DailyDirt: The Future Is All About Hovering

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Until quantum levitation and room temperature superconductors are a practical reality, we're still without hoverboards and flying cars. The future has promised everyone some kind of hovering transportation, but we'll just have to be patient and wait for the technology to be refined and made economical, right? Here are just a few hopeful links to getting your hovering fix sooner rather than later.

• Toyota has publicly stated that it's working on making a hovering car. The idea is that a hovercraft-like car would have reduced friction and be more efficient, so the trick will be to figure out how to make a vehicle float without expending too much energy. [url]
• There's a commercially available Hoverboard that lets a rider surf up to 30 feet above water. This board shoots a powerful jet of water to lift its rider up, and it requires a supply water hose and a trailing jet ski for its power supply. [url]
• For folks who remember Back To The Future II and hoverboards, the possibility of real hoverboards (made by HUVr Tech) is not just special effects and hidden support wires -- the futuristic skateboards EXIST. Or it's all just an elaborate hoax, like the moon landings.... [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: back to the future, flying cars, future, hoverboard, hovercraft, jet ski, levitation, quantum levitation, superconductivity
Companies: toyota

DailyDirt: Science That's Almost Indistinguishable From Magic

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Technology must really be getting better because Arthur C. Clarke's quote that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" seems to apply to more and more discoveries. Here are just a few examples of some pretty cool science that is real -- but not so easily explained.

• Quantum levitation uses a superconductor, a magnet and some flux pinning -- and makes a neat science demonstration. If only we could find some room temperature superconductors... [url]
• Quasicrystals won the 2011 Nobel prize in chemistry, and scientists used to say these materials weren't possible. Mother nature enjoys messing with symmetry a bit and coming up with patterns that M. C. Escher might have liked. [url]
• Some metallic glasses are microalloys of several different metals -- and can exhibit extraordinary strength and toughness. Too bad these glasses aren't transparent, though. [url]
• To discover more interesting science-related stuff, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: flux pinning, metallic glass, nobel prize, quantum levitation, quasicrystals, superconductor