Created by Daniel Rozen this incredible wooden mirror is made up of 830 tiny wood each controlled by a small motor. A camera gathers light and shape data and sends it to a computer which then shifts the panels to create the image in front of the device. The can’t provide a detailed image but still it’s pretty cool to see and hear those little wooden pieces move and mimic everything you do.
Watch the incredible video of the wooden mirror at the bottom to see how it works.
Oh yeah, we all have this problem…all who can’t afford an expensive cooling system, that is. Anyway I have to admit I also used one of these ventilators to cool down my rig, beats spending large sums of cash on water cooling although it does look primitive. Well here are some photos of ventilators in cooling action, as a tribute to them.
You might think there’s nothing special about this bridge, and Milliau Viaduct is indeed one of the more common-looking bridges, but the mere fact that it’s slightly taller than the Eiffel Tower makes it special.
Opened to traffic in December of 2004, Milliau Viaduct holds the current record for the world’s tallest vehicular bridge in the world, standing at an amazing 343 meters in its highest point, which makes it only 38 meters shorter than the Empire State Building. The bridge is set in Milliau, France is a part of the A75-A71 autorute from Paris to Beziers and it most likely lose its position as highest bridge deck in the world, when Chenab Bridge is completed in 209, in India, so we thought we’d mention it until then.
This 4 tonnes vehicle was created by Roush Technologies and it specializes in racehorse and camel training.
It might look look just a big can, but this is a piece of high-tech machinery able to monitor racing animals at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour. The nameless vehicle has some kind of enclosure in front of it, resembling a horse starting stall, in which animals can walk and gallop while being monitored by veterinarians and racing experts. It has a centered seat for the driver and two more for a racing specialist and a veterinary expert. Onboard technologies include heart, oxygen, breathing and fitness monitoring to make sure they are in top shape for official races.
Personally I think it’s a stupid, worthless vehicle, but I guess there’s some serious money in races…
Here’s an idea of what to do when you have some broken bikes on your hand and you don’t want to get rid of them. This ingenious invention is made out of nine salvaged bicycles assembled in a carousel formation. The Circle Bike was created at USCB, it’s modular, it can be taken apart and reassembled and it is normally left in public places so different bike enthusiasts can take it for a ride.
The first moving building in the world will be built, where else, in Dubai, home to all the revolutionary architectural wonders in recent years.
Designed by Italian architect David Fisher, the Dynamic Tower will be made up of 80 pre-fabricated apartments rotating around a central column, with the help of 79 giant wind turbines placed between the floors. The 420 meters-long building “will never look the same, not once in a lifetime” says David Fisher, the apartments will be able to spin 360 degrees, giving the tower a different look every time.
One of the most important features of the Dynamic Tower is it’s going to be energy self-sufficient, the wind turbines will produce more than enough energy for the whole building, the extra energy will go back into the grid. The apartments will cost between $3,7 m and $36 m and the tower itself will cost $700 million to build.
The amazing Dynamic Tower of Dubai is scheduled to be ready in 2010.
Conceived by Korean designer Won-Seok-Lee, the “B-membrane” is one of the most interesting PC prototypes I’ve ever seen.
The B-membrane looks nothing like a conventional computer, more like a spaceship or space station, but it is indeed a PC, able to project an image of your desktop on any surface you can point its omni-directional projector at, thus rendering even the slimmest LCD monitor useless. It also has a membrane keyboard and mouse that appear only when you need them too, and an optical drive.
The B-membrane isn’t useless even when it is shut-down, its smart projector turns it into an ambient light-effects system to spice up the look of your crib.
Set up in the Comcast Center in Philadelphia, the 10 million pixel screen has five times the resolution of a HD television.
It’s not exactly a screen either, more like a media wall set up in the lobby of Comcast‘s impressive building, covered with four-millimeter LED lights that form a giant screen. The device is able to play all kins of videos and 3D effects like people flying through the air with coffee cups in their hands. The wall gets its images from a special command center complete with routers, digitizers, video-processors and a whopping 27, 000 gigabytes of data. The wall can display footage for 45 straight days without a sequence ever being repeated. It’s also estimated that a Philadelphia local would have to hang around the Comcast Center lobby for 2 years in order to see all the permutations of image the system can come up with.
U should also know that it only takes 2 million pixels to render a
Comcast paid $22 million to the visual experts at Bosco for this wonder but I think they feel it’s all worth it.
Source
This baby costs $6 million but it’s the ultimate home theater experience.
Jeremy Kipnis is a music producer that also invented this incredible home-cinema system. I’m sure you think $6 million is too much for something like this but if you’re really passionate about something, money is definitely no object..especially if you have lots of it.
The Kipnis home cinema is made up of a Sony SRX-S110 Professional Video Projector with a 4,096-by-2,160 resolution, the Stewart Snowmatte 1.0 Gain Laboratory-Grade Motion Picture screen (18×10 foot) , Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray Player, Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD Player with SATA Drive (72 HDTV Hours Total) and Mark Levinson N° 51 DVD/CD Media Player, HLD-X0 Hi-Vision HDTV MUSE Laserdisc Player,VC HMDH-5U D-VHS recorder. Throw in a PlayStation 3 consoles for hardcore gamers and you have the world’s most “badass” home cinema.
You might just see a huge steel ball, but this tuned mass damper is so much more.
This 728 tons steel pendulum is installed in one of the world’s tallest buildings, the taipei 101 in Taiwan. It helps stabilize the building in case of strong winds and earthquakes, through simple mechanics, when the building moves in a direction it swings in the opposite direction reducing movement by 40%. You can understand how it works by looking at the small GIF image.
It cost #4 million to install the huge damper in the skyscraper but architects and engineers said it had to be done. It spans across 4 of the building’s stories and it was assembled on site because it couldn’t be lifted by a crane, due to its enormous weight.
Here’s a video of the damper in action, on May 12th, when a horrific earthquake hit one of China’s provinces and the tremors reached as gar as Taipei. As the building started to shake, people ran towards the center to see the damper in action, it did it’s job.
That’s right, this is like a NASA-made ant farm.
Actually NASA only came up with the concept of AntWorks, developed so it could test the development of animal life in a 0 gravity environment. The prototype was created back in 2003 but these days you can buy your very-own AntWorks ant farm directly from the shop for about $40. This small ant habitat is filled with a special gel containing all the nutrients the ants need to survive so you don’t have to feed them, ever. Just sit back and enjoy watching the world’s strongest creatures (they are able to carry 10-20 time their own weight) at work. All yo have to do is lift the lid of the AntWorks colony so air can get in.
Pretty cool gadget this, I’m thinking of getting one myself since I live in an apartment and I’d just be torturing a dog if I kept it here.
People seem to love having a rolercoaster in their own backyards.
This guy must have seen Jeremy Reid‘s wooden rollercoster and said he simply must top that. And he did, in the way that he built an iron rollercoster in his own backyard. John Ivers from Indiana is the man who built The Blue Flash, a miniature rollercoster, just so he wouldn’t have to wait in line at the amusement park. Judging by the photos, I’d say he did a pretty good job, but apparently he wasn’t completely satisfied so he built an improved version called The Blue Too. Some people just have too much time on their hands, don’t you think?
Thousands of black plastic balls cover the Ivanhoe reservoir in Los Angeles.
It might not look like serious business, but The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power dropped 400,000 black plastic balls into one of the city’s reservoirs for a reason. The sunlight mixes with the chlorine and bromide in the water creating a deadly mix which some scientist believe may be causing cancer. The balls are meant to shade the water from the dangerous sunlight.
Sure a tart or some kind of lid would have seemed more normal, but the authorities say a tart would have cost to much too manufacture and a metal lid would have taken too long. So, although it looks like an oil spill, this was the best measure and it’s only temporary, the Ivanhoe and Elysian reservoirs will be covered by 3,000,000 black plastic balls for the next four years.
Finally something solar-powered that’s got some speed.
The Czeerz MK1 is a Dutch-made speedboat that relies only on solar energy, which makes it the first solar speedboat. The 10 meters-long boat reaches the speed of 30 knots which isn’t bad at all for this kind of vehicles. It has a light, carbon fiber shell covered with 14 square meters of solar panels that power an 80 kilowatt engine. Only thing this thing lacks is space, u can only get 2 people in it and they wouldn’t be very comfortable. But after all it’s built for speed not comfort.
One of the most unusual, yet beautiful bridges I’ve ever seen.
Built on a an island in the Langkawi archipelago in Malaysia, the Sky Bridge rises 700 meters above sea level and spans over 125 meters in length and 1,8 meters in width to offer visitors a spectacular view of the surroundings. The bridge was built crooked on purpose to offer a beautiful view of the chasm beneath and of the sea and neighboring islands.
It has 2 triangular platforms at each end, offering views of the landscape from different angles and also shelter for those who have a problem with the shaking of the bridge. The constructors took all the necessary precautions, building an excellent protection system, so don’t worry you’re safe.
