There is a need to advance it in some ways. Therefore we are trying to design it in a sturdy and strong in its construction and make an authentic arrangement that will really stay up above for months.

The test continued going on between 28 and 31 July. UK Ministry of Defense remained involved in that experiment. The 30kg Zephyr was operated by remote control. It made a flight at the height more than of 18km (60,000ft). It continued flying on autopilot and thru satellite communication. It tried out a communications load having a weight about 2kg.

At first glance, the propeller-driven Zephyr appears to be exactly some other model aircraft. It is even set up by hand. This “pilotless” craft with its 18-metre wingspan contains best available technologies.

Its construction employs ultra-lightweight carbon-fiber material. The aircraft continued flying on solar power - produced by amorphous silicon solar panel - thin as sheets of paper. These are pasted over the vehicle’s wings by glue.

To work in the night, the propellers are provided energy from lithium-sulphur batteries. These batteries are filled up with energy throughout the day under sunlight. Much of work is required for power storage and light-weighting down the arrangements,” told by Mr. Kelleher. He said that Lithium sulphur is advantageous for its energy density. It is more than double as compared to the most beneficial substitute technology - lithium polymer batteries.

Zephyr has proved that it can withstand in the extremes of temperature. It was tested in the very hot 45C heat at the surface level in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert and also to the minus 70C at heights of more than 18km (60,000ft).

The technologists from the Farnborough-based company are at present cooperating with the American aerospace jumbo Boeing. Their joint collaboration is on a defense project codenamed Vulture.

This would see the largest plane in history go for the sky. The energy provided by the sun. It would be able of containing a 450-kilo (1,000lb) load. QinetiQ is also preparing UAV technology for non-military uses.

A UK-based company constructed solar-powered plane which made up a new world endurance record. The test carried out was not official one. It was a flight of unmanned (remotely controlled) aircraft.

The Zephyr-6 remained up in the air for more than 72 hours. At night it got power from the batteries which were recharged daytime in the light of the sun. The flight was a presentation for the US military.

It was a Try to discover new forms of technology which could be used to back up the troops on the land. Craft like Zephyr may build ultimate standard of perfection programs for reconnaissance. They could also be used to convey information in the battlefield.

Chris Kelleher who is working in UK defense and research company QinetiQ told some useful facts about that. He said that Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is very much advantageous as compared to conventional aircraft and even satellites. The biggest advantage is perseveration. It means that you would be there all the time.

The latest experiment was carried out at the US Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. The Zephyr made a flight for 82 hours, 37 minutes; it was continuous flight. This flight breaks the previous official world record for remote-controlled flight. That record was built by the US robot plane Global Hawk. It flew continuously for 30 hours and 24 minutes.

It also broke its own previous best of 54 hours. That record was made by Zephyr last year. However, the Yuma labeled it as an unofficial. The reason is that QinetiQ did not engage the FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale) as a participant in the whole activity. FAI is the world air sports federation, which approves all record efforts. The US Department of Defense financed the presentation flight. It was a part of their Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) programme.

This programme is designed to encourage the technologies which the American commanders wanted to have with them in the field. Mr. Kelleher said that we believe Zephyr is very close to be used practically in field. It will take maximum of two years to get what we are proposing for.

The new catalyst is amorphous without having any distinct structure. It is not stable in form and breaks down after performing its job. But it has the ability to repair itself which enables it to work continuously.

In the experimental method adopted by Nocera, he inserts an indium tin oxide electrode in a container of water. That water was already mixed with cobalt and potassium phosphate. When he applied voltage to that electrode, the chemicals – cobalt, potassium and phosphate—present in the water gather on the electrode, making the catalyst. The oxidation process takes place due to that catalyst and water molecules splits producing oxygen gas and hydrogen ions. Hydrogen ions convert into hydrogen gas by reacting with the platinum catalyst coated electrode. As the hydrogen gas is produced, this cobalt-based catalyst cracks down. But as the solutions contain cobalt and potassium in it, both accumulate on the electrode and thus repair the catalyst.

That development was the part of the research program towards developing artificial photosynthesis inspired by the original photosynthesis process which produces useful fuels, such as hydrogen.

By this method Nocera has resolved the biggest issue in the development process of artificial photosynthesis regarding producing oxygen from water molecules.

Two steps still remain which also should be taken. Firstly there is a need to change expensive platinum material which is being used as a catalyst for making hydrogen from hydrogen ions. It should be replace with a cheap and abundant material similarly Nocera done with the oxygen catalyst.

Cheaper catalyst is not much difficult to find because there are many new materials which could be a good substitute to that expensive one. This was stated by John Turner, who is a principal investigator at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in Golden, Co.

The second issue which should also be resolved is that there is a need of development of a material which could produce electrons to power the water-splitting catalysts by absorbing sunlight.

There is still much engineering work needed to be done before putting the Nocera’s catalyst in commercial devices. The rate of oxygen production should be improved. Nocera and his co-researchers are confident that engineering work will be completed quickly and it will be soon in commercial use.

Researchers have developed a new advance method in organic chemistry regarding storing energy from the sunlight. The advantage of this advancement is that it would render a cheapest way towards producing electric power. The cost was considered as the top most issue in the energy generation process from sun light. Now it is much resolved by this method.

The chief role in this method is played by a newly developed catalyst. It is developed by Daniel Nocera, who is a professor of chemistry at MIT. This catalyst works to generate oxygen from water by breaking the bonds of water molecules. As a result of this reaction hydrogen ions are freed forming a hydrogen gas. The catalyst is simple and easy to produce in a very low cost. By making use of it big amount of hydrogen gas could be produced by taking sunlight to power the reaction. This hydrogen can be stored and used when the sunlight is not available. It can be later on burned or passes through a fuel cell to produce electric power when needed.

This method is feasible to work whole of the time but limitations are only with the solar cells because their efficiency persists for few hours a day. In these hours they are at the peak of their power generation process. Before this invention the method of using sunlight to split water after storing solar power in the form of hydrogen, was not practically feasible for two main reasons. First of all the proposed method required too much power to carry on that process and secondly the previous catalysts were too expensive to make and prepared by extremely rare source materials raising their preparation costs.

Nocera’s inventions will render key information to other chemical research groups working on developing artificial photosynthesis process. They are experimenting to develop a process by which plants use sunlight to split water and produce energy from it.

Karsten Meyer who is a professor of chemistry at Friedrich Alexander University, in Germany regarded this discovery as crucially innovative one.

He said that by this invention most of the researchers will be stopped working who were engaged in developing such a techniques. He further said that this could also be regarded as the most important and biggest discovery in the field of solar power.

The cost differs by $10 per barrel. This was stated by Hall. He says that a Fischer-Tropsch plant is having the capacity to produce a barrel of gasoline giving a production cost of $35 but by Synfuels refinery same amount of gasoline could be produced for just $25.

By making the calculations under current fuel prices, it is said by the company that this plant can cover up its own manufacturing cost in four years.

Texas A&M University has got license to own the Synfuels Company. It is presently having the partial ownership of the company. The company has been running a 50 million USD demonstration unit situated in Texas since the year 2005. In the near time it is hopefully said that it will also sign to establish its first commercial refinery which will be located near Kuwait City.

Paul Wolfe says that the company has developed few proprietary parts and chemicals to use as catalyst in the plant. Paul Wolfe is presently president of Synfuels. He further says that the best thing about Synfuels is that it cracks down and rejoins the hydrocarbon molecules in a very efficient manner. He told that we can proudly say that in today’s world nobody can claim that high level of conversion rate to convert natural gas into acetylene as we have claim to achieve.

Ali Mansoori is a professor of chemical engineering and physics currently doing research work at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He says that when we take this system from the complication point of view we found that its mechanism is very much simple than that complicated process of Fischer-Tropsch.

There are some other companies also researching to develop GTL more economical other than Synfuels. Gas Reaction Technologies is one of them; it is an establishment working under the University of California. They also claimed to develop a conversion process to form bromine-based compounds from natural gas. These bromine-based compounds are later processed to produce liquid fuels.

A Texas company has claimed of developing a new conversion method which is cheaper and cleaner one to create gasoline and other liquid fuels from natural gas. This method would render a way which is more economical to make use of natural-gas reserves which were difficult to develop due to small in size or located at far away places.
Synfuels International which is an American company based in Dallas, is working behind this technology. The company says that the process consists of just few steps. This decrease in the number of steps makes it far more efficient than other conventional techniques which are adopted in the Fischer-Tropsch process. By this process natural gas could be converted into syngas. Syngas is a gas mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. A catalyst used in this process, forces the carbon and hydrogen gas to rejoin resulting in the formation of other new compounds like alcohols and fuels.

Fisher-Tropsch process was first used In the World War II by Nazi Germany. They produced diesel by taking coal and coal-bed methane as a source material.

In a Synfuels gas-to-liquids (GTL) refinery natural gas is processed through number of steps to convert it into gasoline. This method is said to be having better overall efficiency. In the first step structure of natural gas is split by putting it under high temperatures to form acetylene, which is a simplest form of hydrocarbon. The next process includes a separate liquid-phase step. In this a proprietary catalyst is used which causes to convert 98 percent of the acetylene into ethylene. Ethylene is the most complex form of hydrocarbon. This ethylene is used to make several fuel products. The process of its conversion is easy at that stage. These end products include products like high-octane gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. All of these products are absolutely free of sulfur.

This process has enabled us to produce a barrel of gasoline with a low cost than produced through Fischer-Tropsch process. This is said by Kenneth Hall, who is the member of the inventor team of this process. He also remained at a time the head of Texas A&M University’s department of chemical engineering.

There was a time when animal and green life was present in the valleys of Antarctica which are now barren and does not have any sign of life on them. This was revealed by the scientists doing research work on that frozen continent. They recovered remains of life from that land.
These researchers further said that the fields we see now were tundra lands fourteen million years ago. Just as we see some regions of Alaska, Canada and Siberia. These areas were cold but were supporting the life.

Geoscientist Adam Lewis and his fellow-researchers found the remains of moss on a valley floor. All of them belong to North Dakota State University. They were doing study on ice cover of the continent.

After the reports came out of this discovery, a telephonic interview was taken from Lewis. He said that the moss was dried and frozen. He said that its condition was dissimilar to the fossils. Normally in fossils we see that minerals replace the soft materials. The moss tissues were present in their original form.

Lewis said that it is the best thing about this finding that all the details are present as they were, even after the 14 million years. The tissues were actually plant tissues.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published that report on its Tuesdays’ edition.
The researchers say that when we see to the wet-based glaciers, proglacial lakes, tundra plant life and the remains of the insects we conclude that 14 million years ago the climate of the western Olympus range was warmer and wetter as compared to todays. This thing also helps them in better understanding the climate system of Earth.

In the next step they moved already fabricated central plane array and associated electronics from a silicon wafer to the tensioned membrane that is stretched taut over a drum.
When this tension is free, the membrane attains its formal form. This procedure presses the focal plane arrangement.

As a result of this electrical interconnects, which are especially designed, delaminate from the rubber surface and make arcs, fastened on the ends by detector pixels.

By deforming the shape in this way provide housing for strains created during the planar to hemispherical transformation. This is achieved without stressing the silicon. This theory was practically proven by researchers at Northwestern during mechanics modeling.

The array package is then transfer printed to a matching hemispherical glass substrate. Attaching a lens and connecting the camera to external electronics completes the assembly. The camera has the size and shape of a human eye.

The research is going on since the last 20 years. Many scientists have worked to develop electronic eye systems of this type but none of them succeeded in making a working camera.
Roger said that through optics simulations and imaging examination we came to know that these arrangements a much broader field of view.

Not only this but also enhances illumination uniformity and causes fewer aberrations as compared to flat cameras which are having same type of imaging lenses. Roger is the scientist doing research at the Beckman Institute and at the university’s Frederick Setiz Materials Research Laboratory.

He said that hemispherical sensor arrangements are suitable to use as retinal implants as compared to flat sensing elements. It has the ability to cover superior quality silicon devices onto surfaces complicated in structure and biological tissues. This ability the design of electronic and optoelectronic device gets very interesting and powerful capabilities.

Scientists from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University developed electronic-eye camera.
The 7th august publish of Nature – a journal – described that scientists have succeeded in preparing a superior, hemispherical “eye” camera. This camera is employing a number of single-crystalline silicon sensors and electronics. Those components are set up in a stretchable and interlinked mesh. These scientists were doing research work at University of Illinois and Northwestern University.
This study work unfolds a new future prospect for progressed camera structures. It also indicates signs for artificial retinas for artificial eyes. Such type of eye-concepts has been used in many popular science fiction movies like “Terminator”.
By enwrapping surfaces with stretchy sheets of optoelectronics we get a practical way for incorporating two-dimensional device technologies onto composite curvilinear objects. It is said by John Rogers who is the Flory-Founder Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Illinois.
He also said that this idea made it possible to set electronics in positions where it was difficult to place previously. He said that at present we are able to enhance device design beyond the flatland simplicities of formal wafer-based systems.

The design of this newly developed camera is derived from human eye. This design consists of simple, single-constituent lens and a hemispherical sensing element. The sensing element is incorporated with a hemispherical cap and imaging lens system by the camera. This arrangement brings in a system which is having the same size, shape and layout as human eye has.
The scientists doing research work on that created this camera by molding a thin rubber membrane in the form of a hemisphere. After this they elongated that membrane with especially designed mechanical stage to give it a shape of flat drumhead.

More than 40 years passed since the computer mouse has been invented. After this long time, today one renowned research company says that only few years are left when the use of mouse will end up. A Gartner, who is the analyst, said that in the next three to five years the use of computer mouse will end up.

Gestural computer mechanisms will replace the mouse. Touch screens and facial recognition devices are the two examples of the machines in this category.

Steve Prentice said that in the places where desktop systems are being used mouse will remain in use. But for home entertainment or working on the notebook people will prefer to get latest technologies as we early mentioned.

He told BBC News that the new intentions of the consumer electronic company make him to state like that. He said that these companies are making efforts to provide their customers the products with new interactive interfaces inspired by the world of gaming.

 As we know that Panasonic has introduced forward facing video technology in the home entertainment environment. In this release, the conventional remote control is not used. It simply works on the movement of hands; just hold up your hand and make it to do what you want.

This technology recognizes the face of the user and displays on the TV screen the menu to select from. The user can select the option by moving his hand around.

This kind of technology is also being used by Sony, Canon and other major video and photographic manufacturing companies. The technologies being used by them even recognize face expressions in real time. It even has the sense to feel the smile of the user.

One revolutionary creation is the system is the technology which even recognizes emotions of the person. This is called emotive system technology. The user only wears a headset and controls a computer by just thinking in his mind. That device is not yet introduced in the market but expected to be released in the coming September. The technologies like that will make the things smaller in future.

On the other hand, the senior managers of mouse and keyboard manufacturing companies say that all that is greatly exaggerated. Despite of this comment from the responsible persons, it is undeniable that in a near future some technology will definitely replace computer mouse.