3D Television

Recently, there has been a lot of publicity around the newly developed "3D" televisions that are being released this year by many of the leading television manufacturers such as Sony and Samsung. 3D has been a very interesting and intriguing concept for a long time now and it always seems to be very popular to the public. However, when I think of 3D, all I can picture are those funny paper glasses with a red and blue lens that don't even really work. Many theme parks have some fairly sophisticated 3D rides that create a somewhat realistic 3D effect, but none of these things ever reach the home consumer market. Could this new 3D TV technology actually be practical and will it be successful financially?

I personally don't think so. First of all, 3D just seems really gimmicky. The new 3D televisions still require you to wear glasses and no one is going to want to wear bulky glasses everytime they watch tv. It's one thing to see a 3D movie once in a while that you have to wear glasses for but that would be a total pain for everyday use. As of right now, there aren't even any tv channels that broadcast in 3D and there probably won't be for a while. Even when they do, how good will the experience be? Will it even be worth it?

The worst thing of all about these new 3D tvs is the cost. Even for cheap sets, they will still run you at least $1500 for a decent size tv. For most people this is way too much considering they probably already bought a new LCD or LED tv within the last year or so. This seems like a scam by tv manufacturers to get as much money as possible out of consumers for an over-the-top, pointless feature. Unless these new tvs can manage to provide new, groundbreaking 3D technology, there is no way they are going to sell very well. 3D tvs are just one of those things that sounds sweet the first time you here about it, but once you find out more information, you realize it's a complete waste of money.

No More Space Program

Man walking on the moon is arguably one of the most amazing achievements of mankind. I was not even born until over twenty years after this amazing acheivement but I am still amazed and intrigued by man landing on the moon. Because of this, I was extremely excited with the announcement of the Constellation space program that is going to be sending man to the moon once more. NASA's goal was to have men on the moon by the year 2020 and the program was moving along very smoothly, with the new rocket prototype test flight occuring last fall. Everything seemed to be according to plan until President Obama announced his preliminary fiscal budget for 2011.

In his budget, there was a huge spending cut to NASA. He didn't specifically say that he was cancelling the constellation program, but that is essentially what he did. There is no way that NASA can keep on funding the program with the huge budget deficit that they are going to have next year. This is a real shame. Space exploration is something that Americans have always been able to be proud of in the United States and now all that is over. Obama wants to eventually totally privatize the space industry. I think that the space industry should always be the responsibility of the government because it helps to unite the country, especially when you see that american flag on the side of the space shuttle. It gives such a sense of national pride. With a private space industry, it just won't mean as much anymore. I think that it is going to turn into another business type deal. The private space companies are only going to be concerned with making money.

Hopefully, Obama realizes how much eliminating the space program will hurt his image and he will change his mind. If he doesn't change his mind, then I hope that future presidents do. The space program is such an amazing accomplishment for mankind, not just the United States. It helps to unite countries that are usually fighting against eachother to work together for the common good. Without continuing to push deeper and deeper into space, I think that the world will lose one of its greatest assets and this would be a real shame.

Fusion: Energy of the Future?

With all the talk these days of global warming and the need for new cleaner energy sources, most of the talk revolves around solar energy and wind energy. Although these two types of energies have been making technological breakthroughs in the past decade, they still have a long way to go until they can satisfy a sigficant fraction the the world's power needs. However, an alternative energy source that is often overlooked but is beginning to make significant technological progress recently is nuclear fussion. Not to be confused with nuclear fission, which is the process taking place in today's nuclear reactors, nuclear fusion involves the combining of atoms, such as hydrogen isotopes, to create an enormous amount of energy. This is the same process that takes place inside the sun.


Fusion reactors would provide huge advantages over all of the present types of energy, especially nuclear fission. Fusion uses abundant sources of fuel, does not leak radation to dangerous levels like a nuclear reactor does, and will also not produce nearly as much radioactive waste as a nuclear reactor. Also, the fuel needed for fusion is abundant on earth. Deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, can be easily extracted from seawater, and lithium, an alkali metal, is abundant in the earth's crust. With all these abundant fuels and the many advantages that fusion reactors would provide, the earth's energy needs could be completely satisfied in a nonpolluting way.


However, there are still some minor problems that need to be solved before fusion can be put into practical use. First of all, fusion can only occur at temperatures upwards of 100 million kelvin, which is about six times hotter than the sun. The reason that the sun can achieve fusion is because of its large mass and strong gravity field that compresses all its mass towards the core. Although this high temperature requirement may sound physically impossible, it actually has been achieved on a small scale using microwaves, lasers, and ion particles. As for the pressure requirement, so far possible solutions could include using intense magnetic fields or ion beams. With the current technology, only one part of the fusion process is possible, but technology progresses so swiftly that the rest of the fusion process could be feasibly achieved in the next few decades.


Another form of fusion that could possibly be used for energy needs is cold fusion. In 1989, researchers in the U.S. and United Kingdom claimed to have created sustained fusion at room temperatures using heavy water, palladium, and an electric current. However, when scientists around the world tried to replicate this experiment none of them could get the same result. Recently though, scientists at UCLA initiated cold fusion using a type of crystal in a container filled with hydrogen and an electric current.


Fusion may not be a practical energy source for at least a few more decades, but when it is, is could theoretically provide an abundant energy source for the entire world. Besides this abundant energy, fusion is also clean, safe, and results in a much smaller amount of nuclear waste. It will be very interesting to see how this and other alternative energy sources develop and are implemented during our lifetimes.

iPad: Next Hot Gadget or Not?

This week Apple unveiled its newest product, the IPad. Anticipation for the revealing of this new product had been building for months and now that everyone has seen it, was it worth the wait? Many people don't think so, including me. Apple has been known for its revolutionary products since it first released the original Ipod a decade ago. Every single time they released a new product, I was wowed by the new features that it had: video, touch screen, etc.

The IPad, however, doesn't seem to incorporate any new technologies, which has many people simply referring to it as "a big Iphone". It has the exact same features as an Iphone except that it has a much larger screen, so it seems to be geared towards the booming netbook market. Will consumers, with their budgets already strapped down by the recession, dish out $500 just for the base model of the IPad? I think not. Whereas the Ipod and iphone created entirely new markets with their revolutionary technologies, the IPad is entering into a market already saturated with similar products. Sure these products may not have a touch screen and be extremely sleek like the IPad, but without any groundbreaking technologies being offered in the IPad, consumers have no reason to purchase it if they already own a netbook.

Of course, with any apple product, this thing could end up selling like crazy. It may not be revolutionary, but people just seem to love the products that Apple makes. One thing that Apple does extremely well is market their products. We all remember at least one Apple commercial in recent times and this is because they do such a great job connecting to the consumers. Even if it's not worth the money, once some people start buying it, everyone else will follow. If the IPad does actually sell well, it will probably be because it's the "cool" thing to buy, not the "practical" thing.

Robots: When will they take over?

I was browsing through some articles on cnet.com and I found a very interesting one titled " Korean Housemaid Robot does Laundry". According to the article, The South Koreans have developed a robot that they call "Mahru-Z" and this robot can do laundry. Mahru-Z is 4 feet tall, weighs 120 pounds, has arms, legs, a rotating head, and can see objects in three dimensions. The engineers who designed the robot say that it is capable of picking up a dirty shirt with its hands, throwing it in the washer, and pushing the correct buttons of the washing machine with its six fingers. Sounds like the perfect gift for a college student.



And if that wasn't enough , Mahru-Z also has a maid robot named Mahru-M that can assist in doing the laundry. Mahru-M, however, is an earlier version and moves on wheels instead of legs. Theses wheels can serve as an advantage though since it results in increased mobility. Mahru-M can deliver clean clothes to the owner while Mahru- Z does the laundry. The designers of Mahru-Z say that it is, for now, the most advanced robot in terms of mimicking human movement.



It seems that we are getting closer and closer to the point when robots can perform almost all of our daily tasks. Albeit, none of these robots are practical for home use but they will eventually get there and that can be scary to think about.

If you want to check out the article, here's the link:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10438089-1.html?tag=mncol;title