#smart materials

This vibrating pillow makes nighttime emergencies impossible to sleep through

A smart pillow sleeve that vibrates to alert people who are deaf to fire and burglar alarms in the night has been created by scientists at Nottingham Trent University (NTU). Developed with members of the Deaf community, the smart textile technology replaces bulky gadgets that are kept under pillows which users say are uncomfortable. The design is centered on a thin, flexible, electronic textile sleeve which features four tiny haptic actuators—measuring 3.4 mm by 12.7 mm—that are encapsulated and embedded within a yarn-like structure. The sleeve is slipped over a standard-sized pillow and placed inside a normal pillow case, with the sensors at the bottom when positioned on the bed. The electronics are connected to a smartphone, via a microcontroller, which can be wirelessly connected to household alarms and use different vibration pulses to indicate between fire alarms, burglar alarms and phone calls.

Did you know there are currently smart materials and technologies, as well as active comouflage methods, in use and under research that can render objects, vehicles or persons invisible: not only to the naked eye, but also to security cameras?

This is especially concerning when dealing with corruption, fascism, other developments in military technologies this could be cross applied with, or covert operations involving human victims or sex traffick and other criminal government operations.

Here's a few examples:

"Next-gen Military Uniforms: Various military research programs are exploring smart uniforms that incorporate these technologies. For example, DARPA has been involved in developing "invisibility cloaks" that use smart fabrics to reduce the visibility of soldiers on the battlefield."

"MIT's Electromagnetic Metamaterials: Research at MIT has explored using metamaterials to create a "cloaking" effect in the electromagnetic spectrum. Although these are primarily experimental, they could eventually lead to applications where objects or people are rendered invisible to certain detection methods."

"BAE Systems' Adaptiv: This is a military camouflage technology developed for vehicles. Adaptiv uses hexagonal tiles that can change temperature to blend into the infrared spectrum of the background. While primarily developed for vehicles, the concept could theoretically be miniaturized for use on smaller objects or individuals."

"Duke University and University of California, Berkeley: Researchers at these institutions have been working on invisibility cloaks using metamaterials that can bend electromagnetic waves around an object, effectively making it invisible. Although this technology is currently limited and works mainly at specific wavelengths or in laboratory conditions, it demonstrates the potential for future applications."

"Invisibility Cloaks Based on Transformation Optics: This research area involves designing materials that guide light around an object, making it invisible. Companies and military research labs are exploring this, but practical, deployable versions are still speculative."

"Quantum Stealth by Hyperstealth Biotechnology Corp: This Canadian company has developed a material they claim can bend light around an object, rendering it invisible. The technology is said to work without cameras, batteries, or mirrors, and it could be used to conceal objects or people from view by manipulating light waves. However, the actual effectiveness and deployment status of this technology remain largely unverified in the public domain."

Ultimately, how these technologies, or other advanced weapons, can impact civilian populations left in the dark is a huge concern. There are multiple methods of intercepting or undermining the purpose of security cameras, this is one of many potentials.

Metastable states of floating crystals

Magnetocapillary interactions between particles allow self-assembly of floating crystals along liquid interfaces. For a fixed number of particles, different states with different symmetric characteristics, called metastable states, coexist. Various pioneering works have observed the existence of metastable states in floating crystals. As different states coexist, it is difficult to control the formation of specific structures. However, controlling the formation of metastable states is a key ingredient to functionalize such assemblies, paving the way for self-assembling microrobots for example. The way to control the state of a floating crystal has never been studied before.

Smart materials, called also intelligent or responsive materials, are designed materials that have one or more properties that can be significantly changed in a controlled fashion by external stimuli, such as stress, moisture, electric or magnetic fields, light, temperature, pH, or chemical compounds.