Tag Archives: electronic device

How to Become James Bond: Online Deals on Electronics

Today’s technology market is saturated with electronic devices from smartphones and e-book readers to sleek tablet computers and digital media players. The consumer challenge is knowing what these devices do, where they can be purchased, and which storefronts afford the optimal blend of affordability and marquee products. Oftentimes the best prices can be found online because digital sellers are competing with one another, which leads to competition and lower cost to the consumer. That said, this article will look at some online storefronts as well as online publications that critique the products sold at those online storefronts. The goal is to help the consumer find the best deals on cutting-edge technologies.

uBid.com

This company has been around since 1997 and its auction format, layout, and customer satisfaction measures are very similar to eBay. At any rate, uBid.com states in its credo that it functions as a top auction site that caters to new, overstock, rectified, and closeout products. This means that the customer is receiving a well cared for product at an extremely low cost! uBid showcases twenty five categories and one of which is electronics. uBid carries the latest computers, tablets, phones and cameras. Unlike eBay, uBid’s products are usually sold in bulk and there are many available – perhaps this accounts for the bargain basement deals! Many of the items and auctions on uBid, including electronics, start at only one dollar! (more…)

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New Graphene-Based Material Could Revolutionise Electronics Industry

The most transparent, lightweight and flexible material ever for conducting electricity has been invented by a team from the University of Exeter.

Called GraphExeter, the material could revolutionise the creation of wearable electronic devices, such as clothing containing computers, phones and MP3 players.

GraphExeter could also be used for the creation of ‘smart’ mirrors or windows, with computerised interactive features. Since this material is also transparent over a wide light spectrum, it could enhance by more than 30% the efficiency of solar panels.

Adapted from graphene, GraphExeter is much more flexible than indium tin oxide (ITO), the main conductive material currently used in electronics. ITO is becoming increasingly expensive and is a finite resource, expected to run out in 2017. (more…)

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Self-Assembling Nanorods: Berkeley Lab Researchers Obtain 1, 2 and 3D Nanorod Arrays and Networks

A relatively fast, easy and inexpensive technique for inducing nanorods – rod-shaped semiconductor nanocrystals – to self-assemble into one-, two- and even three-dimensional macroscopic structures has been developed by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This technique should enable more effective use of nanorods in solar cells, magnetic storage devices and sensors. It should also help boost the electrical and mechanical properties of nanorod-polymer composites.

Leading this project was Ting Xu, a polymer scientist who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and the University of California (UC) Berkeley’s Departments of Materials Sciences and Engineering, and Chemistry. Xu and her research group used block copolymers – long sequences or “blocks” of one type of monomer bound to blocks of another type of monomer – as a platform to guide the self-assembly of nanorods into complex structures and hierarchical patterns. Block copolymers have an innate ability to self-assemble into well-defined arrays of nano-sized structures over macroscopic distances. (more…)

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Alcohol, Mood and Me (Not You)

Thanks in part to studies that follow subjects for a long time, psychologists are learning more about differences between people. In a new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the author describes how psychologists can use their data to learn about the different ways that people’s minds work.

Most psychology research is done by asking a big group of people the same questions at the same time. “So we might get a bunch of Psych 101 undergrads, administer a survey, ask about how much they use alcohol and what their mood is, and just look and see, is there a relationship between those two variables,” says Daniel J. Bauer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the author of the article. (more…)

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