Smart buildings
Could be useful to embed sensors and networking gear in buildings. Of course you then have the question of how you upgrade the tech during the lifetime of the building.
Boffins' brilliant plan: CONCRETE COMPUTERS
At times it might seem to some of us as though the world's top boffins are slacking at their task of making our technology better and more advanced: but not today. Today we learn that some of them are on the track of something which everyone involved in IT must have been lusting after for years. Wouldn't it be nice, you must …
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Tuesday 28th May 2013 15:50 GMT Don Jefe
Re: Smart buildings
You've also got the issue of separating signals within the material.
I shall invent a flexible conductor sheathed in non-conductive material that can be used to transmit isolated signals between points. It will be inexpensive, easy to terminate, flexible with high tensile strength and come in a variety of colors to aid visual identification and perhaps deployed from a 'spool'. I shall call this invention 'wire'.
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Tuesday 28th May 2013 16:12 GMT Paul Kinsler
Re: Smart buildings
Wires are old hat. Better to use optical fibres, since frequently they can also act as both the sensor and transmission medium, and are largely immune to most sources of electrical and magnetic interference (although properly designed, they can act as E or M sensors as well). And if you use them to make an interferometer, they can also be fantastically sensitive.
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Tuesday 28th May 2013 16:16 GMT wnielson
Re: Liquid cement......
The term 'liquid', in this case, refers to the microstructure. For example, metals typically have a crystalline microstructure whereas liquids are amorphous. "Liquid metal" is made by "locking in" the amorphous, or "liquid", arrangement of the atoms but in a solid material--a more technically correct name is "amorphous metal". This is typically done by melting the metal and then rapidly quenching it--the key is to do it fast enough that the atoms do not have enough time to rearrange into their preferred crystalline structure.
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Tuesday 28th May 2013 15:31 GMT Big_Boomer
useless
A concrete or cement case for your iPhone 7 would shatter as soon as you dropped it. Concrete/cement is good in compression, not in tension nor in shock. Now if it were reinforced concrete or cement it would be tougher but you'd still be better off with plastics as they flex but snap back to their original shapes.
What particular chemical are they using for their "liquid metal" semi-conductors? Cement is made up of silcates, aluminates, aluminoferrite and gypsum in varying proportions depending on the properties needed.
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Tuesday 28th May 2013 15:36 GMT Idocrase
This could work. Cement is largely sand after all, and sand = silicon, and silicon is a semiconductor. I cannot fathom how they deal with the quicklime and other stuff that gets added, but hey, if it could be made to work...
Plus now, I want a concrete computer case. It would only be slightly heavier than my current one, and i could tuck it into a slot in the wall when I don't need it.
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Tuesday 28th May 2013 15:53 GMT Frankee Llonnygog
Slim Gaillard predicted this
Cement mixer, putti putti,
Cement mixer, putti putti,
Cement mixer, putti putti,
(Poodle-da-skoodie, poodle-da skoodie,
poodle-da-skoodie)
(Re-beat...).......Concrete!
First you get some gravel,
(From the streams) about.
You mix a mess of mortar,
(Splash) a mess of water,
See the mello-roonie come out!
Slurp, slurp, slurp....
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Tuesday 28th May 2013 17:02 GMT frank ly
An Idea
If a set of identical, general purpose computing elements/blocks could be made from cement (with a filler material to give strength), then some form of interconnect studs on the top, with matching receptacles on the base could be formed into each block to give a structural and data/power interconnect. Using these, a larger unit could be simply assembled from smaller units. Just an idea......
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Tuesday 28th May 2013 21:53 GMT Someone Else
Well, I...uh...
Wouldn't it be nice, you must have thought, if instead of all this plastic and silicon and glass and so forth, my kit - displays, chips, tablets, laptops, all of it - could be made instead of lovely concrete?
Well, actually, I ... hadn't.
Mine's the one with the Coke-bottle glasses in the pocket (given my clear and present case of myopia...).
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Wednesday 29th May 2013 07:29 GMT John Smith 19
All joking aside.
This is a bit impractical.
You're looking at (and I mean this literally) melting concrete powder using a sound based containerless levitator (to prevent re-crystalisation) and then controlled cooling.
Note that once it's hardened it should remain solid in water but sadly I don't think anyone is going to be sticking a bag of this in a mixer and laying down their next PC on say the kitchen floor.
OTOH this is v 0.1 tech and while this is the first technique to do this it might not remain the only way to do this.
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Thursday 6th June 2013 09:52 GMT John Smith 19
There *might* be a way to make this on a commercial scale.
the new ultra thin glass used on Apple tablets is made by Corning using a process originally developed in the mid 60's. It uses a V shaped trough filled with the glass to overflowing. The glass drips down both sides until they merge into a single thin (<0.8mm IIRC) very flat layer.
In principle the same could be done with molten cement and providing the thermal environment is properly shaped it won't solidify till it's well down stream of the trough. Being in contact with nothing but the atmosphere of the chamber the sheet will be amorphous.
Finding a material to make the trough out of is left as an exercise for the interested reader.
As for what you could with an unlimited supply of thin semiconductive cement sheet, b**ered if I know.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
