Nano Technology Innovation

Nano Technology Innovation

The future of Nano Technology includes advances in circuitry and medical technology. Below are some innovations currently being sought using nano-technology. The video has a few additional items as well.

Nanotubes

Nanotubes are hollow cylinders made of carbon atoms. Doctors could someday use them as miniscule syringes for injecting cells with drugs from within the body, or as nanoscale diagnostic probes the patient would never feel. They can also be filled and sealed, forming test tubes or potential drug delivery devices. Here, an array of nanotubes engage in what their creators at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory call “impalefection,” the capturing of genetic materials by impaling cells (a hamster’s ovary cells in this case). In the future, nanotubes could help identify DNA mutations associated with a risk of cancer.

Nanowire

This glowing silica nanowire is wrapped around human hair. It looks delicate—it is about five times smaller than a virus—but it is several times stronger than spider silk. Researchers have developed coated nanowires that bind to certain proteins that can indicate the presence of prostate cancer before conventional tests can. Other potential applications for nanowires include the early sensing of breast and ovarian malignancies. Nanowires are so small that doctors could one day implant them into the body as permanent health detectives that continuously monitor molecular levels.

Nanoshells

Nanoshells are hollow silica spheres covered with gold. Scientists can attach antibodies to their surfaces, enabling the shells to target certain cells such as cancer cells. In mouse tests, Naomi Halas's research team at Rice University directed infrared radiation through tissue and onto the shells, causing the gold to superheat and destroy tumor cells while leaving healthy ones intact. Technicians can control the amount of heat with the thickness of the gold (three different thicknesses are seen here) and the kind of laser. Nanoshells could one day also be filled with drug-containing polymers. Heating them would cause the polymers to release a controlled amount of the drug. Human trials using gold nanoshells are slated to begin in a couple of years.

Nano technology is expected to provide many advances in the medical and electronics fields. Here are some of those predictions!

Entertainment-on-demand

Delta Airlines On Demand Entertainment

The report item that I reflected on was the E-Commerce with a focus on entertainment on demand. When I look at my Netflix account, I see all of the capabilities that I enjoy on demand. As long as I have a connection on my computer or HDTV, I can access any video, television show or movie that is available in their library. I can even view a movie that I want while my kids view one in another room without movie piracy issues. While the article mentions application downloads by Apple for videos and music content, the items are still protected so that they can be licensed to one device. If I purchase a song or video, I should be able to watch it on any device I wish, I own the download. The article goes on to state that BitTorrent is organizing the entertainment industry to deliver movies and TV shows online while Turner Entertainment is using holographic discs to store movies. Technology Forecasts by experts with a 80% confidence: From Promise to Mainstream by suggest that major improvements in online entertainment availability will take off over the next three years. With the scalability of IT frameworks, it will only be a matter of time before we see the disappearance of modern day cable television.

The Future of Nanotechnology with Podcast

Nanotechnology is the science and application of creating objects on a level smaller than 100 nanometers.  The extreme concept of nanotechnology is the "bottom up" creation of virtually any material or object by assembling one atom at a time.  Although nanotech processes occur at the scale of nanometers, the materials and objects that result from these processes can be much larger.

Nanotechnology spans and merges disciplines dealing with matter at the micro level (physics, chemistry, and biology) with those dealing with matter at the macro level (engineering, materials science and computer science).

Basic nanomachines are already in use. Nanobots will be the next generation of nanomachines. Advanced nanobots will be able to sense and adapt to environmental stimuli such as heat, light, sounds, surface textures, and chemicals; perform complex calculations; move, communicate, and work together; conduct molecular assembly; and, to some extent, repair or even replicate themselves

Nanotechnology has the potential to completely revolutionize the electronics industry.  Nanomachines may some day create computer circuits from the “bottom up” -- one atom at a time. This would allow the manufacturing of nanochips on a much smaller scale than chips created with current “top down” etching techniques.  Nanocrystalline processes can also be used to grow electronics components.  For example: (1) carbon nanotubes grown in targeted micro-environments can have super-conductive properties; and (2) nanowires as small as strings of atoms can be grown like crystals and then assembled into circuits.  Circuits created atom-by-atom or grown using nanocrystalline techniques will be much smaller, lighter, efficient, cooler, stronger, and faster than circuits made with conventional manufacturing processes.

In the telecommunications industry, nanotechnology will play an important role in the coming years particularly with respect to fiber optics.  Nanocrystalline materials can be made with finer resolution than standard fibers for enhanced optic cables, switches, lenses and junctions.  In telecommunications more generally, the fields of nanotechnology and holotechnology will overlap in the design of the projection screens and user interfaces of the next generations of holographic cell phones, “Holographones,” and televisions, “HoloTVs.”.Virtual Reality

The Podcast for this Blog is located at the following link:

http://www.filefactory.com/file/ca1187d/n/NanoTech_Podcast.mp3