The new cloak with the bump, left, and the prototype, right.
(Credit: Duke University)That cloaking device we've been dreaming of appears to be one step closer to actual cloakdom, so start pondering the mischievous possibilities.
Scientists from Duke University have improved on their earlier efforts at producing an invisibility cloak, coming up with a new type of device they say is significantly more sophisticated at cloaking an object (and eventually a person?) from visible light.
The device is made from a light-bending composite material that can detour electromagnetic waves around an object and reconnect them on the other side. That creates an effect similar to a distant mirage you'd see hovering above a road on a hot day.
In Duke's latest experiments, a beam of microwaves aimed through the cloaking device at a "bump" on a flat mirror surface bounced off the surface at the same angle, as if the bump wasn't there. Additionally, the device prevented the formation of scattered beams that would normally be expected from such a perturbation. (The team details its findings in far more technical terms than I ever could in the latest issue of Science magazine.)
... Read More
(Credit:
YouTube)
Here's one for all you weekend project addicts out there. You've probably already torn through dangerous books of all kinds and now you're thinking, "What's next?"
One option is to cut a huge hole into your floor and hide a pool table in it. Seriously. As you can see from the video, you won't be the first, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it just as much as the engineering genius (that's not sarcasm) who decided to build a hydraulic lift for his pool table and have it dramatically rise out of the floor while no one around you wonders what you're compensating for. OK, maybe that last part was sarcasm.
I can't imagine this being installed in anything but a very large home. So the thought that someone would install this to save space is probably off the mark. It's probably the compensating thing. Also, you probably won't want to have small children or pets around this thing, especially when it's recessing back into the floor.
Thanks to BallerHouse for sending this one in.
It turns out that BMW is not the only automaker to have toyed with the idea of retractable car doors. Thanks to this video evidence, we now know that Lincoln sponsored an even more elaborate car door mechanism in the 1990s. The mule for the concept was a 1993 Lincoln Mark VIII, from which the B-pillar was removed. Instead of a front-hinged door, the coupe features a retractable panel (complete with an electric window) that slides underneath the car body to allow access. The whole process takes less than 5 seconds from start to finish.
According to auction specialist Ron Susser, "Lincoln executives were concerned about the heavy and wide doors on the Mark VIII in the early 1990s, especially in large cities with tight parking spots." Accordingly, so the legend goes, Lincoln outsourced the problem to a company called Joalto Design Inc, which came up with the concept. Unfortunately for Joalto, the Lincoln Mark VIII concept was even less successful than BMW's Z1, and Ford executives killed the idea before it even got to production.
It turns out that current public demand for the one-of-a-kind doorless wonder is not much higher: Susser recently put the car on on eBay , where it failed to attract its reserve price.
(Credit:
Akihabara News)
They haven't quite gotten as minuscule as SNL's fabled "Invisa," but MP3 players are clearly getting smaller all the time. And if the "Kana" from Japan's Green-House is any indication, their prices may begin to match the size. This 1GB player measures a little over 1 by 3 inches and weighs less than an ounce, selling for about $52, according to Akihabara News. For now, though, it's not invisible.
Usually when we encounter the maddeningly overused term "scientific breakthrough," involuntary eye-rolling ensues. But this is one body of science where we wouldn't mind seeing the B-word used liberally.
U.S. and British researchers are reporting initial success in experiments with a "cloak of invisibility." That's right, we're talking H.G. Wells territory here.
To say that the technical explanation is over our heads would be the understatement of the year. But we managed to glean that the experiment involves detouring microwaves around an object and reconnecting them on the other side--creating an "artificial mirage," as one Duke researcher put it.
Our personal hopes aside, it's probably wise not to count on learning this trick anytime soon; the topic crops up every few years, and we still don't have invisible men and women roaming the planet. Then again, if they were, how would we know?
(Illustration: Casimir Fornalski/CNET News.com)
- prev
- 1
- next
