Knowledge N Fact4u

TVs have come a long way since the massive boxes hogging the corner of your living room. Yet even your current fl at-screen LCD TV will soon look unwieldy compared to the next generation of products. With OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology TVs, computer monitors, mobile phones and pretty much anything else with a screen are set to become thinner than ever before. OLED is a major step on from the LCD technology that is currently used. In simple terms, it is created from organic materials that emit light when power is passed through it. An OLED display contains thin fi lms of organic materials placed between two conductors; as the current passes through, the display lights up. This self-illuminating function removes the need for the backlight that is an essential requirement of a traditional LCD screen. There are two kinds of OLED display, of which AMOLED (active matrix) is the most important. Designed for larger displays (over 7cm/3in), it allows for each individual pixel o...

Apple TV is designed to work with many Apple products and services, including iPhones, iPads, iTunes, a desktop PC and of course a TV. The built-in software, a stripped-down version of Mac OS X, offers access to movies and shows that you can rent any time, and the built-in Wi-Fi chip utilises your broadband connection to push the rented video to the Apple TV box.  It also connects with your desktop-based iTunes library to create a single hub with which to view your media in the comfort of your favourite chair. Despite not physically storing video, the 8GB fl ash chip is used to cache fi lms as they are playing to ensure that they do not skip and in most cases the full film will be downloaded to the Apple TV fl ash memory even if you haven’t fi nished watching it. The controller software is the hub around which everything works. Once connected to a TV and a computer running iTunes, it will detect when changes are made, such as renting a video, and it will then send the relevant ...

Motion control systems combine the data from their internal gyroscopes and accelerometers to produce super-accurate information about location in space (X, Y and Z planes), and movement about the controller’s axis (pitch, roll and yaw). For extra precision, some systems also throw in a micro-compass (like those used in GPS and satnav systems). So once the device has accurately detected motion, this needs to be translated to movements that fi t on the screen. The Wii system uses infrared tracking to determine the cursor’s position on screen. The sensor box above the screen has sets of fi ve infrared (IR) LEDs at both sides. These, plus the IR detector at the top-end of the Wii Remote, mean that the controller’s position can be triangulated relative to the screen. So if the LEDs are detected towards the top of the Wii Remote’s fi eld of view, the cursor is displayed at the bottom of the screen and vice versa. IR LEDs are used because regular visible light-emitting diodes would be too dif...

1  The original megastructure, the Great Wall stretches an incredible 8,851km (5,500 miles), making it easily the longest man-made structure on Earth. Great Wall of China 2  The 2km dam spanning the Yangtze submerged 13 existing cities, 140 towns and over 1,300 villages, requiring the relocation of 1.5 million people. Three Gorges Dam 3  This retired garbage dump covering 12 square kilometres (4.6 square miles) of New York’s Staten Island was once piled higher than the nearby Statue of Liberty. Fresh Kills Landfi ll 4  Built largely by hand over 2,000 years ago, these terraced rice paddies cover 10,360 square kilometres of steep mountainside in the Philippines. Banaue Rice Terraces 5  This colossal open-pit mine located in Eastern Siberia, Russia is 525 metres (1,722 feet) deep and 1.25km wide. In the Sixties it produced two tons of diamonds per year. Mirny Diamond Mine

1  Synonymous with the Winchester Rifl e, this action allowed the likes of Billy the Kid to lever new rounds from a sealed tubular magazine, all in one movement. Lever-action 2  The double-barrelled shotgun is the prime example of ‘break-open’ in action; whereby barrels are hinged to expose the breech and ready new rounds. Giving it both barrels 3  Gatling’s gun housed upwards of ten barrels, each with its own breech and firing pin, loaded upon cranked rotation by a gravity-fed ammunition hopper. 2,000 rounds a minute 4  The chain gun has a single barrel and employs an electric motor to drive a chain that is connected to the bolt, which moves back and forth to reload the weapon. Unchained melody 5  The pump-action is most often found in repeating rifl es and shotguns; with a hand grip that is pumped back and forth that strips the spent shell and loads a fresh round. Pump up the volume!

The colourful profi le of the semi-automatic weapon continues to shape public opinion, but there is more to its substance than style alone. The semi-automatic pistol is a functionally different animal to the romanticised revolver of the Wild West. The motivation for semi – and full for that matter – automatics derive from energy generated by the fi ring process to self-load and prime a new round. This comes in a variety of fl avours, including recoil, blowback and gas. Recoil is the gun’s kick-back, balancing the bullet’s forward momentum – or as Newton says, with every action must come an equal and opposite reaction. Here, the opposing recoil force drives the gun backwards, initiating momentum in the ‘slide’ and barrel that are mechanically engaged. Separation of the two typically allows the breech to open as the slide carries on, self-loading and cocking the gun in the process.  With blowback the barrel and slide are not wed. The barrel is typically fi xed to the frame wit...