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An Electron Microscope For Your Home?
CuteSteveJobs writes "Could microscopy be in for a new golden age? Wired previewed the desktop-sized Hitachi TM-1000 Electron Microscope a while back. Light microscopes can magnify up to 400X (1,000X at lower quality) — just enough to see bacteria as shapes — but this one offers 20X to 10,000X, giving some amazing pictures. Unlike traditional electron microscopes, this one plugs into a domestic power socket and specimens don't need any special preparation; it's point-and-shoot, much like your typical digital camera. So easy a grade-schooler could use it, and earlier this year that's what happened: The kids at Iwanuma Elementary School in Miyagi, Japan got their own electron microscope. At $60,000, you'll have to give up on the BMW, but the hope is with economy of scale (so far 1,000 have sold) and miniaturization, the price will continue to drop. The only bad news? It runs XP."
It could have been worse. It could have run Vista.
Otherwise, an interesting development.
there is no spoon
No, I believe Vista's EULA limits magnification to 3000X.
About it running on XP, cheer up it could have been Vista...
The drawback is that once MSFT folks drop their XP support, you will have to be extra careful when microscoping viruses (and very small wooden horses).
Ezekiel 23:20
> So easy a grade-schooler could use it
The real question is:
Is it easy enough that a caveman can do it?
You would think it would do colour.
In my day, we didn't have electron microscopes at school! We had to squint! And we were grateful!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I can just imagine it... "Sorry sir, there was fine print there, right inside that little dot; perhaps your eyesight is such that you'll need a Hitachi TM-1000 electron microscope. The price has really come down recently."
You'd have to sputter coat your penis in gold to image it by SEM - perfectly fine for an Austin Powers villain, granted.
JPEG output from an electron microscope seems so wrong.
Michael Reed, freelance tech writer.
I get pretty upset at work when people save freaking .BMP files onto FLOPPY disks from oscilloscopes. Two formats that should be dead dead dead by now. PNG please!