The Future Armor: ALON

Yes believe it or not…transparent aluminium!! It is an absolute delight when science fiction become true. Star Trek fans would get the reference here but for those who do not…in the movie Star Trek IV:The Voyage Home, one of the central characters gives away the secret to manufacture a tank using a relatively futuristic element to carry hunchback whales required to get back and save their home! The secret given by the way, was of course, to build a transparent aluminium tank.Well we could say that it is in the act of becoming real.

                      The concept is relatively an old one which came about in the 1950s but implementation took time. The Star Trek movie came about in 1986 so we know it was already in the mind of scientists for quite some time. Basically the entire idea doesn’t mean using only aluminium, instead it is combined with ceramic material to give the transparency and also significant properties. So the material is actually a transparent alumina ceramic, scientifically known as Aluminium oxynitride or AION. It is a ceramic which composes of aluminium, oxygen and nitrogen. Commercially, it is known as ALON which is being marketed by Surmet Corporation. Its crystal structure, mechanical and optical properties make it one of the lightest and hardest transparent materials. According to Wikipedia, AION is the hardest polycrystalline transparent ceramic available commercially. So where does its significance lie?

              It is found to be four times harder than traditional glass…or transparent silica glass and 85% as hard as sapphire which is one of the most hardest substances found on earth. So the dual property of being a light material which is at the same time really hard gives it pretty cool applications. In military, it is currently being tested in comparison with the usual bullet resistant glass. As expected it was found to resist bullet fire rounds that usually pierce the bullet resistant glass. Moreover, it’s lightweight property made it a very light fit in the armory tank. It can work as a transparent aluminium armor on the whole. A big plus is the fact that it rarely needs replacement and lasts long unlike glass. But why the hold up in its widespread production?

              The main reason behind its stagnancy in production is huge expenditure. The development of this material requires a considerable amount of money. Also, the infrastructure required to produce this material in bulk has not yet been manufactured. For the material to work, it requires the base elements in the right composition and also the manufacturing process needs to be meticulous.

             The idea of AION seems good and hopefully when scientists find a way to weigh down costs in production, it may come to the fore. Till then, transparent bulletproof glass will remain the primary material in need. Check out the .50 caliber test on ALON.

Water On Mars

Man is exploring,and now exploration is beyond the planet. Mars,one of the nearest planet of the earth have been declared to have traces of water present on its surface. Mars could have entire oceans’ worth of water locked deep inside the rocks. Water almost exists in the form of ice. However some amount of liquid water and vapours are also present on its surface.

Nasa’s curiosity rover has found that water can exist as liquid near the MARTIAN surface. However water in liquid state is rarely found, it is abundantly found in the form of ice which is present beneath the permanent carbon di oxide ice cap at the martian south pole.

About 4.3 billon years ago mars would have had enough water to cover its entire surface in liquid layer about 450 feet deep. Moreover water would have been formed an ocean covering half of the red planets surface. But current situation is entirely different. Water is rarely found in flowing state. However efforts are made to extract the available water.

How water can be extracted from the surface of mars?

Mainly on the red planet water is extracted from the soil. Location for extraction is selected based on the water content present in the soil. The expected location is 40 and 45 degree North. Extraction process will involve life support unit and extractor. The water extractor will heat the soil till water gets evaporated and then evaporated water is made to condense and stored. The dry soil gets expelled and the process is repeated to extract large amount of water.

Although large amount of efforts are made by the scientists but there exists some of the challenges which hinders the lively conditions on mars. Some of the challenges are:

• Atmospheric pressure at the surface of mars is just 600 pascals which is about 0.6% of earths’ mean sea level. So it becomes difficult for water bodies to survive in such condition.
• Moreover thin films of water is formed when salt in the soil absorbs vapour from the atmosphere, these films are of about 70 degree which is too cold to support any of the microbial life form. Since the global average temperature is far too low,it leads to either rapid evaporation or rapid freezing

MARS lacks a thick atmosphere,ozone layer and magnetic field which allows solar and cosmic radiation to strike the surface. This damaging effect of ionising radiations on cellular structure is one of the most limiting factor for the survival of organisms.

Although there are some possibilities of availability of water on the red planet but current environment status of the planet is dry and subfreezing, presenting large obstacle for the extraction of water. However understanding water on mars is vital to assess the planets’ potential for harboring life and for providing usable resources for future human exploration.

Written by: Aakriti Jain

Written at: thepapers.in

3D Cursor : Touch Is In The Air!

Do you know about Automan?

If not, Automan was a science fiction show that featured a  cursor and portrayed a character as hologram.The idea of the three-dimensional cursor is to extend actions such as marking or using a cursor as an insertion point or transformations like rotation,to a new level,a three-dimensional level.The new cursor challenges the notion of what a cursor is and what it does.The cursor becomes a drawing and controlling plane.This technology was originally based for a tablet,but since there is no external involvement the device can be anything,like smart watches or smartphones.

What is a control plane?

This can be explained using a butterfly-net analogy.If the user wants to sweep through the screen he/she can simply use gestures to glide through the 3D environment.A user can manipulate the actions performed by using different gestures,like pinching or spreading fingers causing the object at hand to change the shape.A higher version of the 3D cursor is shown in the movie iron-man.

In the movie the user can control the 3D environment around him using simply his bodily gestures.The user can draw,control,select objects and much more just by using gestures.

The engineers developing the software are immersed in work.They have created real life scenarios such as a living room where they can select the furniture and have a virtual idea of how it might look in real life.The real life possibilities of the 3D cursor are endless.It can be used in various fields like medical imaging,urban warfare and of course high-end gaming.The introduction of the 3D cursor is another step to a 3D environment and brings around the already known fact,that the rate at which technology is growing will keep increasing and bring unimaginable change in the lives of the common man.

Written at: thepapers.in

Writer: Pranav

Google Brillo

“Brillo”, the new operating system that was announced recently at the Google I/O. Brillo is an operating system that works on very low memory and will be released under the brand of Android. More importantly, the revealing Brillo has reassured google’s belief in Internet of Things. Brillo is derived from android, has minimal system requirements, has a broad amount of silicon support and also is easy to secure.

Brillo will interact with other devices and cloud using a language called “Weave”. Weave will be a common language through which the devices will be able to communicate with other devices. With some import from Nest, Brillo will also be able to use bluetooth and wi-fi although it is not a part of Nest’s business. What google aims to do is to ease the process of putting a device online, manage the connectivity and many of the lower level functions.

Since Brillo is based on the lower levels of Android, you can choose from a wide range of hardware platforms and silicon vendors. The user can enjoy the pleasure if just focusing on his/her application development as the hardware can be taken care of easily by brillo. Metric, crash reports and updating of the device can be easily done using brillo’s web console. Weave provides seamless and secure communication between devices both locally and through the cloud.The Weave program will drive interoperability and quality through a certification program that device makers must adhere to.

Brillo is designed to be extremely lightweight and takes up very little memory which is perfect for smart home devices, that can be controlled via web interface such as locks, refrigerator controls and climate control systems. These devices have a memory far less than that of a computer or a mobile phone. Brillo will be designed to be operated on RAM as less as 64 or even 32MB. The phone version of Brillo will target phones with RAM as low as 512MB.

Google is likely to provide Brillo to manufacturers for free and hope to take over the software market, by encouraging manufacturers to adopt and use Brillo as their OS of choice. The development was bound to happen sooner or later as Google always wanted to do a project and develop something in IoT(internet of things) and especially since the company inquired about Nest in 2014. Well one can surely hope that in the coming years we might be able to enjoy the luxury of using smart home devices someday.

Written by: Pranav Lakhwara at thepapers.in