Brainicane

Graphene may brighten the future more literally than we had originally anticipated, besides merely revolutionizing electronics and Silicon Valley. Swedish and American researchers have transformed the one-atom-thick carbon material into a new, inexpensive lighting component that could give organic light diodes (OLEDs) a run for their money.

An OLED simply consists of light-generating layer of plastic sandwiched between two electrodes, one of which is transparent. This provides an ultra-thin, power-sipping technology for everything from smart phones to TVs, but it comes at a relatively high manufacturing cost. The OLED transparent electrode also uses an indium metal alloy, which presents the problems of being rare, expensive and difficult to recycle.

“By using graphene instead of conventional metal electrodes, components of the future will be much easier to recycle and thereby environmentally attractive,” said Nathaniel Robinson, a chemical engineer at Linkoping University in Sweden.

Making the new graphene-based light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs) can involve just liquid solutions or a printing press-style machine. That paves the way for inexpensive production of plastic-based lighting or displays. The researchers envision flexible LEC sheets that could be rolled up or placed almost anywhere.

Graphene has proven a promising but difficult material to manufacture in the past, because researchers often had to clumsily chip away at graphite in hopes that graphene might flake off. But a recent flurry of developments such as this suggests that the manufacturing problems are rapidly disappearing.

It’s still hard to tell whether the graphene LEC replacements can fully surpass OLEDs in terms of display and performance, but we’re anticipating good things.

Looking for open parking spaces in the city is one of the more teeth-grinding rituals for drivers, but researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey may have hit upon a relatively low-cost solution. They combined ultrasonic sensors with GPS to create digital maps of available parking spaces for Web-based navigation systems, according to Technology Review.

As much as 45 percent of traffic in Manhattan comes from cars wearily circling the blocks and looking for parking spaces, according to a New York City transportation advocacy group called Transportation Alternatives. That problem has driven cities such as San Francisco to create “smart parking infrastructure” that detects vehicles in parking spots using fixed sensors — a solution that costs 0 for installing and maintaining each sensor.

The Rutgers researchers took a more mobile, low-cost approach by builing a sensor platform based on a ultrasonic sensor that gauges the distance to nearby obstacles, and a 0 GPS receiver to mark locations. They combined the setup with a PC to transmit the data to a central server via Wi-Fi, and placed the prototype platform on just three cars that commuted through Highland Park, NJ.

Based on data collected from daily commutes of the three cars alone, the team created an ultrasound algorithm to calculate available parking spaces that was 95 percent accurate, and also made digital maps based on the GPS data that were more than 90 percent on target. Such digital maps could then become available to navigation systems on other cars via Wi-Fi connections or the more widely available cellular modems, and perhaps become part of the traditional GPS setup in cars.

A next possible step could involve outfitting taxicabs or other cars that regularly drive around. The engineers say that they could cover the entire downtown San Francisco area using just 300 taxis for 0,000, compared to the million price tag for just one of San Francisco’s fixed-sensor parking lots. We’ll take that, please, along with our parallel-parking cars.

[via Technology Review]

Attention recruits. Those of you landing in Afghanistan in coming months may not have to engage in the sandbag stacking and trench digging usually associated with lowly grunt-dom. An 0,000 investment in an armored wall system known as McCurdy’s Armor could have Marines rapidly erecting 6.5-foot-tall mortar-, RPG- and bullet proof fortresses in less than an hour, saving the days it can take to fortify an area by conventional means and making forward-operating units more nimble.

Named for Ryan S. McCurdy-a Marine killed in Iraq in 2006 while hauling a wounded comrade to safety-the system is designed to offer troops increased protection and mobility when setting up outposts in hostile areas. The walls can be ferried into place in panels that are easily stackable in a truck or trailer. Once in position, four Marines can assemble a single panel in less than ten minutes without any special tools or additional equipment. The panels then snap together like bomb-proofed Legos secured with steel pins to form a blast- and bullet-proof shelter.

The armor can be set up in a variety of arrangements (U-shaped, J-shaped, etc.), and in instances where troops are worried about armor piercing rounds a second layer of armor can supplement the structures. But the walls aren’t just a protective cocoon for far-flung outposts; ballistic windows offer protection while giving Marines a line of sight and the ability to fire downrange, meaning McCurdy’s Armor can be deployed as both a defensive stronghold as well as a tactical firing position.

When it’s time to pull up camp, Marines can quickly break down their ersatz stockade, stack it back in their vehicles and move on to fortify the next position without leaving a single thing behind. Just try pulling that off with sandbags.

[DDM via National Defense]