/ News
Printed lasers can make your wallpaper 'smart'
A University of Cambridge team has used liquid crystals in place of ink to print tiny dots on a surface covered with a special coating.
Once the coating dries, the dots become lasers, the researchers wrote in the journal Soft Matter.
A laser is a directed form of light of a specific range of colours.
They have well-defined wavelengths, whereas sunlight or the light from a bulb have a very broad wavelength range and consist of many colours.
Lasers can be produced via a variety of methods, one of them using liquid crystals (LCs), familiar from liquid crystal displays or LCDs, such as some computer monitors or flat-screen TVs.
To make a laser, molecules in a LC material have to be aligned in a certain way. To do so, liquid crystal is usually poured between two glass plates covered with a specific coating that makes the molecules align in a particular manner.
But the recent work uses standard ink-jet printing and a polymer solution film - with the polymer being similar to regular white glue used in arts and crafts - to align the molecules.
"Until now, no one has been able to print lasers; the materials typically used to make lasers only work on certain surfaces and after extensive, and expensive, manufacturing processes," Damian Gardiner of Cambridge University, one of the team members, told the BBC.
"A laser requires three things to work: a cavity, or space between two mirrors so light can bounce back and forth, a 'gain' medium to increase the amount of light, and energy.
"Our laser uses the special optical properties of the LC to get rid of the mirrors, and a dye is added to give gain.
"However, the key thing is that it is a liquid system - and can therefore be inkjet-printed, very inexpensively."
'Smart' wallpaper
The scientists printed hundreds of small liquid crystal dots onto a wet film, and as the film dries, the molecules in LC align and the dots turn into individual lasers.
One of the potential uses could be "smart wallpaper" in museums, said Mr Gardiner's colleague, W-K Hsiao.
"You can produce hundreds and thousands of small lasers in one step, using technology not very different to the one you use to print letters and holiday photos at home," he said.
"The lasers can be used for various display and lighting applications, or they can encode information and turn any surface into a 'smart surface'.
"If you print a museum wallpaper with laser dots inside, blind people who walk around the museum with a low-power scanner can this way know which room they're in, what exhibition is displayed, and where they have to turn to find an emergency exit."
In the past, researchers have used other non-traditional ways to create laser light - for instance, by using a living cell.
Modern applications of lasers range from DVD players, surgical equipment and supermarket scanners to industrial machinery and the latest Nasa rover, Curiosity, which uses lasers to probe the Mars surface.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19641112
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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