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Magnetic soap could make your next oil spill less oily
Instead of spending millions upon millions to clean up the next oil spill, why don't we just all pitch in and buy some soap? That's basically what researchers at the University of Bristol are proposing, with a new kind of soap that's apparently like no other. This soap, you see, is magnetic, which means it could be easily removed from water without leaving behind any hazardous chemicals -- a potentially major selling point for cleanup crews and environmentalists alike. To create it, the team collected water with chlorine and bromine ions, and used it to dissolve iron particles, creating a metallic core. They proceeded to test their creation by placing the soapy particles within a test tube, underneath layers of water and oil. Much to their delight, they were able to remove the particles with only a magnet, ostensibly providing a template upon which disaster response crews may build.
Steelie looks like a simple way to hold your iPad up off the ground
The portability of the iPad and iPhone makes it easy to use these devices in your kitchen, at your desk and everywhere in between. One challenge to using your iPad in these locations is finding a case, holder or stand that protects your device from inadvertent spills or drops. One company with a novel stand for everywhere you go is Steelie, a small company out of Boulder, Colorado. The Steelie mobile device holder uses a ball and socket head which lets you position your iOS device at any orientation. The system has a tiny magnetic socket that sticks to the back of iOS device and a stand that attaches to the socket. The magnet lets you stick your device to the stand as well as other magnetic surfaces like a refrigerator. It's an easy to use holder as long as you don't mind attaching a magnet to your devices. Steelie says the magnet won't affect the flash storage inside the iOS device, but you may want to be careful if you often leave your iPad or iPhone on or near your MacBook Pro. I don't know how strong this magnet is, but a magnet strong enough could affect the hard drive inside your notebook. Steelie is available as a smaller stand for use in the car and a larger tablet version for use on a desk or counter. The smaller one retails for US$30 and the tabletop is $60.
Researcher brings modified Touchpad into the MRI room, breakthrough ensues
Yes, the Touchpad is officially dead, but that hasn't stopped Stanford researcher Andrew B. Holbrook from using HP's tablet in a somewhat unexpected setting: the MRI lab. Holbrook, it turns out, has been developing a new, webOS-based system that could make it a lot easier for doctors to conduct interventional MRI procedures. Unlike its diagnostic counterpart, this brand of MRI can only operate within highly magnetic fields, thereby posing a threat to many electronic devices. Holbrook, however, may have found a way around this barrier, thanks to a modified Touchpad. With the help of HP engineers, the researcher stripped his tablet of metallic components, including its speakers and vibration motor, resulting in what the manufacturer calls a "minimally metallic device that could be used almost anywhere within the magnet room." With his Touchpad primed and loaded with apps for data manipulation, Holbrook went on to successfully integrate the device within an MRI system. He also developed a series of apps that allow technicians to monitor and manipulate an MRI procedure on their devices, regardless of whether they're in the magnet room itself, or outside. Holbrook says he's already started applying the same approach to webOS phones, in the hopes of providing doctors and researchers with an even more compact way to keep track of their patients. For more details on the system and future developments, check out the source link below. [Thanks, Mina]
FingerFlux system uses magnets to add tactile feedback to touchscreens
We've seen a number of efforts that promise to make touchscreens more tactile, but none quite like this so-called FingerFlux system developed by a team of researchers from Germany's Aachen University. Its hook is a layer of magnets that lie beneath the touchscreen and react to a simple thimble that the user must wear. While that particular accoutrement could be considered a slight drawback, it does open up a number of interesting possibilities -- including the ability to draw your finger towards an item on the screen, and "lock" it in a certain area. What's particularly key, however, is that you're also able to feel a bit of feedback before you even touch the screen -- as opposed to other entirely screen-based options -- which could could let you operate something like media player controls without actually looking at your phone. Of course, it's all still a long ways from being shrunk down to phone-size, but the researchers do have a working prototype in a table-top device. Check it out in the video after the break.
Levitating superconductor floats within a magnetic field so you don't have to (video)
What happens when you douse a superconducting urinal cake with liquid nitrogen? We haven't given it too much thought, to be honest, though we're guessing it would look a lot like the "levitating" disc pictured above. Developed by researchers at Tel-Aviv University, this device is actually a superconductor hovering over a "supercooled" magnet. While locked within the magnetic field, it can rotate around a vertical axis, turn upside down or do laps around a track -- all thanks to a phenomenon that Tel-Aviv's physicists call "quantum trapping." We're not really sure what that entails, but we do know that the results are pretty incredible. Check them out for yourself, after the break. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Magnetic Cello almost makes it cool to play the cello (video)
Say hello to the Magnetic Cello, the perfect companion to your magnetic drum kit. Crafted by college student David Levi (AKA "Magnetovore"), the instrument vaguely represents a traditional cello in structure, but the similarities pretty much end right there. To play it, for example, musicians use not a horsehair bow, but a magnetic rod that produces a voltage within an attached coil (the "bridge," in this case). Its "strings," meanwhile, consist of resistive ribbons connected to a voltage-controlled oscillator, allowing users to manipulate volume with the magnet-bow. The result sounds surprisingly cello-like, though Levi says he's still tinkering with its tone and playability. Waltz past the break to see the beast in action for yourself, or find more details in Levi's provisional patent application at the link below.
Sinch takes aim at headphone tangles, we go hands-on
The Sinch is not much to look at, we'll give you that, but it is rather an interesting little thing. Intended to keep your headphone cable a little more tidy, it's just a couple of slender magnets encased in a rubber band with a hole punched on one end. It's a remarkably simple design, and a surprisingly effective one, too. We got a chance to wrap our cables around one, so read on for some quick impressions. %Gallery-133151%
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.
Final Audio Design's Piano Forte earphones promise concert hall sound at bank-breaking prices
Behold Final Audio Design's latest high-end earphones: the Piano Forte X-VII Series. Each of the four models that comprise the series features a large neodymium magnet driver, nestled inside a rigid metal housing made of alloy powder and natural resin, designed to minimize bad vibrations. The driver is a hefty 16 mm in diameter, and boasts roughly three times the surface area of your garden variety earphones, resulting in enhanced low frequency soundscapes. Final Audio Design also added a proprietary pressure ring to each model's diaphragm (to ward off sound artifacts), as well as special pressure vents (to optimize air pressure around the diaphragm). Internal air pressure, on the other hand, is kept in check thanks to the X-VIII Series' metallic earpads, which allegedly allow your ear to naturally adjust to any barometric shifts. Each of the four models comes in a unique metallic housing, reportedly capable of delivering different audio blends. But they all share one important characteristic -- they're really expensive. At the high end of the price spectrum are the X-G and X-CC models, which will put you back some ¥220,000 ($2,668). Bargain hunters, meanwhile, will have to settle for the VIII, priced at a slightly less obscene ¥80,000 ($970). Granted, these earphones may very well warrant that kind of cash and scientific hyperbole, though it's certainly difficult to gauge their value without taking them out for a spin ourselves.
Newly discovered properties of light promise better solar batteries, really great tans
Are you tired of waking up to the same old semiconductor-based solar array? Do you yearn for a change? We know you do and, thanks again to the wonder and mystery of magnetic fields (they're not just for stopping speech anymore), there's a new day dawning. University of Michigan scientists were shooting lasers at glass, as they do, and made a remarkable discovery: light passing through a non-conductive surface like glass generates impressive magnetic effects – up to 100 million times greater than expected. The resulting magnetic force could replace the electric effect exploited by current technology, paving the way for "optical batteries." Though different from the Wysips transparent photovoltaic cell, the technology could have similar applications and may render obsolete those massive solar farms. No need to worry, though -- your stylish solar backpack is as fly as it ever was.
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.
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.
Researchers find flaws in neodymium magnet crystalline structure, still in love with its personality
Given China's status as the worlds largest producer of rare earths and its recent proclivity for reducing exports of the stuff, everyone else is looking for ways to reduce dependency on rare earths or optimize the use of these sought-after elements. Well, neodymium is one of those rare earths, and a team from St. Pölten University in Austria recently discovered "disturbances in the crystalline structure in neodymium magnets" that weaken their magnetic fields -- and consequently the efficacy of all those electric motors and hard drives that utilize such magnets. For now, research is ongoing to fully understand the properties of neodymium and other rare earths so that their use can be "optimized." We aren't exactly sure how we'll benefit from all this optimization, but we hope it means cheaper and more powerful gadgets, TVs, and cars for all of us. [Image source: Thomas Schrefl]
Kiss Controller lets you play a bowling game with your tongue... while it's in someone else's mouth (video)
Oh, this isn't weird at all! The Kissing Controller, an experimental project by one Hye Yeon Nam, is designed so that players of a bowling game can impart power and direction to their spherical projectile by performing the timeless act of smooching one another. A customized headset is required for one of the participants, acting as the input receiver, while the other straps a magnet to his or her tongue and goes to town with some literal full motion controls. Thrust is added to the on-screen ball in accordance with how vigorously you move your tongue around, something we're sure your partner will appreciate. Video after the break.
Navy's prototype rail gun projectile hits mach 7 at 33 megajoules, our hearts skip a beat (video)
Rail guns play a major part in nearly every fanciful battle of the future, whether it be giant robots fighting for control of the Inner Sphere or the last remaining member of Noble Team holding off the Covenant invasion for as long as possible. They're the stuff of geeky dreams, and thanks to the US Navy they're closer to deployment than ever. Three years ago our sea-borne force managed an 8 megajoule blast, now its researchers have more than quadrupled that: 33 megajoules accelerating a projectile using magnets. That power means speeds of Mach 7 for the slug and a current range of 100 miles, though the hope is for at least double that by the time these things start finding themselves mounted on the decks of battleships in 2025. At that point they'll reduce the need for rooms full of powder charges and the associated dangers that come along with explosive shells, but will instead need to make way for what looks to be a warehouse full of capacitors. There's a video of the thing in action below, and you'll be sorry if you miss it. [Thanks, Jacob L.]
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.
Nokia Kinetic concept offers some ideas Nokia might want to heed
Cellphone concepts are a dime a dozen, but a couple of particularly interesting ones have cropped up in recent days, including Andrew Kim's HTC 1, and this so-called Nokia Kinetic concept from British designer Jeremy Innes-Hopkins. Obviously, the most eye-catching aspect here is that prominent base, which is not simply a design flourish but actually houses an electromagnet that allows the phone to spring up on cue -- when an alarm goes off, for instance, or during a hands-free video call (simply flip the phone back down to dismiss the action). It's also not quite as chunky as it might look -- Jeremy tells us that the top half of the actual prototype is just 8mm thick, while the bottom is 18mm, and he notes that the base also conveniently doubles as a more camera-like grip for taking photos. Of course, it is still just a concept, but it was done at the request of Nokia, and a former Nokia designer served as a tutor on the project, so there's conceivably a slim chance that some of the ideas might wind up in an actual Nokia product.
