Things to be included in iTV

THERE SUCH THINGS THAT SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN APPLE TV(iTV)...also it crash Tv market from Panasonic,sony..!! and make Apple share touch peak which ever seen before.

At first I was a little surprised. But after thinking about it, I realized so would I. But it’s not for the reasons that you think. Paying top dollar for Apple products has become the expectation. But consumers have also come to expect more. But what would an iTV give me that I don’t already have? But after opening my refrigerator it suddenly hit me – aFacebook “like” button. Refrigerator – you ask? I’ll get more to that later.

There’s no way this television ambition can work without it. The iTV has to have one. More specifically, it needs to have some type of social and commercial integration. Otherwise it will be a colossal failure. I want it and so should you. Here’s why. In a recent interview with NBC’s Brian Williams, Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook said:

“When I go into my living room and turn on the TV, I feel like I have gone backwards in time by 20 to 30 years. It’s an area of intense interest. I can’t say more than that.”

It seems Cook understands that the TV experience can no longer be “just about TV.” It has to also be about you “the viewer.” He gets it. This is what Sonyand Panasonic have been unable to figure out and the reason why Panasonic is exiting the business altogether. And if Netflix is not careful it will be killed off too.

Cook salivates at the massive social aspect to TV that remains untapped. And if Apple gets this right the company can easily secure 90% of the TV market within a couple of years. If not, it might be the end of Apple as we know it.

For instance, Apple should want to integrate FaceTime with iTV. Aside from killing off Skype, Apple would essentially create the first “social television network.” One that allows you and your buddies to watch the same football game while sending virtual high fives to each other – all between time zones. But it gets better. As you watch the game, iTV will allow you to “like” certain plays or “thumbs down” a bad call from a referee. You can even “like” an American Idol contestant. Forget the text voting – that’s so 2001.

It can all work with Bluetooth connectivity between your iTV and iPad or iPhone. But there’s also a “commercial” benefit to this as well. Viewers should be able to “like” certain products, a baseball team, or even a car or an Applebee’s commercial. And based on these “likes”, iTV will be able to list game times for your favorite sports teams and can take it a step further by recording shows to your DVR based on your “like” selections. But why would someone need to like an Applebee’s commercial?

What this means is that the iTV immediately becomes “the mediator” in ongoing controversies surrounding products like the Hopper from Dish Network that allows consumers to skip television ads. Although the Hopper is a great concept, it’s unfair. On the other hand, this sensitive issue presents an excellent opportunity for Apple.

People don’t “like” ads – I get it. But TV is all about content and content is not free. And the value of the content is determined by the ad dollars it generates. So unless it is a premium channel such as HBO or Showtime, there’s no way to avoid ads. On the other hand, what if iTV figured out a way to make you “like” the ads that you try so desperately to avoid? This would solve the problem facing broadcasting networks like CBS and ABC.

After all, can Apple really “change the way we watch TV” without also addressing this huge commercial “inconvenience?” It would be a missed opportunity. For a lot of people commercials are nothing more than a 3 minute bathroom break. If you’re like me, it’s also the time to get on Twitter and complain about how poorly a game is being officiated. But what if iTV was able to make you look forward to commercials – to the point that you would even consider recording them?

It sounds crazy – I know. But with a “like” button on iTV and a rewards program from Groupon, Living Social or even your favorite local grocer, you would love commercials. Your “likes” would be stored in a way that would allow advertisers to know who you are, your address, your zip code and provide them with other information that allows them to create “targeted ads.” This might even give them enough justification to bring a Starbucks to your neighborhood.

It can all depend on the number of “likes” in your local area provided to them by Apple. They can be called “iLikes” or “ad-likes.” Once your “likes” are stored (presumably) on the iCloud, iTV will be able to interface with the web and stream printable coupons to your device and even create a shopping list. Essentially, Apple becomes both the Facebook and Amazon of the living room. With so much stored demographic information, this can immediately become another revenue stream where Apple can sell targeted ads. It can also mean the end of junk mail in the mailbox outside of your home.

Better still, iTV will also be able to provide immediate content feedback to the TV networks based on the number of “likes.” After all, since Tim Cook said current TV “takes him back 20-30 years” why then should we still rely on a Neilsen rating system that spans 30 years. Also, I don’t know about you, but I don’t recall Neilsen ever asking for my input. Likewise, I don’t personally know anyone else they’ve asked. Yet, Neilsen still speaks for me. With an iTV I can speak for myself.

Bottom Line

The way we view television is changing faster than many believed it would. So for Apple to make this ambition truly the game-changer that it is billed to be, Apple has to effectively change the way we watch content and the way we interface with the products that are marketed to us. And with TV life cycles being 4 years, it means people aren’t dropping them in pools of water and then waiting in line for a new one. Apple has to get this right the first time – especially since consumers would have already paid such a premium. If iTV fails, Apple’s reputation goes with it.

APPLE ROCKS AGAIN

iPhone 5 Arrives in South Korea & More Than 50 Additional Countries in December

CUPERTINO, California—December 3, 2012—Apple® today announced iPhone® 5 will be available in South Korea on Friday, December 7, with more than 50 additional countries being added in December, including Brazil, Russia and Taiwan. iPhone 5 is the thinnest and lightest iPhone ever, completely redesigned to feature a stunning new 4-inch Retina™ display; an Apple-designed A6 chip for blazing fast performance; and ultrafast wireless*—all while delivering even better battery life.**

iPhone 5 is currently available in 47 countries around the world including the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan and the UK. iPhone 5 comes with iOS 6, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system with over 200 new features including: Shared Photo Streams, Facebook integration, all-new Maps app, Passbook® organization and even more Siri® features and languages.

iPhone 5 comes in either black & slate or white & silver for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 16GB model, $299 (US) for the 32GB model and $399 (US) for the 64GB model. iPhone 5 will be available through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers.

iPhone 4S is available for just $99 (US) and iPhone 4 is available for free with a two-year contract from participating carriers.

iPhone 5 will be available in South Korea on Friday, December 7 and on Friday, December 14 in Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Ecuador, Grenada, Indonesia, Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Kuwait, Macedonia, Malaysia, Moldova, Montenegro, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. iPhone 5 will also be available on Friday, December 21 in Barbados, Botswana, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Egypt, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St.Vincent & the Grenadines, Tunisia, Uganda and Vietnam.

*Network speeds are dependent on carrier networks. Check with your carrier for details.
**Battery life depends on device settings, usage and other factors. Actual results vary.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad..........

MORE STORY HERE

BIG DATA --IBM

IBM Lights Up Silicon Nanophotonics for Big Data

IBM announced a major advance in the ability to use light instead of electrical signals to transmit information for future computing. Referred to as Silicon Nanophotonics, the technology allows the integration of different optical components side by side with electrical circuits on a single silicon chip, using sub-100 nanometer semiconductor technology.

Big, Fast Data – Without an Interconnect

Silicon Nanophotonics could provide answers to big data challenges by seamlessly connecting various parts of large systems, whether few centimeters or few kilometers apart from each other, and move terabytes of data via pulses of light through optical fibers.The technology uses pulses of light for communication and creates a “super highway” for large volumes of data to be exchanged at high speeds between computer chips in servers.  This alleviates the cost and bottlenecks presented by traditional interconnect technology. The research has potential ramifications for the cost and speed of future data center networks, and potential implications for design as well.

“This technology breakthrough is a result of more than a decade of pioneering research at IBM,” said Dr. John Kelly, Senior Vice President and Director of IBM Research. “This allows us to move silicon nanophotonics technology into a real-world manufacturing environment that will have impact across a range of applications.”

The challenge of manufacturing these chips was addressed by adding a few processing modules into a high-performance 90nm CMOS fabrication line.  A variety of silicon nanophotonics components, such as wavelength division multiplexers (WDM), modulators, and detectors are integrated side-by-side with a CMOS electrical circuitry. As a result, single-chip optical communications transceivers can be manufactured in a conventional semiconductor foundry, providing significant cost reduction over traditional approaches.

IBM’s CMOS nanophotonics technology demonstrates transceivers to exceed the data rate of 25Gbps per channel. In addition, the technology is capable of feeding a number of parallel optical data streams into a single fiber by utilizing compact on-chip wavelength-division multiplexing devices. The ability to multiplex large data streams at high data rates will allow future scaling of optical communications capable of delivering terabytes of data between distant parts of computer systems.

IN short--

It has developed a scalable, silicon nanophotonics chip to improve communications and processing for big data centers.

The chips use pulses of light to communicate between chips in servers, racks and supercomputers. With the new system in place, IBM’s chip can exceed next-gen standard data transfers of 25 Gbps.

These speeds are possible because the optical components on same chip as the processors. The processors still use electrical circuits, but the chips convert the electrical information to light pulses, which then transfer between chips. Upon arriving at a new chip, the light is then transformed into electricity again to be processed.

“We’re basically attacking a fundamental problem,” lead scientist Dr. Solomon Assefa told me. “Communication in computing systems. For example, look at how search is done. When someone queries, it goes to a big data center. It doesn’t just go to a single processor. You have to connect many racks and processors.”

The key innovation isn’t just the technology, though. It’s the fact that its commercial and scalable. The research team at IBM developed the chip so that it can be scaled using conventional manufacturing processes, which is what they’ve been working on for the past two years since their initial breakthrough.

“So they will be cheap,” said Assefa. “Especially if you compare them to what already exists, which requires more assembly of complex parts. We’re bringing cost of optics down to silicon level.”

Cross-sectional view of an IBM Silicon Nanophotonics chip combining optical and electrical circuits. An IBM 90nm Silicon Integrated Nanophotonics technology is capable of integrating a photodetector (red feature on the left side of the cube) and modulator (blue feature on the right side) fabricated side-by-side with silicon transistors. Silicon Nanophotonics circuits and silicon transistors are interconnected with nine levels of yellow metal wires.
DATACENTER

APPLE TV.....

Apple TV is in 'early stage of testing,' report says

It's not a formal project yet, but Apple and its suppliers are trying out designs for a large-screen, high-resolution TV, according to the Wall Street Journal

(Credit: CNET)

Apple has begun the early stages of television set testing, according to reports.

The Wall Street Journal says that manufacturers Sharp and Hon Hai -- otherwise known as Foxconn -- are collaborating with the tech giant to test designs for a large-screen, high-resolution TV, according to unnamed officials connected to Apple's suppliers.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company, which tests ideas internally before bringing products to external suppliers, has been testing television set prototypes "for a number of years," according to the Journal's unnamed sources. The iPad and iPhone maker has already infiltrated the living room with its Apple TV box, which connects online media to traditional television sets.

"It isn't a formal project yet. It is still in the early stage of testing," one of the sources told the Journal.

The idea of Apple producing a television set was brought back to the stage this month by Apple CEO Tim Cook, who hinted in aninterview with NBC that a new product offering may be on the horizon. "When I go into my living room and turn on the TV, I feel like I have gone backwards in time by 20 to 30 years," Cook said. "It's an area of intense interest. I can't say more than that."

Although it remains to be seen how much impact Apple could have in the television and media industry, already entwined in long-standing broadcasting contracts and "smart TV" production by manufacturers, a survey from Morgan Stanley suggested that the brand name may be enough -- and consumers would be willing to pay a 20 percent premium for an Apple-branded set.

Meanwhile, famed technologist and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen speculated at the Dealbook conference this morning that an Apple TV is likely to arrive in 2014 or maybe 2015 at the latest, if it doesn't squeak out in 2013, according to Business Insider

CNET

3-D PRINTING BY OBAMA

Why 3-D Printing Matters for "Made in U.S.A."

A rise in 3D printing technology won't mean a "Star Trek" replicator in every home to make whatever Americans desire. But the White House has bet big on the idea that 3D printing can revolutionize U.S. manufacturing from within the heart of the Midwest's "Rust Belt" once known for its shuttered steel mills.

President Barack Obama's proposed $1 billion bet on a manufacturing innovation network hinges upon places such as Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where the whirring sounds of 3D printers and laser cutters filled the engineering department's invention center on a late Friday afternoon. The university is one of many partners in the federally funded National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII) — a $30 million pilot institute aimed at boosting 3D printing's use in U.S. manufacturing.

"The real value of 3D printing is to do something that's either not possible or not cost-effective to do with existing technology," said James McGuffin-Cawley, chairman of materials science & engineering at Case Western Reserve University and a member of the NAMII executive board.

3D printing represents the latest version of what industry experts call "additive manufacturing" — a way to turn practically any computer designs into real objects by building them up layer-by-layer using plastics, metals or other materials. The technology could end up affecting every major industry — aerospace, defense, medicine, transportation, food, fashion — and have an even bigger impact on U.S. manufacturing than the robot revolution.

"Even though the technology has been around for more than 20 years, Washington finally gets it," said Terry Wohlers, an independent analyst and leading expert on 3D printing who sits on NAMII's governance board.

Why 3D printing makes sense

Wohlers referred to the fact that manufacturers have used such technology to build models and prototypes to test new product designs for 20 years. The difference with the new NAMII effort is that the U.S. government wants 3D printing to help produce more products stamped "Made in USA."

The strength of 3D printing comes from its ability to make individual, specifically tailored parts on demand, rather than churning out thousands of standard products with a factory's worth of assembly-line equipment. That could prove especially cost-effective for making the complex parts of specialty devices or equipment in small batches or on a one-off basis, such as replacement parts for a fighter jet or thejawbone implant customized for an individual patient's surgery.

"If you're making 10,000,000 trash cans for sale at Wal-Mart, then no — you might prototype those things with 3D printing but you won't be manufacturing them that way," Wohlers told TechNewsDaily. "If you're making parts for 50 to 100 military aircraft, then it is a perfect fit."

Aerospace giant Boeing has already proved a pioneer by using 3D printing to make more than 22,000 parts used on civilian and military aircraft flying today. The rest of the U.S. aerospace industry is trying to catch up fast — GE Aviation announced its purchase of two companies in Ohio, Morris Technologies and Rapid Quality Manufacturing, last month. GE Aviation's idea is to use its newly acquired 3D printing capabilities to make jet engine parts. [Video: A 3D Printer Of Your Own: When Will You Have One At Home?]

Similarly, 3D printing is poised to shake up the medical industry, said David Dean, director of the neurological surgery imaging laboratory at Case Western Reserve University. He pointed to the possibilities of 3D-printed hip and knee implants fitted precisely to each patient that can avoid the medical problems related to today's less well-fitted implants.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

Final Fantasy IV headed to iOS on December 20, Android version to follow in 2013

That Nintendo DS re-make of Final Fantasy IV may add 3D graphics, a variety of bug fixes, and a fresh localization, but who wants to lug around their old Nintendo DS? Thankfully, it won't be much longer before the same version of FFIV ends up on iOS, as spotted by the folks at gaming forum NeoGAF. The game arrives on the iOS App Store for both iPhone and iPad starting on December 20, and is headed to Android sometime next year. As of now, it's only got a Japanese pricing of ¥1800 ($21.77), but we expect it'll cost about $17.99 when it launches Stateside. In anticipation of the pending release, Square's marking down prices of its other iOS FF games (which are usually priced absurdly high), so now's a good time to snap them up on the cheap. If you'd like to take a gander at the first images of the iOS port, Japanese publication Gamer has a first-look.

refer-engadget

YouTube Undergoes A Redesign

YouTube recently underwent a face lift. The popular, Google-owned service decided to place videos at the top of the page and added a "Guide" icon feature to the left of each video, similar to the "Guide" sidebar on the homepage of YouTube. As the Los Angeles Times reports:

Video titles and the subscription button are now shown under the video.The new look has also ditched YouTube's gray color used for all areas around videos and replaced it with a lighter shade that is almost white. Additionally, the video site has adopted a more simplistic design, similar to that of Google Drive, with 2-D shapes, leaving behind the button-like look it previously used.

"In this new layout, you’ll find the most crucial elements are front and center when you watch a video," YouTube said.

refer--news

Innovation Of The Year: Google Now

GOOOGLE  NOW.........!!!!!!!

It seems innocent at first: Fire up the search app on a new Android phone, and the interface asks if you’d like to activate Google Now. “Sure,” you think, “Google already has my calendar, location, and contacts; what’s one more thing?” Here’s what: Google Now draws a distinct technological line. On the side you’re on now, you tell your devices what you want to do. On the far side, the devices do the telling. Google Now is waiting for you over there. It’s the first virtual assistant that truly anticipates your needs. All you have to do is opt in.

Google Now runs in the background of the latest Android operating system (Jelly Bean 4.1) and quietly keeps track of searches, calendar events, locations, and travel patterns. It then synthesizes all that info and alerts you—either through notifications in the menu bar or cards on the search screen—of transit alerts for your commute, box scores for your favorite sports team, nearby watering holes, and more. You can assume it will someday suggest a lot more.

Voice interfaces like Siri seem outdated by comparison. With Google Now, you don’t pull the phone out when an idea occurs to you. You pull it out when an idea occurs to it.
—Jacob Ward

GOOGLE NOW

OS: Android 4.1
Available Info Cards: 10
Price: Free

MORE NEWS AT---POPSI

Apple’s Tim Cook on creativity and changing your mind

On Wednesday, Apple made headlines for its biggest stock drop in four years, as the company’s shares fell more than 6 percent amid fears about competition in the tablet market. On Thursday, the company was back in the news again, this time for two new interviews with CEO Tim Cook—one a lengthy interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek editor Josh Tyrangiel and the other apparently his first televised sit-down with NBC’s Brian Williams—that revealed Apple would manufacture a line of Macs in the United States next year.

The manufacturing is big news, of course. Cook told Tyrangiel that “I do feel [CEOs] have a responsibility to create jobs,” just not necessarily jobs as Apple employees. And few business leaders can make that claim as well as Apple does, given the ecosystem of jobs the company has helped to spawn through suppliers, developers and accessory makers. While it’s not clear which line of products Apple will make in America, Cook said he intends to do more than just “assemble” the products here, and will invest $100 million in the effort.

But even if the biggest revelation out of the interviews is the manufacturing news, Cook also revealed a few telling new insights about how he leads Apple. Whether or not they help him navigate a tricky patch for the company’s share price, they do give us a better glimpse of the man running the world’s biggest company by market value.

First, he offers what is perhaps the best definition of “creativity” I have ever heard: “Creativity is not a process, right?” he tells Tyrangiel. “It’s people who care enough to keep thinking about something until they find the simplest way to do it.” In other words, he’s implying that a leader’s job is to establish a culture where people will care that much about their work, rather than to try to build some kind of innovation “process.” In fact, he has sharp words for anyone who tries to do the latter: “A lot of companies have innovation departments, and this is always a sign that something is wrong when you have a VP of innovation or something. You know, put a for-sale sign on the door.”

In addition, he says that he thinks “maybe the most important thing” to prevent, as CEO, is becoming insular. This is easy for the CEO of Apple to say, of course, given the hundreds if not thousands of direct emails he gets from customers, as well as the retail stores that give him an opportunity to interact with consumers directly. Not every business leader has that advantage, and Cook recognizes as much. But it’s a reminder that leaders have to find a way to get feedback in an unfiltered way, fostering relationships with customers, allowing for direct access to their inboxes, and spending plenty of time in the field interacting with employees or customers.

Finally, Cook shared with both Williams and Tyrangiel the wisdom he received from Jobs before his death, that he should never look up as CEO and ask what Steve would have done, but instead to “just do what’s right.” An admirable statement from a company founder, of course, and one that seems to already be having an impact as Cook charts his own path on certain decisions—from offering matching philanthropy donations to recently shaking up the company’s management staff.

But what he goes on to say about Jobs in the BusinessWeek Q&A is just as interesting. We like to think of great innovators and great leaders as steadfast and principled in their beliefs, the type of people who rarely waver on their views. Jobs was just the opposite, Cook said: “So many people, particularly, I think, CEOs and top executives, they get so planted in their old ideas, and they refuse or don’t have the courage to admit that they’re now wrong. Maybe the most underappreciated thing about Steve was that he had the courage to change his mind. It’s a talent.

REFERENCE-CLICK

SCIENTIFIC INVENTION

Waxing Innovative: Researchers Pump Up Artificial Muscles Using Paraffin

Artificial muscles have mostly been flaccid as a replacement for motors. Could carbon nanotube yarns soaked in paraffin wax change this? 

When Scientific American heard from chemist Ray Baughman a year ago, he and his international team of nanotechnologists had taken artificial-muscle technology to the next level. Their innovation relied on spinning lengths of carbon nanotubes into buff yarns whose twisting and untwisting mimicked natural muscles found in an elephant's trunk or a squid's tentacles.

Now the researchers are reporting a new artificial muscle–building technique that makes their carbon nanotube yarns several times faster and more powerful. These qualities could help deliver on the technology's promise of developing compact, lightweight actuators for robots, exoskeletons and other mechanical devices, although several challenges remain.

The latest breakthrough comes from infusing the carbon nanotube yarns with paraffin wax that expands when heated, enabling the artificial muscles to lift more than 100,000 times their own weight and generate 85 times more mechanical power during contraction than mammalian skeletal muscles of comparable size, according to the researchers, whose latest work is published in the November 16 issue of Science.

The previous-generation artificial muscles were electrochemical and functioned like a supercapacitor. When a charge was injected into the carbon nanotube yarn, ions from a liquid electrolyte diffused into the yarn, causing it to expand in volume and contract in length, says Baughman, director of the University of Texas at Dallas's Alan G. MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute. Unfortunately, using an electrolyte limited the temperature range in which the muscle could function. At colder temperatures the electrolyte would solidify, slowing down the muscle; if too hot, the electrolyte would degrade. It also needed a container, which added weight to the artificial-muscle system.

The wax eliminates the need for an electrolyte, making the artificial muscle lighter, stronger and more responsive. When heat or a light pulse is applied to a wax-impregnated yarn about 200 microns in diameter (roughly twice that of a human hair), the wax melts and expands. In about 25 milliseconds this expansion creates pressure causing the yarn's individual nanotube threads to twist and the yarn's length to contract. Any weightlifter will tell you that the success of any muscle—artificial or natural—depends in part on the degree of this contraction. Depending on the force exerted, the Baughman team's muscle strands could contract by up to 10 percent.

Muscles are also judged by the weight they can lift relative to their size. "Our muscles can lift about 200 times the weight of a similar-size natural muscle," Baughman says, adding that the wax-infused artificial muscles can also generate 30 times the maximum power of their electrolyte-powered predecessors.

The researchers' latest artificial muscles move the technology closer to commercialized products such as environmental sensors, aerospace materials and even textiles that take can take advantage of nanoscale actuators, University of Cincinnati mechanical engineering professor Mark Schulz, wrote in a related SciencePerspectives article. This new artificial muscle outperforms existing ones, allowing possible applications such as linear and rotary motors; it also might replace biological muscle tissue if biocompatibility can be established, he adds.

However, Schulz points out—and Baughman is quick to acknowledge—that even this new crop of artificial muscles faces many challenges before they can be a practical alternative to mini–electric motors in many of the products we buy. Despite their improvements, the latest artificial muscles are for the most part inefficient and limited in the combinations of force, motion and speed they can generate, according to Schulz.

Indeed, these new artificial muscles operate at about 1 percent efficiency, a number Baughman and his colleagues want to increase at least 10-fold. An option for improving efficiency is to use a chemical fuel rather than electricity to power the muscles. "One way to compensate for a lack of efficiency is to use fuel like methanol instead of a battery," he says. "You could store more than 20 percent more energy in a fuel like methanol than you can in a battery."

Another challenge is that the artificial muscles must be heated and cooled to contract and release, respectively. Short lengths of yarn can cool on their own in a matter of seconds, but longer pieces would need to be actively cooled using water or air, otherwise the muscle would not relax. "Or you'd need [to use a] material that doesn't require thermal actuation," Baughman says. "If you keep making the [carbon nanotube] yarn longer and longer, your cooling rate increases."

This issue of scale poses perhaps the greatest challenge. A one-millimeter length of artificial muscle can lift about 50 grams, according to Baughman. That means lifting several tons would require a greater length of carbon nanotube yarn than is practical. "We'd like our artificial muscles to be used in exoskeletons that help workers or soldiers lift objects weighing tons," he says. But the researchers are still working out ways to pack enough yarn to perform such tasks into the length of an exoskeletal limb.

Carbon nanotube artificial muscles are more likely to first appear in products requiring only short lengths. Baughman envisions artificial muscles used in a catheter for minimally invasive surgery, "where you want to have lots of functionality on the end of the catheter to do surgical manipulations." Another application with flex appeal—"smart" fabrics that can automatically react to their environments, becoming more or less porous when they detect heat or harmful chemicals in the air.

REFER HERE