Hoverboard!: IS NOW A REALITY

Did you ever imagine yourself riding a “Back to the Future II” hoverboard? I did, and so did Nils Guadagnin who made a copy of one. “Integrated into the board and the plinth is an electromagnetic system which levitates the board. A laser system stabilises the object in the air.

More official notes about the project:

    In the making of this work, this artist was thinking about different ways of presenting sculpture. In fact it’s a reflexion on the multiple possibilities of how to give a sculpture full spatial autonomy.

The project have been realised with levitation technology of Crealev company.

World’s Tiniest Battery

the U.S based Sandia National Labs researcher who has invented a battery thinner than human hair – or in today’s record, the world’s thinnest battery. This lithium-based battery is so tiny that it was baked inside a transmission electron microscope. Huang says that doing it this way helped them figure out how such micro-batteries worked and bettered their understanding of how batteries worked in general. As those microscopic electrodes put together have a chance for significant improvements over what we’ve got now, they could be used in hybrid cars, laptops and cell-phones.

It’s good to hear about those scientists working on improving battery technology, rather than just the chip-makers constantly working to budget power consumption. Because let’s face it – we’re doing a lot more on our mobile devices than we were a decade ago; be it shooting hi-def video or using cell-phones as GPS navigation systems. All these things require more power; and with most smartphones measuring in the range of just 9 to 12 mm thickness, I doubt how many would trade back that slimness for better battery life.