Tokyo or Karachi?

Those considering relocating abroad will want to look at the recent Mercer's Cost of Living rankings. It may even be useful for those considering the venue for an international conference. Mercer measured the comparative cost of living for in 214 major cities including renting an apartment, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment. The overall rankings being heavily influenced by the local cost of suitable accommodation. The top five, most expensive, cities in the rankings for 2012 were: Tokyo, Luanda, Osaka, Moscow and Geneva. Karachi in Pakistan was bottom of the list rated as being one-third as expensive as Tokyo. Other rankings included: London (25), New York (33) and Paris (37). Some US cities appear quite cheap with Chicago ranked at 110 and Washington DC at 107.

Softwear

The US military need for stealth bombers and smart munitions I can understand but automated garment manufacturing? US agency DARPA has just awarded a contract with the stated goal of having complete production facilities that produce garments with zero direct labour. The $1.25 million funding is to create a beta unit at SoftWear Automation, Inc. to develop a numerically controlled sewing machine that tracks fabric movement by observing passing threads and under servo control moves the fabric under the needle stitch by stitch. But with an estimated annual military clothing budget estimated at $4 billion the potential savings from an automated sweatshop are real and probably avoid unpleasant human rights, poverty wage discussions.

Sequoia stands tall

The bi-annual TOP500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers shows that IBM has regained top spot. The supercomputers were ranked according to The Linpack Benchmark test which gives each computer a petaflop/s score (quadrillion floating-point operations per second). Sequoia, the IBM BlueGene/Q system at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory tested at 16.32 petaflop/s compared to second place, Fujitsu's K Computer with 10.51 petaflop/s. The 96 rack Sequoia is used to carry out simulations to help extend the life of aging nuclear weapons. The first list in 1993 was headed by the CM-5/1024 designed by Thinking Machines; the 2012 IBM machine is 273,930 times faster. The IBM 'Blue Joule' at the STFC Daresbury Laboratory is the UK's top supercomputer listed as number 13 in the world.

Solar cells for windows

A team at UCLA have developed a transparent solar cell that is an advance toward giving windows in homes and other buildings the ability to generate electricity while still allowing people to see outside. Based on the PEDOT:PSS polymer with a silver metal oxide composite electrode, the devices can exhibit a 66% transparency whilst simultaneously giving a 4% power conversion efficiency. The polymer solar cells are lightweight, flexible and can be produced in high volumes and at low costs.

Brighter lights

US Department of Energy (DoE) aims to develop all aspects of solid state lighting (SSL). Three new DoE projects will focus on improving SSL manufacturing equipment, processes, or monitoring techniques. Cree, Inc. will develop an optimized LED fixture design for efficient manufacture that can be readily integrated into buildings; KLA Tencor, Inc. will seek to improve the colour consistency of LEDs by utilizing a measurement tool during manufacturing that reduces the variation in LED quality; k-Space Associates, Inc. will develop optical metrology for use during volume OLED manufacturing, the tool will measure layer thickness and composition to ultimately control the efficiency, colour, and lifetime of OLEDs. Total funding for the three projects is $7.1 million and leverages an additional $5 million in private-sector funding from the three companies.

Croeso i Gymru

Last month saw the announcement that Cardiff based IQE plc will acquire the in-house MBE epi-wafer manufacturing unit of RFMD. RFMD outsources all MOCVD-based starting material, and will outsource MBE-based starting material with the completion of the transfer. In addition, RFMD and IQE have entered into a long term agreement with IQE supplying RFMD both MBE and MOCVD deposited wafers. The assets transferred to IQE include a fully fitted cleanroom of over 90,000sq ft, 16 MBE manufacturing systems and associated equipment, all currently housed in a stand-alone building in Greensboro, NC, USA. IQE will use any spare capacity from the transferred MBE facility to meet the growing demand for concentrator photovoltaic solar products. RFMD view this outsourcing approach as being a route to lower manufacturing costs.

Graphene solar cells

Whilst still less than 10% efficient a team at The University of Florida has produced higher efficient graphene solar cells. The group was able to achieve an impressive 8.6 percent efficiency device by chemically doping, the graphene with trifluoromethanesulfonyl-amide. Their results are published in the online edition of Nano Letters.

Gamma optics

Experimenting at the Institut Laue-Langevin scientists at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching have been using silicon prisms to look at the diffraction of gamma rays. The group is looking at gamma ray optics applications for the possible three dimensional, micrometre scale brain mapping of the impact of lithium based drugs used to treat depression.

Apfel Fernsehen?

Maybe, maybe not. Are Apple really making a TV? A (later denied) press comment last month by Apple's partner Foxconn seemed to indicate that they are working with Sharp in Japan to prepare for production of the Apple television set. However the rumour mill further accelerated with a Reuters story that Apple is looking to buy the German based premium television set manufacturer Loewe AG. If this story ever does end and the fabled TV comes into existence I really cannot even begin to contemplate the queues that will engulf the Apple stores and their environs.

Raspberry snap

Those clever chaps at Raspberry Pi have demonstrated a camera module for their low cost computer ($35 gets you 256Mb RAM, 2 USB port and an Ethernet port and there is a lower spec $25 version). They don’t have a price for the camera module yet as they need to finalise the exact hardware. They have promised to ensure that it’s very affordable.

Lobe to joy?

As Beethoven's hearing declined, the composer devised a way to hear music through his jawbone by biting onto a rod attached to his piano. This effect, know as bone/tissue conduction, is being put to good effect by Japanese mobile telephone manufacturer Kyocera to help overcome difficulties in hearing due to high ambient noise. Kyocera's phone display vibrates to create sound waves that are transmitted to your inner ear when you press the phone on your ear. In essence, the phone itself acts like a low powered speaker, but instead of a membrane, it is the actual screen that vibrates to emit sound waves. The sound waves then travel through your ear and skin by tissue conduction to reach the cochlea.