PartBrowser – Browse-by-shape for CAD files from Andrew Sherlock on Vimeo.

This technology will be REALLY interesting when we’re downloading 3D files and printing them at home.

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Avego Shared Transport

“Any car that travels while occupied only by a driver is inherently inefficient. And yet, 85% of the time, that’s how cars travel. With our use of iPhone GPS technology, web services and your participation, we can fill up those empty seats.”

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Rather than a standard “About this site” paragraph on a separate page, SpaceCollective has several videos at the top of the front page describing their mission and the site content.

Here is the introduction video:

Bonus video: Charles and Ray Eames’ “Powers of Ten” used in the intro of the SpaceCollective video:

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The best defense is a good offense.  From TIME’s Best Inventions of 2008, bullets that shoot bullets.

Raytheon’s APS will automatically detect an incoming round and then launch a missile to destroy it, all within a split second. If it works, future Army vehicles will be able to head into combat with less armor.

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"According to NCCS, key projects that will benefit from the Jaguar upgrade include, the Climate Change Initiative, which “aims to accelerate discoveries about Earth’s climate system through lab-wide engagement of scientists and engineers from diverse directorates encompassing energy, environment, computing, and national security” and ‘Tap it and Trap it,’ a project aimed at separating Carbon Dioxide from power plant emissions and pumping it deep underground."

{via CleanTechnica}

Posted by email from the Idea Collector’s posterous

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image courtesy of fivethirtyeight.com

FiveThirtyEight.com has all of the near-real-time 2008 election data you can handle neatly analyzed and arranged and presented beautifully. The image to the right shows state-by-state projections. You will also find graphs of Electoral Votes, Win Percentage, and Popular Vote. What are the chances that McCain loses in Ohio but wins the Election? What about Obama? It’s all there. And More.

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Image © Clegg, Ind.

Make Parts Fast has an interesting article on the US Military’s “Mobile Parts Hospital” (MPH), a facility to quickly manufacture, reverse-engineer, and finish metal and plastic in the field.

The program includes a Lathe Manufacturing Model (LMM) based on a 5-axis Mazak Integrex with all tooling and maintenance equipment stored on board. Set up takes less than 1 hour.
• Max machining diameter: 11.42 in.
• Max machining length: 28.62 in.
• The LMM can machine both ferrous and nonferrous metals, plastics and ceramics.

Another part of the MPH is the Agile Manufacturing Cell.

This is a fixed facility that includes multiple manufacturing capability, reverse engineering, and finishing. It increases manufacturing capability of the MPH program with equipment that can’t be deployed due to size, weight, or environmental concerns. Capabilities include:
• Machining of larger items
• Finishing: heat treating, surface-coating, hard-turning, broaching, grinding
• Reverse engineering
• Precision investment casting

All of this is hardware is sized and packaged for shipping in a C-130 with a setup time of less than an hour.  Data is managed through a PTC Windchill PLM system.

From the abstract:

The Mobile Parts Hospital (MPH) helps the Army with logistical backups in maintaining sustainment and readiness at the battlefield front. Now going into its third phase of the program and scheduled to be transitioned to a Program Manager (PM), the MPH has proven its ability to build parts in a mobile rapid manufacturing environment. This paper will outline the progress of the Lathe Manufacturing Module (LMM) and it’s successes in deployment to Kuwait and advances with the Laser Engineered Net-Shaping(Trademark) (LENS(Registered)) technology and the ability to rapidly build near net shape parts from powdered metal in a mobile environment. The LENS(Registered) has been upgraded for increased performance in build speed and advances in near net-shaping of parts. Increased laser power and newly added equipment effects on build profile and deposited material will be discussed, in audition to lessons learned from the current prototype LMM to advances & developments in future changes made to the LMM modules for deployment.

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©Linda Stewart/istockphoto.com

Genetic engineering of bacteria yields a strain of E. Coli that generates plastic in the process of growing.

“Scientists at San Diego–based Genomatica, Inc., have announced success in manipulating the bacteria to directly produce butanediol (BDO), a chemical compound used to make everything from spandex to car bumpers, thereby providing a more energy-efficient way of making it without oil or natural gas.”

Read the full story on Scientific American.

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