engineers

Zero emissions from liquid air

The Dearman Engine Company is developing an engine that runs on what most people would not think of as fuel, liquid air.

Call it a new kind of cold fusion. The pistons get pushed by the pressure of rapidly expanding air in the cylinder. Liquid air is stored at -256 degrees Fahrenheit. The engine pumps liquid air into the cylinder along with what Dearman calls a heat exchange fluid. The liquid air very quickly changes to a gaseous state as it reaches ambient temperature, expanding at the same time.

When the exhaust valves open, the only emission is air.

Using … Read more

NYC high school will train badly needed software engineers

While the general state of the American labor market these days is dismal, talented software engineers can easily find themselves fielding multiple lucrative job offers.

In part, it's because technology companies are sprouting up everywhere and hiring like crazy. And it's also because there's a dearth of people skilled enough to build the software that's powering all these new outfits.

That shortage is one of the main reasons a group of influential New Yorkers--led by, among others, Union Square Ventures' top-tier VC Fred Wilson and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's education team--will be opening … Read more

Bing surpasses Yahoo in searches for first time ever

Microsoft has finally won second place among search engines.

Carving out 15.1 percent of the market in December, Bing narrowly outstripped the 14.5 percent share eked out by Yahoo, according to data released yesterday by market researcher ComScore.

Of course, Google still led the search engine market with a whopping 65 percent share.

But December was the first month in which Microsoft outshone its competitor and partner Yahoo, according to a Citi analyst cited by TechCrunch. As always, ComScore's numbers include only explicit core searches that people manually enter on a Web page.

Under the hood, Microsoft … Read more

Steam power engine maker to sponsor conference

Sacramento, Calif. is going to get a little steamy this weekend as the International Association for the Advancement of Steam Power and the Steam Automobile Club of America kick off a conference on the latest developments in steam power technology.

Ten steam-powered cars will be on display at the first-ever IAASP conference, to be held January 13, 14, and 15 at the California Automobile Museum. Conference participants will include steam automobile owners and developers, modern steam locomotive experts, small steam power plant developers and manufacturers, engineers, and enthusiasts.

Cyclone Power Technologies, the company that created the engine for a Cyclone-Williams LSR streamliner, … Read more

The new politics of Silicon Valley: Revenge of the nerds

commentary It was a dangerous year for innovation. Governments around the world became increasingly aware that digital technology could disrupt the political and economic status quo.

Lawmakers and lobbyists were calling for new laws to curb innovations that challenged traditional law enforcement and old ways of doing business. But the laws would have stifled innovation far beyond their intended goals. Technology industry leaders sounded the alarm, but their voices went largely unheard in the corridors of power.

But one proposal gave birth to an organized resistance. Top government officials tried to force industry to re-engineer key technologies to dramatically expand … Read more

OP-1, a portable synth with motion control

These days, a humble smartphone or tablet can be used to create music that would probably have required a bulky electronic keyboard a decade ago. Having all the controls on a touch screen, however, may not be every digital-music composer's cup of tea.

That's where the OP-1 portable synthesizer by Sweden-based company Teenage Engineering comes in. The device has a minimalist aluminum chassis and modular-looking keys, which should make it look right at home next to Apple laptops. … Read more

Scientist reveals Santa's technology

I get quite a lot of e-mails from 7-year-olds. At least the content suggests they're 7-year-olds.

So I would like to dedicate the film I have embedded to them. For it reveals, once and for all--with a definitiveness that offers vast relief--what technology Santa Claus uses in order to bring the gift of, well, tons of gifts to the world's young and restless.

Larry Silverberg, associate head of North Carolina State University's Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, has clearly spent much of his life attempting to solve the Santa problem.

I am grateful to WRAL in North Carolina … Read more

Find and replace it with Seeker

Seeker is a powerful freeware search tool that can replace the built-in Windows search feature. It offers advanced search-and-replace capabilities, regular expression searches, several reporting modes, and superfast, highly targeted searching.

Seeker's user interface resembles Office's design a bit, with expandable sections in its left-side control panel and a main report view with draggable categories. Under Search Criteria, we could enter everything from wildcard searches to highly specific file types, a specific word or phrase in the file, and include or exclude our listed files, as well as telling Seeker to search subfolders, ignore case, or use regular … Read more

Pinnacle engine: Two pistons, one explosion

Over the roar from a 110-cc, two-cylinder engine, Pinnacle Engines founder James Cleeves (nicknamed Monty), pointed out a window in the block.

"You can see the cylinder sleeve moving for the intake stroke," he yelled over the din. Mostly what I could see was oil bubbling in the tiny window, hidden behind the spinning bands driving the camshafts. On the other side of the block was a bigger belt, joining the engine's two crankshafts and spinning at 4,000rpm, the current test speed. The safety glasses I was issued on entering the test room would be little … Read more