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Plastic that heals itself
2007-08-04 07:36:00
Monday, June 11, 2007 Developed a new material that can fill in its own surface cracks. Self-healer: Modeled on human skin, a new material that heals itself multiple times is made of two layers. The polymer coating on top contains tiny catalyst pieces scattered throughout. The substrate contains a network of microchannels carrying a liquid healing agent. When the coating cracks, the cracks spread downward and reach the underlying channels, which ooze out healing agent. The agent mixes with the catalyst and forms a polymer, filling in the cracks. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have made a polymer material that can heal itself repeatedly when it cracks. It's a significant advance toward self-healing medical implants and self-repairing materials for use in airplanes and spacecraft. It could also be used for cooling microprocessors and electronic circuits, and it could pave the way toward plastic coatings that regenerate themselves. The fi...
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Wireless Electricity (Witricity)
2007-07-25 07:09:00
7 June 2007, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies,Imagine a future in which wireless power transfer is feasible: cell phones, household robots, mp3 players, laptop computers and other portable electronics capable of charging themselves without ever being plugged in, freeing us from that final, ubiquitous power wire. Some of these devices might not even need their bulky batteries to operate.Realizing their recent theoretical prediction, they were able to light a 60W light bulb from a power source seven feet (more than two meters) away; there was no physical connection between the source and the appliance. The MIT team refers to its concept as "WiTricity" (as in wireless electricity). The work will be reported in the June 7 issue of Science Express, the advance online publication of the journal.The key: Magnetically coupled resonance WiTricity is based on using coupled resonant objects. Two resonant objects of the same resonant frequency ...
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Telepathic Remote
2007-06-26 03:56:00
HATOYAMA, Japan,2007Brain-machine interface developed by HITACHI.Forget the clicker: A new technology in Japan could let you control electronic devices without lifting a finger simply by reading brain activity. A cap connects by optical fibers to a mapping device, which links, in turn, to a toy train set via a control computer and motor during one recent demonstration at Hitachi's Advanced Research Laboratory in Hatoyama, just outside Tokyo."Take a deep breath and relax," said Kei Utsugi, a researcher, while demonstrating the device on Wednesday.At his prompting, a reporter did simple calculations in her head, and the train sprang forward — apparently indicating activity in the brain's frontal cortex, which handles problem solving.Activating that region of the brain — by doing sums or singing a song — is what makes the train run, according to Utsugi. When one stops the calculations, the train stops, too.Underlying Hitachi's brain-machine interface is a technology called opt...
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Flexible Video (e-paper)
2007-05-16 02:36:00
First A4 Color e-paperSeoul, Korea (May 13, 2007) LG.Philips, a leading innovator of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) technology, announced today that it developed the world’s first 14.1-inch flexible color E-paper display, equivalent in size to an A4 sheet of paper. This is a second breakthrough in E-paper for LG.Philips LCD, which introduced the world’s first 14.1-inch black and white flexible E-paper display in May 2006. The 14.1-inch flexible color E-paper uses electronic ink from E-Ink Corp. to produce a maximum of 4,096 colors. It can be viewed from a full 180 degrees, so that images always appear crisp, even when the display is bent.Like the black and white flexible display, the color version uses a substrate that arranges Thin-Film Transistors (TFT) on metal foil rather than glass, allowing it to recover its original shape after being bent. This model includes a color filter coated onto the plastic substrate, allowing it to display color ima...
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3D Poster
2007-05-15 16:15:00
XYZ Imaging Inc.,is the world’s first holographic printing bureau capable of creating production ready multi-resolution, full color, reflective holograms from pure digital media.This technology uses patented holographic technology developed over a 6 year timeframe at a cost of nearly $ 23 Million US dollars. Combined with a revolutionary emulsion that is more than 300 times finer than ISO 300 film on a super wide format that measures over 1 m wide, allowing for the production of never-before-seen large format holographic prints with a single sheet size of: 1m wide x 1.2m long or longer (based on the length of the film roll). What is a hologram? A hologram is a three-dimensional scene with an incredible illusion of depth and motion that is unlike anything you've seen before....
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Light-emitting textiles
2007-05-15 15:18:00
(Lumalive)-Philips(click to see the video)Behind the outer fabric,you will find a layered system containing flexible arrays of colored light-emitting diodes (LEDs), only visible from the outside when the display panel is switched on. The system is modular and can be removed easily when you want to wash your garments or clean your soft furnishings.Lumalive textiles bring inert objects to life by integrating flexible arrays of multi-colored light-emitting diodes (LEDs) into fabrics without compromising the softness of the cloth. The integration of electronic lighting devices into textiles is groundbreaking. Clothing, towels, upholstery, and drapes might at first seem unlikely hosts for intelligent and interactive systems, yet they figure prominently in our lives and as such present a wide spectrum of opportunity.What is the technology behind Lumalive?Lumalive fabrics feature Philips’ proprietary technology of integrating flexible arrays of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) into the fabri...
More About: Textiles , Light , Tiles