A new series of patent filings by Apple outlines attempts to modernize head-mounted displays (HMDs) that can be plugged into iPods or iPhones by decoupling the image generation components from the headsets themselves, which would pave the way for more lightweight and comfortable designs. via: AppleInsider
Abstract: A head mounted display system is disclosed. The head mounted display system includes a remote laser light engine that generates laser light associated with a display signal. The head mounted display system additionally includes a head mounted display apparatus that is separated from the laser light engine and comprising a display unit that displays laser images. The head mounted display system further includes an imaging device coupled between the remote laser light engine and the head mounted display apparatus. The imaging device creates laser images from the laser light transmitted through an optical cable in accordance with the display signal. The laser images are delivered to the display unit in order to create display images that can be viewed by a user of the head mounted display apparatus.
A UK-based company, 3D Laser Mapping, has developed robots equipped with lasers to automatically scan mines. Its latest mission was to create a 3D map of the San Jose silver mine in Mexico. More at ZDNet
Forensic artists at the University of Dundee, led by Dr. Caroline Wilkinson, used laser-based scanning to recreate the face of Johan Sebastian Bach.
Wilkinson and her team have considerable expertise in the area of facial reconstruction and have worked on everything from criminal investigations to historical projects. In this case they were provided with a bronze cast of Bach’s skull from the Bachhaus Museum and asked if they could then “build” the composer’s face from this.
“We carried out a laser scan of the skull that allowed us to recreate the musculature and skin of the face on our computer system,” Wilkinson says. “By assessing the bone structure we can determine facial morphology and produce an accurate picture of his facial appearance.”
The Devil’s Sinkhole near San Antonio is a 400-foot deep, huge hole in the ground.
It’s home to millions of Mexican free-tailed bats in the spring, and it spreads out into a series of caves like Swiss cheese.
Visitors can’t go into the cave but thanks to a group of scientists and their high tech computers, scanners and lasers, they will soon be able to take a virtual tour of the cave.
A group of elite cavers, biologists and geologists are mapping the inside of the sinkhole using laser technology called LiDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging.
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It was said Volvo Xc60 will be crash-proof car, it will have a remarkable intelligent safety system powered with laser.
Their secret is a laser guidance system that spots vehicles in front that are too close or stopping suddenly. When it does, the XC60 will stop of its own accord to avoid a smash.
Called the CitySafety system, it operates thanks to a laser sensor built into the windscreen.
It kicks in at speeds of up to 20mph and Volvo believe it will result in a drop of around half of rear-end smashes.
The laser simply scans up to six yards ahead and continually monitors the difference in speed between you and the car in front.
Incredibly, it makes 50 calculations a second to determine the braking force needed to avoid a bump.
QPC Lasers, a designer and manufacturer of high brightness, high power semiconductor lasers for the consumer electronics, industrial, defense, and medical markets, announced that the company has delivered initial semiconductor lasers in connection with its Laser TV contract, fulfilling the first $1 Million of the development phase of the contract.
The contract provides for an exclusive supply relationship that carries a potential value of up to $230 million over the 10 year term of the contract.
Georgia Tech’s Center for Healthcare Robotics has recently developed a robot that assists disabled people around the house. Called the “El-E,” this robot is over 5-feet-tall and boasts a large mechanical arm. It is far from humanoid looking, but it certainly serves a humane cause by helping those with mobility issues.
A human with a laser pointer guides El-E. When the laser is pointed at an object and a button is clicked, the robot responds by moving to the object, picking it up and bringing it to its master (for lack of a better word). Essentially, Georgia Tech has created a very high-tech device that fetches items.
Capturing images of fleeting events — a horse’s gallop, a bullet’s impact, an electron’s escape — is easy if you have the right equipment. Faster camera shutters used to be enough, but recently lasers have let physicists break the femto- and attosecond barriers, compressing the temporal resolution of images down to the time it takes light to cross a hydrogen atom.
They mentioned two examples of high speed photography utilizing ultrafast lasers.
4) Element Melting Shooter R. J. Dwayne Miller, 2007 Shutter speed 300 femtoseconds (300 x 10-15)
By the 1980s, lasers could deliver bursts of light faster than a single molecular vibration. A “pump” pulse triggers a reaction, and a “probe” pulse follows, acting like a strobe. Miller, a University of Toronto chemist, melted aluminum with a laser and used an electron pulse to catch the action at a molecular level. Now he’s working on silicon.
Photo: Christoph T. Hebeisen
5) Electron drift Shooter
Ferenc Krausz, 2007 Shutter speed 110
attoseconds (110 x 10-18)
The pump-probe technique has been modified to pare pulse times to attoseconds by using photons emitted when electrons get excited out of their orbit and crash back in. That’s short enough to measure the movement of other electrons as they enter an extreme UV wave. The pairs of dotted lines span the time between two electron crossings.
A new detector combines a laser with a mass spectrometer to provide on-the-spot analysis that researchers hope will have applications ranging from evaluating a tumor as it is removed to quickly detecting explosives in luggage.
The laser vaporizes tiny samples that can be instantly sampled and analyzed by the spectrometer, and can be used even on living organisms, the team at George Washington University said on Thursday.
“We are talking about less than a second for an analysis,” Akos Vertes, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at George Washington University, said in an interview.
Gold platinum blue titanium and gold aluminum. Credit: Richard Baker University of Rochester
Using a tabletop laser, a University of Rochester optical scientist has turned pure aluminum, gold. And blue. And gray. And many other colors. And it works for every metal tested, including platinum, titanium, tungsten, silver, and gold.
