Whoa, Water Drops Floating on Top of Water Makes No Sense but It's Awesome [Video]

Whoa, Water Drops Floating on Top of Water Makes No Sense but It's Awesome [Video]:

In the comics, the Flash can vibrate his body so fast that he can walk through walls. With water, though, vibration can keep water droplets from being absorbed into a larger surface of water. Instead of coalescing into the larger body, they just gather on top as long as the surface is kept vibrating. It's amazing to see, and when you stop to think about what you're looking at, it doesn't seem to make an ounce of sense—except obviously it does. Science! [YouTube] More »

iPhone holographic display created with prism crystal

iPhone holographic display created with prism crystal:
A Japanese man posted a YouTube video showing a real hologram created using a prism crystal, bits of cardboard, and his iPhone. The video shows a holographic Siri dancing around inside the prism, which can be viewed from different perspectives as the camera moves around the prism. The best part? The setup is so simple, you can make one yourself using your own smartphone.


According to the YouTube video description, the setup involves a -3.75 index prism crystal, which is placed on a flat surface with small cardboard stands around it. The phone – an iPhone 4s, to be precise – is placed on the cardboard stands so that screen hovers directly above the point of the prism. When the phone is turned on, the image is displayed within the prism as a three-dimensional hologram. You can watch it in action via the video below.




A quick search on YouTube for “iPhone hologram” reveals a variety of videos, most of which are actually wall projections or concept videos. In this case, however, the hologram is real, and is made the same way the giant holographic display was at CES 2011. In case you’re feeling inspired, you can get your own prism crystal online and from some science shops.
Holograms are a novelty now, but are moving into the mainstream, particularly after the Tupac hologram that grabbed nationwide attention. The Tupac hologram was created using projection technology from AV Concepts, while the hologram model was created by Digital Domain. As holograms become more popular, and with the utter simplicity of the model created above, it wouldn’t be surprising if one day in the near future you’ll able to buy a pre-made little hologram cube for your own smartphone.
[via 3d Geeks]


iPhone holographic display created with prism crystal is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
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The Most Insane Lego Machine I've Ever Seen [Video]

I've seen lots of these before, and possibly bigger - but what's great about this one - all the machines are so solid - most others lose balls or break - but this guy's designs are very clean - you can't see them going wrong.


The Most Insane Lego Machine I've Ever Seen [Video]:

Madness. This. Is. MADNESS! Its creator calls this machine the Lego Great Ball Contraption. I don't know what to call it. Gjhiqjmvcdzz. Askjgsprgnyasdkfnipjreg. Thqruwm—-I've no words to describe the awe that I've experienced watching this video. It surprised me at every step. I've never ever seen any contraption so glorious and crazy. More »

Google Spanner: First Globally Scalable Database With External Consistency

Google Spanner: First Globally Scalable Database With External Consistency: vu1986 writes with this bit from GigaOm: "Google has made public the details of its Spanner database technology, which allows a database to store data across multiple data centers, millions of machines and trillions of rows. But it's not just larger than the average database, Spanner also allows applications that use the database to dictate where specific data is stored so as to reduce latency when retrieving it. Making this whole concept work is what Google calls its True Time API, which combines an atomic clock and a GPS clock to timestamp data so it can then be synched across as many data centers and machines as needed."

Original paper. The article focuses a lot of the Time API, but external consistency on a global scale seems to be the big deal here. From the paper: "Even though many projects happily use Bigtable, we have also consistently received complaints from users that Bigtable can be difficult to use for some kinds of applications: those that have complex, evolving schemas, or those that want strong consistency in the presence of wide-area replication. ... Many applications at Google have chosen to use Megastore (PDF) because of its semi-relational data model and support for synchronous replication, despite its relatively poor write throughput. As a consequence, Spanner has evolved from a Bigtable-like versioned key-value store into a temporal multi-version database. Data is stored in schematized semi-relational tables; data is versioned, and each version is automatically timestamped with its commit time; old versions of data are subject to configurable garbage-collection policies; and applications can read data at old timestamps. Spanner supports general-purpose transactions, and provides a SQL-based query language."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

3D printing gets more flexible with Nylon extrusion

I've said it before, but I'll say it again - 2012 is the year of the 3d printer.   Barely a day goes by without another new 3d printer announcement

3D printing gets more flexible with Nylon extrusion:

3D printing with ABS and other plastics that have a low-melting point are old hat. And, with the price of entry dropping below the $500 mark, soon enough anyone will be able print their own pirated 45s. Instructables user [taulman] has has taken it upon himself to push the DIY polymer extruder scene in a new direction -- Nylon. The slick and bendable Nylon 6 melts at 320 degrees celsius, roughly 100 degrees higher than the more common and brittle ABS. The flexible nature of nylon has some obvious advantages, particularly when printing tubing or even an iPhone case. What's more, gears and bearings created from the synthetic don't need to be lubricated. But, this isn't the end game for [taulman]. The resourceful DIYer plans to keep working on his high-temperature system until he can build custom creations from Delrin and Polycarbonate. The obvious downside here, is that higher temperatures require more power and more rugged components that could drive up cost. But, we'd say it's a small price to pay for being able to print your own Otterbox. Check out the video demos after the break.
Continue reading 3D printing gets more flexible with Nylon extrusion

3D printing gets more flexible with Nylon extrusion originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 May 2012 17:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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And so the deluge of resin-based 3D printers begins

I've said it before but I'll say it again - 2012 is the year of 3d printing

And so the deluge of resin-based 3D printers begins:

It looks like 2012 is shaping up to be the year of the resin-based 3D printer. The latest comes from [Michael Joyce] and is called the B9Creator.  Like other resin printers, [Michael] used a DLP projector to cure the print one layer at a time. The layer height is on the order of 100 microns – crazy for a kit-based printer.
There is a  Kickstarter for the B9Creator where kits are available for $2400 USD. Everything is included in this kit, including the DLP projector and a kilogram of resin. $2400 is much more expensive than even the fanciest melted-plastic 3D printer such as a Makerbot or RepRap, but that’s the price you pay for high-quality prints.
Of course this project comes a month after an earlier, similar, and shadier project called the Veloso 3D printer. The B9Creator promises to be open source once all the Kickstarter machines are shipped out, and [Michael] is very open about his designs and his resin formula – an admirable quality in a maker.
You can check out a load of videos of the B9Creater we found after the break.





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Factory Method Pattern With Expression Trees using C#

Factory Method Pattern With Expression Trees using C#: Efficient Factory Method Pattern Implementation in C# using Expression Trees