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Atomic clock keeps ultra-precise time aboard a rocking naval ship

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Demonstration of the at-sea optical clock server rack.

An atomic clock that keeps time with the help of iodine molecules is sturdy enough to withstand a sea voyage.Credit: Will Lunden

Atomic clocks are usually either ultra-precise or sturdy, but not both. Now, scientists have created a precise clock that, when put through its paces aboard a naval ship, wavered by only 300-trillionths of a second per day.

Such a precise but portable clock could be used to improve research that requires precise timing in the field, including mapping Earth’s gravitational field and using multiple telescopes to image black holes.

The clock, which was detailed in a paper in Nature on 24 April1, could also provide a “vital fallback solution” if signals from global navigation systems are spoofed or jammed in conflict zones, says Tetsuya Ido, director of the Space-Time Standards Laboratory at the Radio Research Institute in Tokyo.

“I’m impressed,” says Elizabeth Donley, who heads the time and frequency division at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. “We’re excited to get our hands on it.”

Atomic tick-tock

The ‘tick’ of the world’s best clocks is pegged to the frequency of the radiation that atoms absorb and emit as they oscillate between energy states. Clocks based on atoms of caesium and other elements that emit radiation at a microwave frequency have been used for decades. Some are portable and are sold commercially.

Scientists have also developed clocks that use other elements, such as strontium, that emit at higher frequencies — visible light — to slice time even more finely. But these ‘optical’ clocks are usually the size of dining tables and operate well only under laboratory-controlled conditions.

Vector Atomic, an engineering firm based in Pleasanton, California, has created an optical clock that weighs only 26 kilograms and, including all its housing, takes up about the size of three shoe boxes. Although the firm’s clock is inferior to the best lab-based optical timekeepers, its precision is 1,000 times better than that of the similar sized clocks that ships currently use, says company co-founder Jamil Abo-Shaeer, a co-author of the study.

The team tested its system by placing three of the clocks aboard the Royal New Zealand Navy ship HMNZS Aotearoa during a three-week trip around the Hawaiian Islands. Despite the ship’s vibrations and rolling, the clocks performed almost as well as they had in the laboratory. They were notably stable, keeping time to within 300-trillionths of a second over a day.

Donley says this stability is similar to that of a hydrogen maser clock — a reliable kind of microwave atomic clock that is the workhorse for international timekeeping. But the clock is much more robust and around one tenth of the volume.

Fly me to the Moon

The clock’s robustness comes in part from its use of iodine molecules, which can be made to oscillate using compact and durable lasers of the type commonly used in labs. The molecules are also less sensitive than some atoms to temperature fluctuations, magnetic fields and pressure, says physicist Martin Boyd, a co-founder of Vector Atomic and co-author of the paper.

If the team can shrink the clock further, future models could fly aboard global navigation satellites, improving positioning resolution from metres to centimetres, adds Abo-Shaeer. They could even be the clocks that end up defining lunar time, he says.

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Bisnis Industri

New Beats Solo 4 headphones could ship in early May

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Beats Solo 4 headphones
This Beats Solo 4 image appeared in the iOS 17.4 beta release.
Photo: Apple

Recent clues in iOS beta software plus a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filing by Apple suggest new Beats Solo 4 headphones may ship as soon as early May, according to reports.

Given that Beats Solo 3 launched in 2016, well, it’s about time. Eight years usually represents several generations in tech products, not just one.

Beats Solo 4 headphones should ship soon after FCC filing

When Beats Solo 3 came out in September 2016, the first AirPods hadn’t quite launched (December 2016) — and yet AirPods 4 might show up this year, TechRadar pointed out about Beats Solo 4 headphones’ glacial release schedule, along with other sources.

The first clue about impending Beats Solo 4 came with images buried in iOS 17.4 beta code. This also happened with Beats Studio Pro headphones and other new products. Now a new FCC filing makes imminent release a good bet. FCC filings often appear about a month before a new product goes on sale.

The images appeared to show few if any design changes to the headphones, though they displayed black, blue and pink colors. Those could be part or all of the color selection.

Five (or more) upgrades to expect

Beats Solo 3 headphones
Beats Solo 3 cans looked like this. Beats Solo 4 appear almost identical.
Photo: Apple

But after eight years, it’s reasonable to assume several upgrades to sound quality and other functionality in Beats Solo 4 headphones.

These should be a bare minimum of improvements:

  1. Upgraded drivers for better sound. After 8 years, this is to be expected.
  2. And the new cans might borrow lossless audio over USB-C connection from Beats Studio Pro, released in 2023.
  3. Personalized Spatial Audio and fast pairing are good bets, as they appear in other recent Beats gear.
  4. The new cans might include Find My support, too.
  5. And Beats Studio 3 packed remarkable (for 2016) 40-hour battery life, so we can expect the new ones to top that. Other new headphones are topping 50 hours now.

As far as price goes, rumors suggest Beats Solo 4 headphones could come out at their predecessor’s price, $199. That would make them a good value.



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