THE internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.

At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.

The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.

For more information please read the full article at Times Online.

OCANA, Spain (AFP) - US aircraft maker Boeing flew a plane that was powered by a hydrogen battery at the start of 2008 for the first time in aviation history, senior company officials said in Spain on Thursday.

“For the first time in the history of aviation, Boeing has flown a manned air plane that was powered by a hydrogen battery,” Boeing chief technology officer John Tracy told a news conference at the firm’s research centre in the central Spanish town of Ocana.

The plane, which used propellers, flew at a speed of 100 kilometres (62 miles) an hour for about 20 minutes at an altitude of about 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) using only the hydrogen battery for power, Boeing said in a statement.

Read the rest of this entry at Times Online.

Current solar airplanes are not designed to store energy and therefore have to land in cases of insufficient sunlight (clouds or night time). In so doing they mark the limits of solar energy. Other projects are seeking to fly remote controlled solar drones or hydrogen-powered airplanes. To demonstrate the formidable potential of renewable energies, Solar Impulse intends to place the bar much higher and have a piloted aircraft fly night and day without fuel.

Solar Impulse is building the first prototype airplane that aims to demonstrate the feasibility of flying day and night, only propelled by solar energy.

For Bertrand Piccard, the initiator and president of the project, this airplane is the symbol of the new technologies that our society ought to be capable of rallying behind it in order to economize the energy resources of our planet.

Solar Impulse, in this sense, really means what its name says. The sun provides the energy, but the impulse to use it has to be transmitted to people who are ready to receive it and carry it further. In any case, it demonstrates the importance of tomorrow’s adventures being linked to the search for a better quality of life.

The first test flights will take place in early 2009.

In 2011, Piccard and André Borschberg (CEO) will fly around the world with five stopovers.

IATA will help make this dream a reality by providing support including assistance in obtaining air traffic control clearance.

“In one year’s time, Solar Impulse will fly without any polluting emissions, but will carry only one person. To achieve IATA’s vision there are a little more than 40 years left to find a way to increase the payload to a few hundred passengers,” said Piccard. [Source]

Fast

BBC News and The Daily Telegraph wrote earlier this week about the French engineering giant Alstom who has unveiled a new high-speed train. The AGV (Automotrice Grande Vitesse) train will travel at up to 360km/h (224mph), powered by engines placed under each carriage.

Alstom compares the AGV - successor to the TGV - to the world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380 plane, in terms of importance and innovation. The capacity will be increased from 485 to 650 passengers, and at the same time reduce energy consumption by 15 percent. The train will also make less noise.

The first trains will hit the rails in Italy in 2011 and in France around 2014.

Faster

Another story that caught my eyes last week was the exploratory plans for a ultrafast eco-friendly passenger jet.

With funding from the European Space Agency, a team of engineers and scientists has come up with the A2, a plane they believe could carry 300 passengers at a top speed of more than 6400km/h (3,000mph)!

Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision

Movie characters from the Terminator to the Bionic Woman use bionic eyes to zoom in on far-off scenes, have useful facts pop into their field of view, or create virtual cross-hairs. Off the screen, virtual displays have been proposed for more practical purposes – visual aids to help vision-impaired people, holographic driving control panels and even as a way to surf the Web on the go.

The device to make this happen may be familiar. Engineers at the University of Washington have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.