Saturday, July 11, 2009

Fibers Could Replace Camera Lenses



Picture a wall that stares back at you. Or a uniform that shows a soldier a 360-degree view of the battlefield. Both scenarios are possible courtesy of a new generation of flexible, translucent fibers developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. These so-called multimaterial fibers can turn incoming light waves into images without the need for a camera lens. And unlike fiber optic cables, they can transmit images that have been captured across their entire length.
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The multimaterial fibers developed by the MIT team could solve this problem and provide a host of other benefits. The fibers consist of an array of metal electrodes connected to a semiconductor and are covered by an insulating polymer sheath. The semiconductor layer in the fiber detects light and relays signals via the electrodes to a microprocessor, which combines the signals from an array of the fibers to determine the light's intensity, direction, and color. Visualization software then takes that data and recreates the source image and displays it on a monitor screen. And the whole process is accomplished without a lens.

Source

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Thursday, July 02, 2009

PowerShares Lux Nanotech (ETF)

Here is the chart and composition of the PowerShares Lux Nanotech (ETF), probably the best Nanotech ETF in the market.



The fund holdings are as of 7/1/2009:

(Fund Holdings are subject to change)
% of Fund

Consumer Discretionary
3.00%
TM Toyota Motor Corp. (ADS) 3.00%

Financials
4.88%
TINY Harris & Harris Group Inc. 4.88%

Health Care
26.79%
FLML Flamel Technologies S.A. (ADS) 5.71%
BDSI BioDelivery Sciences International Inc. 5.54%
ACCL Accelrys Inc. 5.44%
ELN Elan Corp. PLC (ADS) 5.12%
NSPH Nanosphere Inc. 4.97%

Industrials
11.19%
HEV Ener1 Inc. 4.91%
MMM 3M Co. 3.19%
GE General Electric Co. 3.08%

Information Technology
31.24%
NVEC NVE Corp. 5.61%
VECO Veeco Instruments Inc. 5.52%
FEIC FEI Co. 5.47%
SMMX Symyx Technologies Inc. 5.20%
INTC Intel Corp. 3.24%
HPQ Hewlett-Packard Co. 3.14%
IBM International Business Machines Corp. 3.07%

Materials
22.90%
SDTH ShengdaTech Inc. 6.02%
HW Headwaters Inc. 5.58%
ALTI Altair Nanotechnologies Inc. 5.04%
DD E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. 3.16%
APD Air Products & Chemicals Inc. 3.09%

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