Sony is demoing a new wireless communications technology to replace the wiring inside of devices.  It’s being called “millimeter wave” because it operates in the 1-10mm wavelength, and it just may one day replace a lot of wires inside of your TV.  It has a very high data transfer rate (11 Gb/s so far), and can use incredibly tiny antennae.  The only real limitation is its range, a mere 14mm at present.  Sony recons though that with a directional antenna it can reach as far as 50mm.

The big questions though is why.  Why would you replace perfectly good wired communication with wireless communication inside of a device?

One answer, is money.  Wires cost money.  Where as a 1mm wireless antenna to reach across 50mm of distance, well that’s potentially a heck of a lot cheaper in materials.

There’s also another consideration as well, and that’s that not all parts in a device work well with wires.  Take laptops for example.  The monitor hinged to the base has a bunch of tiny wires connecting it for your video signal.  Which requires a lot of design consideration and parts testing so that the wires don’t accidentally break during the life of the product and you suddenly find your laptop has a dead black screen.  That’d suck.  Where as if that video signal were sent from the base to the monitor wirelessly, you’d never have to worry about routing those cables or testing that they won’t break, because there are no cables to route.  The more portable and changeable our electronic gadgetry becomes, the more a few wireless connections to replace wired ones makes sense.

Of course it’s rather a security nightmare of sorts to think that, just like your RFIDed passport, someone could snoop goodness knows what by walking by with a listening device while you use your shiny new Sony netbook at the airport.  But hopefully that will be addressed.

It should be interesting to see where this “millimeter wave” networking takes us.

It’s the latest craze, 3D stereoscopic imaging.  More and more movies are being made in 3D lately.  People loved “Avatar”.  But then you get home and … blah.  Same old 2D.  There’s no pop.  There’s no life.

Well now all that can change!

Introducing the Fujifilm Finepix Real 3D W1 camera!

Fujifilm Finepix Real 3D W1 - Stereoscopic 3D picture taking in the palm of your hand!

That’s right.  This little baby is a stereoscopic handheld digital camera.  It’s running two 10megapixel CCDs with the requisite two lenses and synchronized zoom.  Now you can take 3D stereoscopic still images to your heart’s content.  And it does movies too.  Well, as much as any camera like these does anyway.

And the back panel display even works in 3D without a need for glasses or other gimmicks, so that you can view your snaps right in the 3D they were taken in.

Exciting, no?

There’s this big tunnel over in Europe you see.  In fact it goes right under the English Channel to connect the United Kingdom to Europe so that cars and trains may travel freely.  They call it the Channel Tunnel, or Chunnel for short.  It’s run by Eurostar, and it’s a marvelous feat of engineering and technology, really.

Except, well, for when it isn’t.

You see, during the weekend, a couple of trains got stuck on their merry way from France to England.  A couple.  Hmm…

Well, let’s count…

One…

Two…

Three…  (Really?  Three? Didn’t someone notice a problem?)

Four… (Wow.   Four!  In a row?!)

Five!

Holy Flirking Schiznet and his orchestra, five trains all got stuck, one right after the other, in the Chunnel.  Around 2000 passengers were stranded under the English Channel, some for as long as 16 hours.  (Fortunately, no one was injured at least.)  And the reason, it would seem, was snow.

Yes, snow.

The trains seemed to have picked up a bit of snow traveling through France.  This snow melted in the Chunnel, shorting out electrical systems.  This caused the trains to become stranded, and, well, things didn’t turn out so good.

Now, first, one must wonder why the shields built onto the trains for just such a purpose as preventing snow build up still don’t actually, you know, prevent snow build up.  That itself is bad.

Second, one must further ponder how in today’s time, and with the modern marvel of engineering that the Channel Tunnel is, that it would even be possible to short out electrics with just a bit of water.  Shouldn’t we have found a way to engineer a system more robust than that?

Third, of course, would be how five trains were allowed to get stuck in there when there should have been a way to prevent further trains from following the first one or two into bedlam.

And last but certainly not least, Fourth, would be why did it take so very long to get everyone rescued?  That, at least, has a simple answer.  Because when the electrical trains of the Chunnel fail, they’re rescued by diesel locomotives, of which, there are two. Yes, a whole whopping two.  Five trains get stuck with only two emergency vehicles to rescue them.  Brilliant math, no?

These are all valid questions to ponder as one contemplates the majesty that is Eurostar.  Of course, when you’re the only option, I suppose it’s rather easy to rest upon one’s laurels.  Still, there must be a better way, one would imagine.

The Blu-Ray Disc Association has just standardized their 1080p stereoscopic 3D definition, and just in time for Christmas.  Which sounds all well and good.  The specification tells you how to play 2D content on 3D players, and even 3D content on 2D players.  And includes mention of the Sony Playstation 3.  Further, the specification itself doesn’t require any specific hardware to implement, so in theory it could be used with any number of 3D devices.

Which sounds great.

Until you ask the question, just what 3D devices are available to play these 1080p 3D movies?

Um …

Err …

Yeah.

And like that, the whole thing brings us back, well, over at least the last 20 years where 3D has been all hype, gizmos, and gimmicks … but no show.  From bubble-domed 3D projectors that were going to replace “boxy” TVs to clunky stereoscopic glasses, to shutters, to special lenses, to even dual-layered TV screens that used a slight angle of viewing to give you a stereoscopic display, 3D has just soooo not happened.

So congrats!  We have a 1080p high definition Blu-Ray format for 3D movies this Christmas.  Great!  But it’d be a whole lot better if someone would finally market an affordable and usable device to watch them on.

And then there’s that whole content thing…

It also should be important to note that the whole Blu-Ray 1080p 3D stereoscopic format is just that, stereoscopic.  So the data necessary to generate actual fully three dimensional holograms is not there.  We’re merely talking about gimmicky “3D” that has tricked our brains and amazed us back since the days of drive-in movies and colored glasses, not any actual use of three dimensions.

How many times have you said to yourself, “You know, this laser cutter is good, but it’s just not good enough,” and gone off to find something that cuts better than a laser?

Yeah, me neither.

But that hasn’t stopped scientists like Dr. Verena Kräusel of the Fraunhofer Institut für Werkzeugmaschinen und Umformtechnik from finding something better than lasers.  And that something better is an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).  According to Dr. Kräusel, “We’ve modified it to cut even hard steels. Whereas a laser takes around 1.4 seconds to cut a hole, EMP can do the job in approximately 200 milliseconds – our method is up to seven times faster.“  This EMP drill punches holes by using the equivalent force of three cars atop one another in the space of a single fingernail.  No wonder it can cut a hole so quickly!

And the EMP drill has been tested successfully in a Volkswagen factory on press-hardened steel.  The drilling leaves no burrs and the drill, being a directed energy force instead of a physical entity, can never get blunted or worn like a normal drill would over time.  Better than a regular drill, and faster than a laser, it probably won’t be long before EMP tools are used in all sorts of factories.

But the real question is, just how do your portray something so cool as this in a sci-fi movie?  We know what a laser beam looks like.  We can even postulate what plasma cutters could look like.  But an electromagnetic pulse?  Is it even visual at all?