Posts for 'Thoughts' Category

Students in Virginia Tech mechanical engineering Professor Mehdi Ahmadian’s senior design class developed a horizontal light bar to communicate slowing and stopping actions to a driver in a following vehicle. It had several drawbacks, including cost of production. A sensor circuit that will do the same job using the extra lights usually mounted on commercial vehicles has now been developed.

You are driving in heavy traffic. The brake lights on the car in front of you come on. Is the car slowing or is it going to stop? It slows to 25 mph and the lights go off. You drop back. The car in front of you stops suddenly! You stop just in time. The car behind you collects your rear bumper.

“The problem is that brake lights are yes and no – on and off,” according to John Hennage of Montross, Va., a Ph.D. mechanical engineering student in Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering. “The driver behind does not know the speed at which the car in front is slowing or stopping. The only other signal would be the smoke off the tires.”

The solution is an intelligent brake light system that communicates slowing and urgent stopping – rather than simply that the brake pedal is being touched. “A driver could be tapping his foot in time to music and the brake lights would blink. Or, a driver can rest her foot on the pedal and the lights would glow. It’s not enough information for the following driver,” said Hennage.

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Nowadays, we are spending more of our time, either glued to our computers or to other hand-held gadgets, like phones, blackberries or palm PCs that we are putting our health at risk.   

We are literally, becoming slaves to all this new technology, which in order of making our lives easier, comfortable, are putting strain on our health.  

So, what to do? Simple. Take some time out.   This is where this mini lava lamp comes in handy. This unique little lamp, when lit, takes your mind off your worries or your plethora of devices and lets you relax.  

All you need to do is to plug the lamp into your USB port of your PC and it will start to glow. The USB cord comes part and parcel with the lamp.  

This glowing device will cost only PB 6.99.

With the advent of space exploration and technological advances, education has been equipped with powerful learning tools and gadgets: internet access, laptops, i-pods, and digital recorders. Hence the terms multimedia literacy, classroom management software, interactive whiteboards, e-learning/schooling, global education, are being frequently used in today’s educational context.

Nowhere in history has human eye seen such revolutionary attempts as connecting the entire world via fiber optics, satellite… so that small children, grown-ups, can exchange with each other the knowledge they have and so gain with this interaction: iEarn, Yahoo! groups, and other community/blog-based databases are an example in this regard.

Moreover, over the internet, so huge bulk of information is available just on the fingertips of the users that it is almost impossible to be scanned bit by bit by a single individual! Else, this bulk is moving manifold as every single day elapses. Such is the wonder of modern education equipped with incredible gadgets.