Even as I am getting ready to post about nanoantennas that are revolutionizing high-speed networks, there’s news of Andy Pag, the green traveller of Biotruckexpedition arrested for carrying Sat phone banned in India! To put it in a nutshell, technology can help you cross the borders but you also run the risk of losing your freedom!! We are back to square one, aren’t we!!!

Nanoantennas for high-speed data networks
More than 120 years after the discovery of the electromagnetic character of radio waves by Heinrich Hertz, wireless data transmission dominates information technology. Higher and higher radio frequencies are applied to transmit more data within shorter periods of time.

According to the Labspaces report, Some years ago, scientists found that light waves might also be used for radio transmis-sion. So far, however, manufacture of the small antennas has required an enormous expenditure. KIT scientists have now succeeded for the first time in specifically and reproducibly manufacturing smallest optical nanoantennas from gold.

American Scientist has recently posted a story that talks about ‘navigating the cosmos on the winds of starlight’.

“Sailing on light is the only technology that can someday take us to the stars.” according to Louis Friedman, director of the Planetary Society, the worldwide organization of space enthusiasts. Nanomaya had already posted a story how during some 2000 years ago the world’s first Hi-tech Aircraft, a starship that could refuel itself from the sun’s energy is mentioned in the “Vimana Shastra”.

It seems like every civilization reaches its peak of renaissance and eventually fades away into lost terrains because of some catastrophy either nature driven or because of manmade irrevocable decisions. And then in bits and parts it rediscovers again to reinvent itself and how it seems astonished at the relics as seen in the in the pyramids and other historical evidences that suddenly come to light.

Read more about the latest starship LightSail-1 in the American scientist as it is dubbed, it will not make it to Neverland. At best the device will sail a few hours and gain a few miles in altitude. But those hours will mark a milestone for a dream that is almost as old as the rocket age itself, and as romantic: to navigate the cosmos on winds of starlight the way sailors for thousands of years have navigated the ocean on the winds of the Earth.
 

Online collaboration has come of age and the new scientist is a geek from anywhere; Japan, India, Russia, or Toronto. No visas, no entry fees, all you need is a digital network, and if you can solve a problem, you get rich instantly, thanks to InnoCentive. 

Driven by the wisdom of the crowd, the online lab InnoCentive is an opensource innovation marketplace where engineers, scientists, geeks and problem solvers of the world hangout for some innovative fun, passion, real life puzzle, and some cash. Yeah, I suppose you could call this the Las Vegas of the Geeks, except it is your ideas that are at stake here.

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What’s the Dance of Shiva got to do with nanotechnologies? Intrigued? Tim Harper of Cientifica speculates about creative destruction and credit crunch in his white paper Nanotechnologies 2009.

Check it out for the bit about academic funding, its lack of mechanism to spend a potential of $22.5Bn revenue, and for other insights into investments in nanosolar, cleantech and nanomaterials.

Welcome to nanoblogging. If Twitter lets you blog with a 140 word limit, here is Adocu, which lets you post only one word. Your post would look something like this: whatnextonesyllablepost?

And folks were worried about English language going to dogs, now it’s gone cuckoo with all that tweeting and chirping. Looks like there’s going to be a lot of bird talk in the future of the blogosphere.

Move over fast cars. What, still running on fossil fuel? Move over dude, it’s high time you changed gears to clean tech. Not driving a hybrid? Here’s your chance to wipe out your carbon footprint, at least in the virtual world of gaming. For, it is blooming hot in the world of playstations with the world’s first climate change game “Flower”.
 
What the hell is Flower power? Imagine your favourite town with all your favourite cars zooming in and out, but it is a desolate landscape. There are no flowers, nothing to soothe you visually. you are driving in a concrete jungle and here’s your chance to recreate the paradise lost. Play the Flower, for a change.
 
“The game is very abstract. You control a flower petal, guiding it with a gust of wind through blighted, brown landscapes. As you touch different flowers, you gradually bring the landscape back to life — and trees and grass burst into color..”>>More.

If you want to know whether the Obama government will be nano friendly or not, here is a post about nano lessons for Obama. The blog suggests that since science is a long term project and as politics and science have never really mixed, the nanoscene it seems, is not very optimistic. After all, there are other more urgent political issues, terrorism and economy for starters. But there are lessons to be learnt from the Blair government suggests Cientifica.

Mmm I read somewhere about Moscow investing billions of dollars to be used in the military warfare on the rapid development of nanotechnology to achieve leadership in the world market. Now, why do I have this uncanny feeling that Obama will want to jump into playing the leadership game.