Giant Automatic Highway Builders of the Future

"Highways by Automation" by Arthur Radebuagh (Washington Star, August 3, 1958)

After President Eisenhower pushed legislation in 1956 that would radically expand the U.S. highway system, artists began to imagine which technologies might shape our highway-rich future. These weren’t your father’s superhighways of tomorrow. These were highways built for self-driving cars; highways stretching from Alaska to Russia; highways running through the bottom of the sea.

The August 3, 1958 edition of Arthur Radebaugh‘s Sunday comic “Closer Than We Think” envisioned highways built by gigantic machines. These machines would roll along the untouched land, clearing a path with a tree crushing mechanism in front, and pour concrete out its rear, leaving a perfect highway in its wake. The text accompanying the comic explained:


Tomorrow’s turnpikes will “flow” out of giant machines like magic ribbons across the countryside. The basic equipment is already in existence; only a few improvements are needed.

The forward section of such a road-builder would be a variant of the new jungle-smashing LeTourneau “tree-crusher” combined with a grader. The middle section would pour concrete in a never-ending flow, with the rear portion leveling the still soft pavement. A line of freighter helicopters would be on hand to feed the behemoth with the material necessary to keep it moving across any type of country.

Where did old Art get such a silly idea? Radebaugh was likely inspired by an episode of Disneyland*which aired just a few months earlier. Magic Highway, U.S.A. was originally broadcast on ABC on May 14, 1958 and depicted the glorious future of hovercars and automation that exemplify mid-century, techno-utopian futurism. The episode also showed various automatic highway builders, including the one below. The narrator explains that “in one sweep a giant road builder changes ground into a wide finished highway.”


From the May 14, 1958 Disneyland TV episode Magic Highway, U.S.A.

Hosted by Walt Disney, narrated by Marvin Miller (Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet), and directed by Ward Kimball, Magic Highway, U.S.A. is a perfect artifact of the era, with a heavy emphasis on the family car. Watching the episode today, it amazes me that the episode wasn’t broadcast in color until July 29, 1962. The incredibly lush color palette of the animated sequences are truly what make the episode so stunning and may explain why TV critics gave it terrible reviewswhen it first aired, describing the future as “hideous if Disney artists have their way.”

*People are often confused when I refer to Disneyland as a TV program. From 1954 until the fall of 1958, ABC aired Walt Disney’s TV program Disneyland, which would change names many times over the years. In the fall of 1958 Disneyland would become Walt Disney Presents, then Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color in the 1960s, The Wonderful World of Disney throughout the 1970s, and maybe half a dozen more iterations throughout the 1980s, 90s and 2000s. The name I remember from my childhood was The Magical World of Disney, which was the title when Michael Eisner was hosting the show from 1988 until 1996.

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Email in your eye? Next-generation video screen glasses could lay messages or GPS over your field of vision

As advances in computer technology make gadgets ever smaller and more portable the idea of carrying a screen of any kind could soon be outdated.  

Consumer products with screens have dropped in size from computer to laptop to tablet via phone.

But one company specialising in cutting edge visual technology waIsraeli company Lumus has shown off the PD-18-2, which may look like a cumbersome pair of shades but allow the user to see high-quality images while they walk.nts to beam information directly into your field of vision.

Translucent TV: Lumus' PD-18-2 is a set of spectacles that can beam high-quality images directly into your eyes but allows the user to see through the images too

Instant messaging: Text and icons can be laid over your field of vision so that users can work on the move

Lumus, an Israeli company, specialises in what it calls Light-guide Optical Element (LOE) technology.

It's latest product is the PD-18-2, which may look to the untrained eye like a cumbersome pair of sunglasses.  

But inside the lenses of the glasses, the user can see high-quality full colour images.

Products like this are already on the market for professional and military use, but where the next-generation PD-18-2 differs is that users can see though the spectacles too, instead of having the images block their vision.

The translucent lenses allow for what the manufacturer calls 'augmented vision', overlaying images or graphics over your usual field of vision.

They are designed for professionals such as pilots, surgeons and soldiers but there are hopes that it can be adapted for the consumer market so people could watch film or TV on the move, or play video games as they walk around.

How it works: Lumus speciaises in what it calls LOE technology - Light-guide Optical Element

Heavy duty: The spectacles have to contain the technology, which currently makes them more cumbersome than your average shades

It works by collecting image components from a micro display and projects them into the eye to create a large virtual image with SVGA resolution

'Following the successful deployment of our first generation PD-18-1 in combat aviation, ground soldier and assembly applications, we are pleased to release our next generation PD-18-2 that takes our competitive superiority to a whole new level,' said Dr. Eli Glikman.

'Our new display offers even higher brightness, increased contrast ratio, sharper image, improved image uniformity and enhanced optical efficiency.'

The company currently sells its products to aviation companies as well as military, medical and maintenance markets.

Contact lens: The electronic attachments to the 'glass' contains a mini-projector to beam the images into your eyeline

But the possibility of a move into the consumer market has already brought mixed reactions from technology watchers.

It could be extremely useful as a portable GPS system, but there are concerns that it could be distracting for pedestrians who can often be seen walking round with their heads buried in mobile phones.

One commenter, Erin Altman, wrote in a technology forum: 'Bad idea alert! Just like hands-free devices for cell phones, these things will give people a false sense of security. They will THINK they can still see what's going on around them but will be way too focused on the display instead.'

Another commenter wrote: 'It's bad enough already that people walk around texting and on the cell phones... an example of the DOWNSIDE of technology.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2086180/Lumus-PD-18-2-video-screen-glasses-lay-messages-GPS-field-vision.html#ixzz1jYYVclr2

The new space race: China and India to create world's biggest telescope

-100-foot-wide optical telescope is nine times bigger than ones in use today

-Will pick out objects 13 billion light years away

-Sharp enough to pick out planets orbiting distant suns

China and India are catapulting to the forefront of astronomy research with their decision to join as partners in a Hawaii telescope that will be the world’s largest when it’s built later this decade. 

China and India will pay a share of the construction cost - expected to top $1 billion - for the Thirty Meter Telescope at the summit of Mauna Kea volcano. They will also have a share of the observation time. It’s the first advanced telescope in which either nation has been a partner. 

China and India have signed on to be partners for a project to build the Thirty Meter Telescope, which will be the world's largest when it's finished in 2018, at the summit of Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii

‘This will represent a quantum leap for the Chinese community,’ Shude Mao, professor of astrophysics at National Astronomical Observatories of China, said. 

The Thirty Meter Telescope’s segmented primary mirror, which will be nearly 100 feet long, will give it nine times the light-collecting area of the largest optical telescopes in use today. 

Its images will also be three times sharper. 

The telescope, known as TMT, will be able to observe planets that orbit stars other than the sun and enable astronomers to watch new planets and stars being formed. It should also help scientists see some 13 billion light years away for a glimpse into the early years of the universe. 

The TMT observatory will be so powerful it will allow scientists to see some 13 billion light years away and get a glimpse into the early years of the universe

China joined as an observer in 2009, followed by India the next year. Both are now partners, with representatives on the TMT board. Japan, which has its own large telescope at Mauna Kea, the 8.3-meter Subaru, is also a partner. 

TMT may not hold the title of world’s largest for long, however, as a partnership of European countries plans to build the European Extremely Large Telescope, which would have a 42-meter, or 138-foot, mirror. 

Mao said Chinese astronomers would likely want to use TMT to study the origin of planets outside our solar system, black holes, dark matter and dark energy. 

China has leading theoretical astrophysicists, but it lags in the field of observational astronomy, Mao said. The telescope will help China overcome that. 

‘China is ambitious in terms of its science goals. Really it wants to catch up as fast as we can,’ he said. 
Mao said the project will also be valuable for the image China broadcasts to the world. 
‘There are many things that are manufactured in China, but we want to move up in terms of technology,’ he said. ‘We also want to make contributions to world peace. TMT offers a great opportunity to do this.’ 
All astronomers, wherever they are from, look at the same sky, he said.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2085559/The-new-space-race-China-India-sign-create-worlds-biggest-telescope.html#ixzz1jYY8hMrm

Seagaia Ocean Dome: An Artificial Beach in Japan

Artificial beaches are gaining popularity all over the world. We can see them in Monaco, Hong Kong, Paris, Berlin, Rotterdam, Toronto and others, but the biggest among them is Seagaia Ocean Dome in Miyazaki, Japan.

The Ocean Dome, which was a part of the Sheraton Seagaia Resort, measures 300 meters in length and 100 meters in width, sported a fake flame-spitting volcano, artificial sand, artificial palm trees and the world's largest retractable roof, which provided a permanently blue sky even on a rainy day. The air temperature was always held at around 30 degrees Celsius and the water at around 28. The volcano becomes active every 15 minutes and spews fire every hour, and incredible waves lashes the beach for surfers’ delight.

The beach can accommodate 10,000 tourists, and the kicker is that there's an actual beach only 300 meters away.

It opened in 1993, and visitor numbers peaked in 1995 at 1.25 million a year.

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[via Gadling]

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Belaz - 73600, The Biggest Dump Truck In The Cis Country

The coal mine on the Bachat river is the largest region of the Kuznetsk Basin in Siberia. Its annual production is over 8 million and 700 thousand tons. It extracts fuel for energetic and metallurgic branches of Russian and many other countries of the world. The biggest dump truck BelAZ-75600 used here has a bearing capacity of 320 tons and weighs 560 tons.

The coal mine is located in the Kemerovo region. It is 300 m deep.

The mine was launched in 1949. It was the first enterprise in the world that started open-pit mining of metallurgical coal in 1966.

Today the mine exploits 29 excavators, 63 trucks,9 locomotive engines and 3 rock-drills.

The truck is 14,5 m high, 9,25 m wide and 7,22 m high.

It engine volume is 77,5 l.

BelAZ-75600 was created in 2005. It is the first truck in the factory that used alternate current electromechanical transmission, electronic monitor and diagnostic system.

In case its main system fails to function or the engine stops working, the vehicle uses pneumatic and hydraulic accumulators with enough energy to accomplish a couple of maneuvers.

The machine can develop 64 km an hour.

The machine has 3 control pedals.

Every wheel weighs 8 tons and costs around million rubles.

The truck is supplied with an air-conditioner, air cleaning system, additional heater, electric heated mirrors, signaling device that warns the driver when the truck approaches a high-voltage power transmission line.

Total road length in the region is 110 km. 55 m is occupied by technological motor roads.

Rocks are first loaded onto the trucks and then transported to the rake blades.

Every machine is operated by 4 drivers and never stops working. Every 250 hours it is sent to the service.

Every 12 hours the truck overcomes 150 km, carries 5-7 tons of rocks and spends 2-2,5 tons of petrol.

As soon as the sun had set, a number of explosions was heard along the mine.

Chinese excavator WK-35 and American excavator Р&Н-4100 ХРС were launched in 2011.

Location: Kemerovo region

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World's Smallest Memory Bit Stores Data Using Just 12 Atoms

The world’s smallest magnetic data storage unit is made of just 12 atoms, squeezing an entire byte into just 96 atoms, a significant shrinkage in the world of information storage. It’s not a quantum computer, but it’s a computer storage unit at the quantum scale. By contrast, modern hard disk drives use about a million atoms to store a single bit, and a half billion atoms per byte.

Until now, it was unclear how many (or how few) atoms would be needed to build a reliable, lasting memory bit, the basic piece of information that a computer understands. Researchers atIBM and the German Center for Free-Electron Laser Science decided to start from the ground up, building a magnetic memory bit atom-by-atom. They used a scanning tunneling microscope to create regular patterns of iron atoms aligned in rows of six each. They found two rows was enough to securely store one bit, and eight pairs of rows was enough to store a byte.

Data was written into and read out of the bits using the STM — so it’s not like this type of bit will be integrated into hard disks anytime soon. But it answers some fundamental questions about the nature of classical mechanical systems, said Andreas Heinrich, the lead investigator into atomic storage at IBM Research Almaden and an author on a new paper describing the teeny bit. The team was interested in the transition from quantum to classical behavior, he said.

“If you take a single atom, you have to look at quantum mechanics when you describe its behavior,” he said in an interview. “As you make the (system) bigger and bigger, several iron atoms start talking to each other, and at some point you can ignore all of this quantum behavior and just think of them as a classical magnetic structure.” It turns out that point is around 12 atoms big.

“Many people would anticipate you would have to use quantum mechanical systems to describe these structures,” Heinrich said. “That was the most surprising thing to me.”

At the smallest scales, quantum effects blur stored information. A bit using six atoms would switch magnetic states — switching from “0” to “1” — about 1,000 times per second, for instance, which is much too frequently to be useful for data storage, Heinrich said. Eight atoms switch states once per second. But 12 atoms switched their states infrequently enough to be usable for storage — instead, an outside magnetic influence (in this case, the STM) changes their states. The nano magnets are only stable at a chilly 5 degrees Kelvin, or -450 degrees F.

The other breakthrough in this paper is the bits’ antiferromagnetism — this marks the first time antiferromagnetism has been used to store data. Ferromagnets, used in most modern data storage and other applications, use magnetic interactions between iron atoms to align all the atoms in a single direction. This creates a magnetic field that can be read out. This becomes a problem at the teeniest scales, however, because tightly packed magnetic bits can interfere with each other — this limits the downsizing of data storage systems. But this new 12-atom bit uses antiferromagnetism — the atoms are aligned in opposite directions, meaning they spin in alternating directions. The iron atoms were separated by nitrogen atoms and induced with the STM to spin differently, Heinrich said. This allowed them to be packed closer together, greatly increasing storage density.

The researchers switched the bit's magnetic state five times to store the ASCII code for each letter of the word “think,” one of Big Blue’s slogans.

Sebastian Loth, who left IBM for CFEL four months ago and is lead author of the paper, said the 12-atom bit raises plenty of new questions for classical computing at quantum scales.

“We can now use this ability to investigate how quantum mechanics kicks in. What separates quantum magnets from classical magnets? How does a magnet behave at the frontier between both worlds? These are exciting questions that soon could be answered,” he said.

The paper appears in this week’s issue of Science.

Tiny Think: A white signal on the right edge corresponds to logic 0 and a blue signal to logic 1. Between two successive images, the magnetic states of the bits were switched to encode the binary representation of the ASCII characters "THINK."  IBM Research

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GM, Segway team up on 200-mpg 2-seater

General Motors (GM) is teaming with Segway, the scooter company, to develop a battery-powered vehicle to cut urban congestion and pollution.

The companies plan to announce the partnership Tuesday in New York, where they are testing a prototype of the partially enclosed, two-seat, two-wheel scooter. The venture is called Project PUMA, for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility.


PHOTOS: GM, Segway unveil 2-wheel prototype



The companies hope to recruit partners, such as cities or colleges, to set up Puma travel lanes, like bicycle lanes. They'd be used to test the vehicles and their on-board wireless communicators designed to keep them safely apart and even operate them while drivers do other tasks.

The Pumas also could be operated manually. Not intended for highway use, they would hit about 35 miles per hour and go up to 35 miles on a charge.


"There's no technology that has to be invented here. It's really just putting the pieces together," says Chris Borroni-Bird, director of the project for GM.

Nonetheless it could take years to get to market. "It's not going on sale anytime" soon, he said.

The partnership with Segway began about 18 months ago, predating GM's emergency survival loans from the government.

GM is developing the electronic wireless systems for safe, autonomous operation. Segway is responsible for the self-balancing, electric, two-wheel chassis. The prototype has "training wheels" front and rear, helpful at stoplights. Pumas would use lithium-ion batteries, like those Segway uses in its stand-up scooters.

Though being unveiled in New York, the Pumas might appeal most in densely packed cities in places such as India and China, Borroni-Bird says. There they would seem a big step up from bicycles. Americans, who are used to cars, might not take them as seriously.

He forecasts energy consumption equivalent to 200 miles per gallon of gasoline. That falls to about 70 mpg adding in fuel to generate electricity used to charge its battery.

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World’s Longest Motorcycle

The longest motorcycle in the world can be found in Russia.

It was built back in December of 2005, by Oleg Rogov, and acknowledged as the world’s longest bike by the Guinness Book of Records. This super-bike can fit 16 people, but the question that has been on everyone’s mind ever since it was first announced, was: can you ride it? It’s hard to believe 16 heavy bikers could move using the world’s longest motorcycle.

The design isn’t the best I,ve ever seen, nowhere near as cool as the Cat1 Uber-bike but definitely better than this Chinese home-made motorcycle.

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The World’s First Warplane

The Blériot XI still flies as of July 2009. Photograph from "Airworks" by David Bracher.

As the Italian air force flies General Dynamics F-16s and Panavia Tornados above Libya enforcing a UN-backed no-fly zone, its pilots may be experiencing a sense of déjà vu.

One hundred years ago this Sunday, on October 23, 1911, Captain Carlo Piazza climbed onto his spindly Blériot XI and made military history by spying on the enemy below.


The Italians would fly their Blériot XIs as late as 1922. Photograph by Kogo.

At the start of the Italo-Turkish War, the Italian Royal Army Air Services shipped its entire aircraft inventory to Tripoli: two Blériot XI2, three Nieuport monoplanes, two Farman biplanes, and two Etrich Taubemonoplanes. The war, fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, ran from September 29, 1911 to October 18, 1912, and was the first to use aircraft for reconnaissance and bombing.


Captain Piazza's Blériot XI during the Campaign of Libya, 1911. Photograph courtesy Le origini dell'Aeronautica Militare Italiana.

The Specialist Battalion’s first task was to fly over enemy territory gathering intelligence. The Blériot had a 25-horsepower, three-cylinder engine, no instruments of any kind, and used Wright brothers’-style wing-warping.

Nine days after Piazza’s reconnaissance flight, on November 1, Second Lieutenant Giolio Gavotti, in an Etrich Taube, would carry out the first aerial bombardment. In May 2011, the BBC World Service released copies of the letters the young lieutenant wrote home. “Today I have decided to throw bombs from the aeroplane,” Gavotti wrote to his father. “It is the first time that we will try this and if I succeed, I will be really pleased to be the first person to do it.” Gavotti headed for Ain Zara, a small oasis, where he expected to find 2,000 Arab fighters and Turkish troops. “After a while, I notice the dark shape of the oasis,” he wrote. “With one hand, I hold the steering wheel, with the other I take out one of the bombs and put it on my lap…. I take the bomb with my right hand, pull off the security tag and throw the bomb out, avoiding the wing. I can see it falling through the sky for [a] couple of seconds and then it disappears. And after a little while, I can see a small dark cloud in the middle of the encampment. I am lucky. I have struck the target.”

The BBC noted that the term “bomber” hadn’t yet been coined; instead, news reports referred to Gavotti as “the flying artilleryman” who invented “the art of winged death.”

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