Superman crystals could store 360TB of data forever

Researchers have been able to demonstrate the ability to read and write data using a five-dimensional recording process in a synthetic crystal to store massive amounts of data indefinitely.

The researchers, led by Jingyu Zhang from the University of Southampton in the U.K., successfully recorded a 300KB digital copy of a text file onto nanostructured glass in 5D using ultrafast and intense pulse laser. The file was written in three layers of nanostructured dots separated by five micrometers (five millionths of a meter).

The scientists used a femtosecond laser, which emits pulses of light in femtoseconds (one quadrillionth, or one millionth of one billionth of a second). The 5D read/write laser can record up to an estimated 360 TB/disc data capacity on nanostructured glass capable of thermal stability up to 1000°C -- and a practically unlimited lifetime.

In a statement this week, the researchers called the glass the "Superman memory crystal," alluding to the "memory crystals" used in Superman films to store the planet Kryptonite's history and its civilization's collective knowledge.

The University of Southampton researchers recorded via self-assembled nanostructures created in fused quartz, which they said is able to store the vast quantities of data for more than a million years.

The information encoding comes in five dimensions that include the size and orientation in addition to the three dimensional position of these nanostructures.

According to a recently published paper, the self-assembled nanostructures change the way light travels through glass, modifying polarization of light that can then be read by combination of optical microscope and a polarizer, similar to that found in Polaroid sunglasses.

A graphic depicting a 5D optical storage writing setup: femtosecond laser, spatial light modulator (SLM), Fourier lens (FL), half-wave plates matrix (»/2 M), dichroic mirror, 1.2 NA water immersion objective, silica glass sample, translation stage. (Image: University of Southhampton)

The research was conducted as part of a joint project with Eindhoven University of Technology.

"We are developing a very stable and safe form of portable memory using glass, which could be highly useful for organizations with big archives," Jingyu said in a statement. "At the moment, companies have to back up their archives every five to 10 years because hard-drive memory has a relatively short lifespan."Museums who want to preserve information or places like the national archives where they have huge numbers of documents, would really benefit," he added.

Posted by Admin on 02:06 in news, technology

SMARTPHONE UNLOCKED SCREENS REVIEW : 1080p AND MORE

We have plenty of names to describe the viewing quality on your smartphone screen, but few of them actually make sense. Here's what matters, and why.

The Nokia Lumia 1020 features PureMotion HD+ technology, a ClearBlack display, and supersensitive screen. 

 The smartphone industry tosses around a whole bucket of names and numbers to describe the viewing experience on your smartphone screen: ClearBlack, 1080p, Retina, AMOLED, supersensitive. And the list goes on.
Some designations are marketing monikers cooked up to give one company an edge; others are more scientific. That isn't to say that flashy names like Apple's Retina Display are worthless and empty. Sometimes the trademarked name masks a unique process too technical to quickly explain.
To make things simpler, here are some common terms you might see attached to smartphone screens, and some factors that actually go into making your screen a standout, like the physical screen materials, LCD versus OLED, brightness, color accuracy, and pixel resolution. Got all that? Good. Now let's dive in.

Common smartphone screens
The terms often used to describe smartphone screens aren't always so clear.

• Retina Display: Apple's proprietary name for its LCD screen, which serves up a 1,136x640 pixel resolution.
• HD Super AMOLED: Samsung's name for its high-definition smartphone displays, which use the OLED screen technology.



An AMOLED display comes together.




• 1080p: The highest common high-definition screen resolution, measuring 1,920 pixels by 1,080 pixels. Also called "full HD."
• 720p: The lower high-definition designation, 1,280 by 720 pixels.
• Supersensitive or ultrasensitive: A new technology that lets you operate a touch screen with your fingernail or glove.
• PureMotion HD+: Nokia's name for its display with 1,280x768-pixel resolution and various properties.
• ClearBlack: Nokia's name for an antiglare filter applied to the screen. 
• Super LCD: A product name that also describes an LCD screen made in a certain way.
• IPS: A type of LCD screen technology known for producing clearer image quality and wider viewing angles, among other traits. It's used in many smartphones.

The anatomy of a smartphone screen

Before we dive in, it's helpful to understand the layout of a smartphone screen. The oversimplified version is that displays are composed of several layers of material, starting backing material and including a lighting element (like the backlight for LCD screens), which is then topped with a TFT (thin-film transistor) layer, which uses voltage-sipping transistors to keep the display's pixels shining until you refresh or change the image.
There's also the touch-sensitive panel; various films and filters that might reduce glare, for instance; and the cover glass, which is often bonded to the touch layer. Gorilla Glass is one designer brand of cover glass.

LCD versus OLED

There are warring schools of thought between the two types of display technologies: LCDs (which act as valves to allow varying amounts of the backlight through to the viewer) or AMOLED/OLEDs (a different approach that uses "active-matrix organic light-emitting diodes" to directly emit light).

There are complex ins and outs, but in a nutshell, you can think about LCDs and OLEDs as follows:

LCD screens start with an always-on backlight; this technology requires light to create black, white, and colors. High-end LCDs produce the most accurate colors, though their manufacturers sometimes intentionally calibrate LCDs to produce weaker red, blue, and purple shades in order to reduce the device's power consumption.

LCDs generally age slower, with their brightness and color balance holding up fairly well over thousands of hours of use.

OLED, on the other hand, doesn't require any light to produce black, only white and colors. Therefore, it's considered battery-saving (since it requires no energy to create black) and can produce inky blacks. OLEDs are often considered brighter as well, creating punchy hues. As a side effect, OLED screens tend to oversaturate the color green.

OLEDs also age more rapidly than LCDs, according to experts, which means that the red and blue colors deteriorate faster than green, which can further throw the color balance out of whack.

OLEDs can also be expensive to make, and in the past, limited production has caused some manufacturers, like HTC, to switch from AMOLED to LCD screens.

Samsung's Galaxy S4 uses an OLED screen; the HTC One rocks LCD.

What is IPS?
What makes the two differing technologies more confusing is that there are multiple versions of each. For instance, IPS (in-plane switching) is a type of premium LCD technology that's touted for its wide viewing angle and clearer picture. The iPhone 5 is a prime example of a phone using IPS panels.

So what about Super AMOLED?
Samsung makes most of the OLED smartphone screens, naming its line Super AMOLED.

These days we see mainly HD Super AMOLED phones with high-pixel resolutions, but Samsung has also made Super AMOLED and Super AMOLED Plus screens; the shift from Plus to HD Super AMOLED is a controversial one among pixel buffs, and one that quickly becomes technical.

PenTile matrix, RGBG

Each screen pixel is actually composed of red, green, and blue subpixels that can turn on and off in combination to create any supported color combination (turn them all on at full blast to shine white).

There are numerous ways to pattern the subpixels. Super AMOLED (and HD Super AMOLED) uses Samsung's PenTile layout and its pattern of red, green, blue, green (RG-BG) subpixels.

PenTile, in fact, uses fewer red and blue subpixels than it does green. As such, PenTile also has fewer subpixels than the typical RGB layout found in LCDs and in AMOLED screens used by other companies. Examine a PenTile screen closely and you might be able to detect a little more image granularity when you're looking at fine details and text. For the most part, though, your eyes fill in the blanks.

Some people preferred Samsung's Super AMOLED Plus pixel arrangement for creating a technically sharper image with three subpixels per pixel, rather than the two subpixels in the non-Plus version that Samsung's flagship phones like the Samsung Galaxy S4 have today.

Although Samsung didn't comment for this piece, an employee of Samsung America (but not Samsung Display) has said elsewhere that PenTile is more durable. It's also cheaper to make than Super AMOLED Plus, and it has some battery-saving efficiencies, since there are fewer subpixels that the battery has to power.

Pixel density
Generally speaking, though, the more pixels you have per inch (ppi), the better your picture. So smaller screens should look crisper than larger screens when both have the same pixel density.

That said, Apple claims that the human eye can't really distinguish more than 326 pixels per inch. Screens with 1080p HD resolutions typically hover in the 5-inch range, delivering pixel densities in the high 300s to 400s.

                                       HTC One                  Samsung Galaxy S4                    iPhone 5

Screen size                   4.7 in.                                  5 in.                                     4 in.

Resolution               1,920x1,080                      1,920x1,080                       1,136 x 640

Pixel density               468ppi                                 441ppi                               441ppi

While pixel density is an important factor in the smoothness of the overall picture, it's just one facet of many. And when it comes to comparing smartphone pixel density with that of a tablet, you don't necessarily need the same high density. DisplayMate's Soneira explains here how fewer pixels can satisfy your eye when reading from a tablet you hold farther from your face than you would want from a smartphone, which has a smaller form factor and is often held closer.

Brightness and color

It's as true with smartphones as it is with HDTVs: people's eyes are often drawn to the brightest and punchiest of the pack, blue blues and green greens that are rich and saturated, but just not true to life.

Oversaturated color gets tiring, and just looks cheap or fake when you're viewing something so familiar that your eye knows it's being fooled -- a video or photo of something you just know isn't that candied.

Some OLED devices do contain settings to dial down the juice, but you'll have to go hunting in the sub-menus to find more realistic tones.

Reflection, the secret enemy
Ever take your phone outside and squint to read the screen? Phones with high reflectance can be a real setback, but some manufacturers are good at getting on top of it. Nokia applies itsClearBlack filter above the touch layer (but below the glass) on its high-end phones. It works on both AMOLED and LCD screens.

 iStockphoto

The ClearBlack filter uses "circular polarization," which forces light to travel in a clockwise direction, then blocks off all the light that bounces back to the screen in a counterclockwise direction. The end result is reduced reflectance overall, and improved legibility both indoors and outdoors.

Who's doing it best?
Nokia, Apple, Samsung, and HTC all produce high-end phones teeming with pixels, and the LCD versus OLED color reproduction question often comes down to a matter of personal preference.

When it comes to technical proficiency, which you can measure in a lab using calibrated instruments, we

found that the Galaxy S4 screen edges the HTC One overall, but not in every category.

While all smartphones are harder to read in direct sunlight, I give Nokia a lot of credit for working on outdoor legibility. Of these four top phone-makers, I've personally had the most problems with Samsung's screens fighting the sun's rays.

Still, my ultimate buying advice is this: stare at the screen long and hard on automatic mode (the one you'll use most to save battery), and hold it up next to other rival devices in the store. If you can live with it, if you never notice overly dull or artificial colors, or a distracting reflection, and if you feel you can read small text without blurriness or eye strain, then there's no reason to let the specs determine your purchasing path.

Posted by Admin on 00:51 in news, smartphone, technology