MEMS is quickly becoming aspects of everyday commercial products (Wiis and measurings G’s in your Honda Prelude) and the future generation, NEMS, seems to be comming along quite well. Of course the next big thing, nanotubes, is involved.
Researchers at TU Delft, The Netherlands, have succeeded in measuring the influence of a single electron on a vibrating carbon nanotube. This research can be important for work such as the development of ultra-small measuring instruments. READ MORE
Another item, this time a childhood toy, goes digital. The Rubik’s cube has gotten a touchscreen makeover. As neat as it looks this just means batteries and lower reliability. The original would last forever, unless you were trying to cheat, but most of all there’s something more satisfying shifting the various planes with speedy twisting motions. How fast could you solve it?
How you ask…..well…..
Non-volatile EEPROM provides designers the flexibility to Program DAC input codes, Configuration bits and I2C™ address bits to the EEPROM using I2C serial-interface commands. The result is that this data is held during power-off time, making the MCP4728 DAC’s configuration and outputs available immediately after power-up.
What DAC has the power to do this?
The new MCP4728 Quad DAC w/EEPROM. In addition here are some other benefits related to power consumption:
Each channel in the MCP4728 DAC can be individually shut down, thereby reducing power consumption to as low as 0.04 microamperes, which helps to extend battery life. Further, the on-chip precision output amplifier enables a rail-to-rail analog output, for utilization of the entire voltage range.
Want to learn more?
There are many methods of fire detection; from heat, photo, ion, gases and even video & infrared. Check this video shot on location in Ireland by a castle that burn down over eight hundred years ago and had to be rebuilt because it lacked proper fire detection. Two methods are compared. The results may surprise you.
With the Wiimote of course!
Simon Wittber of Australian firm Transmin is lucky enough to have two remote-controlled grapple arms and so he and his team decided to link up Nintendo’s controller using Python via Bluetooth for some entertainment.
