Technologies

What Are Fire Extinguishing Balls? Back in the 19th century, glass balls containing fire suppressant liquids were widely used to fight fires. The design eventually fell out of fashion, and has only now begun to make a comeback in the industry. The fire extinguishing balls available today are not made of glass, but typically constructed with a foam casing wrapped in PVC. These products react to heat and flames quickly, causing the triggers embedded in the unit to respond and disperse the dry chemical fire suppressant locked inside. To actively fight a fire, it must be thrown or rolled into the flames, where it will activate and spread a dry-powdered fire extinguishing agent. Mono ammonium phosphate is commonly used as a non-toxic alternative that extinguishes flames of Class A, B or C fires. They are also passively effective, without human intervention. The devices are generally marked with brightly colored wrappers that denote their use and serve as a warning to those who may ...

What is Hyperloop and how does it work? Hyperloop is a proposed system of transport that would see pods or containers travel at high speeds through a tube that has been pumped into a near-vacuum. The train pods would either float using magnetic levitation technology or float using air caster "skis", similar to how pucks travel across an air hockey table. With so little friction in the tunnel, the pods would be able to travel at immense speeds with a projected top speeds of 760mph. T he pod would initially launch using an electric motor before levitation takes place and the pod can glide at cruising speed in the low-pressure environment. Tunnels for the Hyperloop would be built either above or below ground, at only around 3m in diameter, taking up a smaller ground footprint than traditional rail and road. Many of the current designs feature autonomous pods that can be launched on demand as frequently as every 20 seconds. Others suggest eco-friendly designs...

  Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. This covers both current work and concepts that are more advanced. In its original sense, nanotechnology refers to the projected ability to construct items from the bottom up, using techniques and tools being developed today to make complete, high performance products. One nanometer (nm) is one billionth, or 10 −9 , of a meter. By comparison, typical carbon-carbon  bond lengths , or the spacing between these atoms in a  molecule , are in the range  0.12–0.15 nm , and a  DNA  double-helix has a diameter around 2 nm. On the other hand, the smallest  cellular  life-forms, the bacteria of the genus Mycoplasma, are around 200 nm in length. By convention, nanotechnology is taken as the scale range  1 to 100 nm  following the definition used by the National Nanotechnology Initiative in the US. The lower limit is set by the siz...

What is the internet of things? The internet of things (or as it’s also known, IoT) isn’t new: tech companies and pundits have been discussing the idea for decades, and the first internet-connected toaster was unveiled at a conference in 1989. At its core, IoT is simple: it’s about connecting devices over the internet, letting them talk to us, applications, and each other. The popular, if silly, example is the smart fridge: what if your fridge could tell you it was out of milk, texting you if its internal cameras saw there was none left, or that the carton was past its use-by date? Where it’s most common, in Britain at least, is home heating and energy use – partially because the government is pushing energy companies to roll out smart meters (although it has been questioned whether it can be delivered on schedule). They have clever functions that let you turn on heating remotely, set it to turn down the temperature if it’s a sunny day, or even turn off ...

The frustrating ritual of assembling  Ikea  furniture is set to become a thing of the past. Ikea has developed a new range of products to simplify the assembly of flat-pack furniture by eliminating the need for bolts, screw drivers and allen keys. The Swedish retailer designed a new type of joint, called wedge towel, which enables furniture parts to snap together “like a jigsaw puzzle” for easier and quicker assembly. The company first tested the new click-together system five years ago across its Regissör storage products. It now intends to roll out the design across its entire furniture range, starting with the wooden Lisabo table, which is currently on sale. The furniture’s panels come with small ribbed protrusions, which easily slot into pre-drilled holes in the panels they’re meant to connect to. In an interview with design magazine  Dezeen  Ikea’s range and supply chief Jesper Brodin claimed that he was able to put together a table ...

Li-Fi vs Wi-Fi While some may think that Li-Fi with its 224 gigabits per second leaves Wi-Fi in the dust, Li-Fi's exclusive use of visible light could halt a mass uptake.  Li-Fi signals cannot pasas through walls, so in order to enjoy full connectivity, capable LED bulbs will need to be placed throughout the home. Not to mention, Li-Fi requires the lightbulb is on at all times to provide connectivity, meaning that the lights will need to be on during the day. What's more, where there is a lack of lightbulbs, there is a lack of Li-Fi internet so Li-Fi does take a hit when it comes to public Wi-Fi networks. In an announcement yesterday, an extension of standard Wi-Fi is coming and it's called Wi-Fi HaLow. This new project claims to double the range of connectivity while using less power. Due to this, Wi-Fi HaLow is reportedly perfect for battery powered devices such as smartwatches, smartphones and lends itself to Internet of Things devices s...

Definition The term has been in use since the 1990s, with some giving credit to  John Mashey  for coining or at least making it popular.  Big data usually includes data sets with sizes beyond the ability of commonly used software tools to  capture ,  curate , manage, and process data within a tolerable elapsed time.  Big data "size" is a constantly moving target, as of 2012  ranging from a few dozen terabytes to many  petabytes  of data.  Big data requires a set of techniques and technologies with new forms of integration to reveal insights from datasets that are diverse, complex, and of a massive scale. Big Data Big data is new and “ginormous” and scary –very, very scary. No, wait. Big data is just another name for the same old data marketers have always used, and it’s not all  that  big, and it’s something we should be embracing, not fearing. No, hold on. That’s not it, either. What I meant to say is that big data...