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Monday, April 30, 2007

Flying weather forecasters

The accuracy of weather forecasts is generally limited by a lack of good quality weather data, which is lacking for vast areas of the planet like deserts, the polar regions and the oceans.

Aircraft manufacturer Boeing thinks it can fix this by equipping commercial airliners with advanced weather instruments - radar systems that measure wind speed and direction. These instruments would send data back to a central computer, which would use it to update its model of the current weather systems.

The central computer could then "run" these models forward in time to come up with weather forecasts. The system might offer substantial advantages over current forecasting systems, since commercial flight paths criss-cross the planet, often passing over remote regions, and would offer a rich vein of constantly updated information.

Read the full flying forecasts patent application.

Justin Mullins, New Scientist consultant

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Friday, April 27, 2007

Curious catalyst

Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are an important, environmentally damaging by-product of the combustion engine.

Car makers have developed various catalysts to reduce this pollution, by decomposing (reducing) NOx gases into nitrogen and oxygen. But normal catalysts only work in the presence of a chemically reducing gas such as oxygen. And injecting this into the converter requires pumps and hoses, significantly adding to the cost and complexity of the devices.

Now NASA is patenting a catalytic converter that does not require oxygen to do its job. It is consists of a thin coating of platinum on a base of tin oxide. It could eventually lead to a new generation of converters that are less complex and cheaper to make than today's.

Read the full curious catalyst patent application.


Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Winging it

One of the dilemmas for military aircraft designers is how to increase the lift an aircraft's wings generate so that it can take off on shorter runways without compromising other aspects of its performance, such as its top speed.

In the past, aircraft designers have done this by changing the angle of an aircraft's wings, for example in planes such as the General Dynamics F-111 "swing wing" aircraft.

Now US aircraft maker Northrop has a new take on the problem. It says it can increase a wing's surface area (and hence its ability to produce lift) by extending the leading edge. During takeoff, landing and other slow speed manoeuvres, the leading edge is mechanically extended to provide more lift. During high speed flight it is retracted it to reduce drag.

Read the full extendable wing patent application.

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Monday, April 23, 2007


How would you like to watch a television screen that is also soft and pleasant to the touch? Welcome to Furry TV. It's no joke: consumer electronics company Philips says a single pixel can be made out of a piece of fabric covered with hair-like strands.

Here's how it works: imagine the fabric is red and the hair is blue. With the hairs lying flat obscuring the fabric beneath, the pixel looks blue. But applying an electrostatic charge causes the hairs to repel each other and stand on end.

This reveals the fabric underneath and changes the pixel from blue to red. With an array of pixels, Philips says it should be possible to build a furry display that can show complete images. The company hopes to build furry displays into outfits. But does that mean we would all have to dress like Teletubbies?

Read the full Furry TV patent application.

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Friday, April 20, 2007

Ultrasound portraits

The first image most parents have of their baby is a grainy ultrasound splodge that requires a remarkable stretch of the imagination to pass for their progeny.

Newer machines can produce 3D images of babies by computing how light reflects off their features and generating the appropriate highlights and shadows to give an impression of a 3D face. The only trouble with these images is that they still look frighteningly clinical and far from cute.

Siemens hopes to change all this by making 3D pictures look much better. An ultrasound scan still takes place in the normal way but, once the 3D shape of the baby's face has been calculated, Siemens plans to manipulate the image to make it look more like an artist's illustration than a photograph.

The technique works by analysing the pixels in an image and then manipulating it in a predetermined way, like adding effects in graphics software packages such as Photoshop, to change the overall appearance. In this way, every parent's first image of their baby will be more aesthetically pleasing.

Read the full ultrasound portrait patent application.

Justin Mullins.

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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Water-safe casts

Orthopaedic casts that hold broken limbs in place while they heal can be uncomfortable to wear, especially if they get wet. If the padding material within a normal cast absorbs water, it cannot be easily dried. Casts that don't absorb water, on the other hand, can feel clammy when the limb inside gets hot.

US technology company 3M is patenting an alternative. Its material consists of a hydrophilic inner layer that attracts water and a hydrophobic - although not impermeable - outer shell that repels it.

The resulting material dries out quickly and feels comfortable even when wet, allowing the wearer to participate in activities such as bathing and even swimming. So it doesn’t matter whether the cast gets a good soaking on the outside or inside – it soon dries out while retaining its strength and comfort, 3M claim.

Read the full water-safe casts patent application.

Justin Mullins.


Monday, April 16, 2007

Good vibrations

Aircraft are increasingly being built out of composite materials that are lighter and stronger than normal metals. But they also tend to be less stiff, which makes them prone to vibration. Occasionally, these vibrations can become so violent that they destroy the material, leading to catastrophe in the air.

One way to prevent this happening is to spot potentially damaging vibrations before they grow out of control and NASA thinks it knows just how to do it.

The trick, NASA says, is to analyse the spectrum of vibrations present in a material and to distinguish between safe vibrations that tend to dampen out, and unsafe ones that can escalate dangerously.

Once the unsafe vibrations have been spotted, the material can be modified in a way that controls them, although engineers must be careful that these changes do not then introducing other unsafe vibrations. NASA hopes the technique can make modern aircraft built from composite materials safer.

Read the full good vibrations patent application.

Justin Mullins

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Friday, April 13, 2007

Motorola's mobile smell-o-phone

Mobile phone manufacturer Motorola wants to make using your phone a more fragrant experience. It was recently granted a patent for a way of making a handset release scents by heating a special cartridge. It was inspired by the way plug-in air fresheners work.

The patent notes that it might not be necessary to modify a phone's design much. Tests showed that the power amplifier in some Motorola phones reaches about 60ºC - hot enough to activate the fragrance in a disposable gel sachet.

Read the full smellophone patent here

Via Patent Monkey

Tom Simonite, online technology reporter.

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Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Robot welder

The quality of arc welds is a key factor in the ultimate strength of metal structures such as buildings and bridges. But measuring the quality of a weld is tricky.

Arc welding uses a power supply to create a spark (or arc) between an electrode and the metals being welded. This arc heats the metals up, causing them to melt and join together.

One way of determining the quality of the weld is to measure the current flow during the weld. Connecting monitoring equipment to robotic welders each time they begin a job is time consuming and expensive, says Japanese industrial giant Matsushita. Instead, the company proposes building the measuring equipment into the robots themselves. Simple!

Read the full robotic welder patent application.

Justin Mullins.

Programmable power-drill

If you are worried about what to get your dad for Christmas, you will be pleased to know that German engineering company Bosch is working around-the-clock on the problem. The answer? The power drill of the future.

In a series of patents, Bosch reveals that the "Power Drill 2.0" will have a handle that can be reconfigured to help to balance the device for different tasks and an electronic memory that can be used to customise the drill's speed and the rate at which it reaches that speed. All you need now is wrapping paper.

Read the full programmable power-drill patent applications here, here and here.

Justin Mullins.


Tuesday, April 10, 2007

All-knowing browser

Ever given false information when prompted for personal details by a website? Don't worry, the US copying and computing company Xerox hopes to eliminate that kind of questioning because it believes it can get the information without even asking.

Even if you choose not to reveal who you are, Xerox says it can determine demographic information such as your age, sex and perhaps even your income by analysing the pattern of pages you choose to access on the web and comparing them to a database of surfing patterns from other users with a known background.

Xerox suggests that the idea could be used by online merchants and advertisers who want to identify the types of users visiting their websites.

Of course, the approach will only work so long as different people do not use the same browser profile. And, unfortunately, the patent application does not address possible privacy concerns.

Read the full all-knowing browser patent application.

Justin Mullins.

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Sunday, April 08, 2007


It is relatively easy to heat up chemical and biological samples on a tiny scale but cooling them down again is a much harder task.

Both heating and cooling on the micro-scale are important if you want to build a fully functional lab-on-a-chip device, as many teams around the world are trying to do. So researchers at Caltech in Pasadena, US, have come up with a method that involves evaporative cooling – the same process that keeps our bodies cool when we sweat.

On a large scale, evaporative cooling is a straightforward process. But on the nanolitre-scale envisaged for lab-on-a-chip work, it is much harder because, on smaller scales, liquids and gases do not to mix as well, making evaporation much more difficult.

The researchers' invention is a y-shaped tube in which a liquid coolant, such as diethylether, is fed into one arm of the Y-tube, while compressed nitrogen is fed into another. At the junction, the gas and liquid mix and the diethylether evaporates, absorbing heat, which the mixture then carries away through the third tube. The team says the technique could one day be used to cool advanced computer chips.

Read the full micro-fridge patent application

Justin Mullins.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Cellphone firewall

Cellphones have remained largely free from viruses because they had been unable to connect to the internet, where most malicious attacks arise.

But the latest generation of 3G phones are more vulnerable because they are increasingly equipped with the ability to surf the wider web and accept normal email. So the mobile phone giant Nokia has come up with a firewall that protects mobile devices from virus attacks which might delete data or rack up huge bills for the owner by auto-dialling premium rate numbers.

Unlike conventional firewalls which sit on a PC, Nokia's phone firewall is part of the mobile network itself, which acts as a barrier between the device and the internet. It protects mobile devices that connect to the network by setting up "pinholes" through which they can send and receive legitimate data to and from the internet.

Data recognised as belonging to a trusted application is allowed to pass through but unknown packets are automatically blocked. The firewall's so-called pinholes should therefore prevent malicious programmes getting through.

Read the full phone firewall patent application

Justin Mullins


Monday, April 02, 2007

Bionic feet

Motors that mimic the way human muscles work are revolutionising the development of prosthetic limbs. Among the leaders in this area is the Biomechatronics Lab at MIT in Cambridge, US.

Researchers from the lab have now patented a bionic foot and ankle that attempts to match the biomechanical behaviour of a normal human foot throughout the walking cycle and over a variety of terrain.

The limb consists of an artificial shin and foot connected via a powered, rotating ankle joint. A motor within the ankle varies factors such as the angle of the foot, the stiffness of the joint and the force absorbed and released during each step. This allows the limb to match the performance of a human foot when walking on a flat surface and even when climbing or descending stairs.

The prosthetic feet should feel more natural to a wearer and should also adapt to different terrain, such as a flight of stairs, without requiring extra effort.

Justin Mullins, New Scientist consultant.

Read the full bionic foot patent application

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