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ICYMI: Holograms for the home and a drone to plant trees
Today on In Case You Missed It: A company has developed a 'personal volumetric display" which is apparently science-sounding for a Princess Leia machine in your very own home. Looking Glass is marketing its Volume machine for $1,000, though so far, they're only available for pre-order.
ICYMI: Fire-starting drone, Stanford bird studies and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-287454{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-287454, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-287454{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-287454").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: A prototype for a fire-starting drone was deployed in Nebraska last week, dropping small balls of accelerant to create a controlled burn over grasslands. The idea is that future firefighters could use UAVs like the University of Nebraska-Lincoln model to stop an out of control wildfire with drone-created fire breaks, or for other uses.
ICYMI: Self-warming concrete, underwater robot and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-692596{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-692596, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-692596{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-692596").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Curling up with a fireplace and a bottle of whiskey is now a little less depressing, now that we know self-heating concrete is on the way. Still a research project in Nebraska, conductive concrete can operate on a low amount of electric current and de-ice itself. It's just what we've needed.
Drone fights fires by dropping flaming balls
The thought of a fire-starting robot would normally have us fleeing in terror, but we'll make an exception for this one. Researchers are developing a drone, the Unmanned Aerial System for Fire Fighting (UAS-FF), that helps contain and prevent fires by dropping ping pong-sized flaming balls. If you need to burn grass before it fuels an uncontrolled blaze, you just program the drone to drop its chemically-ignited cargo in a specific pattern -- you don't have to send in a costly aircraft or face the risks of starting fires on the ground. It'll be a while before you see UAS-FF in service, but it's already nice to see a drone that helps firefighting instead of getting in the way. [Image credit: Craig Chandler/University Communications]
