Tech Team Blog - Interview Re Higgs Boson, Broadband Update, Paint On Battery - Read More

This Week’s Tech Team Show

On this week’s Tech Team Radio Show - You will have seen in the news this week the story about The Higgs boson or Higgs particle been found during experiments in the Hadron Collider, what does this mean ? well I spoke with Dr Kristian Harder who is from the Particle Physics Department at the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, he is one of a team of scientists who analyses the data that comes from the Hadron Collider operated by CERN is Switzerland, and he explains to me what this means and what the future holds for the scientific community. We also have a round up of the week’s top technology news story’s. This Sunday 6-7pm on 6 Towns Radio.

BT Superfast Broadband – Local Stoke-on-Trent Area Update

An update on the BT superfast broadband rollout in the local Stoke on Trent area we mentioned a few weeks ago.  We have heard from BT that by the end of 2013 the Burslem telephone exchange and the Hanley exchange will be upgraded to BT’s superfast fibre broadband service.  Currently in the local Stoke on Trent area only the Cheadle exchange, Biddulph exchange and Alsager exchange are currently enabled and accepting orders for the superfast fibre broadband service from BT.

The Paint On Battery Is Here

Researchers at Rice University in Houston Texas have developed a lithium-ion battery that can be painted on virtually any surface.  The researchers reported that the hand-painted batteries were remarkably consistent in their capacities, within plus or minus 10 percent of the target. They were also put through 60 charge-discharge cycles with only a very small drop in capacity, researchers said. The batteries are easily charged with a small solar cell.

330Mbs Broadband – Yes Please !

BT has launched more super fast speeds. The service, which BT intends to make commercially available from Spring 2013, will enable customers to order an ultra-fast 330Mbps broadband connection directly to their home or business in an area served by Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC 2 ) technology. Previously, in order to receive 330Mbps speeds, customers had to be located in an FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) enabled area.  The pilot will be held in two phases so that BT Openreach has sufficient time to explore and resolve the challenges in deploying the service with its customers.

Phase one, which is intended to test the planning and construction process, will run from July 2012 to early 2013 in parts of High Wycombe, Bristol South as well as in St Agnes, Cornwall where the service was first trialled. Edinburgh’s Waverley exchange will be added to the pilot in September 2012.

Phase two, which will run from March to May 2013, will test new automated order processes, and focus on the 330Mbps downstream, 30Mbps upstream product. In addition to the first four areas, this phase will see the pilot extended to parts of Watford, Cardiff, Basingstoke, and Manchester Central.

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