This week’s Top 5 engineering technology articles include some tech giants, some giant structures, and some tiny, tiny doctors for giant means of transportation.
- High-Voltage Lithium-Ion Battery Realized With Superconcentrated Electrolyte
- How Tech Breakthroughs Can Shatter the Bonds of Poverty
- Alexa, What Else Can You Do? Getting More From Amazon Echo
- The US Is Finally Getting Its First Offshore Wind Farm
- Meet Spider, The Tiny Robot Doctor For Blimps
High-Voltage Lithium-Ion Battery Realized With Superconcentrated Electrolyte
TechXplore
We’ve been looking at battery optimization, battery storage, battery materials, and just about any other aspect of batteries ever since folks like Franklin, Volta, and Edison started looking at batteries.
And, with the current efforts to use battery power for transportation, especially automobiles, one of the challenges is to increase the range. Based on current technology, one of the easiest ways is to increase the voltage of the battery. However, moving from a 4-volt battery to a 5-volt battery can impact the loss of capacity after a small number of charging cycles.
By using a super concentrated lithium-based electrolyte, researchers at the University of Tokyo have found a much higher energy density. And, this particular breakthrough means a smaller size and weight battery as well as the added voltage.
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And, of course, the drawback of this process is money. Using the lithium salt concentrate required is much more expensive. But again, they are looking at a process to mass produce that as well so hopefully these batteries will come to market sooner rather than later.
How Tech Breakthroughs Can Shatter the Bonds of Poverty
Huffington Post
Poverty is a global issue and once entrenched in a country, city, town, or family it is a difficult cycle to break. It requires access to the same basic services those participating in a formal economy require.
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One of the main drawbacks is that those stuck in a cycle of poverty is lack of access to digital banking. They deal in a pattern of cash that has the nature of being easily lost or stolen causing an even bigger setback.
Having access to digital financial services have been shown to improve a number of things for families mired in poverty including education, health, and mental well-being. The Gates Foundation is helping to create the infrastructure necessary for access to digital financial services. This is allowing secure storage, instant transfer of funds and the ability to protect digital identity.
These services are currently accessed through smart phones, kiosks, and other digital platforms. And, as we develop these tools for various access points, we can help grow the economy of the world and bring an end to abject poverty in a world where it is completely unnecessary.
Alexa, What Else Can You Do? Getting More From Amazon Echo
NY Times
Though not nearly as “helpful” as Siri, Alexa, the Amazon Virtual Assistant can be coached and programmed to be incredibly effective in and around your home.
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By setting internal defaults on the smartphone app, you can shortcut the commands that you give Alexa. A prime example is setting a default streaming music service. That way, instead of having to specify the musical command as well as where to retrieve the music, you can simply ask it to play your favorite band/station.
Alexa is also a great help within the kitchen figuring out recipe calculations, measurement conversions, and even optimal cooking times.
So, just like with any of the interconnected devices within your home currently, Alexa can be a powerful tool when used properly. And hey, with an internet connected outlet, I could even have Alexa turn on my appliances before I get there.
The US Is Finally Getting Its First Offshore Wind Farm
Wired
With green initiatives becoming more and more common as well as more important to the overall sustainability of life on Earth, seeing a breakthrough in engineering technology of this magnitude in my own country makes me very happy.
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Creating an offshore wind farm is not an easy undertaking. The amount of physics that have to be accounted for in terms of the physical structure can be a staggering proposition. This offshore farm along the east coast will deal with varying degrees of wind speed, sometimes varying even from the top and bottom of the structure itself. And, it will also have to deal with the propensities of being a fixed structure in the ever changing habitat of the Atlantic Ocean.
But, all of that aside, this wind farm has the potential to power a large portion of the tourist attractions in and around Block Island, Rhode Island. And, the West Coast is getting involved as well with their own project off of Morro Bay, California.
So, here’s hoping that it may be commonplace to see these offshore wind farms along our coastlines in the not too distant future.
Meet Spider, The Tiny Robot Doctor For Blimps
Mashable
Most people are familiar with the concept of a blimp. Certainly avid sports fans know that the blimps powered by Goodyear are present at a lot of the events they attend.
And, while the blimps certainly have their place within society, one of the drawbacks is the ability to keep them in the air after they’ve got a hole. The blimp has to be completely deflated and then inspected for rips and tears.
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However, Lockheed Martin has developed a tiny robot called Spider that helps in this process. Spider or Self-Propelled Instrument for Damage Evaluation and Repair uses two magnetic halves on the interior and exterior portions of the blimp.
The interior uses an LED light that the outer half senses when it comes across a tear in the blimp. It then moves the patching mechanism over the hole, fixing the problem while taking digital photographs for human inspection at a later point in time.
And, since blimps run at a cost of $40 million and can take several hours to several days to fully deflate and find rips and tears the old fashioned way, this tiny robot helper could save companies millions of dollars in time and effort in that regard.
Well, that’s it for me. Keep your eyes wide open to see all of the engineering technological breakthroughs all around you.
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