MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE鈥V
A TV set that becomes a mirror at the flick of a switch will go on sale in the UK next month. The 拢2500 MiraVision system from Philips of the Netherlands is made up of a 58-centimetre wide-screen LCD that is covered with a thin semi-reflective sheet, mounted in a picture frame. When the screen is switched on, anyone standing in front of it sees only the picture. With the television switched off, the surface behaves like an ordinary mirror.
MiraVision can even be both things at once. Anyone wanting to watch TV while brushing their hair or fixing their make-up can switch to 鈥減icture in mirror鈥� mode, which displays a small image in the corner of the frame. The screen can also be wired to a PC and used as an outsize monitor. Philips hopes eventually to make a waterproof version for use in bathrooms.
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NEURAL NETS SPOTS COMFY SEATS
Car seats would be a lot more comfortable if they were designed with the help of neural network computer programs, according to Michael Kolich, an ergonomics engineer with Johnson Controls of Plymouth, Michigan.
He has trained a neural network to sense the salient features of a proposed car seat and predict how comfortable it will be to the average person.
To train his network, Kolich used a seat cover stuffed with 2000 sensors that measured seat pressures when a dozen men and women sat on five different car seats (International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, vol 33, p 285).
The network correlated major contact areas and peak pressure points with the subjective comfort rating given by each volunteer. In tests, Kolich has found that the neural network accurately predicted how comfortable various seat designs turn out to be.
PLUG IN HERE FOR WAVE POWER
A giant extension lead is to be run out from the north coast of Cornwall in the UK to allow researchers to plug in a variety of experimental wave machines to the national grid.
Regen SW, the region鈥檚 development agency, is planning to lay the cable 15 kilometres out into the ocean. Experimental wave machines will be able to test their prowess in the Atlantic swell by plugging into the national grid. The Wave Hub is likely to cost up to 拢9 million and could be in the water by 2006. There will be 30 sockets for hire to would-be wavepower magnates.
