Top TechTop Tech #129: Magnet Wifi, Robot Brick-Layer, Gyro Skateboard
Important innovations in science and technology
By Paul Worthington
Thursday’s Top Tech:
• WiFi through your body via magnets
• Speedy robot brick-layer
• Lean into the Gyro Skate
WiFi through your body via magnets
Magnetic fields traversing through your body “could pave the way for ultra low-power and high-security wireless communication systems,” according to new work at UC San Diego.
A Ph.D. student demonstrated “communication from arm to arm using a magnetic field human body communication prototype… Magnetic fields are able to pass freely through biological tissues, so signals are communicated with much lower path losses and potentially, much lower power consumption.”
Possible applications include a wireless sensor network for full-body health monitoring.
Here is the full announcement.
Speedy robot brick-layer
A robotic bricklayer is increasing productivity while working alongside human masons.
The Semi-Automated Mason from Construction Robotics picks up bricks, applies mortar, and places them in their designated location, Technology Review reports. “A human handles the more nuanced activities, like setting up the worksite, laying bricks in tricky areas, such as corners, and handling aesthetic details, like cleaning up excess mortar.”
The uses algorithms, sensors, and a laser. The laser is rigged up between two poles at the extreme left and right sides of the robot’s work space, and moves up and down the wall as work progresses to act as an anchor point for the robot. Without this, the robot would not know exactly where to lay brick, or how to assess its motion on the scaffold relative to where the wall is.
The result: SAM lays about 800–1,200 bricks a day; a human mason, 300–500; together, they equal “the productivity of having four or more masons on the job.”
Lean into the Gyro Skate
A board with one oversized wheel in the center uses gyroscopes to help you balance.
Although it’s called a hoverboard, it only skates, not levitates. Powered by an electric motor, it accelerates or brakes in response to your lean. It will go 15 miles per charge, at 20 mph.
Hoverboard Technologies says it will ship for around $4,000 next year, TechCrunch reports.
Here is the first-person try-out.
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