New Connections For Stretchable, Twistable Electronics 60
tugfoigel writes "Jizhou Song, a professor in the University of Miami College of Engineering and his collaborators Professor John Rogers, at the University of Illinois and Professor Yonggang Huang, at Northwestern University have developed a new design for stretchable electronics that can be wrapped around complex shapes, without a reduction in electronic function. The new mechanical design strategy is based on semiconductor nanomaterials that can offer high stretchability (e.g., 140%) and large twistability such as corkscrew twists with tight pitch (e.g., 90 degrees in 1 cm). Potential uses for the new design include electronic devices for eye cameras, smart surgical gloves, body parts, airplane wings, back planes for liquid crystal displays and biomedical devices."
This'll fix coiled cables? (Score:2, Interesting)
Shouldn't this be used for every type of cables? During the last couple of weeks, coiled USB cables have given me lots of grief. USB connected camera stands (used for passport pictures) keep being disconnected, but as soon as the cable has been straightened (5 meters), everything's fine.
Recently I had the same problem with a Cat5e cable at some other place; 5 meters, half of that from the IP phone to the wall; as soon as I straightened it up, the phone was able to connect.
Makes the space station wheel more likely. (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought one of the deals holding up the big wheel spinning in space for artificial gravity - like the station in 2001 A Space Odyssey was connections between the core and the spinning part. Maybe somehow this will help.