We’ve successfully engineered giant robot arms for building cars on an assembly line. But smaller mass-produced items—like electronics—still mostly rely on the nimble hands and fingers of a human. Building and controlling robots on a very small scale is still very difficult, but a company called SRI International may have found a clever solution using magnets.
After seeing this video of strong magnets destroying glass in slow motion, I really wish I had a few to play with now. Magneto was always my favorite supervillain.
We first told you about Correlated Magnetics Research’s programmable magnets last year. The company’s patented technology allows them to flexibly control the magnetic field shape of the magnets they create. In essence, the company can program the north/south polarity of the magnets as though they are “printing” it on them. It allows for many different configurations and has many industrial… Read More
There’s a fear that touchscreen devices like smartphones and tablets will one day turn kids into lifeless, imagination-less zombies. But technology isn’t all bad. And to bridge the gap between the toys of yesteryear and tomorrow, researchers at the National Taiwan University created a building block toy that can interact with apps on a touchscreen tablet.
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At one time giant blocks of ice were the best solution we could come up with for keeping food cold. That primitive approach was eventually replaced by electric refrigerators using compressors and chemical coolants. Now, almost 100 years later, G.E. thinks it’s found a better way to cool a fridge using a water-based fluid and magnets.
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Designer Luis Pons may have just come up with the biggest innovation in home decorating since wall-to-wall carpeting. This large magnetic panel, which could be easily made to cover the walls of an entire room, is adorned with a metal mesh ‘fabric’ that can be rearranged, repositioned, and even completely replaced to match new decor.
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A new Apple patent application published by the USPTO today describes a magnetic connector similar to the one used to attach Smart Covers to the current iPad, but designed to be far more flexible with a variety of possible accessory combinations. It’s a smart connector system that could recognize the attached peripheral and change functionality accordingly.
The types of peripherals described in the patent are many and varied, and include things like speaker docks, trackpads and keyboards, drawing tablets, radio wave antennas, cameras, game controllers and card readers. There’s also a provision which describes how two iPads might be linked together via an intermediary magnetic hinge dock that connects to the smart magnetic link in each.
It could work either with basic magnets, or with electromagnets that can be turned on or off using controls built into iOS, according to the filing, which would allow you to theoretically ‘lock’ accessories in place, including docks that simply stand the iPad up or hold it on a positionable mount for different viewing angles.
The system’s flexibility doesn’t end there, however – Apple also describes various in-car mounts for connecting an iPad to your vehicle’s dash or headrests, as well as to a treadmill or other gym equipment. Each could be a simple enough magnetic connection with no attendant change in functionality, but the patent also describes how they could complete a circuit, too, to deliver power, and communicate with the attached peripherals to transfer specific kinds of data back and forth.
Finally, there’s mention of wearable tech that could be used to trigger the magnetic sensor and prompt various behaviour from the iPad. This could take the form of a ring, for instance, which when worn by the user would do things like unlock the iPad when the hand it’s on is waved deliberately across the tablet’s screen. In the context of other Apple wearable rumors making the rounds, this could theoretically also work with magnetic connectors built into some kind of iWatch, possibly for identification and unlocking purposes as well as for simple proximity-based communication with certain apps.
The system described in this patent is elaborate and filled with potential, but it’s worth noting that peripherals connected via the Lightning port can do some of the things depicted in the application. Still, were Apple to actively invest in putting this into shipping iPads, it would no doubt open up a world of possibility for accessory makers. Connections that don’t require physical I/O, and that could automatically prompt different behavior from an iOS device and from specific apps would significantly enrich the already vibrant appcessory ecosystem.
Apple already has magnets within the iPad’s chassis, so space constraints for components aren’t necessarily a huge concern, and this could easily be a focus feature for an iPad generational revision, especially in lieu of form factor or display changes. Apple patents rarely make their way intact into shipping hardware, but in this case, I’m holding out hope we do see something similar make its way to consumer hands.
Refusing to acknowledge that Tetris and Jenga are both incredibly challenging in their own rights, ThinkGeek has mashed the two of them up into a new game that has you stacking 3D tetromino-like pieces on a game board that actually hovers. Not even that crazy multi-level chess game in Star Trek seems this futuristic.
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Two years ago, we were fortunate enough to have a man with a magnet implanted in his fingertip explain at length
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Oh, sure, that fancy glass decanter and that decorative vase look great on the dinner table. But when it comes time to clean them out, it’s all about soaking and hoping those stains magically dissolve on their own. The $9 Cuisipro, though, lets you take a more active approach to cleaning awkwardly-shaped containers—by using a small magnetic scrubber and wand to reach every last nook and cranny.
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