Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Interesting Products
I chanced upon some interesting products developed by a company called Etrema in the States. These products use technologies which are sort of similar to my research, although they are using a different type of 'smart' materials.
I guess I should describe what a 'smart' material is before elaborating much. The term smart materials refers to a class of materials that are highly responsive and have the inherent capability to sense and react according to changes in the environment. The common characteristic of all smart materials is the ability to react mechanically to external stimuli. These materials have been developed to work smarter and more efficiently than their predecessors.
Today's smart materials largely respond in one of two ways - either electrostrictively or magnetostrictively. These terms basically identify how they are told to move, either electrically or magnetically, respectively. Other smart materials, such as Shape Memory alloys, react to changes in temperature.
As you know, I'm working on Shape Memory Alloys. These products uses Terfenol-D, which uses the concept of magnetostriction instead of Shape Memory Effect. The technology is pretty new, developed by the US Naval Ordnance Laboratory in the 1970s. The company is a spin-off that organisation and the Ames Laboratory that aims to develop Terfenol-D for commercial applications.
Here are some descriptions of these cool products:
I chanced upon some interesting products developed by a company called Etrema in the States. These products use technologies which are sort of similar to my research, although they are using a different type of 'smart' materials.
I guess I should describe what a 'smart' material is before elaborating much. The term smart materials refers to a class of materials that are highly responsive and have the inherent capability to sense and react according to changes in the environment. The common characteristic of all smart materials is the ability to react mechanically to external stimuli. These materials have been developed to work smarter and more efficiently than their predecessors.
Today's smart materials largely respond in one of two ways - either electrostrictively or magnetostrictively. These terms basically identify how they are told to move, either electrically or magnetically, respectively. Other smart materials, such as Shape Memory alloys, react to changes in temperature.
As you know, I'm working on Shape Memory Alloys. These products uses Terfenol-D, which uses the concept of magnetostriction instead of Shape Memory Effect. The technology is pretty new, developed by the US Naval Ordnance Laboratory in the 1970s. The company is a spin-off that organisation and the Ames Laboratory that aims to develop Terfenol-D for commercial applications.
Here are some descriptions of these cool products:
- Whispering Window The amazing new Whispering Window, recently featured on CNN, turns any glass surface into a speaker. With it, bulky speakers become a thing of the past!
- Omnivox Attach it to your laptop or other presentation device, sit it on the conference room table, and enter the next dimension in sound.
- Soundbug A fun gadget that turns any flat surface into a speaker! The Soundbug is a unique device that looks similar to a computer mouse, but locks to any flat surface with a suction-cup device capable of generating sound levels up to 75dB.
- Clean Room Speakers ETREMA's innovative CL-2 Clean Room Speaker is a sealed audio speaker specially designed for clean rooms, harsh environments, or where vandalism might be a problem.
All of these products use the Terfenol-D technology. Apparently 'Whispering Window' costs about US$1500 per piece, the 'Omnivox' costs around US$300 where as the 'Soundbugs' are US$25 per piece. These products will dispense with the need to have speakers because they will be using things that we already have as sound amplifiers.
Hmm.... planning to get my hands on one or two of these cool stuff.
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