Monday, January 30, 2006
A miniature combustion engine that uses an elastic cylinder to generate power has been developed by SRI International
of California, US.
The independent research institute has been working on portable internal combustion engines for the US Army. Although designed for robots and miniature spy-planes, they could also be used in hybrid cars, lawnmowers and other gadgets, according to a patent recently filed by the company.
Conventional internal combustion engines rely on a piston moving inside a cylinder to provide power. Big ones are efficient because gas leakage round the piston wastes only a small percentage of the total power. But in smaller engines the leakage loss is proportionately high, so efficiency is poor.
The engine developed by SRI prevents leakage altogether, the company claims. It burns an ordinary fuel-air mix inside a sealed cylinder made from a tough elastic material, such as rubberised Kevlar. As the hot gases expand, the cylinder itself swells like a balloon then returns elastically to its original shape. A crank arm resting on the outside of the cylinder is moved to generate mechanical power.
Efficiency is high and heat is also dissipated effectively because the cylinder walls become temporarily thinner as the cylinder swells.
Read the rubbery combustion patent here
Friday, January 27, 2006
In-flight early warning
Researchers at the Applied Physics Lab at John Hopkins University
in Maryland, US, have been looking for ways to make a plane automatically send out an emergency signal in the advent of hijacking. There may be little physics in their solution, but it's a clever use of simple technology.
All crew members would wear a hidden, passive radio transponder containing a unique identifying code. Radio devices designed to communicate with the transponders would then be hidden around the aircraft - in seats the rest area and the toilets - and would be programmed to recognise normal crew movements during a flight.
If hijackers should commandeer the plane and forced the crew out of their routine, the radio devices will to detect the telltale change and silently transmit a distress beacon.
Read the in-flight early warning patent here
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Radiation error detector
Most conventional radiation detectors use a Geiger-Muller vacuum tube to sense radioactivity, making them bulky, fragile and power hungry.
Now, thanks to some lateral thinking from inventor Robert Minemier of Arizona, US, a compact microchip and single AA battery could soon perform the same job for a fraction of the price.
Minemier's invention exploits that fact that integrated circuits are very sensitive to radiation, which can cause them to malfunction. Modern circuits can cram millions of transistors onto a silicon chip the size of a fingernail.
But each transistor is sensitive to a direct hit from a neutron or alpha radiation particle, which will cause its "logic state" to flip from "0" to "1", or vice versa. Normally this would cause a circuit to malfunction, but for Minemier's device it provides the ideal radiation alert.
The new detector will use one integrated circuit shielded from radiation and another that is exposed. The device then feeds a signal through both circuits and compares the number of errors that appear in the unprotected unit.
Detectors with a digital display could be small enough for emergency workers to wear as a badge, according to the patent filing.
Read the radiation error detector patent here
Monday, January 23, 2006
The mood player
would surely be pleased with some of the new ideas being patented by Disney's Californian headquarters.
Alongside digital downloads for fast food restaurants, the company has devised a media player that selects songs based on its owner's latest mood.
The device has wrist sensors that measure body temperature, perspiration and pulse rate. It uses these measurements to build a profile of what music or video the owner plays when they are hot, cold, dry or sweaty, and when their pulse is racing or slow.
The device then comes up with suggestion to fit each and every profile, either using songs or videos in its library or downloading something new that should be suitable.
If the owner rejects the player's selection it learns and refines the profile. So, over time the player should get better and better at matching body measurements with the owner's moods.
The patent suggests that the device could display animated cartoons when the owner is particularly happy. Walt would surely be proud.
Read the mood player patent here
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
CD-ROMs fight bioterror
The first line of defence against biological attack, or an accidental leak, is early warning. Now researchers at Auburn University
in Alabama, US, have found a way to let an ordinary CD-ROM drive sound the alarm.
A CD-ROM disc is produced with a continuous track of recognisable data patterns. The disc is then coated with a thin transparent layer of antibody, peptide or bacteriophage known to bind with a selected biological agent.
The disc is played continuously in a CD-ROM drive which has its error correction circuitry disabled. While the coating remains clear, the drive reads a perfect data pattern. If a trace of bio-agent in the air is sucked through the drive, biological-binding produces clumps on the surface which corrupt the data readout. The PC then detects the error and raises the alarm.
Most of the technology is available ?off the shelf?. One disc can have several coating layers for detecting more than one agent, the researchers say, or a bank of drives could run CD-ROMs with different dedicated coatings.
Read about the new way to use a ROM drive, here
Monday, January 16, 2006
Anyone who has groped behind a PC, trying to find the right sockets for multimedia plug-ins knows the problem; different devices often use the same-sized jacks.
Some take volts out from the PC, some push volts in, the signals may be digital or analogue and the voltage levels vary. The result is often no sound or picture, or horrid distortion and costly IT support calls.
Specialist chip maker Analog Devices
of Massachusetts, US, blames computer manufacturers' plug-and-play standards for not identifying the problem, let alone solving it. So the company has patented a smart chip that sits inside a PC measuring the electrical characteristics ? resistance, reactance and voltage ? of any device plugged into any socket and comparing the results with a database.
The PC screen then displays a message saying ?Did you just plug in an XYZ microphone?? If the answer is "Yes", the internal connection path is auto-adjusted to match and the PC never again asks the same question. If the PC?s guess is wrong, the user enters the correct device name and the database learns for the future.
The database can be updated over the internet to load the characteristics of new devices as they go on the market.
Read how Analog Devices plan to bring order to plug-in chaos, here
Friday, January 13, 2006
The capacity of hard drives can be pushed to over 1 terabit of data per square inch, says Seagate
in California. Increasing the data density can be done by shrinking the size of the magnetic spots that record the data ? the tricky bit is that the tiny magnetic spots are so small that their magnetism fades soon after recording.
The solution is to heat a spot of the disc surface just before it is magnetised by the recording head. As the hot spot cools it stores a stronger signal. A laser beam can do the heating, but it would have to be focused on a 20-nanometre-wide spot which is impractical with affordable optics.
Seagate's solution is to pre-heat a larger area of the disc surface with a largish spot, then boost the heat in a tightly defined area and hit it with a magnetic pulse. A superfine gold electrode channels a powerful electromagnetic field down onto the surface - like a lightning rod - to superheat the 20 nm spot.
The electrode has a 50-nanometre-square cross section that tapers to a ultra-sharp needlepoint near an ordinary magnetic recording head. The heating process does not slow the data writing speed because the thin magnetic surface of the disc heats very quickly just before the magnetic pulse is applied.
Read the finer details of Seagate?s fine-spot recording system, here
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Think of two really annoying things about word processing and printing. Static electricity makes printers jam because the paper sticks together and typing up a sheet of notes involves trying to balance or clip the paper upright.
Two German inventors from Bayreuth, Brian Schlede and Stefan Krug, have put the two nuisances together and come up with a battery-powered stand for paper that uses static electricity to hold the paper in place.
The upright stand is a like a picture frame, with an aluminium metal sheet sandwiched between two thin plastic films. A transformer feeds a few hundred volts at safe low current into the aluminium, to give it a static charge. The plastic film prevents shock but when a sheet of paper is laid over the sandwich it sticks.
The patent filing is a useful reminder that sometimes the best ideas are sometimes the simple ones.
Read the original text (pdf in German) here
Monday, January 09, 2006
If you are scuba diving, be sure not to swim anywhere near any ship or installation that has been protected by the Raytheon Corporation's
new "swimmer denial" system. Otherwise you will very quickly feel extremely sick and probably drown.
Raytheon?s underwater sensors detect any unwelcome presence and trigger an underwater sound system that emits extremely powerful pulses of low frequency audio. The pulse rate and audio frequency are chosen to make human organs resonate like organ pipes, causing swimmers to vomit into their masks or suffer internal ruptures.
The idea of blasting very powerful sound at underwater targets is not new. It can even be used to detonate incoming torpedoes
. But it can also cause havoc with marine life.
Raytheon's new system is "greener" because the main sound projector, in the middle of the secure zone, emits sounds with power and frequency that are relatively safe. A dozen or so secondary projectors in a ring round the zone also emit safe pulses. But in the region near each secondary projector the main and secondaries combine to produce a sound which is decidedly dangerous.
Would-be spies or terrorists cannot get through the ring but there is no widespread danger to fish, dolphins or whales.
Read Raytheon's secrets, here
Friday, January 06, 2006
Even the most accurate and intelligent speech recognition falls down when there is a lot of background noise, such as in a car, office or factory. But radar could help distinguish noise from speech, according to a patent from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
in California, US.
A microphone picks up sound from the speaker?s mouth in the usual way, while a wireless transmitter fixed alongside the microphone emits a low-power signal at 2 gigahertz and analyses the reflections that bounce off the speaker's neck. The lab found it can reliably detect movements of one-tenth of a millimetre or less, and these reveal the motion of the throat as sounds are formed.
When there is no windpipe motion there is no speech, so the only sound picked up by the microphone is unwanted noise. This noise-only reading is used to construct a self-adjusting electronic filter that continually removes the noise, while letting the speech through.
Read Lawrence Livermore?s description of their system, here
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Anti-explosion washing powder
Who would have thought that a box of sweet-selling soap suds could blow up? According to Proctor and Gamble
it?s true, which is why the company has been working out why and looking for a safety fix.
The root of the problem is that consumers want detergent powder to make washed clothes smell nice. However, we do not want to be hit with an overwhelming odour when opening the box. So manufacturers have been encapsulating perfume oil in starch powder. But some of the oil leaks through the starch and spreads thinly over the large surface area of the fine particles. That can create an explosive fuel mix.
P&G?s researchers found a simple solution, which they say surprised them so much that they thought it worth filing patents in over 100 countries.
The trick is to mix starch, orange oil and water, and then drive down the pH with citric acid while vigorously vibrating the mix. The result is an emulsion like oil-and-vinegar salad dressing. When this emulsion is sprayed into a hot oven it dries into fine particles with the oil safely trapped inside, eliminating the risk of explosion.
And using citric acid has the bonus of a lemony smell that escapes with the orange aroma only when the powder gets wet in a washing machine, not when the box is opened.
Read about Proctor and Gamble?s fragrant but safer detergent, here
Monday, January 02, 2006
No in-flight interference
Drastic action is needed to help airlines cope with huge increases in passengers now using portable electronics that can interfere with aircraft systems. So says Research in Motion
, the Canadian company that made the Blackberry pocket e-mailer which became a must-have for business travellers. RIM thinks the only practical solution is to put the aircrew in charge of passengers? ?personal electronic devices?.
It?s not just cellphone transmissions that cause interference, says RIM, it?s the very high frequency clock speeds of modern microprocessors, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth transceivers that continually send out ?hello? signals. Most people have no idea how to configure their PED to make it flight-safe.
RIM wants to lead the way with a standard that lets PEDs respond to coded wireless signals that the pilot switches on during take-off and landing. The signals are at a low frequency that does not interfere with the aircraft?s electronics, and encrypted to confirm authenticity. The PED flashes a green light once it has switched into flight-safe mode, to assist cabin crew checks.
Once some airlines are transmitting ?flight safe? instructions, and some PEDs are equipped to respond to them, more manufacturers and airlines should follow. The technology could also be used to automatically set cellphones to silent mode when in cinemas and theatres, RIM suggests.
Read more about RIM?s idea, here