Superhuman Vision from Contact lenses

My friend Greg sent this to me today. I’ll be first in line when these come out!

Building the lenses was a challenge because materials that are safe for use in the body, such as the flexible organic materials used in contact lenses, are delicate. Manufacturing electrical circuits, however, involves inorganic materials, scorching temperatures and toxic chemicals. Researchers built the circuits from layers of metal only a few nanometers thick, about one thousandth the width of a human hair, and constructed light-emitting diodes one third of a millimeter across. They then sprinkled the grayish powder of electrical components onto a sheet of flexible plastic. The shape of each tiny component dictates which piece it can attach to, a microfabrication technique known as self-assembly. Capillary forces – the same type of forces that make water move up a plant’s roots, and that cause the edge of a glass of water to curve upward – pull the pieces into position.

Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision

Rise of the Exoskeletons

robo soldiersSoon you may be seeing squads of power suited troops on your evening news reports from international hot spots. Or at least that is what the Utah based start up company SARCOS wants. The exoskeletons amplify the strength of the operator enabling them to lift 200 pounds with no effort without sacrificing agility and speed. Even as these early tests were all tethered to a power supply, building a backpack sized power supply should be right around the corner.

[via futurismic]
Soldiers To Become Super-Human Mech Warriors

NT Zeppelins over Tokyo

NT Zeppelins over TokyoI can only hope that someone decides that this sort of service is needed at the Grand Canyon. Makes more sense than a silly transparent walkway.

Starting this month Nippon Airship Corporation will begin offering airship cruises over Tokyo, at roughly US $1,100 to $1,500 a pop, no pun intended. Rides will be aboard a Zeppelin NT and will last 90 minutes

Too cool. You can read more about NT Zeppelin here.

Zeppelin rocks on in Japan

Umbrella Chronicles!!

The Umbrella Chronicles

Alexandria writes:
The very anticipated Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles is going to be released on 11/3/07.This Resident Evil game is a Wii exclusive which will no doubt make game play a bit more interesting but the people who don’t have a Wii will definitely miss out on this amazing game play. There will be different stages including, Resident Evil Zero, the Game Cube remake of Resident Evil, and Resident Evil 3 Nemesis  been. Characters currently known to be playable in the game are Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Carlos Oliveira, Rebecca Chambers and Billy Coen and yes all of you Resident Evil fans Albert Wesker will also play a very important role in these games(I mean duh he IS Wesker!!).I might actually buy a Wii just so I can play this game. 🙂

Fan site: Umbrella Chronicles- Myspace.com

Buy (OK, pre-order)  your own copy from Amazon: Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles

A Hot Dog Vending Machine

Hot Menu - photo by James Hart
Once again, I’m impressed with Japanese vending machine technology. This time it’s hot food for a few bucks, er, yen.

We all heard about the wacky vending machines before coming to Japan, but this still surprised me. Hot dogs, noodles, french fries, etc microwaved from frozen, 400Yen each.

There is a close up of the selections here.
[via metroblog tokyo]