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B-Squares bring portable solar energy and Arduino compatibility to toy blocks (video)
We've seen plenty of portable solar chargers in our time, but few have looked quite as versatile as B-Squares -- a new collection of 3D modular energy storage devices that can be arranged in various configurations, according to the kind of gadget you're looking to juice. Developed by MIT grads Jordan McRae and Shawn Frayne, each solar-powered B-Square features a sticky microsuction surface, along with magnetic and electric contacts at each corner, making it easy to connect and arrange them in different formations. Rotating a single square will change its electrical circuit, depending on its adjacent connection. Some B-Squares, for example, feature LED surfaces, allowing you to create solar-powered lanterns, while others have solar panels, or simply serve as rechargeable battery sources. There's even a square devoted to Arduino boards, along with another surface designed to dock and charge iPhones. McRae and Frayne have already put together a full "recipe book" of different configurations, though the DIY route seems a lot more enticing to us. Their B-Squares are set to leave the prototype phase on May 1st, at an as yet unspecified price. Check them out in video action after the break. [Thanks, Ryan]
'3D Towers' double disk storage capacity, don't require glasses
Here's some exciting news for all you data storage enthusiasts and academics out there: researchers in France have found a way to double the storage capacity of magnetic disk drives by constructing "3D towers" of information. The team from SPINTEC created these pillars out of bit-patterned media -- separated magnetic nanodots, each of which carries one bit of data. By layering the dots in specific formations, the team created a "multilevel magnetic recording device" with an areal density of two bits per dot -- twice what it started with. According to researcher Jerome Moritz, these findings could provide IT companies with a new way to circumvent physical limitations to their data storage capacities, allowing them to build up and over the vaunted one Tbit per square inch barrier. The team's full findings were recently published in the American Institute of Physics' Journal of Applied Physics. You can read the full article at the source link or, if you're afraid of paywalls, just check out the PR below.
Apple submits patent application for magnetic and sound-based peer-to-peer technology
A patent discovered by Patently Apple suggests that Apple may use a magnetic compass and supersonic tone technology to share data between your iPhone and other electronic devices. In this new peer-to-per communication system, a magnetic compass is used to monitor the magnetic signature of a compatible electronic device. Once these devices are close together, they could automatically recognize one another and share information seamlessly without user intervention. In another scenario, a device with a speaker could output an encoded supersonic tone that changes the local magnetic field. This change in the magnetic field can be detected by the receiving device. The supersonic tone is not audible to human ears, but it may drive your dog bonkers. Once the tone is detected by the compass on the portable device, the two devices will open a connection and share contact information, images, media and other files. Similar to a MAC address for a Wi-Fi-enabled device, these signatures may be unique to each device. Once detected, the signatures could be stored and recognized for later use.
Magnetic fields shut down speech, permit love songs (video)
You already know the strange powers of Stephin Merritt, but today we're talking about real magnetic fields. Powerful electromagnets, it turns out, can do remarkable things to the brain -- in this case, prevent a volunteer from reciting "Humpty Dumpty." The carefully directed magnets temporarily disrupt the brain's speech centers; the volunteer can still sing the rhyme using different areas of the brain, but simply can't overcome a series of stammers when trying to merely recite it. Of course, it's not all mad scientist applications: the UK team experimenting with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) thinks it can help us understand and treat migraines (as we've seen before with the Migraine Zapper), depression, and ADHD, among other ailments. But improving physical well-being doesn't make for nearly as entertaining media -- see the British inflict some involuntary quiet time in the video above.
Keepin' it real fake: the iPad Smart Cover done wrong (video)
Let's be honest, the only time you're likely to consider Apple's prices for own-brand peripherals reasonable is when someone else is paying for them. It's not unusual, therefore, for folks to look to complement their walled Apple garden with a few well selected accessories from the grey market. Such as this here Smart Cover knockoff, which saves you a whopping six bucks off the Apple price at only $33, comes with detachable (no user assistance required) hinge elements, and has a special pet-repelling odor as an added extra. Yes, it's pretty terrible and self-destructs the moment you look at it. And, naturally, it's available to watch on video right after the break.
iPad 2 gets a magnetic cherry cover to top off its delicious hardware cake (video)
Killing time until the iPad 2 finally becomes available across Europe later today? Well, now you can stoke the flames of anticipation by taking a gander at this here wood cover made specifically for the magnet-infused new Appletablet. It comes from a single piece of cherry wood and rolls up into a stand, providing a pair of landscape positions and a sturdy base for keeping the slate vertical should you wish to gaze upon it in portrait mode. Frankly, Apple should've been the one to come up with this refinement on its Smart Covers, though at least a small company like Miniot spares us the overblown rhetoric about life-changing gear purchases. Price isn't too bad, either, with orders starting at €50 later on today. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Original iPad retrofitted to play nice with Smart Cover, magnets largely to thank (video)
Although we don't exactly know how they work, magnets are one of Earth's many fascinations and are used in many gadgets today -- perhaps most notably in Apple's new Smart Covers. As you might have already known, the iPad 2's first party screen concealer uses a bunch of magnets to make the magic happen; it snaps on and fits almost too well. By taking a few rare earth magnets and gluing them to the original slate's hip, blogger Dan Provost is able to use a Smart Cover with the iPad uno. He positioned them according to how they stuck to the hinge of the cover, which explains the lack of spacing between the four magnets. As you'll see in the video, Apple's screen protector works well with the tablet, but it lacks the auto-unlock mechanism found in the iPad 2. Care to give your original iPad a taste of modernity? Hit the more coverage link to find the main ingredient for this DIY project.
Visualized: Smart Cover magnets can turn your Apple tablet into a FridgePad
Has the iPad 2 not proven its versatility to you yet? Well, buy one of those "don't call it a case" Smart Covers that Apple launched with it and you'll be able to turn your new dual-core slate into a bona fide FridgePad. Just add fridge.
iPad 2 gets a Smart Cover
We can't say we were expecting to be impressed by a case for the new iPad 2, but Apple's pulled something of a surprise out its hat with its new Smart Covers for the tablet. Available in multiple colors and in your choice of polyurethane or leather variants, the covers attach to the iPad with a self-aligning magnetic hinge and can also be folded into a triangle and used as a stand. What's more, they'll automatically wake or put your iPad to sleep when you open or close the cover, and they even pack a microfiber lining that cleans your screen each time you flip it open. As Steve Jobs explained, Apple designed the covers right alongside the iPad itself and, as he pointed out in true sound bite fashion, "it's not a case -- it's a cover." Look for the poly covers to set you back $39, while the leather ones will run $69 apiece -- video is after the break. %Gallery-118172%
Skunk Juice earbuds and their magnetic connectors might just save your ear drums (video)
You know when you're rocking out, earbuds nestled in your canals just so, and then the cord catches on something and it feels like your brain is getting sucked out through your ear holes? That very situation could be avoided if only you were wearing Skunk Juice earbuds. They feature a magnetic ZZYZX SnapJack connectors, not unlike those found in Belkin's BreakFree guitar cable, providing a failure point somewhere south of your fragile head internals. Additionally, you can pop your magnetic terminator onto the end of any other pair of Skunk Juice 'buds and listen in on what the other person is grooving out to, a situation charmingly demonstrated in the video below. We're a little doubtful that these will ever be common enough for that particular halcyon vision of the future to come to pass, but right here in the present we're quite sure that's a strong contender for worst product name of the year -- already.
Toshiba demonstrates successful BPR HDD, is 2.5Tb per inch a platter's last stand?
We'll be honest: we thought SSDs would suck down most of platter-based storage's milkshake by now -- that magnetic disks would follow tapes into obscurity. Alas, SSDs are still niche items, and Toshiba is doing all it can to keep them that way, demonstrating a successful prototype of a new storage technique called bit-pattern recording that currently generates a storage density of 2.5Tb per square inch. That's about five times more dense than the company's current offerings, achieved by placing individual bits onto lithographed "islands" of magnetic material. This protects the charge of the individual bits and allows those sectors to be much smaller. Toshiba suggests we won't see these until 2013, but now we're left wondering what's next... can engineers stuff even more bits onto these things?
Innocent glasses transform into GPS-equipped routing mechanism... on video!
The Powers That Be may think that they're pulling the wool over our eyes, but we can see the planned fate unfolding in front of us. Before long, our arms will be effectively useless -- after all, once you can game and navigate with just your face, why bother pumping iron and keeping those biceps toned? Over at Wireless Japan 2010, the Nakajima Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications showcased a prototype that helps explain the latter. Dubbed a Wearable Personal Navigation System, this GPS-infused pair of glasses has integrated LEDs in the frame that wearers can see in their periphery; there's also a magnetic direction sensor, which detects the orientation of the user's head. Once you point your face in a given direction, the LEDs change color to let you know which way you need to head in order to walk, sprint or gallop to your destination. It's hard to tell how long we'll have to wait before we see these on Pearle Vision's Buy 1 Get 1 rack, but the video after the break ain't making it any easier to wait.
Strained graphene leads to pseudo-magnetic fields, bends physics even further
Man, if only this had been discovered before Ariadne was tasked with building impossible dreams. A team of scientists caught high-fiving over at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have a new and riveting announcement to share, and it revolves around our old and trusted friend, graphene. This go 'round, the self-proclaimed "extraordinary form of carbon" is being stressed to its max, but not without good reason. Thanks to inquisitive minds and a "stroke of serendipity," a research team was able to create magnetic fields in excess of 300 tesla by simply straining graphene in a certain way. For physicists, the discovery is a dream come true, particularly when you realize that magnetic fields in excess of 85 tesla were practically impossible to come across in a laboratory setting. The benefits here? It's honestly too early to tell, but gurus in the field are already suggesting that the "opportunities for basic science with strain engineering [are] huge." Something tells us Magneto would concur.
Robins can see magnetic fields with a keen right eye
When it's time to migrate, how do birds find north? The going theory is that some avians can literally see the magnetic fields. Talk about a birds-eye view. However, a recent experiment shows that ability is hampered unless the creature in question has good vision in the right eye. Outfitting a variety of European robins with goggles frosted on one side and clear on the other -- but transmitting the same amount of light to both eyes -- a team of researchers at Goethe-Universitat in Germany discovered that the birds with blurred vision in their right eye were disoriented, while those with obscured sight on the left headed north without delay. Since we mastered the compass ages ago, there are precious few lessons here for robotic bird builders -- but perhaps once these scientists are satisfied with ocular experiments, they'll get around to figuring out how carrier pigeons manage those cellphone-smuggling return flights.
HTC EVO 4G meets magnetic macro lens, shoots gorgeous closeups
As phone accessories go, protruding lens attachments are rarely top of our wishlist, but this one here might just alter our perspective a little bit. Good and EVO have gone to the trouble of obtaining a magnetically mountable macro lens to test out how well the EVO 4G's camera performs with a little more optical prowess. The answer is that in spite of the inevitably goofy appearance, the jumbo Android handset delivered some highly impressive imagery, getting really up close and personal with its subjects and picking out exquisitely tiny details. The results are certainly of a caliber unobtainable with the default optics and well worth checking out -- the source link is where that party's at.
Japanese gurus unveil 50TB magnetic tape cartridges, are officially 'taking it way back'
It's comical, really -- we can't get a decently powerful Atom to save our lives, but the absolutely thrilling world of magnetic tape storage is bounding ahead at a record pace. Priorities, people. For the archivists and A-type pack rats in the crowd, you'll probably be atypically elated to know that Hitachi Maxell and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have teamed up in order to develop the world's most capacious tape cartridges. Back in January, IBM and Fujifilm celebrated a momentary victory by announcing a 35TB version of this same product, but this record shattering attempt takes areal density to spaces never before ventured into in order to hit the magical 50TB mark. 'Course, you'll probably never see one outside of your state's largest library, but at least that 3TB HDD you're drooling over for your next PC seems so much more bodacious now. Oh, wait.
Magnetic waves distort the brain's ability to make moral judgments, tell which way is north
Morality isn't a topic discussed 'round these parts too often, but you mix in the geniuses at MIT and a boatload of magnets, and well -- you've got us interested. According to research conducted by neuroscientists at the institution, people's views on morality can actually be swayed by interfering with activity in a specific brain region. Past studies found that the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) is extremely active when people think about the intentions, thoughts and beliefs of others, and in the new project, gurus disrupted activity in the right TPJ by "inducing a current in the brain using a magnetic field applied to the scalp." The result? The subjects' ability to make moral judgments requiring an understanding of someone else's intentions (a failed murder attempt, for example) was impaired. MIT's own Rebecca Saxe noted that the process introduced a certain level of "bias" more than an outright change of perception, but still, this definitely sounds like an awesome way to get just about anything you ever wanted. Within reason, of course.
PMA 2010... and that's a wrap, folks
We had a great time in Anaheim this past weekend checking out the Photo Marketing Association's trade show spectacle. Hundreds of cameras and thousands of pictures later, we're finally back and getting settled. Let's take a look back at all that we saw this week, and then kind of wrap up a few loose ends. GE's 'Create by Jason Wu' camera collection unveiled, we go hands on Joby Gorillapod Magnetic flexible tripod hands-on Nikon CoolPix 'Style' and 'Life' series hands-on Pentax's rugged W90, ultra-zoom X90 now all but official Samsung TL500 and TL350 hands-on Samsung PMA roundup: hands on HMX-U20, eyes on AQ100 and SL605 Sony Alpha ultra-compact concept hands-off: leaves much to the imagination Sony's ultra-durable DSC-TX5 hands-on: ice, ice, baby Sigma trio espied at PMA, COO expresses interest in supporting 'mirrorless camera systems' %Gallery-86335% %Gallery-86558% %Gallery-86556%
DARPA longs for magnetic body healers, crazy respawn camps
Even DARPA understands that its futuristic bubble shield can be penetrated given the right circumstances, and when it does, the soldier behind it is going to need some serious healing. In a hurry. In the entity's newest budget, there's $6.5 million tucked away "for the creation of a scaffold-free tissue engineering platform, which would allow the construction of large, complex tissues in vitro and in vivo." As you well know, this type of mad science has been around for quite some time, and now it looks as if DARPA is ready for the next best thing: "non-contact forces." Put simply, this alludes to replacing scaffolds with magnetic fields or dielectrophoresis, which could purportedly "control cell placement in a desired pattern for a sufficient period of time to allow the cells to synthesize their own scaffold." It's still too early to say how close we are to being able to instantaneously heal soldiers on the battlefield, but frankly, the public is apt to never know for sure.
Joby Gorillapod Magnetic flexible tripod hands-on
Hey kids, wanna see your golf drive Sam Raimi style, i.e. from the perspective the club itself? It wouldn't be with the fanciest of cameras, and we're sure wind resistance would throw you off your game, but we are curious if Joby's Gorillapod Magnetic would be able to hold tight. The flexible little tripod's tips certainly give it a surprisingly strong pull -- a shame it only holds 11 ounces, else we'd be putting our DSLRs in some crazy and unreasonable spots. Want one now? You're in luck -- it's on sale over at Joby's website for a pile of change less than $25. %Gallery-86171%
