Working in a bar could get a whole lot more hands-off if LayerNation’s “El Tirador” machine takes off. It’s a contraception that makes it very easy to make layered drinks. You just have to load the bottles on top, put the shot glasses under the retractable straws and watch as it makes up to 4 drinks within 20 seconds. A touch screen lets you select what you want to make and yeah… that’s about it. You can watch the video below to see how it’s done, but it looks pretty slick. El Tirador means The Shooter in spanish, and the device was demonstrated last year at the Young Entrepreneurs Society network event in Delft. It’s also being tested in Europe and the company hopes it’ll be used to serve soccer fans their drinks during the Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine.
So there appears to be no immediate plans for commercialization stateside, but anyone interested in the tech is free to contact them for more information.
Golf balls are covered in dimples simply because this gives them an aerodynamic efficiency rivalled by no other surface texture. And now Nike has unveiled a running suit based off the same design: the TurboSpeed, which they claim can shave up to 0.23 seconds off a 100 meter sprint. That is huge. Just think that in the 2008 olympics, Usain Bolt won the race only 0.22 seconds ahead of third place and 0.20 seconds from second. Had either of the two other contestants simply been wearing the TurboSpeed they might have won. Nike’s suit, which is made from 82% recycled polyester fabric, is the result of twelve years (!) and hundreds of hours of testing in wind tunnels.
It doesn’t appear that it’s commercially available, as there’s talk that only the teams sponsored by Nike will have access to the outfit. These are the US, Russia and Germany. Bolt is sponsored by Puma. Walter Dix (third in ’08) on the other hand is a member of the US team and will be wearing it London. Will it be enough for him to overtake the champion?
You know, the thing about wireless network passwords is that they’re pretty darn secure. Provided you pick something other than “password” or anything equally inane, you’re not going to get hacked. But for some people, that’s just not enough. So some researchers at the Institut Polytechnique of Grenoble have developed a wallpaper that is able to block WiFi signals. It was developed in conjunction with the Centre Technique du Papier (The Technical Paper Center) and features a special pattern of geometric shapes traced in a conductive ink which contains silver particles. This design is effective at blocking some frequencies of electromagnetic radiation, namely that of typical WiFi signals. And if you don’t like the look of the designs, you can either paint it or cover it with your favourite flowered wallpaper or whatever it is you fancy. The rights to this products have been acquired by the Finnish company Ahlstrom and they wish to commercialize it by 2013 for roughly the same price as a regular wallpaper.
The above video and the technology it describes is nothing short of revolutionary. Basically, Disney Research has developed a completely new way to use touch sensing technology, so that it becomes possible to make any object, any surface, even water or a human body, touch sensitive. They call it Touché. The way it achieves this is surprisingly simple to understand. Touch tech uses electric conduction (except for older resistive devices) as the basis for determining if an object is being touched. But current tech reads the sensors at one frequency, making the tech binary in nature: either something is being touched, or it is not. What Disney Research did was start scanning across several frequencies to determine a “touch profile”, a signature disturbance in the electric current that they then assigned to several different gestures, like grabbing a door handle, or putting a finger in a bowl of water or even touching your own hands together. Each application needs to be “trained” and the profiles assigned in advance, of course, but the possibilities this opens up are pretty awesome. The video gives some examples, our favourite being a touch sensitive couch that turns the TV on when you sit, dims the lights when you lay back, and turns everything off if it senses you fell asleep.
Of course, none of this is about to hit the market, but if the tech is there and operational, it’s just a matter of time until we start seeing it.
A team of researchers at MIT has developed a method for turning regular glass into something far, far more awesome: glass with arrays of conical micron-scale surface nanotextures, rendering it self-cleaning, non-glare, and non-fogging. Better yet, the method they have used could potentially be scaled to produce this glass at an acceptable cost for widespread use, from building windows to optical devices, and of course, to gadgets.
So how does it work? Roughly, it’s a process that involves applying several layers of photo resistive material to the glass, then etching away with a laser. As you can see in the scanning electron microscope picture above, the glass ends up being coated in microscopic cones that are five times as tall as their base width of 200 nanometers. And as demonstrated in the two pictures after the fold, this renders the surface superhydrophobic (a lot like stuff in this article), meaning water just bounces off it as if made of rubber. It’s also non glare because the cones create a surface that makes it impossible for a ray of light to bounce off and into our eyes.
Whether it’s motor sports or human powered wheeled sports, a lot is riding where the rubber meets the tarmac. Decisions need to be made about tire pressure, with tradeoffs usually unavoidable. Mountain bikes face many different types of surfaces, so are very sensitive to this. Soft tires are great for rocky stretches of trail, where grip and absorption is better. Hard tires are preferable on flat surfaces, to go fast. Usually, a middle ground is chosen and the rest left up to fate. But the ADAPTRAC system changes all that:
ADAPTRAC is a multi-component system comprised of special patent pending hubs, a dual control valve and a C02 power pack/regulator. Tire pressure can be raised or lowered while riding with a quick press of the finger on the handlebar control toggles. Actual tire pressure is displayed on analog gauges mounted on the handlebars. The system utilizes 12x142mm rear and 15mm front axle standards – wheels can be removed as you would normally. ADAPTRAC uses readily available, rechargeable C02 tanks ranging from 4 to 20 ounces so you can carry only what you need. You can now tune your tire pressure to the trail – in seconds!
There’s no price just yet, as the system is in its final prototype stages. However, a price will be announced shortly after the system is presented this week at the Sea Otter Classic Expo in Monterey, California.
The day will come when cables, like floppy disks, become a relic of history. Until then we need to deal with them, and the CordCrunchers is yet another product making a stab at it, albeit a very creative one. It’s basically a set of earphones with an elastic sleeve for the cables, one end of which always remains within it. To insert the other end of cable into the sleeve, you just grab it at both ends and stretch it until you’ve got as much of the cable as you want inside. It then collapses right back to its original length, allowing you to wear your earphones around your neck or wrist, if that’s your thing. You can watch the video for a demonstration that does a much better job at explaining things than us.
Unfortunately, you don’t get to use this on your own earphones, so you’ll have to deal with whatever quality drivers are packaged in. At $20 however, you’re not going to be out of much money if it turns out they sound like garbage. It’s a fully funded Kickstarter project, and shipping should happen sometime in May.
Traditional skateboards work great on paved surfaces, but take them on grass and it won’t be long before you go flying off. There are several solutions on the market for off-road boarding, some using bigger wheels, suspension, etc. The Rockboard Descender takes a different approach by decking out the underside of the board with “tough-as-nails” treads that let you take it pretty much anywhere. The video below should give you an idea of what to expect. We don’t have much details on its performance, and whether you’ll be giving up some smooth-surface agility in order to gain all-terrain abilities, but for those of you on the lookout for a different kind of thrill, the Descender is expected to go on sale for around $120 in Q2.
Beer is great. So is summer. Put the two together and you’ve got sunny inebriated fun for all. Except of course for when you leave your beer out in the heat for too long and it goes all warm on you. In Japan, the folks behind Kirin beer have come up with a solution for keeping your malt beverage icy longer, and we think it’s genius: a frozen head of bubbles. It comes out of a machine much like ice cream would, except the frozen treat is made up of whipped up beer and it floats atop your beverage like an ice cream float would. As it melts and cools the beer you’re not diluting anything since it’s made of beer.
Unfortunately this looks like it’s Japan only at the moment, with the product out in Tokyo only for now and expanding nationwide this summer. But really, how hard would it be to bring this stateside?
Related Tags: Innovation, Technology
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