More than two full generations of Moore's law (which says that the number of transistors squeezed on to a computer chip doubles every 18 months) have passed since the tech bubble burst, as have more than three generations of fibre-optics communications technology.
While not quite as "nano" as the SIM card-sized satellites that launched with the Shuttle Endeavor, the smaller-than-a-breadbox ExoPlanetSat is still pretty tiny by satellite standards, yet it packs all the necessary optics and technology required for what's known as transit observation -- that is, monitoring a star for decreases in brightness, which could indicate a planet passing in front of it.
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Light Blue Optics, a tiny technology company in Cambridge, England is developing a portable projector that can turn any flat surface into a touch screen and save our hands the hassle of holding anything.
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Fundamental advances in LED semiconductor technology, optics, and lighting system design now enable LED lights to break century old cost and performance barriers that have prevented consumers from realizing the savings businesses and municipalities already enjoy.
Virtually all modern technology relies on optics in some way, shape or form.
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Micro-optics is an important field of technology, and is crucial to the company's telecommunications-related product lines.
It is done using a special type of liquid-crystal array developed by a British firm called Light Blue Optics, which is also developing the technology for use in tiny projectors (see article).
But experts argue that current mobile technology cannot compete with fast fixed line connections such as fibre optics which offer speeds of up to 100Mbps.
Borrowing from Canon's optics expertise, these new models include long-reaching zoom and Canon's Intelligent Image Stabilization technology which analyzes the scene being shot and compensates for camera movement for steady images and video even while panning or walking.
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