Lifeboat Foundation

Circa 2018

China’s quantum radar makes more progress, and China plans to put it high up in the stratosphere, to spy on ballistic missiles and stealth aircraft.

The United States and China both see quantum technologies as key to national security and economic progress.

Hands are old news. VR navigation, control and selection is best done with the eyes—at least that’s what HTC Vive is banking on with the upcoming HTC Vive Pro Eye, a VR headset with integrated Tobii eye tracking initially targeting businesses. I tried out a beta version of the feature myself on MLB Home Run Derby VR. It’s still in development and, thus, was a little wonky, but I can’t deny its cool factor.

HTC announced the new headset Tuesday at the CES tech show in Las Vegas. The idea is that by having eye tracking built into the headset, better use cases, such as enhanced training programs, can be introduced. The VR player also says users can expect faster VR interactions and better efficiency in terms of tapping your PC’s CPU and GPU.

Of course, before my peepers could be tracked I needed to calibrate the headset for my special eyes. It was quite simple, after adjusting the interpupillary distance appropriately, the headset had me stare at a blue dot that bounced around my field of view (FOV). The whole thing took less than a minute.

Continue reading “HTC Vive Pro Eye Hands-On: Feeling Powerful With Built-In Tobii Eye Tracking” »

- the world’s best science and medicine on your desktop.

Circa 2015

Researchers have used an infrared laser to cool water by about 2°C (36°F) — a major breakthrough in the field. As they are cooled by the laser, the nanocrystals developed by the University of Washington team emit a reddish-green ‘glow’ (shown) that can be seen by the naked eye.

‘Typically, when you go to the movies and see Star Wars laser blasters, they heat things up’, senior author and assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Washington Peter Pauzauskie explained.

Continue reading “Laser that COOLS water is invented for the first time” »

Magnetic north is not where it used to be.

Since 2015, the place to which a compass points has been sprinting toward Siberia at a pace of more than 30 miles (48 kilometres) a year. And this week, after a delay caused by the month-long partial government shutdown in the United States, humans have finally caught up.

Scientists on Monday released an emergency update to the World Magnetic Model, which cellphone GPS systems and military navigators use to orient themselves.

Continue reading “Earth’s Magnetic North Pole Has Shifted So Much We’ve Had to Update GPS” »

Many of today’s methods of purifying water rely on filters and chemicals that need regular replenishing or maintenance. Millions of people, however, live in areas with limited access to such materials, leading the research community to explore new options of purifying water in using plasmas. Many plasma-based approaches are expensive, but a new class of plasma devices may change that.

Researchers at the University of Alabama in Huntsville have been studying a new type of plasma generator for water purification. The new generator pulses voltage signals to ionize gas at atmospheric pressure and produce many useful byproducts, including hydroxyl radicals, which cause a cascade of reactions that lead to purer water samples.

“We’re finding ways to speed up the purification process,” said Ryan Gott, a doctoral candidate in aerospace engineering at UAH who will present the research next week at the American Physical Society 71st Annual Gaseous Electronics Conference and the 60th Annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, which will take place Nov. 5–9 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland.

Continue reading “Plasma-based system provides radical new path for water purification” »

Boeing unveiled a rendering of its first-ever design for a hypersonic passenger plane at an aerospace conference in Atlanta. While the idea and potential of the plane will generate plenty of buzz, this is a concept that is likely decades from being built.

The hypersonic passenger plane could, in theory, fly as fast as Mach 5, or just under 3,900 miles per hour. That would allow the plane to carry passengers between Los Angeles and Tokyo in roughly three hours. A flight from New York to London could be as quick as two hours. Right now, those flights take about 11 hours and 7 hours, respectively.

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg is pushing the aerospace giant to explore the potential of ultra-fast passenger planes.

Continue reading “Boeing unveils rendering of hypersonic jet that would fly from US to Japan in 3 hours” »

A U.S. Army engineer’s idea to turn the standard M4 rifle into an electromagnetic pulse gun recently got the nod from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

James E. Burke, electronics engineer at the U.S. Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, received U.S. patent 10,180,309 on Tuesday, giving the Army intellectual property protections on Burke’s “Electromagnetic Pulse Transmitter Muzzle Adapter.”

This invention would enable a single soldier in a ground unit to destroy enemy electronics, such as small drones or improvised explosive devices, by attaching a special blank-firing adapter to their rifle’s muzzle, then firing a shot.

Continue reading “Here’s the Army’s now-patented EMP rifle attachment for taking out small drones” »