Gas Electricity Is the Way Forward for a Brighter Future for the humans

Gas Electricity Is the Way Forward for a Brighter Future for the humans (yes)

Electricity is very vital in sustaining homes & the various institutions and gas electricity is its future. In this era, electricity is more of a necessity than a luxury as it previously was. Before the introduction of this form of electricity, coal and oil were mostly used. Apart from these other forms being relatively expensive, they also degraded the environment by polluting it. There was a need to come up with an energy form that will generate electricity more efficiently for a brighter future. The old adage couldn't be truer because necessity is the mother of all inventions.

The introduction of gas electricity has revolutionized the industry mainly because of the many advantages it offers. Now, consumers have a better option with regards to their electrical needs. One of the benefits of this type of electricity is mainly its composition. It is largely composed of methane which burns in a cleaner manner than coal and oil. Methane emits carbon dioxide by 45% less than coal and 30% less than oil. Secondly, this type of electricity is easy to transport. It can be transported in tankers (which can use both sea and land) or via pipelines.

The second advantage of gas electricity is that it can be supplied to homes and piped to run many appliances. In addition to this, it is also supplied to homes that are not piped in small portable tanks. The third advantage of this gas is that it can also be used for vehicle fuel. Trucks, cars and jet engines can benefit from this form of electricity because, unlike diesel or gasoline, it is cleaner. Advantage number four is its use in producing ammonia. Ammonia is used in the production of paints, plastics, hydrogen and fertilizers. The fifth advantage of gas electricity is that it is very abundant. This means that the chances of it running out are extremely low. Additionally, it distributes very easily and burns in a very clean manner.

The sixth advantage is that it is very light in weight; lighter than air. This is beneficial in that should there be a leakage, it will dissipate unlike other heavier gases. Propane, for example, pools into pockets which are very explosive since air is lighter than it. Advantage number seven that this form of electricity has is that it can be used in a variety of ways. The gas can be used for cooking in homes, heating water, drying clothes, all other types of heating, backup power for the generator, etc. The multipurpose ability of the gas makes it very beneficial to many people. The eighth advantage of this type of electricity is that it's more economical. When compared to the other types of electricity like coal for example, electricity generated from natural gas is extremely cheap. This is helpful since it is accessible to all the classes of people.
In conclusion, gas electricity is relatively safer than the other types of electricity. This is because gas electricity does not create electrical fields that are unhealthy in the vicinity it's being used.

Intel’s 14nm milkshake: It’s better than yours

Intel’s 14nm milkshake: It’s better than your

At yesterday’s Analyst Day, Intel broke out some details on its upcoming 14nm process, the state of that technology, and just how far along the ramp-up it is. Having recently announced that Broadwell’s 14nm deployment would be somewhat delayed by yield issues, it’s possible that the manufacturer felt the need to address rumors of serious problems in the fab line — or maybe it just wanted to gloat.
To hear Intel tell it, 14nm yields aren’t the only thing ramping well. The process node is on target to deliver the kind of marked improvements in cost, performance, and density that have become dicey at foundries like


The left graph is a yield graph showing 22nm and 14nm graphed on the same time scale. As you can see, 22nm takes a dip in June — that’s the launch of Haswell — but quickly recovers. The dip at the very beginning is likely related to the Haswell volume ramp, which would have pulled total yields down compared to Ivy Bridge alone. We can see where Intel ran into trouble on 14nm in June, July, and August. That’s possibly the result of ramping production at new facilities for the first time. So if Fab A was building 14nm in May and June, Intel spins Fab B up in July and August, yields take a whack before coming back up to projected rates. Alternately, the company may have hit a deployment milestone on 14nm that hurt yields at multiple fabs at the same time.
On the right graph, up the side, we have “Switching Energy Change” — that’s a measure of how much power the CPU is using. Across the bottom, “Delay Change” — how much power the chip uses. This graph tells us the following, in aggregate:

• Intel’s 14nm process consumes less power than the 22nm process, at every point on the curve.
• At the far right, the 14nm chips take a far smaller frequency penalty, but still draw significantly less power. 22nm Haswell gave up about 65% of its frequency to hit a 25% switching speed.

If that doesn’t seem to square with Intel’s published TDPs and clock speeds, keep in mind we’re seeing one part of the curve against an arbitrary 100%. But a quick glance at Intel’s Ark does show us the relationship between TDP and clock. The 15W dual-core i7-4550U has a 1.5GHz base clock and a 3GHz Turbo Mode. The 37W i7-4600M is a dual-core chip with a 2.9GHz base clock and a 3.6GHz Turbo Boost. What this chart implies, at the bottom, is that Broadwell will see clock gains at the same TDP rates.
What about the left-hand side of the equation? The implication here is that Broadwell will also scale better than Haswell. If so, that bucks the trend we saw with 22nm Ivy Bridge and Haswell itself, where high-end overclocking has become increasingly dicey. If the chip Intel is using for comparison is a mobile processor, it’s entirely possible that both curves continue bending sharply to the left, until there’s essentially no improvement by the time we arrive at desktop TDPs.

Xbox One vs. PS4: How the final hardware specs compare

Xbox One vs. PS4: How the final hardware specs compare

Share This article

13
inShare

Today, November 22, the Xbox One goes on sale — and with it, the first console war in seven years has finally begun. The eighth generation of game consoles is notable because, for the first time in history, it’s possible to do a direct comparison of the Xbox One and PS4 hardware specs on release day. In every preceding generation, game consoles were outfitted with highly customized chips and CPUs featuring niche, specialized architectures that could only really be compared very generally (bits, flops) or in the very specific (number of on-screen sprites, MIDI instruments, etc.) The PS4 and Xbox One, however, are almost identical hardware-wise. With an x86 AMD APU at the heart of each, the Sony and Microsoft consoles are essentially PCs — and their hardware specs, and thus relative performance, can be compared in the same way that you would compare two x86 laptops or ARM Android tablets. Read on for our Xbox One vs. PS4 hardware specs comparison.

PS4 vs. Xbox One: CPUs compared

For the PS4 and Xbox One, Microsoft and Sony both opted for a semi-custom AMD APU — a 28nm part fabricated by TSMC that features an 8-core Jaguar CPU, paired with a Radeon 7000-series GPU. We’ll discuss the GPU in the next section. As far as we know, the PS4 and Xbox One CPU is virtually identical, except the Xbox One is clocked at 1.75GHz, while the PS4 is at 1.6GHz.
The Jaguar CPU core itself isn’t very exciting. In the PC world, Jaguar is used in AMD’s Kabini and Temash parts, which are aimed at laptops and tablets respectively. If you’re looking for a tangible comparison, CPUs based on the Jaguar core are roughly comparable to Intel’s Bay Trail Atom. With eight cores (as opposed to two or four in a normal Kabini/Temash setup), both the PS4 and Xbox One will have quite a lot of CPU power on tap. The large core count will allow both consoles to excel at multitasking — important for modern living room/media center use cases, and doubly so for the Xbox One, which runs two different operating systems side-by-side.
Ultimately, despite the Xbox One having a slightly faster CPU, it is very unlikely that the CPU will make a big difference to either console’s relative games performance. There is perhaps one key difference between the two consoles, though: Earlier in the year, Microsoft told developers that games will only have access to six of the CPU cores, presumably because two cores are reserved for other tasks. We don’t know if this is still the case, and we also don’t know if the PS4 has a similar restriction in place. Either way, it probably won’t be significant: Relative GPU performance will probably be the big differentiator between the two consoles.

PS4 vs. Xbox One: GPUs compared

Again, by virtue of being an AMD APU, the Xbox One and PS4 GPUs are technologically very similar — with the simple difference that the PS4 GPU is larger. In PC terms, the Xbox One has a GPU that’s similar to the (entry-level) Bonaire GPU in the Radeon HD 7790, while the PS4 is outfitted with the (mid-range) Pitcairn that can be found in the HD 7870. In numerical terms, the Xbox One GPU has 12 compute units (768 shader processors), while the PS4 has 18 CUs (1152 shaders). The Xbox One is slightly ahead on GPU clock speed (853MHz vs. 800MHz for the PS4).
In short, the PS4′s GPU is — on paper — 50% more powerful than the Xbox One. The Xbox One’s slightly higher GPU clock speed might ameliorate some of the difference, but really, the PS4′s 50% higher CU count is a serious advantage for the Sony camp. Furthermore, Microsoft says that 10% of the Xbox One’s GPU is reserved for Kinect. Games on the PS4 will have a lot more available graphics power on tap.
Beyond clock speeds and core counts, both GPUs are identical — they’re both based on the Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture, and thus support OpenGL 4.3, OpenCL 1.2, and Direct3D 11.2. Another big difference between the two consoles is the available memory bandwidth — but we’ll discuss that in the next section. Details are fairly tenuous at this point, but we believe that the Xbox One — via Direct3D and GCN — will support AMD’s Mantle API. This gives developers lower-level access to the bare metal of the GPU, potentially improving performance. We don’t think the PS4 has access to the same resources.

Nanoparticle-infused speaker could mean better sound in a smaller package

Nanoparticle-infused speaker could mean better sound in a smaller package

Share This article

4
inShare

Nanotechnology has contributed to all sorts of important medical and scientific breakthroughs, but when is it going to make speakers sound better? It’s a question we all ask ourselves every hour of every day, of course, but your nanotech speakers are almost ready. A team of researchers from Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology have created a new kind of loudspeaker that relies on nanoparticle-infused membranes to generate sound without need of a permanent magnet.
The main constituent of the membrane is cellulose fiber — the polysaccharide component of plant cell walls. Researchers mixed the cellulose fibers in solution with ferromagnetic salts at 90 degree Celsius, then left the mixture to bond over the course of two months. The remaining water was drained at the end of this period to reveal a hydrogel (a hydrophilic collection of polymers) composed of magnetic cellulose fibers.
The researchers found that the magnetic particles had bound extremely strongly to the cellulose fibers with a roughly even distribution. The hydrogel was further dried and used to fashion a speaker membrane about 20cm in diameter. When comparing the hybrid cellulose material to an analog created simply by mixing magnetic nanoparticles with cellulose, there was no comparison — the original preparation had much more even distribution of nanoparticles.

How the nanoparticle speaker was made, from log, to a rather nasty-looking pile of hydrogel

A traditional speaker has a voice coil wrapped around a magnet. The induced magnetic field of the coil interacts with the permanent magnet whenever a current is applied. This results in the generation of mechanical force, which is what moves the speaker cone to produce sound waves. The speaker made out of the nanotech material from the Royal Institute of Technology can interact with the voice coil on its own because it is the magnet. The voice coil isn’t even attached to the cone — it’s all driven by air.
The team behind this work measured the sound quality of their prototype speaker and declared it to be at least as good as a standard speaker, and perhaps better if overall volume isn’t taken into account. The membrane has the potential to create very smooth, even sound thanks to the distribution of magnetic material throughout its volume.
Producing this material doesn’t require any hugely complicated facilities or machinery — just a little patience. If the time to make the magnetic cellulose (or something like it) could be shortened, this could be a viable technology for consumer audio products. It has the potential to produce better quality sound in a much smaller package. Smartphones and tablets in particular could see a great benefit from slimmer speakers. We might finally see phones with speakers that are neither tinny, nor huge.

2013 LA Auto Show: The best tech cars

2013 LA Auto Show: The best tech cars

Los Angeles might be America’s best auto show even if New York, Detroit, and Chicago draw more, claim more tradition, or boast bigger convention centers. Southern California is America’s epicenter for cars, style and culture. Other shows are where you see the next big pickup truck or taxicab. LA is where you see the future and that’s reflected in the technologies and designed unveiled this week. There would be even more if the Tokyo Motor Show wasn’t the same week and drew some cars such as Toyota’s fuel cell concept that would be in LA otherwise. Here are the five best from Los Angeles.

Porsche Macan, the small crossover

Porsche is riding two trends with the Porsche Macan: sedans give way to SUVs and crossovers, and customers who want a lot of tech in small vehicles. Already, the big Porsche Cayenne SUV outsells the classic Porsche 911 sports coupe by 2-1 in the US. The Macan is a compact crossover that would compete with the Audi Q5, BMW X3, Land Rover Evoq, and Mercedes-Benz GLK. It’s actually built on a Volkswagen family platform also used by the Audi A4 compact sedan and Q5 SUV. To make sure it’s not just a pricy VW, the two V6 engine choices would produce 340 and 400 hp. A serious off-road mode raises the suspension and allows for approach and departure angles of 27 and 24 degrees. For those whose adventures are limited to interstates, there’ll be the usual driver aids such as adaptive cruise control and lane departure warning. The sloping roofline hurts cargo capacity, but others in this class such as the Evoq have shown the looks trumps practicality.
Starting price would be around $50,000, which would give the Macon enough exclusivity to be in demand and Porsche estimates it might sell 50,000 units a year and some analysts think it might be half again as much, equal to half of Porsche’s worldwide sales volume. Part of the price is the admission charge to the Porsche lifestyle. At the rollout in LA, the Macan shared the stage with tennis player and now Porsche brand ambassador Maria Sharapova.

Lincoln MKC, the small American crossover for Millennials

Pay attention, under-40 Americans: This compact crossover is the car that redefines the Lincoln brand and “reinvents Lincoln” for younger buyers. The Lincoln MKC is the best-selling Ford Escape SUV redone to Lincoln specifications. The body is more stylized (rounded, swoopy, less cargo capacity) than the Escape and it offers some technology not seen on the Ford version. Lincoln highlight the Approach Detection feature which means the car senses when you walk up with a smart keyfob and when you get within nine feet of the car, it lights up like a cruise ship and projects a pair of 3-foot-wide “welcome mats” of lighting onto the ground by the front doors. The instrument panel is a combination of analog and digital gauges. The center stack continues with MyLincoln Touch, its version touchback of the MyFord Touch system that clobbered both brands in quality surveys although it’s actually not that bad for people who bother to read the manual. The touchscreen remains but some of the secondary controls such as volume have reverted back to knobs.
The big change is an embedded data modem to monitor the car from afar, unlock doors, or program a cold-weather remote start. From inside the car, it can be used to call for assistance. The MyFord / MyLinoln Touch cars of the past five years allowed the user to connect his or her cellphone for emergency notifications or to create an in-car WiFi hotspot. With embedded cellular modems now costing as little as $100, Lincoln has realized there needs to be a high-end solution for premium brands, especially when every $15,000 Chevy being sold comes standard with OnStar. The MKC will be available in late spring or early summer with a starting price in the mid-thirties, meaning it’s about ten grand short of playing in the Porsche Macon arena. When Approach Detection is the tech feature Lincoln trumpets most loudly, it makes you wonder if Lincoln really is playing in the Audi-BMW-Porsche polo field.

 

 

 

 



Toshiba 'Haswell' laptop boasts smartphone-like battery life

Toshiba dynabook Kira: the V634 model touts 22 hours of battery thanks in part to Intel's Haswell processor and a Toshiba BIOS.

(Credit: Toshiba)

Toshiba is claiming smartphone-esque battery life for a laptop that will be released in Japan on Friday.
The dynabook Kira V634 will run for 22 hours on a charge, according to a write-up at Nikkei Business.
The V634 model 27KS comes with a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-4200U Haswell processor, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB solid-state drive, and a 13.3-inch display with an unimpressive 1,366x768 resolution.

Related stories

• AMD adds new chips for 2014

That lower-resolution display (higher-resolution screens draw more power), however, helps Toshiba to achieve the long battery life, in combination with a power-efficient U series Haswell chip and the company's own BIOS.
The V634 weighs in at only 2.4 pounds -- placing it in the 11.6-inch MacBook Air weight class.
Another model, the V834, is similar but comes with an ultra-high-resolution 2,560x1,440 touch display. That has a rated 14 hours of battery life.
Manufacturers sometimes overstate battery life but even if Toshiba comes close to the claims of 22 hours and 14 hours, respectively, that's no mean feat.
Currently, those models are only available in Japan.

Google's Project Link builds high-speed networks in Africa

Google launched an initiative on Wednesday that aims to provide reliable broadband connections to developing parts of the world.
With Project Link, the company is installing high-speed fiber-optic networks in areas where the Internet infrastructure is inadequate or non-existent, the Web giant announced Wednesday. The initiative will allow local Internet service providers to offer faster Internet connections, providing people with new educational and professional opportunities.
"Africa is home to more than a billion people and is also the fastest growing continent. But only 16% of people are connected to the Internet," Google Access Field Director Kai Wulff wrote in a company blog post. "That leaves a huge population without access to new opportunities, such as a reliable channel to the latest news, a tool to join in worldwide commerce, or a platform to create and contribute photos, video, and more."

Related stories

• Which US city has the fastest Internet access? Wrong!
• FCC releases Android app to test mobile broadband speeds
• Spotify to carriers: We don't need to be enemies

Google kicked off the project in Kampala, Uganda's densely populated capital, where Google said online activity often sputtered at "pre-broadband speeds." While providing faster Internet connections is key, another goal of the project is strengthening Africa's Internet supply chain.
"Some parts of the chain are already strong: undersea cables are bringing data to Africa's shores and mobile providers are expanding services across the continent," Wulff said. "We've now built quality infrastructure in between these points to deliver the speed and capacity that supports the latest and greatest of the web."
Google hasn't said when or where it might expand the project. But this is not the Web giant's first foray into providing Internet access to underserved areas. With Project Loon, Google plans to harness souped-up weather balloons to provide Wi-Fi to remote parts of the world. The company also launched a trial program earlier this year that will tap the unused frequencies in the broadcast TV spectrum, also known as white space, to provide wireless broadband in rural South African schools.