Hasta La Gadget!

3D printers are pretty awesome, but none are quite amazing as this particular one that crafted a tiny spaceship that sits at 125 micrometers long, which is about the diameter of a human hair. The printer that made the spaceship was unveiled at the Photonics West Fair by Nanoscribe, which is a German company that specializes in nanophotonics and 3D laser lithography.

The spaceship is a replica of a Hellcat from the classic 90s video game Wing Commander. the ship took around 50 seconds to print and it measures 125 micrometers long x 81 micrometers wide x 26.8 micrometers tall. The printer used two-photon polymerization in order to craft the spaceship. This process uses short laser pulses, which activate photo-sensitive liquid polymer.

Of course, this thing can’t actually fly, but it goes to show just how tiny you can actually 3D-print things. Of course, the printer can print other things besides nifty spaceships. Other products that include tiny proportions are biological scaffolds and ultralight metamaterials.

The video above shows the entire 50-second process of building the spaceship from start to finish. You can see the laser pulses travel from the bottom to the top and witness the spaceship being built right before your eyes. While it doesn’t look like much at first glance, knowing that the object is the width of a human hair is simply incredible.

[via DVICE]

Laser 3D-prints tiny spaceship the width of a human hair is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Sony doesn’t always break ground on new technology, but it tends to go big when it does. The company’s new installation-grade Laser Light Source Projector (similar to the VPL-FH36 you see here) serves as a textbook example. While it’s far from the world’s first laser projector, it’s reportedly the first with a 3LCD laser — enough to put its 4,000-lumen brightness toward the front of the pack, and help with visibility in less-than-dark boardrooms. Details are scant beyond the projection system itself, although Sony does tout a presentation-friendly 1,920 x 1,200 resolution as well as a picture muting option that gets the show started quickly. We do know that the well-lit output will be tough to miss when the Laser Light Source Projector hits classes and offices in the summer.

Filed under: Displays, HD, Sony

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Source: Sony

DARPA announced late last week that it wants to place laser turrets on fighter jets as early as 2014. DARPA has been working on airborne lasers for a long time in conjunction with the Air Force. The test bed for the airborne laser program was a Boeing 747 with a megawatt laser in its nose.

That massive laser was intended to be used to destroy the missiles, bombs, and other projectiles in-flight. However, the Airborne Laser Testbed project was abandoned last year. DARPA is still working on programs to put lasers into fighter aircraft with two projects ongoing at this time.

One of the laser projects is called the High Energy Liquid Laser Defense System (HELLADS) and the other is the Aero-Adaptive/Aero-Optic Beam Control (ABC). HELLADS is the airborne laser project seen in the image and centers on a 150-kilowatt system. This laser is 10 times smaller and lighter than current laser systems.

The HELLADS laser system is small enough to be used on ground and in the air aboard aircraft. The project was to create a laser weighing less than 5 kg per kilowatt able to fit into a total space of three cubic meters. ABC is a laser designed as a defensive weapon. It would be a small laser current mounted on aircraft or other vehicles used to shoot down incoming missiles. This project uses a fancy beam control to keep from losing its energy as it fires. The turbulence created by the aircraft engine.

[via Dvice]

DARPA plans to put laser turrets on fighter jets in 2014 is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

A team of scientists set out to find the size of protons, and in doing so have upset the current body of literature on quantum electrodynamics. According to the report published in the journal Science, the scientists used a laser to determine that the radius of a proton is smaller than 0.84087 femtometers, a size so small it is hardly comprehensible without something to put it into perspective.

One nanometer is the equivalent of one million femtometers, to put its size into perspective. Until now, it was believed that a proton has a radius of 0.8768 femtometers, but according to the study, the actual size is approximately 4-percent smaller. The size difference is said to be explainable by one of three ideas.

Either: A), the scientists are wrong, which is both the easiest and more unlikely reason; B), the current understanding of a proton’s structure could be limiting a complete – and thus correct – calculation; or C), the actual quantum electrodynamics theories themselves are incorrect, another possibility considered unlikely.

The explanations comes from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology physicist Aldo Antognini, who is one of the authors of the published report. Although the finding is significant, this isn’t the first time a proton has measured in at a size other than the accepted radius. The differences are likely due to the different methods used to calculate the size. The latest measurement is the result of a method involving measuring protons with orbiting muons instead of electrons.

[via MSN]

Scientists discover protons are smaller than previously thought is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

New from Stark Enterprises: The Iron Man gauntlet. It looks cool on your wrist, compliments your Mark-whatever armor and as a special bonus, it even shoots real lasers. Not wimpy lasers, mind you – lasers that are high-powered and strong enough to burn things and pop balloons.

And let’s face it, that’s what you need to save the world. You never know when an angry clown villain will show up and attack you with his balloon animal army. This full metal gauntlet, runs on 1x 18650 plus 2x 14500 Li Ion cells and has two blue lasers packed in at 1.2W each, plus two 4mW ones for aiming. Check out the gauntlet in action in the video clip below:

Pretty impressive, eh? It was made by Patrick Priebe of Laser-Gadgets. Sadly he isn’t sharing his build plans, but you can watch the video and drool.

[via Obvious Winner]