drag2share: Behold the first photo of light in both wave and particle forms

source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/03/behold-the-first-photo-of-light-in-both-wave-and-particle-forms/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

You've likely read in a textbook before that light behaves both as a particle and a wave at the same time. Scientists had previously seen it behave one way or another, but it's only now that someone finally found a way to photograph light as both in a single picture since Einstein proposed its dual nature in the early 1900's. In order to photograph light, a team of scientists from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) used a novel technique and an electron microscope so powerful, there are only two in the world.

Here's how they did it: they shone laser onto a tiny nanowire that caused it to vibrate, which, in turn, caused light waves to travel back and forth along its length -- when the waves met, they ended up emitting light particles. The team then fired electrons close to the nanowire that enabled them to capture both the light waves and particles, as you can see in the image above. Sound complicated? The video below makes it easier to understand, but take note that it's still the shorter, oversimplified explanation. If you want the whole enchilada (and all the scientific lingo that comes with it), you'll have to read the team's paper published in Nature.

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The iPhone 6 Plus is killing tablet sales

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-iphone-6-plus-is-hurting-tablet-sales-2015-3

Consumers are shying away from tablets.

Sales of the handheld devices have crashed 30% across the industry, Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly said on an earnings conference call. 

Best Buy's tablet sales declined less than the industry average, although the company declined to give specifics. 

It's possible that phones with bigger screens, such as the iPhone 6 Plus and Samsung Galaxy Note, are hurting tablet sales, a company representative told Business Insider. 

The so-called "phablets" are becoming more popular as consumers demand a bigger and brighter experience on their smartphones. 

The iPhone 6 Plus boasts a screen that is 1.5 inches large than the previous model. It also has a larger battery, holding charge for 24 hours or more. 

As more people buy these phones, it's likely that they don't feel the need to buy a tablet. 

Best Buy executives also say that lack of innovation in the space is negatively affecting sales. 

Global tablet shipments have been declining, according to a report by BI Intelligence. Meanwhile, "phablet" shipments will hit 1.5 billion by 2019. 

"Larger screens are blurring the lines between tablet and phone," a Best Buy company representative said. 

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Article: HP teamed up with Microsoft to build its latest flagship laptop

This isn't your typical laptop announcement post. The most interesting thing about the Spectre x360, HP's new flagship notebook, isn't its design, performance or even price. No, what's interesting about this laptop is that Microsoft helped build it. Over the course of a year and a half, the two c...

http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/01/hp-spectre-x360/

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One of gaming's most used engines is now free

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/02/unreal-engine-4-free/

Created in Unreal Engine 4

Game development is expensive. It's not a question of the tools costing too much; game engines like Unity and GameMaker Studio offer free versions, and paid versions aren't far out of reach. That's a recent development, though. When the last generation of game consoles (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii) ruled the roost, the Unreal Engine was both ubiquitous and costly. Its latest iteration, Unreal Engine 4, is widely used, but has taken a sideline to free offerings from the likes of Unity. The engine's maker, Epic Games, isn't sitting idly by and letting the competition take over, though: as of this morning, Unreal Engine 4 is free for all to use.

So what does that mean? It means anyone that wants it has full access to the entirety of Unreal Engine 4's tools. You could create your very own game, or maybe an architecture project, or maybe...well, we don't really know. It's kinda up to you. If you're looking to make money on said project, you're free to -- Epic asks for a revenue share "after the first $3,000 per product, per quarter."

That revenue share comes to five percent of gross revenue -- a dramatic departure from the subscription model Epic announced last year at the Game Developers Conference. But is it enough to compete with Unity?

Developers Engadget spoke with expressed skepticism with the company's business model, saying their development engine choice is a measure of its ability and the developer's past experience more than the price argument. In so many words: it's not about being free, but about being an effective tool.

More than price, devs we spoke with expressed concern about having to re-configure how they work based around a different engine from what they've been using (primarily Unity). So, is it worth re-writing tools and creating new workflows to use Unreal Engine 4? That's a question you'll have to answer yourself. But hey, at least it's free!

Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD

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Scientists take the first ever photograph of light as both a wave and a particle

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/image-of-light-as-a-wave-and-a-particle-2015-3

For the first time ever, scientist have snapped a photo of light behaving as both a wave and a particle at the same time.

The research was published on Monday in the journal Nature Communications.

Scientists know that light is a wave. That's why light can bend around buildings and squeeze through tiny pinholes. Different wavelengths of light are why we can see different colors, and why everyone freaked out about that black and blue dress.

But all the characteristics and behaviors of a wave aren't enough to explain everything that light does.

When light hits metal for example, it ejects a stream of electrons. Einstein explained this back in 1905 by suggesting that light is also made of particles and that those particles of light smack into the metal electrons like billiard balls and send them flying. The insight eventually won him the Nobel Prize, but scientists were not happy about being forced to conclude that light can behave as both a wave and particle.

It's been over 100 years and every experiment with light that any scientist has ever performed proves that light either behaves as a wave or that light behaves as a particle, but never both at the same time. No one has glimpsed both states simultaneously until now.

But you need a source of light to take a photo, so how do you take a photo of light itself? Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne in Switzerland captured the weird split personality of light by using a new photo technique.

First they fired laser light at a tiny metal wire. This trapped waves of light on the wire:

Then they fired a stream of electrons alongside the wire. The light waves on the wire are made of light particles called photons, so the electrons ricocheted off the photons, causing some electrons to speed up and some to slow down. The changes in speed show up as energy blips that can be visualized.

The researchers put the wire under a huge microscope that can see electrons, and snapped a photo of it. The bottom layer of the image shows where the particles of light are and the top layer shows what the light looks like as a wave:

"This experiment demonstrates that, for the first time ever, we can film quantum mechanics — and its paradoxical nature — directly," Fabrizio Carbone, one of the researchers who worked on the study, said in a press release.

Carbone said the imaging technique could help advance the development of quantum computers — ultrafast computers that take advantage of other strange properties of light particles.

You can watch a video description of the experiment below, from École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) on YouTube:

SEE ALSO: Particle accelerator that found the Higgs boson is getting ready for a second run — here's what it could find

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