Dive For Smiles

This wrist cuff would not work without flexible material.

Wired Design has run a raft of stories on how 3-D printers are getting better, but it’s not just the hardware that needs to improve — it’s also the raw material, the stuff your stuff is made from. So far, consumer 3-D printing has mostly been about hardened plastic, with some forays into materials like ceramic and silver. If you wanted to print something bendy, you were out of luck. Until now.

Yesterday, Shapeways, a 3-D print-on-demand service based in New York, launched Elasto Plastic. Unlike the standard ABS plastic wire, this stuff is flexible. “From what we can tell,” says Director of Marketing Carine Carmy, “it’s the only highly flexible 3-D printed material accessible to everyone.”

Why is this important?

In terms of its evolutionary progress, 3-D printing is in 1987, the year you got your first desktop printer and had just a handful of fonts to play with. The materials available are limited in number, and their properties are influenced by the method of manufacturing. Every material has a different weight and durability and strength and handles differently under stress, heat, and tension. One of the core parts of industrial design is choosing materials that work well for your application.

On one level, this is obvious — the glass on a smartphone is very, very different from the glass in a windshield. For makers, having a variety of materials to play with blows open the field of possible projects.

Dino Hand and Squishy Duck discuss the finer points of elasticity and tensile strength.

Shapeways’ mission is to “enable people to make whatever they can buy,” says Shapeways Product Manager Nancy Liang. For that to work, Shapeways needs to have a palette of raw materials that can at least approximate the range of capabilities in the stuff we buy. Adding a flexible material is another step in filling out that palette.

Shapeways has been throwing out teasers to its community, and even ran a contest for designs that take advantage of flexibility. “We’ve received shoes, gloves, erasers, fishing lures, jewelry, gadget cases, and many other household products,” says Carmy — stuff that would be nearly impossible if one were working with rigid plastic.

Designer WillLaPuerta made a rubbery dragon pencil topper, remarking in the description, “No, this is not an eraser.” As it turns out, Elasto Plastic does function as an eraser, and WillLaPuerta is walking away with the prize for Innovative Use of Material.

Designer WillLaPuerta made a dragon to put on your pencil which turns out to be a great eraser.

The Shapeways community is getting a handle on the material in the same way a professional industrial designer would — with a lot of experimentation.

“There is still a lot to learn,” says Liang, “It’s not perfect yet, but it is innovative, and very exciting stuff to work with.”

Images courtesy of Shapeways.

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/AzLD-QLC2VE/

Photo: SpaceX/Roger Gilbertson

After months of anticipation and a series of delays, SpaceX is once again ready to fly.

In the early hours of May 19, the private spaceflight company’s Dragon capsule is scheduled to lift off from the launch pad and, four days later, attempt to dock with the International Space Station. (You can watch the launch live at 4:55 EDT on our Open Space site.) If everything is successful, SpaceX will become the first private company to accomplish something that only nation-states have previously done.

But success remains a big “if.” Even the company’s founder and CEO, Elon Musk, has been quick to point out that SpaceX is still in a kind of beta-testing mode.

“It’s not as though we’re asserting that success is highly likely,” Musk told our aerospace reporter Jason Paur during a live Google+ hangout interview. “In fact, we’re saying that there’s a very good chance that the mission might not succeed. That’s the nature of a test.”

In the buildup to the test launch, Wired has been conducting interviews with experts from the spaceflight community, getting their opinions and asking what sort of an impact the Dragon’s launch will have. Those weighing in have included a legal scholar, a former SpaceX executive, a NASA engineer, a former astronaut, and two of our own Wired Science bloggers: space historian David S. Portree and DIY spacecraft builder Kristian von Bengtson. You can read the full interviews or check out some key excerpts below.

The mission has attracted a variety of viewpoints. Some have praised SpaceX for their attempt to usher in a new era of spaceflight while others have criticized the company for over-hyping what they can realistically achieve. Here we present a roundup of the diverse ideas regarding this SpaceX launch.

We first wanted to know how much to believe the buzz about this upcoming flight. Elon Musk has stated that he started SpaceX to bring down the cost of spaceflight and eventually develop the technology to bring people to Mars. While that day is far in the future, we wondered:

Will this launch be a big game-changer for how spaceflight is done?

“Emotionally, it’s a big deal. If it’s a spectacular success, there will be a lot of high-fiving and pats on the back, and they will be very well deserved. If it’s a failure, we can take comfort in the fact that it’s just a step. This is a challenging test program and that’s how you learn.” Read more.

– Michael Lopez-Alegria
President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, a private-spaceflight advocacy group.

“This is a game changer in terms of proving it’s a commercially viable thing to do. It’s being done and procured on a commercial basis. So this launch is like a Netscape moment in many ways. SpaceX will open up the gates for a lot of new business opportunities.” Read more.

– Lawrence Williams
Former vice president for strategic relations at SpaceX and one of its founding executives.

“In certain ways yes, and in others ways, it won’t be as big a change as all the hype behind it. SpaceX is a private company but they could not succeed without significant government money and the promise of a fairly large supply contract.” Read more.

– Henry Hertzfeld
Scholar of economic, legal, and policy issues surrounding spaceflight and NASA at George Washington University in Washington D.C.

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Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/SwgYd4AYSGA/

A model of the USS Enterprise. Image: Louie Kenny/Flickr

Only an imagination made of stone could fail to stir at the thought of a real-world USS Enterprise blasting away from Earth within 20 years, reaching Mars in three months and restoring a sense of epic grandeur to mankind’s spacefaring dreams.

But is that vision, which went viral thanks to the detailed blueprints of an anonymous self-described engineer known only as BTE Dan, actually possible? Trillion-dollar price tag aside, could this 21st century interpretation of the Enterprise boldly go where no one has gone before?

Unfortunately not, say spacecraft designers, but it’s still a worthwhile thought experiment.

“In summary: Cool idea, not very practical, extremely optimistic in assumptions for near-term developments,” said John Elliott, flight system lead on NASA’s Outer Planet Flagship Mission. “But if it gets people talking and thinking outside the box, it’s not a bad thing.”

With a faster-than-light warp drive remaining science fictional, BTE — “Build the Enterprise” — Dan’s ship would be propelled by ion engines running off a 1.5 gigawatt nuclear reactor. That’s roughly the amount of energy generated by a decent-sized terrestrial nuke plant, and harnessing its power in space would be hard.

“Reactors might be scalable to those high power levels, but the radiation shielding and heat rejection system would be a huge design challenge,” said Elliott, who qualified his comments as a personal perspective rather than official NASA or Caltech views. “I’d hesitate to say it couldn’t be done with sufficient resources, but it probably wouldn’t end up looking like the original design.”

Ion propulsion, in which charged atoms of gas are magnetically expelled through a tube, would also be difficult at Enterprise scales. Such engines already power many spacecraft, and currently reach speeds of 200,000 mph, but their acceleration is extremely slow.

NASA’s website notes that the push provided by one modern ion thruster is “equivalent to the force you would feel by holding nine U.S. quarters in your hand.” Though a bank of ion thrusters could eventually push the Enterprise’s 200,000,000 pound bulk at high speed, it would take a long time to get there.

According to astronautics researcher Nicolas Lee of Stanford University, the Enterprise’s iconic shape could be a hindrance. “If we wanted to build something that large, a sphere or cylinder would be better at holding pressure against the vacuum — think scuba tank or submarine,” he said.

Lee also said the Enterprise’s proposed gravity system — a giant spinning wheel magnetically suspended inside the ship’s hull, producing gravity through centrifugal force — would cause steering problems.

“To get a sense of this effect, try taking an external hard drive and wobbling it around a bit while it’s running,” said Lee. “It tries to torque you in a perpendicular direction when you tip it.” (On his website, BTE Dan says a second, counter-rotating wheel could solve the problem.)

A final challenge is the sheer amount of material required to build the Enterprise, which would need to be assembled in orbit rather than on Earth, where gravity would make liftoff impossible. Elliott said the quoted bulk would amount to 650 trips by NASA’s new heavy launch vehicle.

For the cost of this endeavor it might actually be cheaper to envision using lunar resources or even mining and processing asteroids to get materials for construction,” said Elliott.

“But there, as improbable and audacious as it seems, you see the value in scoping projects like this,” he continued. “It makes you think, even if it’s to say, ‘That’s a dumb idea, but maybe if we did this here and tweaked these assumptions here….’ That often leads to valuable innovations in other, more near-term developments.”

Size comparisons for BTE Dan’s proposed USS Enterprise. Image: Build the Enterprise

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/q10tMUutsjI/

*Gosh, I love wire art. I bet there’s some way to mash-up an app for Calder-style mobiles to a gizmo like this, and go completely nuts.

*That’s really a beautiful example of “cheap complexity” in 3d manufacturing.

The DIWire Bender
by PENSA! 2 weeks 3 days ago

“The DIWire Bender is a rapid prototype machine that bends metal wire to produce 2D or 3D shapes.

“Wire unwinds from a spool, passes through a series of wheels that straighten it, and then feeds through the bending head, which moves around in 3 dimensions to create the desired bends and curves. Vector files (e.g., Adobe Illustrator files), text files of commands (e.g., feed 50 mm, bend 90° to right…) provide DIWire’s instructions.

“It’s essentially a 3D printer that describes lines, instead of volumes, in space, and it could be used for anything from prototypes to customized products.”

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/Qp2zzu1L3vY/

*Given the state of things, it’s a wonder that European “extremists” aren’t a whole lot extremer than the likes of this guy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/18/greek-leftist-leader-alexis-tsipras

“I don’t believe in heroes or saviours,” says Alexis Tsipras, “but I do believe in fighting for rights … no one has the right to reduce a proud people to such a state of wretchedness and indignity.”

“The man who holds the fate of the euro in his hands – as the leader of the Greek party willing to tear up the country’s €130bn (£100bn) bailout agreement – says Greece is on the frontline of a war that is engulfing Europe.

“A long bombardment of “neo-liberal shock” – draconian tax rises and remorseless spending cuts – has left immense collateral damage. “We have never been in such a bad place,” he says, sleeves rolled up, staring hard into the middle distance, from behind the desk that he shares in his small parliamentary office. “After two and a half years of catastrophe, Greeks are on their knees. The social state has collapsed, one in two youngsters is out of work, there are people leaving en masse, the climate psychologically is one of pessimism, depression, mass suicides.”

“But while exhausted and battle weary, the nation at the forefront of Europe’s escalating debt crisis and teetering on the edge of bankruptcy is also hardened. And, increasingly, they are looking towards Tsipras to lead their fight….”

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/6p1WKblwQy4/

If you’re a space enthusiast, this weekend is going to be a doozy.

In the wee hours of Saturday, May 19, the private spaceflight company SpaceX is planning to launch their Dragon capsule from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The launch window is for 1:55 a.m. PDT, so West Coast night owls might just want to stay up to catch the action.

Join us here on Wired’s Open Space site for live coverage starting an hour before the launch. If you sleep through the event, don’t worry; we’ll have a recap video up shortly after.

The historic flight will see SpaceX’s craft go through some orbital ballet maneuvers over the following days, eventually lining up in an attempt to dock with the International Space Station four days after launch.

If that isn’t enough, Sunday, May 20 will see an annular solar eclipse visible from eastern Asia, the Pacific Ocean and much of the North American West Coast.

In this type of eclipse, the moon passes in front of the sun but – because of some quirks of celestial mechanics – it will be too far from the Earth to completely block out the sun’s light. Instead, a thin ring of glowing fire will be visible around the black circle that is the moon’s shadow.

Don’t look directly at the sun, even during the eclipse, without special lenses. Better yet, join us here to watch live feeds of the eclipse from various locations. We will host the Slooh Space Camera’s live show beginning at 2:30 p.m. PDT, which will feature cameras in Japan, California, Arizona and New Mexico, as well as expert commentary. We will also have Panasonic’s live feed from the top of Mt. Fuji in Japan starting at 3 PDT. And for an eerie treat, we will be playing amateur astronomer Scotty Degenhardt’s broadcast from Area 51 in Nevada.

If you are planning to watch the skyward event yourself, it will begin shortly after 3 p.m. PDT over southern China, quickly sweeping across Japan. Just before 5 p.m. PDT the eclipse will reach its point of greatest occultation over the central Pacific. By 6:30 PDT it will be visible from Northern California and Nevada, eventually reaching as far as Texas. You can check the eclipse time for your local city if you’re in the U.S. with this table (.pdf) or with this one (.pdf) if you’re in Mexico, Canada or Asia.

Those not directly in the path of the eclipse will still see some strange effects by stepping outside. Shadows cast from trees and bushes will contain thousands of tiny odd crescents, as the spaces between leaves become pinhole cameras.

Image: SpaceX/sancho_panza/Flickr/Wired Science

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/gSpnABY5F3E/

Nokia’s share prices from May 2007 to today. Image: Google Finance

Curious about how to burn through $2.5 billion in less than a year? Nokia might have some suggestions. According to a Reuters poll of analysts, Nokia is on track to lose 2 billion euros, or $2.5 billion, of its cash pile in the next three quarters — after already losing $2.7 billion of its cash reserves in the past five quarters.

And that’s not even the most pessimistic of outlooks.

More bullish analysts predict that the Finnish mobile company will wipe out the entirety of its 4.9 billion euro, or $6.2 billion, cash pile by the end of 2012. It’s a worsening outlook for Nokia, which suffered a $1.7 billion loss in Q1. And less than a month ago, the once-largest mobile handset company lost its position to Samsung and had its bonds downgraded to “junk” status.

“I would not rule out the possibility of Nokia being downgraded further,” Nancy Utterback, credit strategist at Aviva Investors, told Reuters. “The company is in a negative spiral that will be hard to reverse.”

Nokia declined to comment on the poll’s findings.

There is, however, still hope for Nokia, according to the 30 banks and brokerages polled by Reuters. The poll found that, on average, analysts believe Nokia will end the year with an actual cash buffer, albeit a small one, of 2.9 billion euros, or $3.6 billion.

It’s a significant loss compared to the company’s 2007 cash pile of more than 10 billion euros, or $12.7 billion. But at least there’s a sliver of hope that Nokia can survive longer than a couple of years.

And Nokia still has the potential to bounce back with its Lumia line of smartphones and the growth of Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. The polled analysts predict that Nokia will sell a total of 46 million smartphones next year, more than double the expected 20 million units for this year.

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/afQrFjlLP2o/

An ad-supported Kindle Fire could spur impulse buys. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

Whether we like it or not, advertising pays for a bunch of stuff we enjoy. Network TV, magazines and web sites that don’t have multi-billion-dollar IPOs all depend on advertising dollars to make their profit margins — or even survive. And now Amazon is pondering an advertising subsidy for its Kindle Fire tablet.

Ad Age reports that Amazon has been pitching Kindle Fire welcome-screen ads to ad agency executives. For a paltry $600,000, companies can purchase an Amazon “Special Offers” ad to run for two months on the best-selling Android tablet around.

The agencies were unable to determine if the ads would be served to current Kindle Fires, or on an upcoming, subsidized Kindle Fire model. In the Ad Age report, one agency executive expressed concern that adding ads to the current Kindle Fire would upset owners: “You’re already paying a premium for the product and then having that unexpected ad experience makes for a worse consumer experience.”

It’s also unclear what exactly the welcome screen is on the Kindle Fire. Is it the lock screen? Or is it screen that appears when the Fire is started up?

Understandably, the ad agencies that spoke with Ad Age declined to sign up for the Amazon ad buy.

If Amazon is planning on an ad-supported Kindle Fire, the savings could be significant for consumers. Amazon has been selling ad-supported Kindle e-readers for a while now, offering hardware price reductions to consumers willing to suffer a few static ads. Ad-supported Kindles are on average approximately 30 percent cheaper than their ad-free counterparts. If Amazon were to knock 25 percent off of the price of the Kindle Fire, the tablet would sell for $150.

That is if Amazon can sell the ads.

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/yuhRuGLX4Ac/

What will fill television’s sci-fi black hole after Fringe ends next season? The rash of new shows announced by networks over the past week include a few prime-time contenders that will offer an alternative to the usual doctor/lawyer/cop and sniggling singles/smug family fodder.

Which ones will nail their fantastical high-concept premises when they air this fall? Hard to say at this point, but here’s our short list of the most intriguing shows set to debut during the 2012-2013 TV season, with teaser videos to give you a taste.

Above:

Revolution (NBC)

J.J. Abrams’ Revolution boasts a spectacular-looking teaser and a post-apocalyptic premise that could spell success in the fantastical realm where Terra Nova (cancelled by Fox ), Alcatraz (canceled by Fox) and tepid Falling Skies (back for a second season on TNT) have faltered. The hook: 15 years after a total power blackout, humans make their way through the world without any of the conveniences modern civilians take for granted.

Creator Eric Kripke worked on the CW’s low-impact Supernatural drama, but it gets better: Iron Man’s Jon Favreau directs the pilot. Executive producer Abrams’ recent shows Undercovers and Alcatraz flopped, but the man who co-created Lost, working with Fringe producer Bryan Burk, might just turn a marathon power outage into compelling fare. Cast includes Andrea Roth (Rescue Me), Billy Burke (Twilight) and Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad).

Blowback: Which New TV Shows Are You Most Excited About?

Which in-development television shows do you find most tantalizing, and why? Whether they made our list or not, let us know in the comments below.

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/4-zLwjy3Tq4/

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle, and the previous day’s answer (in invisitext) posted here.

SPOILER WARNING:
We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool, which will automatically filter out published answers, to give you a spoiler-free experience.

And now, without further ado, we give you…

TODAY’S PUZZLE:

The world’s youngest ocean has tides that were first recorded in 600 AD by men of what profession?

YESTERDAY’S ANSWER (mouseover to see):

Search [frown lines muscles] to learn that a frown contracts muscles between your eyebrows called the corrugator and the procerus. Search [corrugator procerus] to find that the corrugator muscles run obliquely, while the procerus muscle runs vertically and is shaped like a small pyramid just above your nose, fanning up into your forehead.

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/eiGA4lVZoB8/