While not the first wall climbing machine we've come across, Vortex's VRAM Mobile Robot Platform (VMRP) machine weds ascension and undercover surveillance in fine fashion. Aimed at law enforcement tasks, military missions, and fanatical hobbyists, this clinger is remotely controlled with the capacity to add "onboard intelligence and sensors to monitor VMRP status and health." It utilizes a vortex vacuum to suction itself to vertical surfaces, and then relies on the wheels to get it movin'. Moreover, this bot was built to withstand mild weather hazards and communicate wirelessly back to the user, and its ability to wield microphones, video cameras, and proximity sensors make this the ultimate eavesdropping tool. Sadly, we've no idea how much it'd take to get one of these in your needy palms, but free free to indulge in the video waiting after the break.

[Via OhGizmo]

Scientists from the University of Colorado, Boulder have just presented a new design for "vortex generators" that they say can make it easier to maneuver slow-moving underwater vehicles. This new setup, which is inspired by the motions of squid and jellyfish, would make long and sleek submarine vessels able to hover and turn better, which traditionally have been somewhat tricky. The team, lead by Dr. Kamran Mohseni, apparently was able to design an unmanned underwater vehicle that can parallel park (really), although we're not sure what he's worried about, given that as far as we know, meter-mermaids don't exist.

[Via PhysOrg]

Australia's 3D Visual is looking to bring the wonders of 3D a little closer to home with its Vortex home entertainment system, providing an ample supply of hype to go along with it. So what exactly does this " portal into the future" consist of? Well, at the core is a fairly decent Windows XP-based PC, packing a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 processor, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA 6800 GTOC graphics card, and two generous 300GB hard drives spinning at 7,200 rpm; a projector provides the display. The 3D part of the equation comes in the form of some apparently standard issue shutter glasses -- the very same technology that's been kicking around since the days of the Sega Master System. To round out the set , 3D Visual's also seen fit to include a couple of wireless controllers and a ton pre-loaded PC games (either 90 or 150 depending on the paragraph you read), which either means that you can look at paying quite a premium for that convience (they haven't announced a price yet) or 3D Visual's going to be hearing from some dissapointed customers when they discover they've got a hard drive filled with demos.

[Via Slashdot]

You know, we were sitting in our editors' meeting the other day, and we all came to a very serious consensus about our reportage these days. There's been a serious dearth of vortices in our articles, and so we're going to do our darndest to bring you more coverage of these truly awesome swirling clouds. Fortunately for us, those egghead physicists down at Rice University know how to read our minds. A team over in Houston used a scanning ion microscope to create and measure "ultra-thin circular disks of soft magnetic cobalt" ranging in diameter from one micron to 38 microns. According to a press release issued by the university, the six micron wide (about the size of a red blood cell) magnetic vortex is "a cone-like structure that's created in the magnetic field at the disk when all the magnetic moments of the atoms in the disk align into uniform concentric circles." (Whatever that means.) Lead researcher Carl Rau, professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University, said that this new advance may lead to storage densities "in the range of terabits per square inch," and went on to say that "magnetic processors" and "high-speed magnetic RAM" may also be in the works. Now that we think about it, this is probably what would happen to the offspring of Storm and Magneto too.