to aiding MRI and photoacoustic imaging. If that’s not impressive enough, this real-life lady Doogie Howser’s also won Intel’s ISEF grand award in both 2010 and 2011 for other health science-related work. Sure, Angela might inadvertently fall into the overachiever category, but girlfriend definitely deserves to win that Prom Queen crown.

SOURCE via George Washington University

On Tuesday Broadcom introduced a new reference design and accompanying software that will enable up to ten years of battery life for keyboards and other Human Interface Devices (HIDs) based on the “classic” Bluetooth basic rate radio. That means over the course of ten years — or the device’s expected lifespan — users won’t need to replace a set of AA batteries or recharge the device itself. Ever.

“The new reference design is based on the Broadcom BCM20730 65-nm low-power HID chip and includes several innovations that also will make wireless keyboards and mice easier to use,” the company said. “With integrated support for USB HID Emulation (UHE) and Broadcom’s ZeroTouch configuration technology, these peripherals can be used right out of the box with no special pairing procedure, making them ideal for ‘all-in-one’ desktop PCs.”

Broadcom said the BCM20730 Bluetooth chip is compliant with the Bluetooth 4.0 Core Specification and includes support for Unicast Connectionless Data (UCD) and Enhanced Power Control (EPC) introduced in Bluetooth Core Specification 3.0 + HS. It’s also compatible with Bluetooth smart ready and other HID host devices (tablets, smartphones, consoles etc), and supports the upcoming upgraded HID Profile 1.1.

“Bluetooth continues to gain momentum as the technology of choice for wireless mice, keyboards, 3D glasses and consumer electronics remote controls with more than 4 billion standard Bluetooth chips already installed in popular electronics to which these HIDs can connect,” the company said. “HIDs based on the Broadcom BCM20730 can enjoy the same battery life as those based on Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) technology, even when connected to existing devices that have shipped with older versions of Bluetooth.”

The new BCM20730-based ultra-low power HID reference design is available now and is also sampling out to customers. That said, the availability of products using this new chip is unknown at this point, so stay tuned.

Those humming orange lights that illuminate your city streets typically rely on High Pressure Sodium bulbs (HPS)—cheaper and longer lasting than other conventional options, sure, but not exactly energy efficient. No worries though, they may soon be obsolete thanks to these LED street lamps powered by the sun and wind.

The Eco-Pole is a freestanding lamp post that uses a 60W LED light rated for 50,000 hours of use. Instead of drawing power from the public grid, it relies on a combination of dual 90W solar cells and a 300W micro-wind turbine for energy. The process is completely self-contained and uses just a fraction of the energy conventional lights need—usually 250W and up—while producing zero emissions and requiring very little upkeep.

The best part? While HPS bulbs only shine in a narrow band of the visible spectrum—which is why they have that orange tint—these LED’s output white light (6500K band) and provide clearer, more uniform street lighting. That’s better for pedestrians and motorists alike.

Samsung have never been ones to slack off in terms of technology, as their Cortex A9-based chips have proven, so it’s hardly any surprise that their next generation Exynos 5250 SoC pushes the boundaries of what is possible. By harnessing 2 Cortex A15 chips clocked at 2GHz EACH along with a GPU that can output a staggering resolution of up to 2560 x 1600 (WQXGA) the Exynos will probably be hot on the heels of Nvidia, making sure they don’t get too comfortable. The 5250 looks like it will be in production during 2 of next year. The mobile computing world just got a whole lot more exciting.

SOURCE via Engadget

Nokia’s Asha handsets already use browser compression to reduce data costs and power consumption for customers in the developing world, but the company’s Finnish neighbours over at Aalto University have taken a totally different approach. By using a network proxy to squash traffic into bursts rather than a constant bit rate, and by forcing a smartphone’s modem into idle mode between each burst, the researchers claim they can cut 3G power consumption by 74 percent. Now, we’re fortunate enough to be surrounded by power outlets over here, but even we could use some of that.

SOURCE via PhysOrg

Will the wonders of carbon nanotubes never cease? Engineers have now used everyone’s favorite cylindrical übermolecules to create artificial muscles that can contract and twist, in a manner not unlike like the muscles found in elephant trunks and squid tentacles. The upshot? Researchers say these tiny little motors could soon be used to propel microscopic nanobots throughout your bloodstream.

In nanoscale engineering, the term “artificial muscle” is used to refer to materials that can change their shape in response to stimuli. The mechanical movements created by these muscles have potential applications in everything from cancer therapies to portable electronics.

But scaling down motors into tiny little machines isn’t easy; as motors decrease in size, their power output relative to their mass often shrinks as well. Now, an international team of scientists led by UT Dallas engineer Ray Baughman appears to have found a way to circumvent this problem.

By twisting together “untold billions” of microscopic, straw-like carbon nanotubes into filamentous strands of “yarn,” Baughman’s team was able to create a nanoscale motor capable of spinning at nearly 600 rpms, and turning a weight 2,000 times heavier than the yarn itself. Pictured here is one such carbon nanotube yarn (the angle α indicates the deviation between individual nanotube orientation and yarn direction).

Here’s how it works: the coiled structure of each length of yarn measures just one-tenth the diameter of a human hair, but when the researchers immerse one of these threads in an electrolyte (in this case an electrically conductive solution of ions) and attach one end of it to a voltage supply, its constituent fibers “absorb” ions from the surrounding solution, causing them to expand. As the yarn swells, its untethered end is free to rotate at the speed and power described previously. Reversing the voltage causes the thread to coil back in the other direction.

“The torque that we can generate per mass of the yarn is comparable to that of very large electric motors,” explains Baughman. “But as you down-size electric motors you dramatically decrease…the torque capabilities per weight.”

“Our new type of artificial muscle produces a rotating action 1,000 times larger than previously known [artificial muscle] systems,” explains University of Wollongong researcher Geoff Spinks, co-first author on the research paper describing the team’s creation, which is published in the latest issue of Science. He continues:

We believe that, with further improvements in performance, it may be possible to propel a micro or nano-bot with these fascinating materials.

Which means they could be coming to a vein near you some time soon.

Video gamers may have opened the door a new AIDS drug. Researchers at the University of Washington challenged gamers to play Foldit and come up with the structure of a retrovirus enzyme – a task scientists could not solve over more than a decade. Well guess what? The gamers did it did it in three weeks.

“We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed,” said Firas Khatib of the University of Washington Department of Biochemistry. The enzyme in Foldit has a critical role in how the AIDS virus matures and proliferates, the research group said. There have been efforts to develop AIDS-fighting drugs that block these enzymes, but it was unknown so far what the retroviral enzyme looks like.

Foldit was created by computer scientists at the University of Washington Center for Game Science in collaboration with the Khatib’s lab. “The focus of the UW Center for Game Sciences is to solve hard problems in science and education that currently cannot be solved by either people or computers alone,” said director Zoran Popovic, associate professor of computer science and engineering.

The solution of the virus enzyme structure, “indicates the power of online computer games to channel human intuition and three-dimensional pattern matching skills to solve challenging scientific problems.”

According to Popovic, the game required gamers to learn real-world modeling problems and ended up engaging the public in scientific discovery. “The ingenuity of game players,” Khatib said, “is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems.”

Popovic noted that Foldit provides evidence that games can “turn novices into domain experts” and the same approach is currently used “to change the way math and science are taught in school.”

SOURCE via University of Washington