Tag: Electromagnetic

I thought smartwatches were pretty smart already. I love not having to dig my phone out of my pocket to see who is calling and if I want to talk to them. Thanks to a new technology that was developed by scientists at Disney Research and Carnegie Mellon University, smartwatches are set to get lots smarter.

Last year we looked at Harvard University’s prototype for a robot that folds itself up from a flat shape into a spider-like form when exposed to heat. This small…device invented by MIT and TU Munich researchers has a similar feature, but I don’t know if I should call it a robot.

Last year we talked about a concept device that charges AA batteries by harvesting the electromagnetic energy emitted by nearby electronic devices. WeTag Inc.’s iFind Bluetooth locating device uses a similar method to power itself, eliminating the need for replaceable batteries.

Wireless chargers already exist, but I’m not a big fan of the current setup because it’s not convenient at all. Sure, you don’t have to plug anything to your device, but today’s inductive chargers require that the device being charged remain in contact with the charging dock or platform.

Aside from generating heat, most electronic devices also emit electromagnetic fields. A rapid prototyping enthusiast named Dennis Siegel though of a way to tap into those fields and store them as usable energy by way of AA batteries.

Depending on the accessory, you can transform your iPhone into a video game console, a bottle opener, a wallet, a pepper spray, and now a ghost detector. Yes, all of these accessories except for the latter function are already available in the market today. 

If Ian Hunter and his team at MIT have their way, the serial killers and torturers of the future will have one less tool to brandish and freak out their victims. Hunter and his colleagues have engineered a jet-injection system that can administer drugs with less pain and more accuracy compared to syringes and hypodermic needles.

If you’ve got a bunch of data lying around on old hard drives, and want to make sure that nobody gets their hands on it, you could try reformatting the drives, but there’s always a chance that a data recovery service could pull the data off.

When I was growing up, I remember seeing a native tribe somewhere on TV or the movies who had a bunch of shrunken heads hanging around their huts. I seem to remember that they looked like dried up apples that had been carved out.

There are lots of ways to put out a fire, but most of them require some way to actually spray or douse the flames with the suppressant. This can cause problems in small or obstructed spaces.

The condition called Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (or EHS for short) is pretty controversial. If you believe that it exists, then symptoms might include headaches, skin burning, muscle twitching and chronic pain. Those who believe they are afflicted by it blame it on exposure to electromagnetic fields from mobile phones, Wi-Fi and other equipment.

This badass looking weapon won’t hurt a fly – but it will kill any RFID tag you point it at. The Rfiddler gun can be aimed at unsuspecting RFID tags and destroy their data by simply overloading the tags with a very strong electromagnetic field.

Wouldn’t it be neat to be able to have WiFi-like access to electricity? While wireless power is by no means a novel concept – Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla already explored the possibility of wireless power –  US-based company WiTricity claim that they have one of the most feasible methods of making the world a lot more wireless.

For some time now, there’s been buzz about the Military working on a new “crowd control system” which works by blasting people with an invisible, yet highly uncomfortable electromagnetic blast. Well it turns out that they did a little demonstration of the weapon on some members of the press back in January, and here’s a clip of the reaction of one such test subject: The device, known as the Active Denial System (which probably refers to the fact that the Military will actively deny using it if it ever comes to real world use) hits its victims with a non-lethal blast of EM radiation at a range of up to 500 yards away.