Reed Richards follows Sue in Korea

Korean researchers are not only making giant leaps towards invisibility¹: they're also going for thinness and flexibility.

A Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) - Sungkyunkwan University (Pr. Hong Byung-hee) team found a way of mass producing graphene nanofilms via Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD).

I know, this doesn't sound like the sexiest piece of news ever, and it isn't.

But it could mean the end of the silicon, and major disruptions in micro-electronics as we know them.

Not to mention endless applications for silicon semicon giant Samsung (the S in SAIT) : "the wafer-scale graphene is expected to be used in flexible displays, wearable computers and advanced transistors and electrodes. It can also replace indium tin oxide, used extensively in the production of touch-screen panels and solar cells". And as one could have guessed, this team intends "to develop next-generation ultra high-speed nano memory chips, transparent flexible displays and solar cells." (AsiaPulse / COMTEX).

Of course, Invisible Woman and Mr Fantastic will not be available right away. And nowadays, IT are under the spell of other members of the Fantastic Four... The Bear Market Thing and The Bottomline Human Torch ?

But now is the time for leaders to make the difference. Now is the time to invest in R&D. We all know major innovations will come out of this Not-So-Great Depression. And the so called "new technologies" need Change as badly as the rest of us.

Live from Korea's Graphene Valley...



1 - I already mentioned the KAIST and its Transparent Resistive Random Access Memory ("TRRAM : don't miss this one !" - 20081215) but last autumn, the SAIT developped "a fully transparent non-volatile memory with a conventional sandwich gate insulators structure based on a wide band gap semi-conductive oxide of amorphous gallium indium zinc oxide", a.k.a. amorphous GaInZnO or a-GIZO. Even if it's closer to 80% than actually "fully" transparent, that's something. The beauty of it : whether it works or not, a-GIZO GIZMOs are not to be seen.

CES 2009 Etiquette

Tips of the day :

- don't leave your keys near a Real View 360° 3D Desktop 3D Scanner
- if you drink while watching a Panasonic 3D TV, use special glasses

and first of all

- never forget to deactivate your LG GD910 3G watchphone's video before taking a leak.

E.T. award of the day :

Novo Minoru 3D webcam (year of 3D indeed)

Deep Thoughts of the day without Jack Handey :

"Many posts about Pre, and Palm springs"

Sergeant General's Warning of the day :

Windows 7 is not the latest shoot-em-all video game, and the big hulk giving the lecture was not a former Marine treated for PTSD.

iLife '09 - no Jobs in sight

Steve Jobs uploaded "Hormone Imbalance" and some wonder whether it's a Wii Fit bug or the Apple Store's next killer application. Looking for clues ? SJ was not there to talk about iLife '09.

A new ultra flat TV screen for Samsung, a web enabled Broadband HDTV for LG (forget about browsing but you can enjoy VOD with Netflix Watch Instantly) : Korea Inc opened its IPTV services ahead of the 2009 CES and it shows. Or kinda.

China ignited its 3G cube revolution too late or at the best possible moment... on time to bail out TD-SCDMA and China Inc anyway. About 53% of Chinese citizens don't have a mobile phone and we'll keep an eye on market shares :
- TD-SCDMA goes to leader China Mobile (over 450M customers - about 70% MS). Chinese manufacturers will have to make an effort to make competitive TD-SCDMA handsets (commercial trials only started last April)
- China Unicom inherits W-CDMA - an interesting window of opportunity, too late ?
- to China Telecom the LG Telecom curse (a CDMA2000 license)

Expect some action in Europe too. Let us see who the true survivors are.