Lost in the woods? If you have a GPS device with you, you can easily recover your path. But if you’re indoors, you’re out of luck. GPS signals cannot penetrate solid obstacles, making them useless inside most buildings. Here’s where local wireless networks may come to the rescue. An IPS, or indoor positioning system, uses ultrasound, infrared, or radio waves to obtain the position of an IPS device. This means you could strap on an IPS wristband, and your movements could be tracked, even inside buildings!
Cause for privacy concern? Certainly. If you were forced to wear a wristband, anyone with access to the network could track your movements. But just as GPS systems have helped to rescue stranded hikers in the wilderness, IPS systems could help firefighters navigate a burning building to find trapped victims. Hospitals are already using a similar ultrasound-based technology to help patients recognize the myriads of doctors, nurses, and other workers who attend to their needs.
A few decades ago, the idea of fixing your vision by putting a thin lens on your eyeball was the stuff of sci-fi movies. Today, contact lenses help millions of people to see with near-perfect vision.
The next horizon of contact lens technology might also seem like an episode of the Bionic Woman: scientists have created contact lenses with small integrated electrical circuits and light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
What’s the purpose? Eventually, developers want to use LEDs to project artificial images onto the view of your surroundings. This could, in principle, overlay words, pictures, or even a web browser-like interface onto your normal vision.
The technology, created at the University of Washington, is just a small step toward creating a revolutionary new visual interface. The contacts are completely clear despite containing circuits with nanometer-sized components. The one thing the lenses don’t do is correct vision. But eventually, engineers hope to integrate prescription lenses with the LED display capabilities.
What do you buy for the person who has everything? They have their sports car, they have their speedboat. But do they have everything in one?
Last year Rinspeed Designs introduced their newest vehicle, called the Splash. The name is appropriate since that’s exactly what this vehicle does. Hydrofoil technology allows the sports car to convert into a water vehicle at the push of the button.
It goes something like this: a panel on the back of the car flips up to reveal the vehicle’s propellers. The hydraulic system lifts the front of the car to turn it into a speedboat. The hydrofoils can even be used to lift the entire car slightly off the water!
The Splash’s speed isn’t striking on either terrain. It can reach 125 mph on the road and 45 knots (52 mph) on the water. But how many vehicles do you know that are able to quote both these statistics?
See the Rinspeed Splash cross the English Channel.
