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Better Displays With New Nanowire Film
Roland Piquepaille writes "A Harvard University team has successfully applied a film of nanowires on glass and plastic. This might lead to better and flexible displays or wearable computers, says the American Chemical Society, in "Nanowire film brings cheaper, faster electronics a step closer." "By using a 'bottom-up' approach pioneered by our group, which involves assembly of pre-formed nanoscale building blocks into functional devices, we can apply a film of nanowires to glass or plastics long after growth, and do so at room temperature," says Charles M. Lieber, professor of chemistry at Harvard. The researchers think that the first applications will be improved smart cards or LCD displays. But they also have a vision for the next decade. "One could imagine, for instance, contact lenses with displays and miniature computers on them, so that you can experience a virtual tour of a new city as you walk around." This overview contains more details and references. It also includes a picture of a high-density crossbar nanostructure, whose geometry can serve as the basis for many applications, like bio-sensor arrays or high-density data storage."
Can you actually focus on something which is that close to your eye?
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Hype.
Anything with 'nano' or 'cyber' in the name is hype. Yeah, we will see smaller cheaper electronics, but that's hardly news.
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"One could imagine, for instance, contact lenses with displays and miniature computers on them, so that you can experience a virtual tour of a new city as you walk around."
So while you are walking around in the city, you get to see what it looks like. Hmm... Pity you can't do that now.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
One could imagine, for instance, contact lenses with displays and miniature computers on them, so that you can experience a virtual tour of a new city as you walk around.
Considering we are geeks, going to a new city doesn't involve walking around, more like visiting conventions and getting the latest cool funny-phrase-sysadmin-tshirts.
Take away the walking part mister, and you have yourself a deal.
Note to self: get smarter troll to guard door.
Anyone notice what appears to be a broken nanowire towards the bottom left of the picture? I wonder what kind of fault-tolerance these sturctures have for that sort of thing.
How long do you think it will take untill somone decides it would be funny to hijack someones vission and hack their contacts? It could be someone trying to be funny, just make the person think their seeing things... Or it could be someone trying to blind them... Just imagine waking up, putting on your contacts and being tourtured by avertisments, IN YOUR EYES. Thats a future that I am terrified of!
"One could imagine, for instance, contact lenses with displays and miniature computers on them"
my eyesight is bad enough as it is, the last thing I need are electronics short-circuiting in my eyeball.
This might lead to better and flexible displays or wearable computers Could this be used to further "invisibility" research? For example, wear a suit of these displays and have a camera record a panoramic video around you and display the appropriate camera displays around the body?
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The mention of the contatct lenses made me think of Zaphod Beebelbrox and his glasses (or was it someone else) that helped him to never be scared. The glasses went black when danger was imminent.
That could be really cool when driving.
If this contact thingy works out, think about the fun you could have with it. The ultimate in interactive experience since you only see what it lets you. You could have a personal movie theater with incredible resolution at yours hands... i mean eyes.
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What I'd like to see is contacts that implement both a display and an ccd or the equivilant, so that we can zoom in on objects that are in the distance....would be so wicked.....imagine being able to use them like a microscope as well....would be good.
tom-george.comBecause geeks rate higher t
hi everybody.
umm, gosh, don't know if i missed this news elsewhere in western media but last week on ABC (Asahi Broadcast Corp.) Japan there was a review of recent nanotechnology advances here in Japan and they reported that:
1) A Yamagata University research team has managed to make flexible millimeter thick screens (roll up your TV and stick it in a tube, into your backback, pocket, whatever and away you go..!) ALREADY so I don't understand what the big deal is with these nanowires. Plus the Yamagata people figured out how to use a kind of "nano-dye" for multiple applications like:
a) flexible thin solar cells (your tent is a battery charger!) or
b) a blue "lens" to increase the data storage on those recently reknown expensive blue laser cd's that store gigs of date. (20 times more (?))
Sorry for the lack of net based info but it looked pretty amazing - heck, I saw it on TV so come on,
it must be bran' spankin' new!
- Jeff -
"One could imagine, for instance, contact lenses with displays and miniature computers on them, so that you can experience a virtual tour of a new city as you walk around."
Someone did imagine this sort of technology. I particularly like "Fast Times at Fairmont High" by Vernor Vinge for it's description of wearable computers/contacts use for visual 'enhancement'.
A.
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http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/13/ 0016221&mode=thread&tid=127&tid=146&tid=186&tid=99 and we'll really have something.
Be able to manipulate the interface in your eye with only your mind.
Technoli
Techniques to make thinner wires will probably be useful for improving the efficiency a whole range of optoelectronic devices:
For LEDs, some light that might escape the device is reflected or absorbed by the tiny wires carrying the current into the junction. Thinner wires would mean an improvement (though perhaps small at this point) in the amount of light you get out of the device.
With light going in the other direction, photovoltaics (solar panels) and various detectors are all about getting as much light into a junction as possible, so thinner wires would help make better devices here too.
-------------------- the list is long. dirac angestung gesept
Anytime stories like this pop-up, everyone always discusses how neat it would be to overlay information about a city and the like.
Forget contacts the zoom, forget contacts that shoot freakin' laser beams. How about contacts that make my vision 20/20? My corrected vision is 20/35 and my contacts can only be worn for 7-8 hours a day then I have to wear coke bottle glasses because there isn't anything better.
My brother-in-law has Retinitis-Pigmentosa which is a degenerative disease of the retina. He was diagnosed 7 years ago and is down to 10% of his vision which is stricly peripheral. Imagine a spoon in front of your eye and you can only see off to the sides.
A better use of this technology would be contacts that can adjust his line of sight to the best position on his eye.
Or to assist the vision of the elderly who often times can be helped with glasses or contacts.
Instead of coming up with "new" "cool" ways to use this, why don't we use the technology to help the people that need it? The people that surround us everyday?
for instance, contact lenses with displays
"Yes, is this tech support? I think I have a virus in my contact. Everywhere I go, everyone's face is being replaced by banner ads.... Yes, I see it. Yea, it says gator. What I'm screwed?......"
There is already a "standard" way to move nanowires from a substrate to glass or plastic.
This may be difficult for some of you to believe, but the standard technique is to use scotch tape. It's quite amazing, but you can pick up an array of wires on scotch tape (a similar array to that in the article). Then you simpliy place the tape wherever you want your wires and dissolve it away.
Of course you're still left with the same problem as on the substrate which is that no one understands how or why these arrays do whatever they may do (which is generally NOT reproducible). Everyone has been shouting molecular electronics for so long that they havn't stopped to actually check that it IS molecular electronics. A timely article in Science last month basicaly served as a retraction for the last 5 years of research in this field.
It's fine for them to report that they found a new way to move nanowires onto glass or plastic, but the days of saying these types of networks are only a few years away from market are over.