Mechanics of the FoodSaver System As you may have imagined, the FoodSaver System uses a vacuum device to remove air surrounding the food or drink you want to preserve. As with any vacuum, air is moved from one place to another, which creates a drop in pressure at one point and an increase in pressure […]
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Surge Protection A standard surge protector passes the electrical current along from the outlet to a number of electrical and electronic devices plugged into the power strip. If the voltage from the outlet surges or spikes — rises above the accepted level — the surge protector diverts the extra electricity into the outlet’s grounding wire.
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World of Warcraft Players As of July 2007, “World of Warcraft” had more than 9 million active subscribers worldwide [source: Blizzard, press release]. While there’s no publicly-available, comprehensive census of exactly who plays the game, there are several researchers who have studied WoW players extensively. Researcher Nick Yee has used online surveys to poll “World
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The Swedish Invasion Spotify isn’t a new technology. It’s actually been around since 2008, when a company named Spotify AB launched the Spotify service in Sweden. Since then, the company has been negotiating licensing issues and slowly rolling out to other countries, including Finland, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Spain and, as of July
Oscillation Basics One of the most commonly used oscillators is the pendulum of a clock. If you push on a pendulum to start it swinging, it will oscillate at some frequency — it will swing back and forth a certain number of times per second. The length of the pendulum is the main thing that
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Making Electronic Ink Two companies are simultaneously developing similar electronic inks — E Ink of Cambridge, MA, and Xerox in Palo Alto, CA. At first glance, a bottle of electronic ink looks just like regular ink, but a closer examination shows something much different. Although the two companies’ products vary slightly, here are the three
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Building a Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray discs not only have more storage capacity than traditional DVDs, but they also offer a new level of interactivity. Users will be able to connect to the Internet and instantly download subtitles and other interactive movie features. With Blu-ray, you can: record high-definition television (HDTV) without any quality loss instantly
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DLP Technology DLP technology is based on an optical semiconductor, called a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD), which uses mirrors made of aluminum to reflect light to make the picture. The DMD is often referred to as the DLP chip. The chip can be held in the palm of your hand, yet it can contain more
HDMI Signals One of the common misperceptions about HDMI is that the digital signal is innately superior to an analog signal. In some people’s minds, the lack of analog-to-digital conversion means that the signal is in a pure, undamaged state when it reaches the HDTV set. It’s easy to imagine a high-definition, digital signal traveling
Inductive Coupling Inductive coupling uses magnetic fields that are a natural part of current’s movement through wire. Any time electrical current moves through a wire, it creates a circular magnetic field around the wire. Bending the wire into a coil amplifies the magnetic field. The more loops the coil makes, the bigger the field will
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