Items tagged with circuit
Three atoms thick. According to a paper published this week in the science journal Nature by a group of researchers from Cornell University, that is the breadth of the transistors that can now be produced using an experimental — and highly conductive — material called transition metal dichalcogenide (also called a TMD). We aren't talking five atoms thick, or even four (because any schmoe with a hobbyist chemistry set can do that), but transistors rendered at a thickness of just three atoms. As it applies to theoretical science and human achievement, the harnessing of TMD for practical use is quite remarkable. It is the prospective leaps that could potentially be made in technological hardware...
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Homemade gadgets seem to be all the rage these days, and while programming used to be reserved for nerds, it's also becoming a more mainstream hobby. And honestly, a cheaper hobby to get into. With small Arduino boards becoming more popular, Olympia Circuits is jumping into the mix with the Arno Shield. It contains all the components necessary to learn Arduino programming when plugged into an Arduino compatible board without any messy wires. The original Arno Learning Kit was introduced last year, and the Shield provides another way for new users to dive into the world of Arduino and breaks down barriers to learning about microcontrollers. To allow for a wide range of learning projects, the shield...
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The world has come a long way in the world of embedded computing, with more and more power now able to squeeze onto integrated circuits versus having to use discrete processors and the like. Integrated graphics are far more powerful now than they were, and integrated processors in general are far more capable now than ever before. But there is still a long ways to go in making fewer things discrete, namely the battery. The battery has held back innovation in consumer electronics for as long as portable devices have been around; regardless of how great a design is, there must always be consideration made for a battery. Drats. Oki Printed Circuits is hoping to change our opinion on these batteries...
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America’s third largest electronics retailer with 721 stores in the U.S. and 770 in Canada, has petitioned for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond. After losing money in five of the last six quarters and announcing last week it would close 155 stores, Circuit City is seeking bankruptcy protection amidst fears that it would not be able to pay its vendors. The company presently owes Hewlett-Packard Co.$119 Million and Samsung Electronics Co. $116 million.A deal earlier this year that involved Blockbuster Inc. buying the retailer fell through when a preliminary offer was withdrawn. "On Sept. 29, Circuit City reported a loss of $239.2 million that was more than triple from...
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If you are thinking of taking advantage of Circuit City's closing of 155 retail store locations to score a sweet deal on a new HDTV, the folks over at HD Guru warn that not only are deals not to be had, but that you might actually wind up paying more for it and potentially taking home a lemon. HD Guru visited a Circuit City in Massapequa, New York that is closing, to investigate what deals were to be had. What they found was alarming. At this particular Circuit City location, HDTVs were being sold at ten percent off "pre-closeout" prices. The only problem is that the pre-closeout prices were actually jacked-up from what Circuit City sell the same HDTV models for on CircuitCity.com. The end result...
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A number of rumors were circulating around the web on Sunday, with more than one site saying that on Monday Circuit City will be announcing the closure of 155 stores around the nation. It's just another bad news item for the struggling retailer, which according to a form filed with the SEC Thursday, has been warned by the NYSE that its stock was "below criteria" because the average closing price was less than $1 per share for the 30 previous days. With that warning, Circuit City has six months to get the stock's price up. As long as the average 30-day closing price is more than $1 sometime during the next six months, it will continue to be listed on the NYSE. On Friday, Circuit City stock closed...
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Since moving to the "top of the world," everything Apple does is watched - and watched carefully. With iPhone launches done (though iPhone shortages still of interest), some have turned their eyes toward the more mundane portion of Apple's business: the computer portion of it. And some circuit board orders are being pointed as a possible clue of new MacBooks.The Commercial Times reported (in Chinese, but translated by Digitimes) that Apple has increased its orders of printed-circuit boards for notebooks by 20 percent, compared to last quarter.Macs are selling pretty well lately, but that's a stronger boost than would be expected from the usual seasonal patterns, and it's unlikely...
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Broadcom really isn't a sexy business. They supply Integrated Circuits for broadband communications. It is a big business, however; Broadcom had revenue of $3.67 billion in 2006, for instance. According to indictments handed down recently, various people at Broadcom backdated millions of stock options to raid company receipts for themselves and others, and Broadcom co-founder and former CEO Henry T. Nicholas figured you'd be more likely to do business with him if you were high and had a prostitute on each arm. A second, four-count indictment names only Nicholas, 48, and alleges that he maintained homes and commercial properties in Orange County and Las Vegas for the "purpose of using and distributing...
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Blockbuster is offering to buy Circuit City. They made the offer privately in February, and made it publicly today; a defacto appeal to Circuit City shareholders to pressure the board to sell. If you were on the Lusitania, would you accept a ride on the Titanic? Circuit City is struggling, Blockbuster still has rental-movie money to throw around, but can read the video-on-demand writing on the wall. Let's play Corporate-Speak Bingo with Chairman and CEO of Blockbuster Jim Keyes' statement. "Our proposal offers Circuit City a significant premium to its existing stock price and creates a game-changing retail concept with a sustainable competitive advantage. We believe the combination...
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Some retailers have been offering credits or trade-ins for returns of HD-DVD players, but you always need to buy a new Blu-ray player in exchange. Circuit City is going them one better, extending its 30-day return policy to 90 days for HD-DVD players.Circuit City Stores Inc. is getting on the Blu-ray digital video format bandwagon by tripling the period in which customers who purchased a rival HD DVD player can return them.The nation's No. 2 electronics retailer has instructed its stores to "take care of our customers" and accept returns of HD DVD players within 90 days of purchase, spokesman Jim Babb said."Take care of our customers," now that's a great sentiment. Nice move, Circuit City....
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The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of Google in a suit brought by Perfect10, who offers internet pictures of women who have forgotten some or all of their clothes. The images are copyrighted, but the Google search engine displays thumbnail images in search results. And people using the search engine to view the clothing-challenged young ladies rubbed Perfect10 the wrong way.The court focused on the legal question of which party holds the burden of proving whether Google's use of Perfect 10's images constituted a "fair use" under copyright law. Fair use is a defense that allows the use of copyrighted works, under certain circumstances, without the owner's consent.The...
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DailyTech is reporting that Circuit City is cutting back its workforce by about 3400 "overpaid" workers. Employees terminated in these cutbacks will get four weeks severance pay plus they can reapply for their old jobs at a lower wage after 10 weeks. Hopefully this won't have a negative impact on the level of customer service. "Hot on the heels of the announcement that CompUSA and Tweeter are closing 126 and 53 stores respectively is word that Circuit City is firing 3,400 employees and bringing in lower-cost workers to fill their roles. The company says that the move is aimed to help realign its cost and expense structure." If you've been considering applying for...
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An announcement made yesterday in the Journal Nature claims that researchers had a breakthrough and created a memory circuit with 100 billion bits per square centimeter, which is said to be about 100 times dense than current memory circuits. "Researchers in California said they have created the world's densest memory circuit, one that's about 100 times denser than today's standard memory circuits, while remaining as small as a human white blood cell. Scientists from the California Institute of Technology and the University of California, Los Angeles, reported the development in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. The circuit has 160,000...
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The first computer circuit to be built on a single molecule has been unveiled by researchers in the US. It was assembled on a single carbon nanotube; a standard component of any nanotechnologist's toolkit. The circuit is less than a fifth of the width of a human hair and can only be seen through electron microscope....
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