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Magnetic levitation is central to the fastest trains we know today, but it’s that dependence on electromagnets and rails that limits how and where it’s used for transportation. Aoyama Gakuin University has a unique alternative: changing the material properties themselves. By floating graphite over a bed of circular magnets, taking advantage of its tendency to generate an opposing magnetic field, researchers can move the graphite just by blasting its edge with a laser. The heat skews the magnetic behavior of that area enough to unbalance the graphite, either in a specific direction or a spin. The research team believes it could lead to maglev transportation or even energy converting turbines that are steered solely by light, with no contact or outside guides: maglev vehicle pilots could have much more control over where they go. Getting to that point will require a much larger scale, but successful development could give technology a very literal lift.

Continue reading Magnetically lifted graphite moves by laser, may lead to light-based maglev vehicles (video)

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Via: Phys.org

Source: JACS

By now, you probably experienced enough travel headaches to last you another year now that both Thanksgiving and other major holidays are over. Many of you probably traveled by plane, train or automobile to get back home to spend the holidays with your loved ones, and not-so loved ones, too. Traveling to your home probably became an all-day ordeal, but if you were riding by China’s newest high-speed railway, you probably could have been there and back in the same day.

China’s high-speed railway takes travelers from Beijing, which is located in there northern part of the country, all the way down to Guangzhou in the south covering a total of 1,428 miles at 186MPH. A ticket to ride the new railway isn’t cheap as it’ll cost approximately $139 for the full trip from Beijing to Guangzhou, but the travel time has been severely cut down from 20 hours to 8 hours. And 8 hours would be perfect if you’d like to catch up on your sleep, but it’ll have to be done during the day as the line currently doesn’t offer overnight service.

If you need to travel from Beijing to Guangzhou in as little time as possible, air travel is still the best option, but for those folks who don’t want to spend more money for a flight as well as worry about more security, China’s new railway seems to be the way to go.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Regulators Propose Mandatory Black Boxes In All Automobiles, Qbeak Prototype Unveiled,

China has always been about fast trains and expanding their high-speed rail lines, and today the country is now home to the world’s longest high-speed train line, spanning 1,428 miles from Beijing to Guangzhou. The train tops out at 186MPH and can conquer the 1,428-mile trip in just eight hours, replacing the previous train route which took about 20 hours to complete.

The new rail line is still technically slower than flying, but it’s cheaper and potentially less stressful than tackling the trip by air. It’s certainly far more viable than the 20-hour rail trip that it’s replacing, and the new rail line could encourage more people to go with the train rather than flying, which wasn’t really a realistic option until now.

A total of 155 different train rides will run on the new line each day, and alternative schedules have been made for weekends and peak travel times. There will still be 183 rides running daily on the old Beijing-Guangzhou line that runs parallel to the new high-speed line, which will diminish concerns that the new line would increase passengers’ travel costs.

A second-class seat on the new high-speed line costs 865 yuan ($138), while a ticket on the old rail line sells for around 430 yuan ($69). Riding the train is definitely a cheaper alternative to flying, especially if you’re not in a big hurry and don’t mind being confined to a rail car for a majority of the day.

With the opening of the new Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed line, China now has almost 5,800 miles of high-speed railway in operation. The new rail line is one of four north-south lines expected to serve as the country’s high-speed railway backbone, which also features four east-west lines. By 2015, China is planning to have around 74,000 miles of railway in operation, including 11,100 miles of high-speed railway.

[via WSJ]

Image via Xinhuanet

China debuts world’s longest high-speed rail line is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

While some car manufacturers are voluntarily installing black boxes in their cars these days, it seems that federal regulators are proposing that after September 2014, all automobiles sold in the US will have to come with a black box installed. The National Transportation Safety Agency is looking to hear from residents of the US by the 11^th of February on this proposed plan. Obviously the installation of these black boxes are for the safety of drivers on the road so in the event of an accident or emergency, the relevant authorities will know what went wrong and whether it might be related to the manufacturing of the vehicle, the driver and etc.

The proposed black boxes will trigger for about 30 seconds when events such as sudden braking or acceleration occur, swerving or any other act that could lead to an accident. The data can then be downloaded either remotely or physically whereby it would be used “primarily for the purpose of post-crash assessment of vehicle safety system performance.” While this sounds perfectly reasonable, there are privacy advocates who are worried about the data being collected and are asking the data to be anonymized to prevent the selling of it to third parties, such as insurance companies who might use it for risk evaluation. What do you guys think? Black boxes being made mandatory – yay or nay?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: China Introduces World’s Longest High Speed Railway, Qbeak Prototype Unveiled,

The Qbeak is an electric city vehicle that is being worked upon by Denmark-based ECOmove, and this time around, it is said that the third prototype of the vehicle is under development, with insider information claiming that the Qbeak is “very close” to its finished version. Compared to its predecessors, the existing prototype is said to be lighter than ever before, and this can only translate to one thing – the Qbeak’s single-charge range would have been increased. ECOMove is currently sounding the clarion call to explore potential partnerships with automobile component makers, touting that the final version will be ready by the time 2014 rolls around.

ECOmove began work on the first Qbeak prototype in 2009, where it also picked up the ‘European Electric Vehicles Early Stage Investment Opportunity Award’ from UK-based Frost & Sullivan in March. We do hope that by the time 2014 rolls around, the Qbeak would be even more advanced than where it is today, so much so that it would end up as the definition of an electric vehicle that is easy on the wallet and yet works great.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: 2014 Cadillac ELR Confirmed For Debut In January, 60-kWh Tesla Model S Has 208 Mile Range,