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Shuji Nakamura Awarded the 2006 Millennium Prize
Mictian writes "University of California professor Shuji Nakamura, the japanese inventor of the bright green, white and blue GaN LEDs and a blue laser, has been awarded the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize. While blue LEDs are considered cool and thus needful things by most nerds, Nakamura adapted his blue LEDs to make a blue laser in the mid 90s. The next generation optical storage formats, HD-DVD and BluRay, are of course both based on blue laser. Also, his white LEDS need far less energy than normal incandescent lamps and can thus provide plenty of opportunity for energy-saving in the industrialized world. But probably the most significant future application for Shuji Nakamura's invention comes in the form of sterilizing drinking water, since the the water purification process can be made cheaper and more efficient with the use of ultraviolet LEDs. This can improve the lives and health of tens of millions people in developing countries."
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maybe someday I can microwave food with some leds instead of that big, ugly magnetron?
I want them implanted in my fingers so I can find light switches in the dark.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
LED toner downer
LED turner offer
KFG
Call his agent. I'll send him an email once the sun recharges my Powerbook's battery.
Time to call the Cheat Commandos and ROCK, ROCK ON!
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Duct tape, my friend. Duct tape. Cut it into little tiny bunny shapes and paste it over the indicators. Problem solved.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
It ain't really hardware yet 'til it's got some duct tape on it. 'Til then it's just a poser toy.
KFG
I wonder if/when we'll ever start using ultraviolet lasers to access data?
Well duh. You wouldn't be able to see your data then!
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I know it's fun to use "she/he" interchangeably to curry favour with feminists, but in this case the inventor actually is a he.
One of my friends emits toxic gas when smashed.
Yeah, save some bread ! Buy flourescents !
(sorry)
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Bare moments after they hit the market in the form of flashlights, I ordered at a ludicrously expensive bleeding-edge price the veritable Alpha-Male of the species; a phallic light-thrower which takes three 'D' cells and powers an array of 10 white LEDs. It's super-bright and it will run continuously for something like 3 solid months. Who needs a sports car?
--And because I am confident in my masculinity, I also bought and primarily use a much smaller one with a single LED. Oh god, it's sweet! Super-bright, it runs forever on a triple 'A' cell. I use that thing all the time. Not like the cute but ultimately annoying mini-mag, which ran down after twenty minutes. --I always felt slightly stressed while using that thing for any work. Instead of focusing 100% of my attention on the task it was illuminating, I'd have a little part of my mind worrying, "Oh no! My flashlight is going to die soon!"
Of course, with the far superior LED flashlight replacement, I now find myself distracted spending a sizable percentage of my brain thinking, "Wow! This is just the coolest flashlight on the planet!"
Indeed. White LEDs are the first bit of new technology which actually made me sit up and say, "Holy Awesomeness, Batman! I NEED one of those for my belt!" since. . , well, I can't actually remember the last bit of engineering which I absolutely had to run out and buy.
Oooh, scratch that. I DO remember. It was one of those extendable lightsaber toys when they first hit the market. They were painfully neat in an almost perfect kind of way. (That 8 inches of saber sticking out of the handle when the blade was retracted was dumb, but whatever). I broke mine open and installed extra lightsaber sounds, activated by a handy button so I could deflect pretend blaster bolts at a thumb press. Sooo proud of that. (Hm. Another phallic device. I wonder what's up with that. .
A close runner-up invention in terms of coolness is the flatscreen monitor. They're exceptionally wonderful, (bright, no EM radiation, they don't make any electronic whining sound on the upper end of audio perception, and they're, well, FLAT!), except they didn't hit the market in an exciting burst of newness. They sort of arrived and sucked, then got slowly better and more affordable over a 15 year period. Can you imagine how exciting they would have been if they just suddenly showed up with no warning?
I guess the MP3 was another really neat innovation. Heck. That drove the world stark-raving-giddy for almost two years. Remember Napster? Sheesh! The world is still trying to recover its senses.
And before that. . . Well, I guess the CD was pretty darn cool. The recordable option was exciting. That changed the world as well. As did PacMan and Space Invaders down at the K-Mart entrance during the 80's.
The Mountain Bike was pretty great, too. And so was the mini-Leatherman folding pliers. (The really small one which folds up to the size of a zippo.) I still have and my original pair bought when Leatherman was a new company back in the early nineties and use it regularly.
But none of those things excited me quite like the white LED. White LEDs are beautiful in their simplicity.
The only thing that annoys me about any of this is that I'm getting excited about weenie technology. --The MIC keeps all the really cool inventions from ever being released. We only get these safe little inventions which can't upset the balance of power and money distribution in the world. Ah well. At least we have cool flashlights!
-FL
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