Holy crap, this is AWESOME. From a March 2009 article preview on ScientificAmerican.com:
Key ConceptsNanotechnology has demonstrated more hyperbole than substance for many years—and the “nano” label has been applied to items ranging from motor oil to lipstick. One of the first true nanoscale machines is a radio that can play songs such as Eric Clapton’s “Layla” and the theme from Star Wars. A single nanotube in this device performs the function of multiple components in larger radios. The nanoapparatus may ultimately find uses in drug delivery devices, prosthetics or explosives detectors. …
…the nanotube radio, invented in 2007 by physicist Alex Zettl and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, performs a set of amazing feats: a single carbon nanotube tunes in a broadcast signal, amplifies it, converts it to an audio signal and then sends it to an external speaker in a form that the human ear can readily recognize. If you have any doubts about this assertion, just visit www.sciam.com/nanoradio and listen to the song “Layla.”
via sciam.com
Forget an iPod Nano!! I want an actual nanotube music player!
Sadly, if you listen to the sample the sciam.com article preview gives us, you can hear that the nanotube radio has nothing on even those crappy ear buds Apple includes with iPods. However, imagine having one of these microscopic radios IN your ear. You could just leave it there and constantly be listening to music… but how do you change the station? Looking at the diagram, it doesn’t look like there are controls—what if that station changes format to country/western?? UGH—or WORSE: a station that runs Glenn Beck’s show!!
Hm, I think I’ll stick to my old 5g iPod for now, thanks… still pretty damn awesome start! Make it Bluetooth compatible and you’ll have something that’s amazing and will be something people will actually want to use.
Diagram nicked from: a slideshow at sciam.com.
