(Clipped from Tod Maffins Future file)
*SMART BRA
Muggers beware – your next victim’s high tech undergarments could land you
in jail. A British inventor is working on a security bra that can tell if
its wearer is being attacked and notify authorities with her precise
location. The Smart Bra acts like any normal brasseire until its built-in
heart monitor detects the rapid jumps in heart rate that denote sudden
scares. An on-board GPS device then kicks into action, pinpointing the
wearer's location, and the small cell-phone built in the strap calls police.
Though still a hand-built prototype, the bra's electronics are embedded in a
thin, gel-like substance only 3 millimeters thick – that’s thinner than most
traditional bra liners. The inventor hopes to have a commercial deal this
summer, with the smart bra out next year – giving police an easier way to
make a bust.
~World War I dealt the bra a fatal blow when the U.S. War Industries
Board called on women to stop buying bras in 1917. It freed up more than
28,000 tons of metal.
*ELECTRONIC SNIFFER
Ever been frustrated at the grocery store trying to figure out which fruit
is most ripe? In the future, let an electronic nose do the testing for you.
Engineers at the University of Warwick have developed a device that is
poised to help both the fruit industry and ordinary shoppers. Most of the
traditional methods that have been used to assess fruit ripeness have ended
up in the destruction of a piece of fruit. But researchers have put together
the sensors of an electronic nose coupled to a neural network to produce a
device that calculate the exact ripeness of the fruit by its smell. Once the
electronic nose has been ‘trained’ on a particular fruit it doesn’t require
a skilled operator and can obtain the results in a few seconds with over 92%
accuracy.
~The human nose can detect the odor of artificial musk in such low
concentrations as one part musk to 32 billion parts of air.
SOUND-BLOCKING CURTAINS
We’ve got curtains that block light, curtains that block fire – now comes
word that scientists have developed curtains that block sound. And their
first market – hospitals and nursing homes. The Quiet Curtains work like
this: Sheets of noise shielding material are sandwiched between two pieces
of fabric and supported by a unique pocket system. A variety of materials
can be used for the noise shields -- ranging from cardboard to metal,
depending on how much noise you want to reduce. The researchers, from the
Georgia Institute of Technology, say it’s probably not that unique a
concept, but they’re surprised nobody’s come up with it yet. So far, tests
have found the futuristic curtains can reduce noise by more than 12
debibels, a reduction of sound intensity by a factor of 16. Though initially
designed with nursing homes in mind, you can expect variations of these
Quiet Curtains to show up in offices, hotels, libraries, and even motor
vehicles – in the future.
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
Web:
http://www.nanoindustries.com
Personal web:
http://www.homestead.com/nanotechind/nothingatall.html
E-mail:
nanogirl@halcyon.com
Alternate E-mail
echoz@hotmail.com
"Nanotechnology: solutions for the future."