This is an interesting one. Imperial College London is highlighting some of its academics have helped the BBC to design a mock mission to Mars, for the five part programme How to put a human on Mars. The aim of the series is examine the design challenges of such missions, such as building a spacecraft that can create artificial gravity ...

How does the saying go – “Set a thief to catch a thief”? Well, this one caught my eye – use a Raspberry Pi to cook a raspberry pie! It’s a Pi-powered Microwave, that knows how to cook your food and that even talks to you. It was highlighted on the element14.com website, and is the work of one Nathan ...

The University of Surrey is reporting on a development that “opens the door for more efficient, cost-effective and larger scale solar power generation”. Professor Ravi Silva, of the university’s Advanced Technology Institute has identified the range of combinations of organic and inorganic materials that will underpin new 4th generation solar cell technology. According to its report (“New technology to enable ...

For protecting drivers when an LED goes open circuit, NUD4700 from On Semi is a 2x4mm electronic shunt, claming to clamp to 1V in what looks like less than 100ns, according to the data sheet. As well as protecting the driver, it will keep the rest of a string of LEDs functioning. “It provides a current bypass in the case ...

ON Semiconductor has introduced an MP3 record and playback chip with almost everything needed in an audio device except flash memory. The 16x16mm chip, dubbed LC823430TA audio processing system, has DSP for MP3 encode and decode, DACs and microphone pre-amps, and DACs and both speaker (300mW) and headphone drivers. There are also interfaces for eSD and eMMC cards for flash ...

Micron has also completed its purchase of Powerchip’s 24% stake in Rexchip and has 100% control of Rexchip’s output.

Today, the world has only three DRAM companies. Micron and Elpida have completed their long drawn-out M&A process.

Texas Instruments has announced a Bluetooth Smart SensorTag app for Android. The latest version of the platform – 4.3 “Jelly Bean” – now has native support of Bluetooth Smart Ready. It has been designed to work with TI’s CC2541-basedSensorTag, which has six commonly used sensors on a single board for evaluation and demos. “The addition of Bluetooth Smart support in ...

Traditional network and endpoint protection mechanisms are struggling today to protect our corporate IT infrastructure and computers. Adding the projected billions of nodes that will constitute the Internet of Things exacerbate the problem dramatically. The advantage that the embedded industry has over the traditional computer world, is that the devices are generally being built for a specific purpose, and as ...

For an out-of-this-world commute, you need a perfectly tricked-out vehicle. With sky-blue LED lighting and seating for seven, this space capsule certainly fits the bill. This photo gives a glimpse inside of the CST-100, a commercial crew capsule being built by Boeing with support from NASA, which aims to restore the US’s ability to independently launch astronauts into space. The ...