jueves, diciembre 04, 2014

"Fantasmas" que se pueden ver y sentir / Turbinas de viento en àrboles artificiales






Hoy, Amma, el Papa Francisco y otros líderes religiosos mundiales han hecho historia. Se han unido con una sola voz para declarar que la esclavitud moderna es un delito contra la humanidad. Han pedido a todas las personas, independientemente de su género, su religión y su cultura, que trabajen juntas para erradicar el tráfico de personas y todas las demás formas de esclavitud de la faz de la tierra antes del 2020. #EndSlavery


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New ultrasound research creates holographic objects that can be seen and felt

By Colin Jeffrey December 2, 2014

Researchers have used projected ultrasound to create floating 3D shapes that can be seen and felt in mid-air (Photo: University of Bristol)

Haptic feedback

http://www.gizmag.com/tag/haptics/
has become a common feature of recent technology, but such systems usually rely on stimulation of parts of the user’s body via direct mechanical or acoustic vibration. A new technique being developed by researchers at the University of Bristol promises to change all of this by using projected ultrasound to directly create floating, 3D shapes that can be seen and felt in mid-air.

Building on previous work at the university, the researchers have used an array of ultrasonic transducers to create and focus compound patterns of ultrasound to shape the air at which it was directed. To make these shapes visible, the manipulated air was directed through a thin curtain of oil and a lamp was then used to illuminate it. According to the researchers, this results in a system that produces such accurate and identifiable shapes that users can readily match an image of a 3D object to the shape rendered by the prototype ultrasound system.

"Touchable holograms, immersive virtual reality that you can feel and complex touchable controls in free space, are all possible ways of using this system," said Dr Ben Long, Research Assistant from the Bristol Interaction and Graphics (BIG) department at the University of Bristol. "In the future, people could feel holograms of objects that would not otherwise be touchable, such as feeling the differences between materials in a CT scan or understanding the shapes of artefacts in a museum."

The system does not use the ultrasound frequency (around 40 kHz) to directly impinge on the surface of the skin when the haptic object is touched. Instead, vibrations are set up in the air upon which the array is focused to produce sensations oscillating anywhere from around 0.4 Hz to 500 Hz. In this way, when the various patterns are produced by the ultrasonic array, the user is able to discern the shape of an object in a similar way to feeling a solid article.

The researchers believe this new technology may revolutionize the way haptic feedback is utilized in various fields. This includes medicine, where a surgeon may be able to “feel” a patient’s CT scan with haptic feedback to determine irregularities and identify diseases or tumors. But, more than this, the separation of visual displays and haptic feedback may one day be removed, and physical and visual interaction combined in a fully-immersive, floating, 3D system.

Led by Dr Ben Long and colleagues Professor Sriram Subramanian, Sue Ann Seah and Tom Carter from the University of Bristol’s Department of Computer Science, the research Is published in the current issue of the journal ACM Transactions on Graphics
http://tog.acm.org/
and will be presented at the SIGGRAPH Asia 2014 conference.
http://sa2014.siggraph.org/en/
No announcement has yet been made as to future applications or any commercial release of the system.

The video demonstrates the prototype system in use.

Source: University of Bristol

http://bristol.ac.uk/news/2014/december/haptic-shapes-using-ultrasound.html
http://www.gizmag.com/ultrasound-3d-haptic-hologram/35032/

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Artificial Wind Tree provides a fig leaf for unsightly turbines

By Nick Lavars December 2, 2014

The Wind Tree turbine is designed to generate power from low-speed winds

It's hard to argue with the clean and cost-effective nature of wind farms as an energy source, unless perhaps you happen to live nearby. Generally speaking, the peculiar appearance of wind turbines coupled with the fact they perform better when up high and out in the open sees them banished to uninhabited countryside, or even out to sea. But a French entrepreneur believes that sculpting them in the form of an artificial tree could lead to wider adoption in urban centers, making use of low winds that circulate around buildings and streets.

The team is set to install a Wind Tree prototype at the Place de la Concorde in Paris in M...With 72 artificial leaves serving as micro-turbines spinning on a vertical axis, the Wind ...The Wind Tree is the brainchild of Jérôme Michaud-Larivière, who has founded the French co...With 72 artificial leaves serving as micro-turbines spinning on a vertical axis, the Wind ...View all
The Wind Tree is the brainchild of Jérôme Michaud-Larivière, who has founded the French company New Wind to bring it to market. His team is set to install a Wind Tree prototype at the Place de la Concorde in Paris in March 2015, a demonstration it says will raise awareness around renewable energy in the city.

With 72 artificial leaves serving as micro-turbines spinning on a vertical axis, the Wind Tree is designed to harness more gentle winds. The developers say this can extend to breezes blowing as slowly as two meters per second, making the turbine useful across more than 280 days of the year. Its power output is calculated at 3.1 kW.

With 72 artificial leaves serving as micro-turbines spinning on a vertical axis, the Wind ...
The steel tree stands 11 m (36 ft) tall and measures 8 m (26 ft) in diameter. Operation is said to by completely silent, with all cables and generators integrated into the leaves and branches. New Wind envision that it could either be hooked up to buildings via the main switchboard or connected to the grid with an inverter.

We have seen similar attempts at domesticating wind turbines in the past. In 2011 a team of Dutch designers revealed its Power Flower concept, which would also use vertical-axis turbines. Having already produced prototypes, however, the Wind Tree team does seem little closer to offering a real-world solution.

If it does eventually make it to market, the Wind Tree will be priced at €29,500 (US$36,500). You can see its leaves blow in the video below.

http://www.arbre-a-vent.fr/L-arbre-a-vent_31.html

http://www.gizmag.com/wind-tree-fig-leaf-unsightly-turbines/35040/

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