Bicycles

MIT hushing up swarmbot display tech?

MIT hushing up swarmbot display tech?

On Wednesday morning, Evan Ackerman over at BotJunkie posted about MIT’s Flyfire system. The idea behind the system is simple and very exciting: Swarms of tiny LED-carrying robot helicopters arrange themselves in the air to make 2D or 3D displays in which each bot serves as a single pixel. Evan linked to the project’s homepage on MIT’s SENSEable City Lab server and embedded a video posted by the group to YouTube showing the individual prototype swarmbots, which already exist, and some computer renderings of what the working displays would look like. Exciting, eh?

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan14
Plastic that tracks your balance in real time?

Plastic that tracks your balance in real time?

This “Live Checking Card” concept design from Yoon Jin-Young, Lee Jun-Kyo, Lee Young-Ho, and Kim Jin-Yi has been getting a lot of bandwidth around the tubes, lately. Ignoring the details of technical implementation, the notion itself is straightforward: Your check card shows you exactly how much money you have available to spend and tracks that amount, essentially in real time. This idea won the prestigious red dot design concept award for 2009.

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan22
Waterless sterilizer “washes” hands with room temperature plasma

Waterless sterilizer “washes” hands with room temperature plasma

Before you protest, as I initially did, that some things are so simple and fundamental that they don’t really need high-tech “improvements,” realize that this device is being developed for and targeted at medical professionals, who, per this New York Times article covering the developing technology, “often have to wash their hands dozens of times a day — and may need a minute or more to do the process right, by scrubbing with soap and water.”

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan22
Robots versus pirates!

Robots versus pirates!

A Russian firm is selling a system of ship-mountable auto-targeting water-pumping robots with the dual purpose of fighting fires and repelling pirates. BotJunkie’s Evan Ackerman explains:

The robotic water cannons (six on each side of the ship) are controlled by a central computer, using TV cameras to target pirates approaching the ship. The robots shoot streams of water at 40 liters per second out to a range of 70 meters, and can wash away potential boarders and even sink small boats. This is a defensive technique that is already used against pirates, but having robots do the shooting helps keep the people who would otherwise be wielding the fire hoses safe.

My biggest concern with this system would be that the pirates could use their Electro-Bolt plasmids to temporarily short out the automated turrets, then hack them to turn against their masters. I mean, just looking at them, it’s pretty clear these things are based on Rapture-style hydro-tube technology.

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan10
(H)ear piercing

(H)ear piercing

These are concept shots of a hearing aid based out of a gauged ear piercing plug. From Core77: The Deafinite Style is a concept from Munich-based Designaffairs STUDIO that turns a hearing aid into a piece of jewelry, provided you’re up for a bit of lobe stretching to get started. The main advantage they propose […]

Continue Reading Becky Stern10