An interesting mug that reacts to heat…
In its dormant state, the mug offers a black “OFF” display, but once your hot coffee or tea hits the inside, it gradually transforms to read “ON”. A heat sensitive pigment changes the color of the mug from black to white. [Technabob]
The colour-changing is nice, but the “On-off” word doesn’t really appeal to me. Perhaps they should try some other words or patterns instead.
A carbon nanotube – a hollow, tube-shaped molecule 10,000 times smaller than a human hair – can perform all the basic functions of a radio when it’s wired up to a few other simple parts, a new study shows.
The simple tube is ten carbon atoms wide and only a few hundred nanometers long.
Alex Zettl and colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley showed that a nanotube can work as an antenna, picking up radio signals from the air. [Nationalgeographic]
I am not really sure if it is useful in common life though.
For those who are wondering how small a nanometer is…
1 meter = 1,000,000,000 nanometer
The first official order for the “$100 laptop” has been placed by the government of Uruguay.
The South American country has bought 100,000 of the machines for schoolchildren aged six to 12. A further 300,000 may be purchased to provide a machine for every child in the country by 2009.
The order will be a boost for the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organisation behind the project which has admitted difficulties getting concrete orders.
The XO laptop, as the machine is known, has been developed to be used primarily by children in the developing world.
It is durable, waterproof and can be powered by solar, foot-pump or pull-string powered chargers. It includes a sunlight readable display so that it can be used outside and has no moving parts.
OLPC aims to sell the laptop for US$100 or less. However, over the last year, the machine’s price has steadily increased and now costs $188. [BBC]
