Digital Body Tattoos, Solar-Powered Bricks, T-Shirt with A/C
February 9th, 2007 by 
rey
Digital Tattoos For Your Body
Squid and octopi do it. They change their skins to blend into the color and textural patterns of their environment. Specialized skin cells, called chromatophores, allow them to change color, reflection or even refraction. This also allows them to communicate with other octopi for mating or to warn competitors away.
Humans do it too. They change their skins with tattoos. Body decorations such as tattoos can be expressive and alluring or even a little scary. But tattoos are also permanent. If we could display tattoos that were transient (even animated!) it would be yet another way to express ourselves, our thoughts or even our health.
I've Got You Under My Skin
Gina Miller (also known as "nanogirl") is an artist who last year produced images on a concept first developed by Robert A. Freitas, Jr., a senior research fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing in Palo Alto, Calif. In his futuristic treatise, a display would be implanted just below the surface of the epidermis so that its light was visible through the translucent skin on the back of one's hand or forearm.
This "dermal display" (featured on the winter 2006 cover of Cryonics magazine) would consist of about three billion light-emitting nanorobots capable of rearranging themselves to spell out words and numbers and produce animations for the display. To turn on and control the display, you simply tap it with your finger.
The idea was first mentioned in "Nanomedicine," a series of books Freitas wrote describing possible future uses of nanorobotic medical systems. However, these display nanorobots and their sensing/networking kin have yet to be created. In the meantime, we may have to rely upon more traditional means to achieve such intimate displays….
Northern Light over North of Canada, Taken in flight on a Boeing 747
Air Conditioned T-Shirt
When it comes to USB powered gadgets, this doesn't just take the cake, it takes the entire bakery and then burns it down for the insurance money. The USB shirt has two fans on the left and right sides of the back, taking in air to cleanse all the sweat off your spare tire. There's an external switch on the USB cable to adjust the fan speed, in case your sweat doesn't quite go up to eleven.
The shirt is also powered by four AA batteries in case you don't have a USB slot anywhere nearby. It even plugs into the cigarette lighter in your car—because it's such a great idea hooking up your body to your car's electrical system.
Dog Makes Cell Phone Call to Save Owner's Life
A 17-pound beagle named Belle is more than man’s best friend. She’s a lifesaver.Belle was in Washington, D.C., on Monday to receive an award for biting onto owner Kevin Weaver’s cell phone to call 911 after the diabetic man had a seizure and collapsed.
“There is no doubt in my mind that I’d be dead if I didn’t have Belle,” said Weaver, 34, whose blood sugar had dropped dangerously low. Belle had been trained to summon help in just those circumstances. She had been taught to bite down on the number 9 on his cell phone contacting 911.
Belle was the first canine recipient to win the VITA Wireless Samaritan Award, given to someone who used a cell phone to save a life, prevent a crime or help in an emergency.Using their keen sense of smell, animals like Belle can detect abnormalities in a person’s blood-sugar levels.
The dog periodically licks Weaver’s nose to take her own reading of his blood-sugar level. If something seems off to her, she will paw and whine at him.“Every time she paws at me like that I grab my meter and test myself,” Weaver said. “She’s never been wrong.”
Professor Invents Ripeness Sticker
A University of Arizona professor has invented a sticker that can tell consumers if a fruit or vegetable is ripe. The stickers will be available to growers next year and should make their way to supermarkets within two to three years, said Mark Riley, a UA assistant professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering.
He said growers and grocers throw out thousands of bushels of fruit each year because it ripened faster than it could get to market or be sold.With no simple way to tell whether fruit that looks good on the outside will taste good on the inside, consumers often buy peaches, pears and melons they can't eat because they're under-ripe or overripe."Right now, picking fruit is more of an art than it is a science," Riley said.
A marker on Riley's RediRipe stickers detects a chemical called ethylene gas, which is released by fruit or vegetables as they ripen.As that happens, the sticker turns from white to blue.The more ethylene gas the fruit produces, the darker the blue, Riley said.
The color shift is not instantaneous once a sticker is attached. It takes about 24 to 48 hours, depending on how fast the fruit is ripening, Riley said.And there are still bugs to be worked out: The stickers do not change color to reflect an overripe or rotten piece of fruit. Also, not all fruit produces enough ethylene to be detected by the sticker, said Jim McFerson, manager of the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission, a growers' research group that helped sponsor the research.
"There is still a lot of research to do," McFerson said.Each sticker is expected to cost growers and grocers about a penny, Riley said.There is a patent pending for the stickers through the UA. Riley said when RediRipe goes to market, the university will keep the patent and the company will license the product.Research on ethylene's use in fruit ripening began in the 1940s, and the gas is used to ripen fruits and vegetables in storage.
Riley has done multiple small field tests on his stickers — including at an apple orchard in Willcox — and plans a much larger field test this fall in Washington.
Homemade Rocket Man
There is no subtle way to say this: Brian Walker plans to shoot himself nearly 20 miles into the air aboard a homemade rocket launched from what could be the world's largest crossbow. (Seriously.)
This isn't Walker's first outlandish invention. He's responsible for the “light chaser” whirly toy, a 300-gallon water-balloon launcher (for putting out forest fires – still in prototype), and Taser gloves (featured in “Garage Geniuses Go Prime Time,” issue 14.03). But Project RUSH – for “rapid up superhigh” – is hands down his most preposterously dangerous effort. “I missed out on the opportunity to be the first private citizen to fly to the edge of space in a private rocket, so I decided to do something even more fun,” Walker says.
Walker's idea of fun? Stretch a carbon-fiber bowstring 24 feet along a rail, fire up a jet turbine with 1,350 pounds of thrust, hit a trigger, and pull 10 gs as his craft, modeled on spaceships from Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, shoots to the stratosphere. He'll plummet back to Earth using hydrogen peroxide rockets (the propulsion system used in 1950s jet packs) to slow his descent. Don't worry about Walker – he'll be wearing a $15,000 surplus Russian space suit for protection. “I can see a scenario where giant crossbows would accelerate skydivers upward,” he says, “creating a new kind of skydiving.”
Walker hopes to launch this fall, unless the FAA says no. But first he'll test the rig with a giant fiberglass arrow, just to, you know, make sure it's safe.
Solar-Powered Bricks
With no external power requirements or wires whatsoever, you can't find a simpler or more inexpensive way to illuminate dark walkways around your home or in your garden. Just replace standard bricks or pavers with our completely self-contained Sun Bricks.
Flush-to-the-ground, integral solar panels generate up to 8 hours of light each night. So guests can follow a cheerfully illuminated path to your door. Amber LED's provide a warm, welcoming glow, consume little power, and can't burn out.
Sun Bricks come on automatically when darkness falls, and incur no operating costs. Just recess them in your walkway, and forget them!
Posted in Tech Newsletters | 
3 Comments »