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Category: mobile phones

Energy harvesters surpass Carnot efficiency using non-thermal electron states

Harnessing quantum states that avoid thermalization enables energy harvesters to surpass traditional thermodynamic limits such as Carnot efficiency, report researchers from Japan. The team developed a new approach using a non-thermal Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid to convert waste heat into electricity with higher efficiency than conventional approaches. These findings pave the way for more sustainable low-power electronics and quantum computing.

Energy harvesters, or devices that capture energy from environmental sources, have the potential to make electronics and industrial processes much more efficient. We are surrounded by waste heat, generated everywhere by computers, smartphones, , and factory equipment. Energy-harvesting technologies offer a way to recycle this lost energy into useful electricity, reducing our reliance on other power sources.

However, conventional energy-harvesting methods are constrained by the laws of thermodynamics. In systems that rely on , these laws impose fundamental caps on heat conversion efficiency, which describes the ratio of the generated electrical power and the extracted heat from the waste heat, for example, is known as the Carnot efficiency. Such thermodynamic limits, like the Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency, which is the heat conversion efficiency under the condition for obtaining the maximum electric power, have restricted the amount of useful power that can be extracted from waste heat.

One-atom-thick filter helps lithium–sulfur batteries keep their charge

Longer-lasting phones, lighter drones, electric cars that drive farther. These are just some of the possibilities thanks to a new battery separator design from University of Florida researchers and their partners.

Think of a tiny coffee filter, but this one works inside a battery. The team recently showed that a one-atom-thick filter can block sulfur chains from shuttling within the battery, potentially unlocking the long-awaited promise of lithium–sulfur batteries.

While lithium–sulfur batteries are lighter and pack more power in a lighter package compared to the more conventional lithium-ion batteries, their fatal flaw is the sulfur doesn’t cooperate well inside the system. It clumps into long chains that clog up the works, draining the battery’s power and cutting its lifespan.

Forget numbers—your PIN could consist of a shimmy and a shake

In the near future, you may not need to touch a keypad to select a tip or pay for large purchases. All it may take is a swipe, tap or other quick gesture.

The innovation utilizes near-field communication (NFC), the short-range wireless technology embedded in smartphones, and terminals, passports and key fobs. UBC computer scientists say it could help prevent the spread of germs through touchpads, speed up transactions, and improve accessibility for users unable to press buttons.

Researchers debuted the technology in a paper at the User Interface Software and Technology conference.

The promise of a quantum computing revolution

Integrated circuits form the basis of modern ‘classical’ computing. There can be hundreds of these microchips in a laptop or personal computer. Their size has meant that now mobile phones have computing power thousands of times faster than the most powerful supercomputers built in the 1980s.

Since the 1990s, supercomputers have come into their own. The most powerful supercomputer in the world, Frontier based in the US, has a million times more computing power than top-tier gaming PCs. But these devices are still based on the classical technology of integrated circuits and are therefore limited in their capabilities.

Quantum computers promise to be able to process calculations thousands, even millions of times faster than modern computers.

Scientists unveil breakthrough pixel that could put holograms on your smartphone

A team at the University of St Andrews has unlocked a major step toward true holographic displays by combining OLEDs with holographic metasurfaces. Unlike traditional laser-based holograms, this compact and affordable method could transform smart devices, entertainment, and even virtual reality. The breakthrough allows entire images to be generated from a single OLED pixel, removing long-standing barriers and pointing to a future of lightweight, miniaturized holographic technology.

We’re Getting a Clearer Look at the Future of Wearables

In the tech industry’s first telling, the post-smartphone world is a simple question of what and when: glasses? Watches? Pins? Armbands? Implants? It’s portrayed as a simple matter of progress — in consumer technology, things must be replaced by newer and better things — but also as a reaction to the burdens and distractions of the previous great gadget, from which new gadgets will set us free.

A survey of the post-phone landscape as it exists, though, reveals a complication in this consumerist liberation story. Someday, a new gadget may usher us into the post-smartphone world; in the meantime, the industry will have us trying everything else at once: on our faces, in our ears, around our necks, and on our appendages. Our phones — and the always-on, data-and-attention-hungry logic they represent — aren’t being replaced. They’re being extended.

AI chips are getting hotter. A microfluidics breakthrough goes straight to the silicon to cool up to three times better

AI is hot – literally.

The chips that datacenters use to run the latest AI breakthroughs generate much more heat than previous generations of silicon. Anybody whose phone or laptop has overheated knows that electronics don’t like to get hot. In the face of rising demand for AI and newer chip designs, the current cooling technology will put a ceiling on progress in just a few years.

To help address this problem, Microsoft has successfully tested a new cooling system that removed heat up to three times better than cold plates, an advanced cooling technology commonly used today. It uses microfluidics, an approach that brings liquid coolant directly inside the silicon – where the heat is. Tiny channels are etched directly on the back of the silicon chip, creating grooves that allow cooling liquid to flow directly onto the chip and more efficiently remove heat. The team also used AI to identify the unique heat signatures on a chip and direct the coolant with more precision.

Piecing together the puzzle of future solar cell materials

Global electricity use is increasing rapidly and must be addressed sustainably. Developing new materials could give us much more efficient solar cell materials than at present; materials so thin and flexible that they could encase anything from mobile phones or entire buildings.

Using computer simulation and , researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have now taken an important step toward understanding and handling halide perovskites, among the most promising but notoriously enigmatic materials.

Electricity use is constantly increasing globally and, according to the International Energy Agency, its proportion of the world’s total energy consumption is expected to exceed 50% in 25 years, compared to the current 20%.

WhatsApp adds message translation to iPhone and Android apps

WhatsApp has started rolling out a new translation feature that enables Android and iPhone users to translate messages in chats, groups, and channel updates.

While iOS users can only use it to translate manually after tapping ‘Translate,’ Android users will also be able to enable automatic translation, allowing all messages in a chat thread to be translated without having to tap each one individually.

“We’re rolling out message translations to Android and iPhone users gradually from today, in a few select languages to start with more to follow,” the company said on Tuesday.

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