News on China's scientific and technological development.

Huawei gets a piece of the action in what may be the first 4G network in the world.



TELEPHONY Magazine

TeliaSonera awards first LTE contract

Jan 15, 2009 2:59 PM, By Kevin Fitchard

Nordic operator names Ericsson, Huawei as vendors; plans commercial launch in 2010
more on the topic

TeliaSonera today said Ericsson and Huawei Technologies are in the process of building what may be the world’s first Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network in Oslo and Stockholm with a target commercial launch date of 2010. Though several operators, including Verizon Wireless and NTT DoCoMo, have announced their plans to build LTE networks in the coming year, TeliaSonera is the first operator to publicly award a deployment contract and confirm it has broken ground on its commercial rollout.

TeliaSonera, Ericsson and Huawei released no financial details of the contract. Nor did they reveal what the eventual scope of the rollout will be. Each vendor only confirmed they begun deployment in their respective single markets. While Oslo and Stockholm are both capital cities and two of the largest markets in TeliaSonera’s territory, the Scandinavian carrier has wireless operations throughout the northern Europe and the Baltic regions as well as in Spain. But the choice of Sweden and Norway for the initial launch is obvious, as both countries were among the first to auction 4G licenses last spring. TeliaSonera won 2.6 GHz licenses in paired bands, spectrum that is being identified all over the world for 4G.

Though TeliaSonera is first to make its deployment public, it won’t necessarily be the first to have an operational or commercial network. A global race for LTE has begun, sparked at first by the threat of WiMax but now moving under its own momentum. Verizon Wireless hasn’t named any vendors—though it is performing trials with part-owner Vodafone using gear from Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel Networks, Alcatel-Lucent and Motorola. Verizon recently indicated it is accelerating its LTE rollout timeline and plans to build its first networks in 2009, though a full commercial launch isn’t likely until next year.

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has been the most active operator in LTE, starting its network testing in 2006. AT CTIA Wireless last year, it revealed field tests of LTE—which it calls Super 3G—using 4 x 4 multiple input-multiple output smart antennas technologies achieved the downlink speeds of 250 Mb/s. NTT has also said it plans to launch commercially in 2010. Like Verizon, DoCoMo has not named any specific markets or vendors, though it is working with a host of handset and infrastructure partners, including NEC, Fujitsu, Panasonic, NSN and Ericsson.

Ericsson is the world’s largest wireless infrastructure vendor, and its selection by TeliaSonera comes as little surprise. Huawei, however, is a bit more of a shock. The Chinese vendor has been building up as strong 3G clientele, building UMTS networks around the world and challenging the position of the established incumbents. In the race for 4G, Huawei seems to be jumping to an early lead. Not only did it win TeliaSonera’s initial contract, Telus and Bell Mobility named Huawei along with NSN to build their joint high-speed packet access network in Canada, a network that will supposedly be software upgradable to LTE in the future.

As more and more operators commit to LTE launches in 2010, more pressure falls on WiMax operators, who were initially counting on two-to-three year lead in the race to 4G. In the US, Clearwire has now launched two WiMax markets, but its once-aggressive rollout plan seems to have slowed considerably.

Pleasantly surprised to not only see Chinese contribution in this but especially so that's it's a collaboration with the US given I believe I read somewhere this project has some US military backing.



Friday, January 16, 2009
Invisibility-Cloak Breakthrough
New software has enabled metamaterials to work with a broad band of frequencies.
By Katherine Bourzac

Metamaterials interact with light in ways that appear to violate the laws of physics. They can bend light around an object as if it weren't there, or narrow the resolution of light microscopes down to a few nanometers. But metamaterials must be painstakingly structured at the nano- and microscales in order to achieve these exotic effects. Now the Duke University researcher who built the first invisibility cloak in 2006 has created software that speeds up the design of metamaterials. He and his colleagues have used the program to build a complex light cloak that's invisible to a broad band of microwave light--and they did it in only about 10 days.

David R. Smith of Duke and Tai Jun Cui of Southeast University, in Nanjing, China, led the work, which is a landmark in the field of metamaterials. The cloak that the researchers built works with wavelengths of light ranging from about 1 to 18 gigahertz--a swath as broad as the visible spectrum. No one has yet made a cloaking device that works in the visible spectrum, and those metamaterials that have been fabricated tend to work only with narrow bands of light. But a cloak that made an object invisible to light of only one color would not be of much use. Similarly, a cloaking device can't afford to be lossy: if it lets just a little bit of light reflect off the object it's supposed to cloak, it's no longer effective. The cloak that Smith built is very low loss, successfully rerouting almost all the light that hits it.

"Their cloak . . . answers the naysayers who predicted that cloaks would always be narrowband and lossy," says John Pendry, chair in theoretical solid-state physics at Imperial College London. Pendry did the theoretical work upon which both the first invisibility cloak and its new successor are based. "Needless to say, I am delighted with this development," says Pendry. He and his Imperial College colleague Jensen Li proposed a theoretical version of a broadband cloak just last year, and at that time, he says, he "did not expect such rapid experimental progress."

The broadband cloak is a rectangular structure measuring about 50 by 10 centimeters, with a height of about 1 centimeter. It's made up of roughly 600 I-shaped copper structures. Making each structure is a simple matter, says Smith. "They're copper patterns on a circuit board, cut up and arranged. It's a well-known, inexpensive technology." The hard part is determining the dimensions of each of these 600 structures and how to arrange them. With the first light cloak, which had only 10 such pieces, "we had to design each element by numerical simulations," Smith says. Applying the same approach to the more complicated cloak would have eaten up months.

Even for physicists and engineers, the math involved in the theoretical design of cloaking devices is very difficult, says Nicholas Fang, a professor of mechanical science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The way that a material interacts with light's magnetic and electric components is taken into account in determining the size, shape, and orientation of each structure in a metamaterial. Pendry and Li's theoretical work described how to make a broadband cloak by using materials structured so that they have an electrical response to light, but not a magnetic one. But it wasn't clear how to put this idea into practice. The Southeast University researchers developed new algorithms to greatly speed up the process, says Smith. These algorithms make it possible to quickly predict how a structure with a particular shape will interact with light.

The cloak itself, described this week in Science, is indeed impressive, says Fang, who's working on metamaterials for super-resolution biological imaging. But what's more exciting is that the new approach to design will accelerate the development of other metamaterials. Smith says that he and his group have already moved beyond the cloak reported in Science, but because their latest work is unpublished, he can't specify what they've made. "Now [that] this is becoming a more feasible technology," he says, "we will start to see a lot more of it."

Other applications of metamaterials, says Smith, include optical devices that take light energy and concentrate it, instead of turning it away--conceptually, the opposite of a cloak. "You could improve solar cells by making structures to increase the field strength of the light," he says. The new work suggests that this could be done over the whole spectrum of wavelengths found in sunlight. Similarly, broadband "hyperlenses" that gather up light missed by normal lenses could revolutionize biological imaging. Fang and others have developed narrowband hyperlenses with resolutions of only a few nanometers, which make the molecular workings of cells visible. A broadband hyperlens could work with all colors of visible and infrared light.

The ultimate goal, says Pendry, is cloaking in the visible-light spectrum, and Smith's latest work points the way forward. "There are no insuperable obstacles to making a cloak work at optical frequencies," Pendry says. "The Duke paper brings this goal a step closer."

Copyright Technology Review 2009.

this will be revolutionary to infantry tactics LOL. so does this cloak thing give off additional infrared signatures or anything?

Top 10 news stories on scientific development in 2008
+ - 15:23, January 19, 2009



The Top 10 News Stories on Scientific Development in 2008 at home and abroad were announced on January 18. They were selected by 522 academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE).

The Top 10 News Stories on Scientific Development in 2008 in China were:

--the successful launch of Shenzhou VII and China's first spacewalk

--a major breakthrough in research and industrialization of China's Next Generation Internet (CNGI)

--the opening of China's first world-class high speed railway between Beijing and Tianjin

--the publishing of research results for the first Chinese human genome sequence

--the successful completion of construction of the second phase of the Beijing Electron Positron Collider (BEPC II) project

--Dawn 5000A's ranking among the world's top 10 supercomputers

--the completion of the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) with the highest spectrum acquiring rate in the world

--the successful first test flight of China's first independently-developed regional jet

--the successful test completion of the quantum repeater

--and the insect-resistant transgenic cotton which allows crops in northern China to be free from insect damage

The Top 10 News Stories on Scientific Development in 2008 in the world were:

--new developments in embryonic stem cell research

--the Phoenix Lander's successful landing on Mars and the discovery of water there

--the development of a supercomputer with the fastest operation speed in the world

--the formal launching of Europe's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project

--the development of a nanomachine that kills cancer cells

--the engineering of the first human nerve-cell tissue system

--a major breakthrough in iron-based superconducting material research

--the first complete mapping of the structural core of the human cerebral cortex

--the discovery that hydrocarbons found on Titan exceed oil and gas reserves on Earth

--and the completion of the largest-ever survey on human genetic diversity.

The selection is an annual event which has been held 15 times, co-sponsored by the General Office of the Academic Divisions of the CAS, the General Office of the Academic Divisions of the CAE and the Science Times

Throughout the years, the Top 10 played a positive role in helping the general public have a deeper understanding of new trends in scientific development at home and abroad while publicizing and popularizing science and technology.

By People's Daily Online

China's Suntech chosen for the high profile first carbon neutral city in the world.



Suntech Solar Panels to Power Largest PV Solar Project in the Middle East
Submitted by orville on January 19, 2009

Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (NYSE: STP), the world's leading manufacturer of photovoltaic (PV) modules, today announced it has supplied 5MW of Suntech solar panels for a 10MW solar electricity system to power Masdar City, the world's first carbon neutral city being built in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The panels will form part of the largest solar plant in the Middle East and is being built and designed by leading Abu Dhabi based solar power system integrator, Enviromena Power Systems "Enviromena".

"We are delighted to collaborate with Masdar, a wholly owned company of the government of Abu Dhabi through the Mubadala Development Company, and Enviromena on the development of this landmark solar project in the Middle East," said Dr. Zhengrong Shi, Suntech's Chairman and CEO. "Masdar City is a revolutionary concept that will greatly influence the future of global urban development. Solar energy systems are the ideal solution for Masdar City as electricity generated will coincide with peak energy usage during the middle of the day. We look forward to working with Enviromena on this and future solar projects in the Middle East." Dr. Shi emphasized, "This 10MW system is expected to generate over 17 million kilowatt-hours per year and reduce carbon emissions by over 15,000 metric tons annually."

With a total investment of approximately $15 billion, Masdar City will take eight years to build and be home to 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. The city, which will cover 6.5 square kilometers, will be primarily powered by solar energy and employ a broad range of innovative energy efficient technologies including electric travel pods, waste and water recycling, natural ventilation and shading. Masdar City's 10MW solar farm will provide power for the construction and eventual operations of parts of Masdar City.

"Enviromena is excited to be working with Suntech on this ground breaking project for alternative energy in the region. With growing recognition of the need for alternative energy solutions in the Middle East there is sure to be strong demand for solar projects, an exciting prospect for the industry to look forward to," Enviromena CEO & President Sami Khoreibi commented. "Enviromena has worked hard to secure a team of highly talented engineers and project managers from around the world and when choosing partners like Suntech, we ensure that clients are provided with high quality, low maintenance clean energy solutions to their power needs and we are excited to see this technology implemented on a wider scale."

:china::china::china:

China bests U.S. in technology infrastructure
Arrol Gellner

Saturday, January 24, 2009


There's one good thing about a nation developing late and developing fast: It can pretty much pick and choose among all the best ways of doing things.

It is exactly what China, with its vast cash reserves and virtually unlimited labor, is now doing. As a result, it's no longer just playing catch-up with the United States. In many ways, it's playing leapfrog.

Technology in China's developed areas - where most of its people live - has long been on par with our own. Internet cafes flourish, and the most sophisticated computers and display systems are ubiquitous in banks, stores and transportation facilities. These things shouldn't surprise Americans, as most of our high-tech goods come from China in the first place. What may surprise people is that some parts of China's infrastructure have already begun to surpass ours.

For example, modern China's communications network, developed just as our old hardwired telephone infrastructure was becoming obsolete, is almost entirely cellular. Here, everyone from the high roller in his Mercedes-Benz to the farmer in his rice paddy carries a cell phone. Never has a nation so vast and populous been so well connected.

The bulk of China's electrical-distribution system was also built fairly late in the 20th century. For starters, it gives it a definite aesthetic edge: The Chinese use tidy and permanent concrete stanchions to carry power lines instead of the dilapidated wooden poles and tangles of wire that make up much of our own power grid. But even this modern system is advancing. A number of Chinese cities now have plans afoot for complete "undergrounding" of all existing power-distribution systems - a sweeping improvement, which, owing to its cost and complexity, has long eluded municipal governments in the United States. And since the Chinese are loathe to risk a loss of face by announcing plans they can't fulfill, we can fully expect these underground projects to be realized, and sooner rather than later.

Chinese traffic controls, mostly developed in the past 30 years, have already led American systems for years. For example, the digital countdown signals only now being adopted by some American cities were already commonplace during my first visit to China in 1994.

Moreover, the newest traffic controls have entirely superseded the redundant clutter of red, yellow and green lamps found in the United States. Instead, Suzhou's signals use a compact and attractive stanchion with a single, bold LED arrow that changes color to indicate both traffic direction and status. If you can't quite picture this, don't worry - your town will probably be installing these systems in five or 10 years, and no doubt they'll be made in China.

These advances may seem trivial, but they're emblematic of China's spectacular rate of progress over the past 30 years. Now, having largely caught up with the West, the Chinese have both the desire for bigger plans and the resources to fulfill them.

Is all this bad news for America? It depends on your point of view. If we're content to be slowly but surely surpassed by the nation we patronizingly call our "workshop," then we can relax. If not, we'd better wake up and smell the tea.

Cherry picked examples which indicate more political will, and yes, later urban development, than any technological superiority.

Yes as the author mentioned, starting later gives it the advantage of selecting the best for its purposes, technology parity or superiority should be linked with innovation and inventiveness.
This financial meltdown has slowed down the research into newer and better products in the WEst and Japan, is China in the position to take advantage of this and come out with a line of new indigenously designed products that the consumers might want. when this recession is over and trade starts freely again we may see Chinese consumer product manufactures having to adapt to a different set of parameters to entice the consumer. That is new better and innovaters, not just copies , even if they are better.The Chinese Oppo DVD upscaler is brilliant value for money is probably rated the best in the world at $200 US it does things better than big brands do at 10X the price. BUt unfortunately its a product that will probably fade away as Blue ray becomes more affordable.

China needs entrepreneurs and innovative people like google have, who have come up with G drive. If Successful they would have made redundant alot of the computer technology hardware which china has based a lot of its hopes on.abit like what steam did to sailships.

A lot of the modern city infrastructure in China, not just Shanghai, just looks plain futuristic. If you remember the sci-fi, comic book turned into movie, Ultraviolet, it was shot around a district in Shanghai.

And of course, the telecom-cellular infrastructure is all true. Everyone has been mad about celphones for quite some time now. Even people that seemed like lowly peasants and farmers doing menial work are carrying state of the art celphones.