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Augmented reality and the outerweb might just be the next big thing according to the SXSW conference. The South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference has been highly anticipated since the beginning of the year. It is one of the biggest and longest set of conferences dedicated to music, film and technology. The interactive leg of the SXSW is ongoing and scheduled at March 12 to 16 and before it’s even over, there have been lots of comments about the topics in the conference.
One of the topics is Augmented Reality (AR) and the outerweb. Augmented reality is basically technology that overlays information onto something that exists in the real world. The information can be anything and come from the web or be generated from the application itself. For example, our picture above shows an iPhone being pointed at a location and using Wikitude, with information appearing about the location. The outerweb on the other hand refers to the information that extends outside the normal broadband networks and into the real world, mainly via the screens of mobile devices. Apparently, AR and outerweb apps are being highly invested in and should be looked out for in the future. Someday you’ll be leaving a digital signature on your house door and a visitor need only to point his camera-phone at your door to confirm that it is indeed your house.
Higher capacity batteries in the form of lithium sulfide cathodes.
Researchers at the Stanford University have developed lithium-sulfur technology to be used for batteries. Not unlike today’s more common Li-ion batteries, the lithium-sulfur battery has a cathode composed of lithium sulfide and an anode made of silicon nanowire that the same set of researchers developed back in 2007. The lithium-sulfur battery appears to be safer than the Li-ion with less probability of explosions, and has 80% more capacity. The downside to this battery in development is that it’s currently rated at only 40-50 charge cycles, as opposed to the 300-500 of Li-ion. But the technology seems to be promising and we should expect developments as the technology matures.
Cheaper solar-hydrogen system
Since we are on the topic of battery and energy, Arstechnica reports that researchers from Norwich have found a way of directly converting solar energy into fuel. The problem with solar energy before was storage, and converting it into fuel makes it easier to store. In this system, water (in an electrolytic solution) is broken down into its composite atoms hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis. While the idea of electrolyzing water to break it down to hydrogen and oxygen is not new, the idea of using indium phosphide in solar panels and iron-sulfur catalysts to speed up the electrolysis is a new and cheap way to use the sun’s power to harness hydrogen. The technology, however is still far from finding its way into stores because the cathode and the anode used for the circuit are gold and platinum, respectively, and can be quite expensive.
99.9% out of China - Google
Google is practically out the door as it announces that it is 99.9% sure that it will shutdown its Chinese search engine google.cn. Because the negotiations with the Chinese government seem to be futile, Google already has plans to close the Chinese search engine but still maintain operations in China.
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