Transonic Combustion, a startup based in Camarillo, CA, has developed a fuel-injection system it says can improve the efficiency of gasoline engines by more than 50 percent. A test vehicle equipped with the technology gets 64 miles per gallon in highway driving, which is far better than more costly gas-electric hybrids, such as the Prius, which gets 48 miles per gallon on the highway.

Efficient exotic: Transonic Combustion put its new fuel-injection technology into this sports car, which weighs about as much as a Toyota Prius hybrid and has similar aerodynamics. It’s not a hybrid, but it gets better gas mileage than a Prius. Credit: Transonic Combustion

Multimedia Watch an explanation of efficient supercritical combustion.

The key is heating and pressurizing gasoline before injecting it into the combustion chamber, says Mike Rocke, Transonic’s vice president of business development. This puts it into a supercritical state that allows for very fast and clean combustion, which in turn decreases the amount of fuel needed to propel a vehicle. The company also treats the gasoline with a catalyst that “activates” it, partially oxidizing it to enhance combustion.

The technology is one of many being developed to squeeze more efficiency out of existing engines to meet new fuel economy standards and other regulations–without making vehicles more expensive. “It’s a time of renaissance for internal combustion engines,” says William Green, a professor of chemical engineering at MIT. Improvements include smaller engines boosted with turbocharging, improved valve timing, and direct injection, in which fuel is injected directly into the combustion chamber rather than into an adjacent port. He says Transonic’s approach “may be a promising way to improve on conventional direct injection.”

If it works as promised, the new technology would improve fuel economy by far more than these other options, some of which can improve efficiency on the order of 20 percent. It is expected to cost about as much as high-end fuel injection systems currently on the market, Rocke says.

Transonic’s injection system varies from direct injection in two ways: it uses supercritical fluids and doesn’t require a spark to ignite the fuel. The supercritical fluid mixes quickly with air when it’s injected into the cylinder.

Once the fuel is injected into the piston, the heat and pressure are enough to cause the fuel to combust without a spark (similar to what happens in diesel engines), which also helps provide fast, uniform combustion. Ignition can be timed to happen just when the piston is reaching the optimal point, so it can convert as much of the energy in the gasoline into mechanical movement as possible, without wasting energy by heating up the combustion chamber walls, as happens in conventional technologies. The company has developed proprietary software that lets the system adjust the injection precisely depending on the load put on the engine.

The system can also reduce something called “throttling losses.” Ordinarily, the air intake to an engine is partially closed during cruising, and this makes the engine work harder. Transonic’s system can operate with the air intake open, creating a lean mixture in the combustion chamber (with a lot of air, but just a little gasoline). Rocke says that at a steady cruising speed of 50 miles per hour, the test car gets 98 miles per gallon.

The company has demonstrated the technology in its own test engine, and says it is currently testing it with three automakers. One key question is the impact the high pressures and temperatures will have on how long the engine lasts, Rocke says. The company, which is supported by venture-capital investments from Venrock and Khosla Ventures, plans to manufacture its system itself, rather than licensing the technology. It plans to build its first factory in 2013, and to introduce the technology into production cars by 2014.

originally posted on Technology Review

Forget putting your phone on vibrate. A novel “high-definition” touch-feedback display can give a touch screen the feel of a textured surface. The technology was developed for mobile devices by the San Jose CA-based company Immersion, and is a step toward mimicking the feel of physical buttons on flat screens.

Simple haptic interfaces have been used in cell phones for years, to create silent alerts or provide limited tactile feedback when an onscreen button has been pressed. But such interfaces typically rely on elliptical vibration motors to create a shaking sensation, an approach that is slow and imprecise. Immersion believes this can be greatly improved by switching to a piezoelectric actuator.

Piezeoelectric materials produce mechanical stress in response to an applied voltage, or vice versa. They do this at great speed, which means piezoelectric actuators can respond quickly when a screen is being touched, says Steve Kingsley-Jones, Immersion’s director of product management.

A prototype device featuring the technology was demoed two weeks ago at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. When activated, a piezoelectric strip placed along one edge of a touch screen causes the screen to move from side to side, a slight movement that is felt by a finger touching the screen. A suspension system holds the screen in place, ensuring that the case does not move.

Traditional motors can oscillate at about once every 50 milliseconds, but the piezoelectric actuator lets the screen move back and forth 100 micrometers every millisecond. Kingsley-Jones says it is possible to run a finger over the screen and “feel” individual on-screen buttons. “You can actually feel the edges,” he says.

Better haptics could make touch screens easier to navigate, and reduce the need to look at the screen, says Vincent Hayward, a professor at the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris, and a leading expert in the field. Hayward, who cofounded a company called Haptec that was later acquired by Immersion, says it is possible to use vibrations to trick a person into feeling all manner of sensations. “You have the uncanny experience that the flat surface has relief,” he says. “The glass can become tangible.”

Immersion is experimenting with making the digit at the center of the virtual dial pad feel as if it stands out more than the other keys. This would make it easier for the user to feel where the other keys are, says Kingsley-Jones.

What’s most interesting about Immersion’s approach, according to Hayward, is the lateral movement of the screen. Because it’s difficult for nerves to distinguish the direction of such movement, it’s possible to trick the senses into feeling upward pressure where there is none, he says.

Immersion is also developing software to record the feel of a real button and replicate that on-screen. In blind tests, subjects were unable to distinguish between pressing a real button and a simulated one, says Kingsley-Jones.

Immersion is talking to handset manufacturers and expects the first devices incorporating the technology to appear toward the end of the year.

originally posted at Technology Review

Tap and go: This prototype device runs on the Android operating system and features a customizable home screen. The interface was created by Boston-based company Tap ‘n Tap. Credit: Tap ‘n Tap

Like the iPhone OS, which will power the iPad, Android was originally developed for cell phones. This means it will be fast and low-power. “Android is very responsive; it’s instantly available,” says Jeff Orr, a senior analyst for mobile devices at ABI Research.

It can also make use of apps already developed for Android phones. “The real benefit [of using Android] is that it taps into this ecosystem of developers that have latched onto Android,” says Carl Howe, analyst and director of the Anywhere Consumer Research division of the Yankee Group. Most importantly, some of these Android devices come with features that the iPad currently lacks–the ability to run Flash, for example, as well as a webcam and software multitasking.

Several companies showed off Android-based tablets at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. Taiwanese computer makers Compal, MSI, and Quanta all gave demos of Android-powered devices with screens between seven and 10 inches and powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 2 microprocessor.

Also at CES was an Indian company called Notion Ink, which demonstrated an Android tablet called Adam. The company showed two versions–one featuring a lower-power Pixel Qi display with three display modes, and the other featuring a regular LCD. The Adam also uses the Tegra 2, features a rotating webcam, and is expected to cost between $327 and $800. It is scheduled to go on sale later this year.

French computer maker Archos already sells an Android tablet with a five-inch screen called the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, for $499. And, perhaps most significantly, the third-largest computer maker in the world, Dell, is rumored to be developing a five-inch, multitouch, Android-driven tablet, which may be announced later this year.

The company’s Temax Western Europe fourth quarter 2009 sales figures show that interchangeable lens cameras (DSLR and mirrorless) contributed to around 9.4% of total sales volume in Europe, but approximately 31.2% of the total sales value. Micro Four Thirds accountied for 3.2% of these volumes.

These figures reflect the global shipment numbers published by Japanese trade body Camera and Imaging Products Association (CIPA) that show a similar trend in the global market for DSLRs. CIPA’s figures also show there has been a 25% increase in DSLR shipments compared to the same quarter of 2008, but only a 23% increase in value, following a 1.5% drop in average unit cost.

Micro Four Thirds cameras have also been a popular choice in Japan. According to Japanese market research company BCN Rankings, they made up 11.1% of total interchangeable camera unit sales in 2009. All four models available during the year made it into the top 20 list of best selling cameras. Despite only being introduced in July and September respectively, the Olympus E-P1 and Panasonic GF1 accounted for 5.7% of total sales, taking ninth and tenth position in the best sellers list.

By December, GF1 had risen to fourth position with the Olympus E-P2 appearing in ninth – making up 10.9% of interchangeable lens camera sales between the two models. Overall, MFT cameras accounting for 16.5% of interchangeable lens camera sales by volume.

posted originally on dpreview

Now You Can Copy This Exact Million Dollar Blueprint To Give Yourself An Unfair Advantage Over The Competition And Cash In Every Month!

You see, most of the information you read online now is just total garbage and it falls into two categories. The info is either old and no longer works or it is just plain theory that hasn’t been tested.

It gets me angry that people are wasting hard earned money on untested ideas in the slight hope things will work out. The cold truth is that… It Won’t!

Most of the so call systems the guru’s push you are don’t work.

However…

There is some good news.

I’m coming out from the underground after many months of quietly earning thousands with my new blogging methods to reveal to you… The little guy, the real proven techniques to making an easy six figures every year from creating long term blogs… Seven figures if you want to work hard.

Why?

I’m just sick of seeing all the bad… completely wrong information about blogging and making money online that I feel it would just not be fair for me to stay underground earning a fortune while you fail.

You see… I’ve been right where you have… No success, in debt and working like crazy trying to make this ‘internet thing’ work.

Now you’re lucky because I didn’t have anyone willing to tell me the truth like you have today… It took countless hours of wasting my time on the ‘gurus’ systems to figure out it wouldn’t work and then hundreds of hours developing my own profitable system that could be repeated again and again.

Click Here!

this is what I have been using to get this blog going.

If you’ve ever wanted to see your sites and affiliate offers flooded with hyper targeted server crushing traffic that 99% of other marketers don’t even know about, then this is the most important letter you will ever read.

Here’s why:

About 2 years ago, and totally on a whim, I decided to give banner advertising a try through Google’s content network.

To be honest it was a half-hearted test… but the results truly blew me away.

So much so that I instantly closed down all my PPC campaigns (even those making me $1500 a day), and threw my time into something that was insanely more profitable…

Banners…

I know right now that might sound practically ludicrous, but banners drive around 85% of ALL paid traffic, crushing Google, Yahoo and MSN combined… and the traffic is dirt cheap, massively abundant and high converting.

By the time you are done reading this letter, you will understand beyond the shadow of a doubt why 99% of internet marketers neglect to use them, and how the 1% that do can get incredibly rich incredibly fast…

Click Here!

You don’t need a satellite dish, receiver or any other equipment to use our software. All you need is a computer and an internet connection. Simply download our software and you are ready to enjoy over 3,500 channels worldwide.

You can watch TV right from your laptop or desktop computer anytime or anywhere in the world. Or connect your computer directly to your TV set – once you are a member we will show you how!

Click Here!

This method has been researched for a long time, but due to suppression of this idea from the big corporations, the plans for building a free energy generator which could change the world have never been out on the open. We finally succeeded in creating a web site which offers the Do-It-Yourself instructions for building such a device, and it is considered that this device will be able to solve the energy crisis.

This is your chance to grab it! Click Here