IEEE.org Sign In Join IEEE

iCandy: Made to Measure

Keeping tabs on air, oceans, food, and beer

Willie D. Jones

20 Apr 2011

Yet another example of what happens when beer and technology collide was recently introduced at the San Francisco offices of Yelp, an online local business directory. Yelp employees have linked a beer keg to an iPad, creating a robot that can keep track of how much each worker has dispensed, monitor the beer’s temperature, and display how much is left in the keg.
▲

Photo: Stephan Tillmans

You’ve surely noticed it but probably never gave it a second thought: the little flash of light that zips across a TV screen in the instant after it’s powered down. In the series “Luminant Point Arrays,” Stephan Tillmans, a German photographer, has captured dozens of the unique pulses that zigzag across cathode ray tube TV displays as images decay. Who knew that each time you clicked the remote you were creating a work of art?
▲

Photo: Xinhua/eyevine/Redux

Now we know what the little old lady who lived in a shoe drove to the market. This stylish cap-toe electric car can go 400 kilometers between charges of its battery pack. AoKang, the Chinese footwear company that designed and built it, plans to produce 40 of the drivable dress shoes, which have a top speed of 30 km per hour.
▲

Photo: Erik Lucero

This 6-square-centimeter chip boasts four quantum bits, or qubits. These paired superconductors register bits not in terms of discrete ones and zeros but rather as both states at once. Researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara say they have been able to make the qubits operate independently of each other, an important step in developing a scalable architecture. Experts say that quantum computers would need to have about 100 qubits before they could displace digital ones.
▲

Photo: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images

This item falls under the heading “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” The figurine is actually a cellphone designed by engineers at Japan’s Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, whose intention was to make the user feel closer to the person on the other end. But do you really want to feel an intimate connection to the tow truck driver you call when your car is disabled on the side of the road?
▲

Photo: George Frey/Getty Images

Rather than put the Sam White Bridge together at its designated position—spanning a portion of Interstate 15 in American Fork, Utah—which would have disrupted traffic for months, its planners decided to build the 108-meter-long conduit off-site. Here, the 1814-metric-ton bridge is moved into place by what looks to be the largest dolly ever.
▲

Photo: Brian Snyder/Reuters

Now your ticket entitles you to a show and a workout. At a recent concert in Somerville, Mass., audience members provided the power that ran the theater’s audio and lighting equipment. The performers, a group called Melodeego, relied on five listeners—three of whom are pictured—to crank up the Sustainable Sound system and generate about 100 watts each. The band says it will use a 10-bike version at concert dates through the summer.
▲

Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

This device, on the roof of an office building in San Francisco, is part of a nationwide network of monitoring stations fielded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The number of nodes in the RadNet network, which collects samples of air, rain, and drinking water and tests them for radioactivity, was recently increased in the wake of the nuclear emergency in Japan.
▲

Photo: Bryce Vickmark/The New York Times/Redux

Researchers at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., have developed techniques for spinning silk into diffraction gratings and other structures that have myriad applications, depending on what they’re paired with. The device shown here, which has a silk substrate overlaid with gold, is a radio-frequency identification coil designed as a biosensor that tells you when food is spoiled.
▲

Image: NASA/Reuters

This is a digital rendering of what the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft will look like after its scheduled launch into orbit in June. Aquarius will give NASA its first space-based readings of salinity levels at the surface of the oceans—a heretofore missing link in climate modeling.
▲

▲

If you are viewing this page with an iPad or iPhone, click here to launch the slideshow:

/ns/slideshows/04W_SlideS_iCandy2011_ipad2a/index.html

sam white bridge type:slideshow tools and toys

Willie D. Jones

Willie Jones is an associate editor at IEEE Spectrum. In addition to editing and planning daily coverage, he manages several of Spectrum's newsletters and contributes regularly to the monthly Big Picture section that appears in the print edition.

IEEE SpectrumFOR THE TECHNOLOGY INSIDER
TopicsAerospaceArtificial IntelligenceBiomedicalClimate TechComputingConsumer ElectronicsEnergyHistory of TechnologyRoboticsSemiconductorsTelecommunicationsTransportation
SectionsFeaturesNewsOpinionCareersDIYEngineering Resources
MoreNewslettersPodcastsSpecial ReportsCollectionsExplainersTop Programming LanguagesRobots Guide ↗IEEE Job Site ↗
For IEEE MembersCurrent IssueMagazine ArchiveThe InstituteThe Institute Archive
For IEEE MembersCurrent IssueMagazine ArchiveThe InstituteThe Institute Archive
IEEE SpectrumAbout UsContact UsReprints & Permissions ↗Advertising ↗
Follow IEEE Spectrum
Support IEEE SpectrumIEEE Spectrum is the flagship publication of the IEEE — the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences. Our articles, podcasts, and infographics inform our readers about developments in technology, engineering, and science.
Join IEEE
Subscribe
Follow IEEE Spectrum
Support IEEE SpectrumIEEE Spectrum is the flagship publication of the IEEE — the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences. Our articles, podcasts, and infographics inform our readers about developments in technology, engineering, and science.
Subscribe
About IEEEContact & SupportAccessibilityNondiscrimination PolicyTermsIEEE Privacy PolicyCookie PreferencesAd Privacy Options