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A Revolutionary New Motor Vehicle Tyre Warns of A Looming Flat

A revolutionary new Motor vehicle tyre is in the process of entering he market and not to dissimilar than most new types of gadgetery will be initially aimed at the high end of the industry meaning Formula One, Le mans and possibly Nascar among others. The motor sports will seriously focus on the benefits of using these new tyres. This invention imbibes the tyre as one big sensor that relays split second information to the controlling function of the motor vehicle, ie. the driver notices a flashing widget on the dashboard warning of imminent tyre failure, which during tests at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, (where it was invented) showed that this information gave adequate time to enable the driver to safely bring the car to a halt before the blowout or whatever may have occurred.

The tyre is: multi-layered of different materials of the entire tyre with different electrical properties. That allows us to then measure anywhere in the tyre..... If you poke it anywhere, like with a nail, we can tell you where it is at and that you poked it........ The tyres are made of specially selected rubber .... A special chip inside the tyre probes the different layers and quickly relay safety information to the driver. says Professor Gary Krutz, director of Purdue's Electrohydraulic Center.

This invention will help save many lives and heaps of expensive road accidents, globally.

Can't imagine what it must be like to be on a highway on which you notice a vehicle go careering across your line of pursuit at around 180 km ?


Source

Paper-like Soft Battery Will Help Gadgets Get Smaller

Zhang Xiachang a Chinese researcher has developed a paper-like battery called the Enfucell soft battery. The Battery measures only 0.5mm thick and can be bent and rolled like paper. There’s no information on battery life.

Enfucell”, a Finland-based company, has developed a flexible thin battery named “SoftBattery”. This 0.3 – 1.0 millimeter battery (1.5 or 3.0 V) can produce a peak electric current of 4mA/cm². Enfucell was founded in 2002, after nearly ten years of research on power sources for low-power application conducted at the Automation Laboratory of the Helsinki University of Technology. The SoftBattery has several interesting applications in the pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and logistics industries.


Source

Panorama:Inside A Washing Machine: What goes around,comes around.

On a rainy afternoon in September Robert Serra was shooting a panorama within a cat litter box
and when he looked through the viewfinder to check the perspective, he saw the washing machine
standing behind the litter box.





Source

Time Twisting Tool "6 seconds into the past"

So u don't know the future but.....




more Time Twisting

Aptera: Jetson-esque Super-MPG Electric Car With Gullwing Doors

Aptera has two innovative models that are almost production-ready at $30,000 and below: for next year, the all-electric, 120-mile-range Typ-1 e will be available; and, by 2009, the range-extended series gasoline Typ-1 h, which Aptera says will hit 300 mpg.

This "futuristic golf car" looks like its flimsy and just a toy. I wonder if they've done any crash testing on it. How sturdy are the body panels and how easily replaceable are they? How does it do in a collision with an 18-wheeler? It's going to be hard to convince many people that a car like that is safer on the roads than an SUV.

The full story can be found here. The site uses heaps of flash animations and the article plus pics is 11 pages in length. Having a modest net connection makes reading this article, painfully slow going. The video although incredibly thorough is another painful watching experience !

Nevertheless the plan is to have a vehicle that goes 120 miles on a single lithium-phosphate pack charge for 2008, with a 300-mpg model to follow by 2009.

Aptera is also mentioned in Wired's new cover story as one of several early front-runners for the Automotive X Prize."

Source

Update

The Aptera has just been recognized as one of the Top 10 New World-Changing Innovations of 2008.

Straight 8: Helping To Keep Super 8 Film Making Alive.

Straight 8, challenges anyone to make a film on a single cartridge of Super 8 (3min20s), editing only in camera, with a separate original soundtrack. The best of each year is shown at the Cannes Film Festival.

There appears to be two styles of films produced using this technique. The first is the very precisely defined and the second the more chaotic and haphazard. The first can produce some good short films telling a short story, the latter approach is ideally for a more experimental or arty film.

Straight 8 '08 is now open for submissions until March.

Here are more Super 8 centric links.

Source

Inventor of Flash Memory Plans 3D Super Processors In 2 Years

If his plans are successful, the inventor of flash memory is just a few steps away from delivering three-dimensional semiconductors that will give us processing chips running at ten times the speed of current-generation designs.

Fujio Masuoka, CTO of Unisantis Electronics in Japan, has announced a deal to work on his 3D chip designs with Singapore’s Institute of Microelectronics to take advantage of the island nation’s government facilities and specialists. They will be developing the worlds first 3D Transistor known as the Surrounding Gate Transistor (SGT)

According to Prof Masuoka, the SGT comprises a vertical silicon pillar surrounded by memory cells, electrical contacts and other components. Such a design methodology greatly reduces the distance that electrons – which transmit information-bearing electrical signals – must travel within the SGT. Next-generation IC chips fabricated with the SGT could be up to 10 times faster than existing chips built using conventional, two dimensional transistors with horizontally-arranged components. In addition, SGT-based chips could generate less heat and cost less to produce compared to existing ones.

Fujio Masuoka, who invented flash memory while at Toshiba, says he intends to pay royalties to the Singapore government while licensing the new super chips to major manufacturers.

Interesting to note however that the computer chips we currently use are manufactured on a 2D surface by technique called photo-lithographical etching, so one is left holding the baby on not understanding how the new chip will actually be built, perhaps it will be printed using this device ?

Source

Football Field-Sized Kite Propels Latest Ocean Freighter

A 132-meter long vessel will soon be making its maiden voyage, but rather than using copious quantities of diesel while traversing the Atlantic, it'll be receiving a good bit of help from the computer guided kite attached to its bow. The $725,000 device (600 square metres of sail) will be tethered to a 15-meter high mast and will fly some 300 meters above the ship. The kite is constructed as a twinskin kite which keeps its airfoil shape due to internal air pressure: A set of small mesh openings in the leading edge allows air into the opening between the front and back side. This form of kite is an airfoil, not a spinnaker, the difference is huge: A spinnaker is effectively a large bag to catch the wind, while a kite works best by having air moving faster on one side than the other. Among other things, this means that a kite allows you to sail much faster at an angle to the wind instead of straight downwind.

According to the skysails website, and shown in a live action promo video,(requires fast broadband) the launch and retrieval of the sail is completely automated, as is the steering. a single person will be able to operate the whole thing by pressing the launch button in the control room to start it, and press the retrieval button when done. The control system acts like the autopitot systems on an aircraft, the company says. Autopilot software sends and receives data about the sail etc to make sure the sail is set at its optimal position.

The Beluga shipping company that owns the 460-foot Beluga said it expects the kites to decrease fuel consumption by up to 50% in optimal cases as well as a cutback of the emission of greenhouse gases on sea by 10 to 20%.

Source

sQuba: World's First Underwater Car

Rinspeed will at the Geneva Motor Show (March 6th thru 16th, 2008), showcase their sQuba Concept Car. The makers claim that it is the world's first real car with the capabilities to not only drive on land but also dive underwater with the use of two propellers in the stern and two powerful jet drives in the bow which propel the vehicle which has a steel chassis, while its lightweight body panels are made of carbon nanotubes. An electric motor provides rear-wheel drive while on roads. Underwater, two propellers in the stern and two jet drives in the bow propel the vehicle. With zero emissions, the design is even environmentally friendly, eliminating any pollution into the sea.

The two-seater also includes a self-contained on-board oxygen system to supply the driver and passenger with fresh air for breathing. Rinspeed CEO Frank Rinderknecht admits

that part of the inspiration for the underwater car comes from the 1977 James Bond hit "The Spy Who Loved Me." The sQuba concept symbolizes the realization of this fantasy that once sparked his imagination. And exactly thirty years later this amazing - yet at the time animated - film sequence materializes and becomes reality, in today's world..

So while you won’t be taking a Sunday drive down to the Titanic, I imagine the experience of diving underwater in a car will be unique enough for most drivers. Of course to achieve this feat the car had to be custom built using a host of materials that will keep it off a production line for many years to come.


Sources: One and Two

G100 Gumease: Dentistry With Cryogenic Anaesthetics

BioMeDevice, Ltd. has begun marketing a flexible disposable cryo-anaesthetic mouthpiece - it uses cryogenic technology to “chill” the treatment area, thus numbing it. It can be used in conjunction with other pain control methods or as a stand-alone method. In this video Dr. Deborah Ayala performs an extraction without anesthesia using the FDA-approved gumEase G100 mouthpiece.

The gumEase G-100 is prepared by storing in a conventional freezer until freezing temperature is reached. Proprietary solutions inside the mouthpiece prevent it from freezing, allowing it to form comfortably within the patient's mouth for several minutes. Pain reduction lasts for up to twenty minutes, and the process can be repeated as often as needed.In patient tests the new gumEase diminished pain by 90% in 2 to 3 minutes for the average participant. Patients can apply them post-operatively as needed, and reuse without side effects by storing in a household freezer.

This flexible plastic cryo-anaesthetic mouthpiece contains a patented liquid which will not freeze but can be chilled in a conventional freezer. The device dulls the nerves in your gums without conventional anaesthetics, instead using cold to temporarily deaden the maxillofacial nerves. Because it doesn't completely freeze, it doesn't glue itself to your gums with frozen saliva, either.

Way cool huh ?


Sources: One and Two

Catch Up Ketchup To The Last Word

Bucketroom mashup

(Animal rights activists call for the end to the NYC Horse and Carriages, NASA STS-122 space shuttle mission to the ISS, M-430iA Series Food and Pharmacetutical Robot, J. Craig Venter applies for patent to own synthetic life, Butterfly genes, Google street view, Google maps zoom-way-in close-up, La presión atmosférica, Hare hare yukai zombie dance, Heroboy and Twindreams' human wheelbarroe race, Litroenergy stays on for 12 years)

Amusing mash dis / location piece but very insightful clip of using Google maps in an interactive design method whilst tooling onsite navigation across a bridge, to dare I say it the last....

Robocat: Handicapped Cat Regains Mobility

Elvis lost 3 legs in an accident and gets encapsulated in robotic car by his owner.

Nevertheless images at the beginning make Elvis look like a disembodied head !

60 Years Ago Today Sergent Transistor Taught The Band To Play

The Transistor the ubiquitous building block of all electronic circuits, otherwise known as the Crystal Triode came into existence on December 24 1947.

Jack Ganssle has written an articulate history of the transistor.

The transistor began its story in 1825 when William Sturgeon developed the first electromagnet. We continue on toward the Titanic's 5 Kilowatt S.O.S. transmitter. And then on through the world's first transistor, created at Bell Labs in 1947. The original inventors, John Bardeen, William Bradford Shockley and Walter Houser Brattain, all shared the Nobel Prize in 1956.

When the world's newest transistors entered "mass production," each one cost about $147 in adjusted dollars ($18 then). At such a rate, today's Core 2 Duo, with its 291 million transistors, would've cost $42.8 billion. That doesn't include R&D and engineering staffs, though they probably would've increased it only to about $42.85 billion.

There's little doubt electronics and technology as we know it today are only possible because of this fundamental discovery, and it's not like you can see it by looking at the case of iPod or computer, but without the transistor, we would have none of the "magic" electronic devices we now know and cannot live without.

Source

Gadget Origami: The $100 iPhone+iPod Touch Stand

Enrique Pardo designed this origami iphone//itouch paper strip holder



And here is a worthy grasping ingenuous design alternative.


Source

Whales Revenge: Help International Whaling Commission

Help Whales Revenge, an ambitious campaign to gather 1 million signatures for a petition to stop whaling.

Every year thousands of precious mammals are slaughtered in the name of so-called 'scientific research'.

Add your voice by signing this campaign then forwarding it everyone you know. Please help stop the killing.

Earth's Highest Clouds Captured by A Nasa Spacecraft

Interesting new images of Earth's highest and most mysterious clouds have been captured by a Nasa spacecraft. The AIM probe (Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere) has now returned the first truly global pictures of these phenomena which appear to be increasing in frequency and extent. These clouds are known as Noctilucent, or "night-shining", clouds and they appear as thin bands in twilight skies, some 80km (50miles) above the surface. Scientists say their observations show how the clouds alter rapidly, hour by hour and day by day. They hope their studies will reveal the key triggers to the clouds' formation and why these triggers appear to be undergoing long-term change.

These Noctilucent clouds, or polar mesospheric clouds are the highest clouds in Earth's atmosphere, located in the mesosphere at altitudes of around 85 km, ands are visible from earth only when illuminated by sunlight from below the horizon while the ground and lower layers of the atmosphere are in the Earth's shadow; otherwise they are too faint to be seen. They are primarily composed of water ice (confirmed by UARS). It has been suggested that they may be related to climate change. At least one researcher, Dr. Michael Stevens of the US Naval Research Laboratory, believes space shuttle exhaust may contribute to the formation of noctilucent clouds. Imaging has also shown that some debris clouds from various space disasters have been mistaken for noctilucent clouds. Nevertheless it has been suggested that a transition to a hydrogen economy could increase the number of noctilucent clouds in the future through mass water vapour emissions. Gee, what does that mean ?


Sources: ONE TWO THREE VIDEO

From A Colourful Jumping Something To The Rapture

Colourful Jumping Something



and here is a much larger slinky



And a new media slinky web movie and music portal
be advised though fast net connection recommended
Mouse over the image to find and click Media

Hummer Card Trick by Marco Tassone

Found this video

by using this new net savy

archiving and sharing tool.

IceCube: Dual Use Neutrino Telescope

Being built in the Antarctic Ice plains to help map the heavens could also one day be used as a planetary scanner to help build up a picture of the earth's core;

Currently under construction, Icecube is designed to detect subatomic particles called neutrinos, which are so evasive that they can slip quite easily through the body of the planet. A few neutrinos are not so lucky, however, and deep under the South Pole IceCube is designed to spot them. The machine consists of thousands of detectors and will eventually fill a cubic kilometre of ice. The detectors look downwards, watching for the distinctive flash of blue light that means a neutrino has come through most of the planet only to get snagged in the Antarctic ice. The main aim is to look for neutrinos from exotic objects in deep space, such as the giant black holes in galactic cores, using the bulk of the Earth as a shield to screen out unwanted noise from other cosmic particles.

Apparently building the IceCube is less an act of construction than a kind of archaeology in reverse; the process will consist of entombing glass-globed sensors the size of basketballs on 1-mile-long strings, 70 sensors per string, in 70 deep holes beneath the polar surface. This will then allow scientists to develop, a "library of the universe"

Sources: One Two Three

Toyota Preoccupied With Creating Robots Useful For Everyday Life

Here is another hiccup for Robotic Science and investigation, a robot that appears to play a piece of music on a violin (Pomp And Circumstance). Its all rather dreary reading about these new points of discovery in robotic engineering when most of the journalism that portrays these stories are mostly adrift of any sense of analysis. Like the portrayal of the violin playing robot where no one seems to notice if the robot is actually playing or appearing to ?

Nevertheless, true or not I imagine a robot that can play a piece of music on a violin can also very likely bend over and retie your undone shoelaces ?

Check our the video lower down this page and be amused about the tune playing in the background, though bear in mind that Toyota will test out its robots at hospitals, Toyota-related facilities and other places starting next year, and the company hopes to put partner robots to real use by 2010.

Source

Meet 'twentyone': Your Next Kitchen Utensil of Note

apparently able to slice bread, toast it,
spread it and serve it

Designer Shigeki Sugano says

twentyone is the first robot in the
world with this much system integration

And the five-foot tall, 245-pound robot partner
presently cost 2 mil but constructors are
anticipating that the sale price will
drop to 200k post 2010.

Go here to watch some video demo's
of twentyone in action


The most endorsing experiential
aspect of 'twentyone'
is that sculptural mechano head
or perhaps its design is imitating a
Transformer.

DNA Video Stream - Mutant Television

DNA video stream is an interactive compendium of 3 fields of movie types that a viewer can travel down, TV Channels, Internet Video's or DNA Stream which seems to be a kind of Mix down thing or maybe something else ?

This site would best be viewed via a fast internet connection and perhaps a large screen to view it would be very deserving.

In fact it would be quite rewarding for me if some viewers from here could write me a few little comments in the comments about their experiences with this video portal as my net connection speed is oh so modest.

The Race To Be A Metacapable Human Being

we are now about to walk
into supermarket and buy

a humanoid

and possibly a koalaroid

this will work with android

and will interface well with my

simroid and craneroid.

Draganflyer V Ti R/C Helicopter

The Draganflyer V Ti R/C Helicopter is small and agile at just 30 inches in diameter. This compact flying-masterpiece lifts off effortlessly with its ultra-lightweight carbon-fiber body and stylish lines. Unlike gas-powered or other electric radio-controlled helicopters that are complicated and difficult to fly, ours has been designed for beginners. Our RC helicopter uses a heading-lock yaw gyro which helps simplify flight in all conditions.

Designed to idle in freespace via the radio plane frequency if the operator drops the controller and also designed not to damage the most important elements of it so that on crashing all the plastic bits absorb the impact and are easily replaced. The craft has a range of 500 metres.

Latest Pictures From Space: Riding With Robots

For the past two years, Europe's Venus Express orbiter has been studying Earth's planetary neighbor up close. Mission scientists have released a new collection of findings and amazing images. They include evidence of lightning and other results that flesh out a portrait of a planet that is in many ways like ours, and in other ways hellishly different, such as surface temperatures over 400C and air pressure a hundred times that on Earth.

Also see

Ridingwithrobots