Archive for category Science

Apple Announces Giant Solar Array

As kind of a ramp up for March 7th’s iPad 3 event, Apple has announced that they are planning to build a massive 20 megawatt solar array to power its data center in Maiden, North Carolina. It’ll provide 42 million kWh of clean energy each year. To help put that in perspective, the average US household uses between 8500 and 14,000 kWh per year. A similar facility could provide power to 3000-4500 homes. As solar gets cheaper and more practical, it’s great to see companies like Apple getting involved. Hopefully they’ll start incorporating solar power into their products. Maybe I’m just a future-snob, but this is 2012, why are we still using batteries?

Full Article via Inhabitat

Soldiers in the Future Will Be Invisible

Straight out of science fiction, DARPA scientists have managed to literally hide an event in something called a “time hole” for 40 trillionths of a second. These brilliant bastards figured out a way to bend light around an object, basically like Predator. They’ve got a long way to go before they’re able to make something invisible for a full second, or a few minutes, but this is a significant first step. I can only imagine it will look something like this:

 

Full Article at Wired’s Danger Room