Fury 325: a hornet's nest of a roller coaster

Fury 325 is a new roller coaster that will open this month at Carowinds in North Carolina

A theme park in North Carolina will soon be home to one of the tallest and fastest roller coasters in the world. Fury 325, at Carowinds, opens to the public at the end of this month. The ride will top out at 325 ft (99 m) and will hit speeds of 95 mph (153 km/h).

The US appears to be a nation of thrillseekers like no other, having largely monopolized the lists of the world's tallest and fastest roller coasters. Last year, for example, Gizmag covered the 163-m (570-ft) Skyscraper vertical rollercoaster, or "polercoaster," which is set to be one of the world's tallest roller coasters when it opens in 2016.

Carowinds says Fury 325 will be the tallest and fastest "giga coaster" when it opens. Wikipedia defines giga coasters as roller coasters that have a height of between 300 ft (91 m) and 399 ft (122 m), with "strata coasters" having a height of 400 ft (120 m) or more.

The firm says that the ride is inspired by the description of the Carolinas as a "hornet’s nest of rebellion" by British general Lord Cornwallis during the American Revolution. The company says the ride simulates "the wild, daring and spontaneous flight of the hornet."

Fury 325 was designed by Bolliger & Mabillard, which has designed over 90 roller coasters around the world. It covers an area of 8.4 acres (3.4 hectares) and can accommodate 1,470 riders every hour. Three 32-passenger trains operate on the 3-minute, 25-second ride.

The 6,602 ft (2,012 m) track begins with a climb to the top of its 325-ft-high lift and is followed by a near-vertical downward plunge of 81 degrees. Amongst the ride's features are a 190-foot (58-m)-tall barrel turn, a high speed S-curve and a 91-degree overbanked horseshoe turn. There is also a brief dip underground and a double helix towards the end of the ride.

The building of Fury 325 is complete and it is now in its testing phase. The ride opens to the public on Mar. 28.

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Engine running on frozen carbon dioxide may power mission to Mars

Carbon dioxide engines may power future interplanetary missions (Photo: Jonathan Sanderson/Northumbria University)

Future missions to Mars may well be powered by carbon dioxide fueled engines, thanks to a recent prototype developed by Northumbria and Edinburgh Universities. Exploiting a phenomenon known as the Leidenfrost effect, researchers hope that their engine could be powered by the vast amount of dry-ice deposits found on the red planet, thereby reducing the need to transport fuel on interplanetary missions.

The new type of engine proposed by the researchers takes advantage of the Leidenfrost effect, where liquid is brought into near contact with a surface that is considerably hotter than its own boiling point, a small portion vaporizes, and an insulating layer of steam is created that then protects the liquid above it from the majority of the heat. This layer then also acts as a levitating cushion on which the heated liquid floats and moves around.

Commonly observed when beads of water dropped onto the face of a hot frying pan appear to canter across its surface, the phenomenon is exaggerated when the surface is composed of ridges, where the droplet effectively propels itself across the top of those ridges.

To create a prototype engine using this effect, the research teams were able to levitate a circular block of dry ice above a heated aluminum surface, where it floated on a pillow of evaporated gas vapor.

Underneath this arrangement, the surface over which it floated was ridged, but instead of the ridges being aligned in one way on a straight surface, they were arranged in a circular pattern, in effect creating a turbine. This meant that when the dry ice was subject to the Leidenfrost effect, instead of simply rolling across and off the surface, it rotated in a circle.

To this block, the researchers attached a series of magnets and copper coils that, when spun, acted as an electric motor and created an alternating current. This is the first time that the Leidenfrost effect has been used to produce any useful form of energy.

"The working principle of a Leidenfrost-based engine is quite distinct from steam-based heat engines; the high-pressure vapor layer creates freely rotating rotors whose energy is converted into power without the need of a bearing, thus conferring the new engine with low-friction properties," said Doctor Gary Wells, a Research Fellow in the Department: Physics and Electrical Engineering at Northumbria University.

While some other scientists have proposed exploiting the CO2 in the Martian atmosphere to power rocket motors, this system is significantly different. It doesn’t burn any fuel directly in the process to create energy. Instead, it could potentially use waste heat to take advantage of the Leidenfrost effect by exploiting the low boiling point of frozen carbon dioxide to spin a turbine to create electricity.

The team believes that this type of engine and the potential abundance of frozen carbon dioxide on Mars holds a great deal of promise for interplanetary missions, where it may be used to support lengthy periods of exploration or even colonization by exploiting resources natural to that planet.

"Carbon dioxide plays a similar role on Mars as water does on Earth," said, Dr Rodrigo Ledesma-Aguilar, a co-author of the Northumbria research. "It is a widely available resource which undergoes cyclic phase changes under the natural Martian temperature variations. Perhaps future power stations on Mars will exploit such a resource to harvest energy as dry-ice blocks evaporate, or to channel the chemical energy extracted from other carbon-based sources, such as methane gas."

"One thing is certain,” concluded Doctor Ledesma-Aguilar. "Our future on other planets depends on our ability to adapt our knowledge to the constraints imposed by strange worlds, and to devise creative ways to exploit natural resources that do not naturally occur here on Earth."

The results of this work have recently been published in the journal Nature Communications.

The short video below shows some of the development work conducted to create the prototype engine.

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The MESH DIY platform is made to help you build your own inventions

MESH combines a series of smart tags with an iPad app

You only need look as far as the Raspberry Pi to know that a huge number of people are passionate about DIY electronics, and a new kit called MESH (Make, Experience, Share) is intended to make coming up with your own clever projects easier than ever. From customized alarm clocks to trash cans that thank you for recycling, it's claimed to open up a host of possibilities for amateur inventors.

There are two parts to MESH: a series of Bluetooth-enabled smart tags and a software platform that ties them all together. The tags are input/output modules and include a push button, an accelerometer, an LED light and a GPIO (General-Purpose Input/Output) tag that can be programmed with more advanced functions as necessary.

The easiest way to understand MESH is to look at what it can do. You can use the accelerometer tag on a door to automatically alert you when the kids get home from school, for example, or use the button tag to control a camera from afar, or set up an automatic plant-watering system for times when you're away from home. All of these projects can be accomplished with little or no coding knowledge, so it's slightly more accessible than something along the lines of the Raspberry Pi.

A lot of the best ideas showcased by the MESH team make use of the accelerometer tag: lights that turn on when you pull up a desk chair, a trash can that says thanks when you pop something through the lid, a dumbbell that tracks your reps, and so on. The accompanying iPad app adopts a straightforward drag-and-drop interface so tags can be connected to actions in seconds.

Expanding the project

An API is available to plug in third-party services, from weather forecast apps to light sensors, and a tag can trigger an email or a sound from your iPad's speaker. The campaign page promises that support for more third-party hardware and software, as well as more actual tags, will be added in the coming months.

The MESH team is made up of a small group of engineers in Sony's seed acceleration program. The program encourages employees to explore concepts not usually within Sony's remit, before crowdsourcing the funding required to make them a reality. You may remember the FES Watch was launched in the same way last November.

It seems having Sony's big name appeal has helped push MESH towards its funding goal, which originally stood at US$50,000. At the time of this writing, $60,716 has been pulled in, with sets still available to order for $119 and above. Delivery of the first kits is estimated for May. View the video below for a guide to some of MESH's key features.

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US satellite explodes and ESA assesses risk

Artist's concept of the DMSP satellite (Image: US Air Force)

A US Air Force weather satellite exploded in Earth orbit on February 3, scattering debris along its path. In a report by Space.com, Air Force and space officials indicated the breakup of Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Flight 13 (DMSP-F13) was due to a malfunction of its battery system rather than a collision with a foreign body. Meanwhile, The European Space Agency (ESA) has released an assessment of the hazard posed by the debris.

DMSP-F-13 is part of a program set up in the 1960s to provide real-time weather data relevant to US military operations. The program was declassified in 1972 and in 1998 control was transferred from the US Air Force to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to save costs. DMSP-F-13 was launched in 1995 into a sun-synchronous polar orbit at an altitude of about 500 mi (800 km). Due to its age, it had been relegated to the status of backup satellite as the DMSP constellation was updated.

According to Space.com, the loss of the satellite was due its batteries failing catastrophically because of old age. This is a major problem with older satellites. Newer ones are designed to prevent such an occurrence, but telemetry indicated that the temperature of the batteries on DMSP-F-13 spiked suddenly just before the explosion.

The blast caused the satellite to break into fragments, which at last count were estimated to number 46 pieces. ESA ran an assessment based on data shared by the US Joint Space Operations Center and determined that the remains of DMSP-F-13 pose no danger to its operations, and that the orbits of the fragments will eventually decay until they burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.

"The event is not considered major," says Holger Krag of ESA’s Space Debris Office. "Should the reported number of fragments stabilize at this level, we can consider it to be within the range of the past 250 on-orbit fragmentation events. For our missions – with CryoSat-2 being closest to the event altitude – we do not expect any meaningful risk due to the event."

The Air Force says that the loss of DMSP-F-13 will have no effect on its services. The US government has not indicated that the debris from last month's explosion poses any hazard to its space operations.

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Huawei Watch vs. Moto 360

Gizmag compares the features and specs of the Android Wear-running Huawei Watch (left) and Moto 360

Huawei is jumping into smartwatches in a big way, with the beautiful, Android Wear-running Huawei Watch. Let's compare its features and specs to those of the Moto 360.

Software

Both watches run Android Wear and, since Google doesn't let OEMs customize the wearable OS, their software is going to be almost identical. The only exceptions are add-on apps, like Motorola's always-on heart tracking app.

Size (main body)

The Moto 360 is about 10 percent taller and wider than the Huawei Watch. The Moto does leave a pretty wide impression on the wrist, so that smaller profile may not be such a terrible thing.

Neither watch is particularly thin, with the Huawei Watch only measuring about 2 percent thinner than the (somewhat beefy) Moto 360.

Weight

No weight measurements for the Huawei Watch just yet.

Build (main body)

Both watches have stainless steel bodies, and draw design inspiration from standard timekeeping watches.

Default band options

You can buy the Moto 360 with either a leather or steel band, and it looks like Huawei will be offering the same options.

Swappable band

You can swap both watches' bands for a standard one of your choice. For the Moto 360, that's a 22 mm band, and one of Huawei's promotional videos shows a brief mention of either 18 mm or 21 mm bands. We'll update when we confirm its compatibility.

Colors

Motorola and Huawei are offering their own versions of black, silver and gold color options.

Physical buttons

Each watch has one (faux winder) button, at the 3 o'clock position for the Moto 360, and at the 2 o'clock point for the Huawei Watch.

Display (size)

It's tough to get an exact area for the Moto 360's not quite fully round screen (due to that cut-off point at the bottom), but our estimates have the Huawei Watch's screen giving you around 83 percent as much real estate.

Display (resolution)

The Huawei Watch gives you a 40 percent sharper screen (based on pixel density).

Display (type)

AMOLED looks like the way to go for smartwatches, as they can more easily run dimmed (nearly black) watch faces all day long, without draining ridiculous amounts of battery. Motorola stuck with an IPS panel for the 360 and – surprise, surprise – it has trouble getting through a day with its ambient (turns on whenever your wrist is within typical viewing angles) screen setting turned on.

Sapphire-covered display

Rather than glass, the Huawei Watch's display is hiding underneath a layer of sapphire. The Moto uses a more standard (but still quite strong) Gorilla Glass.

Battery

It's too early to say much about the Huawei Watch's battery life, but Moto 360 buyers should be prepared to leave the ambient setting turned off (i.e., black screen when you aren't actively using it) to safely get through one full day.

Wireless charging

The Moto's battery does have one bright spot: its wireless charging seems like a perfect fit for a smartwatch. Just rest it on its included charging dock (and watch as it turns into a faux desk clock) to juice up during the night.

The Huawei Watch includes a charging cradle, and it doesn't look like it supports wireless charging.

Water resistance

Huawei hasn't said much about its Watch's water (and dust) resistance, but we'll update when we find out for sure.

Heart rate sensor

Both watches (like most multitouch smartwatches) have heart rate monitors. Motorola's periodically checks your pulse in the background throughout the day and can deliver (optional) daily summaries. We'll have to wait to see if Huawei has anything like that tied to its sensor.

Processor

The Huawei Watch uses an industry standard Snapdragon 400 processor, while Motorola (somewhat questionably) offloaded some obsolete Texas Instruments processors in the Moto 360. It's questionable, because that (along with its IPS panel) could be contributing to the Moto's not-so-amazing battery life.

RAM

This is another industry standard, as every Android Wear smartwatch so far carries 512 MB of RAM.

Storage

Right now storage isn't anything you need to worry about with Android Wear watches, as 4 GB should be more than you'll ever need.

Release

Huawei is being tight-lipped about an exact release date, only saying that the Watch will launch sometime in 2015. The 360 launched last September.

Starting price

Also no word on Huawei Watch pricing. The Moto 360 with leather band rings up for US$250, while the steel band version (pictured) costs $300. Of course you also have the option of buying the entry-level version and taking it to a jeweler to swap out your own (most likely less than $50) steel band.

Stay tuned for more on the Huawei Watch, and you can read more about Motorola's Wear debut in our Moto 360 review.

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