Hasta La Gadget!

Nobody wants a unitasker wasting space in their kitchen. Which is why we love designer Michiel Cornelissen’s laser-cut Zesch coasters. By themselves they keep condensation from a glass or bottle off your fine wood furniture, while looking like wooden shuriken you can use to fend off a ninja attack. But thanks to a clever mathematical design, the coasters can be connected to form larger trivets that safely hold hot pots or warm serving trays. Too bad the $70 price tag (for just 14 pieces) feels like a not-so-stealthy attack on our wallets. [Michiel Cornelissen via Core77] More »

We’re quite familiar with the fun you can have when you’ve got a high speed camera in your possession. But, even Phantom’s pricey and impressive 2,800 FPS cameras have nothing on the latest project out of UCLA. Engineers at the school have rigged up a microscope cam that uses serial time-encoded amplified microscopy (STEAM) to capture clips of individual cells at 36.7 million FPS. Let that sink in for a moment — that’s a “shutter” speed of 27 picoseconds. The school actually pioneered the method years ago, which uses ultra-fast laser pulses to generate images of cells as they speed by. The camera is capable of processing 100,000 cells a second, allowing doctors to spot cancerous anomalies that might have otherwise gone undetected. Now we just hope they can supersize the tech and sell it to HBO… boxing KOs can never be played back slow enough.

Continue reading 36.7 million FPS camera revolutionized cancer screening, next comes combat sports

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Science

36.7 million FPS camera revolutionized cancer screening, next comes combat sports originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Jul 2012 06:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The problem with laser weapons is this — they need a lot, a lot of power. Seriously. Some of those big, plane-mounted prototypes choke down enough juice to power a whole city. Not so with the Laser-Induced Plasma Channel weapon being developed by researchers at Picatinny Arsenal. While still using plenty of electricity, this more moderately specced laser is just powerful enough to strip electrons off the air molecules around it generating a thin filament of plasma. Its not the high-intensity laser pulse that does the damage, though. Instead, the channel of plasma is used as a conduit for a high-voltage blast of electricity. That laser-assisted bolt of lightning could disable vehicles, people and even IEDs. There are plenty of obstacles, including making the weapon rugged enough for battlefield use and reliable enough to keep the plasma channel from leading the blast of electricity back into the laser and damaging it. Now, if only we could find the video that still above was taken from.

LIPC weapon combines lasers and lightning, proves soldiers are a bunch of nerds originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 00:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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