3D Head UP Dispaly

A navigation system making use of something called "True3D" technology has won the top prize in this year's European Satellite Navigation Competition in Munich, Germany.  The HUD system is described as an augmented reality navigational display engine designed to provide non-distracting, translucent location guidance. Images are projected directly onto the car’s windshield. “Non-distracting” and “translucent” are the strong attributes, as the company touts its system’s use of 3-D technology to beam the display across the entire front window of the car. With a less robust readout, that would be no better than a road map over glass, but “True3D” creates a readout that blends into what the driver sees...

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Mechanical engineer creates robot Venus Flytrap

  Mohsen Shahinpoor, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Maine has created a robot version of the infamous bug eating Venus Flytrap, using a material he invented himself several years ago. Named ionic polymeric metal composite (IPMC), it's a nanomaterial that can be used to mimic muscle function. Shahinpoor describes in his paper published in Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, how he used this material to recreate the sensing and closing abilities of the Venus Flytrap. To make the robot, Shahinpoor fashioned two “leaves” out of the material he’d created to mimic the mouth-like appearance of the Flytrap. He then created a spine from a roll of copper. Then to copy the tiny hairs on the Flytrap that...

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