Carbon copy. Near-field transfers of up to one terabit per second using graphene antennas. Bluetooth, eat your heart out.

Bluetooth 3: up to 24 Mbit/s.
"Graphene transfer" beta: up to 100 terabits/s.

MIT Technology Review Story >>

Not that he is still looking for career advice, but if I were to give Ben Braddock, the protagonist in the film "The Graduate," a one-word lecture on what to do with his life, it would be "graphene." Yes, graphene. Think about it at least.

So please run this story by your nanotech materials division. What!? Your company doesn't have a nanotechology materials unit? Well, a nonotech group then? A small team? An in-house expert? A hobbyist? No? Then you'd better get one.

So, researchers at Georgia Tech are working on a method of making wireless transfers of up to one terabit per second between devices by using graphene antennas. At such speeds, in a few seconds, you could shoot over a few high-definition movies to your friend and then in return, borrow a library of music. The range of such transfers is only up to a meter (a yard) or so. But get this: at shorter ranges, much faster transfers could be possible, say around 100 terabits per second. And remember how excited we were about Bluetooth. And then sharing pics via NFC coupling?

While it has its limitations and its problems, graphene is looking like an amazing enabler in so many ways. This one-atom-thick layer of carbon rolled up into "nanotubes" can take on many different roles depending upon the angle of the bond and the diameter of the roll. Graphene is super light, super strong, and simply super.

I realize this is nothing you will find in the next iPhone or Lumia (but please prove me wrong Apple or Nokia), but the goal of my blog is to provide exposure for longer-term technology trends and industry shifts. And when it literally comes to shaping the future, it's likely that nanotech-related developments will be in the center. Someday we will really see interesting new device form factors, tiny embedded computers, and super tough devices thanks to advancements in nanotechnology.

Huge advancements are coming in the tiniest of ways. Graphene, the plastics of the new century.

"21st Century story update:
four words of career advice: nanotechnology-related material sciences."


Carbon copy: Researchers are working on using atoms of carbon for super transfers:

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For those looking to network with Chinese mobile players and understand the market: the kind producers of the Global Mobile Internet Conference 2013 and the extended "G-Trip" contacted me to share a 25% discount code with any readers who might wish to attend. You can register your attendance at http://beijing.thegmic.com/register/ and paste in the following code into the "discount code" section: GMIC-VQ9596MT

GWIC 2013. Be there. And see see Tiananmen Square.

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How do you feel inside? Sensors might soon have that covered too.

EPFL POST >>

KEY MOBILE TRENDS: sensors, mobile healthcare, nanotechnology


Bloody hell. Even more on the mobile sensor trend. This is getting amazing.

I've been reading stories about developments of small, internal sensors that can do such things as sniff out cancer cells or monitor blood for pathogens. Such sensors are placed inside the body using a minimally invasive procedure and provide data about the blood contents either directly or indirectly to a smartphone and further to a healthcare provider for analysis.

Here is one such sensor developed by researchers at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne in Lausanne (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). From the Institute: It’s “a tiny, portable personal blood testing laboratory: a minuscule device implanted just under the skin provides an immediate analysis of substances in the body, and a radio module transmits the results to a doctor over the cellular phone network. This feat of miniaturization has many potential applications, including monitoring patients undergoing chemotherapy.”

Ideally I would love to pick one of these up at my local supermarket or pharmacy and get to work doing some self diagnosis. But regulators can be so small about such things.

“Potentially, we could detect just about anything:”

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For those looking to network with Chinese mobile players and understand the market: the kind producers of the Global Mobile Internet Conference 2013 and the extended "G-Trip" contacted me to share a 25% discount code with any readers who might wish to attend. You can register your attendance at http://beijing.thegmic.com/register/ and paste in the following code into the "discount code" section: GMIC-VQ9596MT

GWIC 2013. Be there. And see see Tiananmen Square.

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The end of the "H2-DOH's...?" Nokia talks of water resistance for handsets. Will this be a new industry standard?

MOBILESYRUP STORY >>

Will all mobile devices soon come with a rain coat?

Water-resistant phones are nothing spanking new: back in the year 2001 at the massive CeBIT trade show, I saw several demos of working handsets submerged in bubbling fish tanks and even phones in Pyrex pots of boiling water. Although robust never caught on as a handset industry norm, I think many of us would have benefited at least once from robust innovation. Weather it be a run in the rain, a day at the beach, or other odd water-related accidents, the comfort of knowing that your personal trusted device can take a splash or two along the way is certainly worth something above the marginal cost to the bill of materials.

Over the past few months, we've seen several nano-tech based coatings with claims of making electronic devices highly resistant to water damage, inside and out. Namely, two solutions that have made the news are Liquipel and WaterBlock, two nano-tech coatings intended to enable devices to withstand the elements in this always-on era.

Now Nokia is talking up water resistance too. One Nokia executive has been showing the potential of its in-house nanotech research that could lead to much more resilient devices and many blogs are reporting that a Nokia executive in Western Europe has indicated that this could soon be a standard feature on Nokia's Lumia smartphone line. Nokia caught the audience's attention in the past with the potential of nanotech with its "Morph" animated video.

The companies behind Liquipel and WaterBlock are certainly discussing volume discounts with most major handset vendors, so water resistance could soon become the Gorilla Glass of the guts of the device.

It's time to move this beyond a dry run.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaAL3PTbBJw

Liquipel. When it rains, it really does pour. More nanotech protection for devices.

COMPANY PAGES >>

I first started hearing about the possibilities of nanotechnology years ago and I’ve seen some really amazing slidesets and concept videos here and there over the years.

Nanotech will be to the ’10s what plastic was to the ’50s.

Last week I wrote a blog entry about a nanotech-based protective coating for devices called WaterBlock from a startup Hz0. (I said it looked like Gorilla Glass for the guts of the device.)

Here’s a very similar offering called "Liquipel" from a company with the same name. The company claims that Liquipel is a super-thin nanotech layer that is steamed onto and into devices. The company offers the service to individuals for $60, but I would think their business model is to go after big volume vendors. Needless to say, volume costs would have to come way down as to not harm BoM and margins.

On the company’s webpage they claim that their technology makes devices "waterproof" but what they seem to mean to say is water resistant.

Robust handsets are nothing new. Mainstream vendors such as Nokia, Samsung, and Sony | Ericsson have been showing beach-friendly phones for years. But they have always been a niche. Now it looks like the wet look is going mainstream.

It’s looking like Samsung and Apple are already starting to talk tough. If I were a competing handset vendor, I’d pick up the phone and call these vendors today. You don’t want to be all washed up.

Is nanotech about to make a mobile splash? Hz0’s WaterBlock could save the day. It looks like nanotechnology could be here to stay.

HzO PAGES >>

If you haven’t seen any of Nokia's animated "Morph" videos demonstrating a vision of devices to come based on nanotechnology, take a look here. If nothing else, it’s very relaxing. But really quite inspirational.

Nanotech is really coming to save the day.

While water means life to practically all living things on earth, contact with a significant amount of water is a virtual death sentence for devices such as smartphones.

But this has got to be one of the first nanotechnology material implementations I think I’ve seen ready to be used in handsets. "WaterBlock" is a material coating created by a startup called HzO that is apparently looking for major smartphone makers as clients.

If it does what the backers say it doesn, WaterBlock could be to electronic guts what Gorilla Glass has been to the screen. At least some of the web-based demos appears impressive and the technology has received good feedback from CES 2012. While WaterBlock doesn’t waterproof a device, the coating does make gadgets water resistant.

Nanotechnology is coming to protect us.

self-cleaning clothes

Via Ubergizmo >>

How I do appreciate wrinkle-resistant cotton. I haven't used an iron in years. But that doesn't solve the problem of washing clothes.

So, are we soon to enter an era of "no washing required" for clothes as well?

Two Chinese chemical researchers, Mingce Long and Deyong Wu, are working on creating a cotton mix that would clean and deodorize itself when exposed to sunlight.

A thing of the past?