Cool Tech

Sucking a toilet can save your life!

Published on by Dylan O. Adams
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New PictureWhat is going on here? A guy with a tube, sucking on a toilet?  Yes, that’s exactly what’s going on.  Stick with me and I’ll explain why you might actually want to do this yourself given the right situation.

Why would I ever want to suck out of a toilet?
Imagine this: you’re staying in an upper floor of a high-rise hotel and a fire breaks out.  Unfortunately, you are trapped in your room because of smoke and fire outside, and as in most hotels, the windows do not open.  Smoke begins to fill the room, and you are quickly running out of air to breath.  What do you do?

Plumbing that leads to sewer lines, including toilets, have a “gas trap” of standing water that prevents sewer gasses from leaking into a room. In the case of a smoke filled room, this works the opposite direction – the gas trap stops smoke from entering the sewer lines, which still have breathable air.

Gross. So I would be sucking on sewer gas?
Yes, sewer gas is extremely nasty as you can probably imagine, but when faced with imminent death due to smoke inhalation, beggars can’t be choosers.  Luckily, the invention shown above in William Holmes’ U.S. patent 4,320,756 that issued in 1982 provides a solution to this.  In addition to providing a tube that can snake through the gas trap and into the air in the sewer line, it also has a charcoal filter that makes heinous sewer gas taste like a warm spring day.

I initially came across this patent with the intention of including it in my series of “crazy patents” posts, but despite the hilarious drawings, the invention actually serves a legitimate purpose.  That being said, there is a reason why this was never a standard-issue appliance in all hotel rooms and why travelers did not pack one of these as an essential item on all trips. A bit crazy, but a bit cool as well.

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Video Amazing robots from Boston Dynamics

Published on by Dylan O. Adams
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For those of you who love robots, this is as good as it gets. These four-legged robots walk like a horse and can easily navigate hills, stairs and rough terrain.  What makes these robots special is that they are capable of navigating to destinations on their own autonomously or by following a human companion – no remote control or pre-programming required.  One of the most impressive features is being able to recover from falls and even a surprise kick (check out 0:21 and 0:29).

This is the latest four-legged robot from Boston Dynamics (who was recently acquired by Google), but they also have two-legged and wheeled robots that are just as impressive.  Check out some of the other videos that come up when this one ends or check out the Boston Dynamics channel on YouTube. Enjoy!

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Spies can hear you by watching your trash!

Published on by Dylan O. Adams
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frito trash largeCheck out this awesome yet creepy Ted talk (video embedded below or click here).  Along with a bunch of other ingenious image processing technology, the video shows how researchers were able to re-create audio of a person talking by analyzing tiny vibrations in objects near the person. In one example, they shot a video of a chip bag through a window and were able to create synthetic audio of a person talking in the room via image processing alone.

This works because talking and other sounds create vibrations in the air that in turn vibrate objects in the local vicinity. These movements are extremely small and imperceivable to the naked eye, but with high definition video and the right image processing software, it’s apparently possible to detect minor changes in the video and use the data to generate synthetic audio.  In many ways, this is similar to a microphone, which converts vibrations into an electrical signal, but in this case, the signal is generated visually instead of through direct connection to a vibrating substrate.

This would likely only work on certain objects or surfaces, and there would certainly be limitations based on distance of the surface from the audio source, but it’s a bit scary that it might be possible for someone to listen in on your conversations by simply recording video of objects or surfaces that are close to where you are talking.

The video below automatically starts near the end where the technology discussed above is presented, but it’s definitely worthwhile to watch the video all the way through.  Enjoy.

 

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