Today on Engineering Newswire, brought to you by Interpower, the premier supplier of power system components for worldwide markets, we’re bending cellphones, electrifying motorcycles, cutting electric vehicle charge time in half, and riding a screw-propelled snowboard. This week's episode features:
- Researchers at Queen’s University in Canada have developed a new smartphone that can morph its shape to give users a silent yet visual cue of an incoming phone call, text message, or email. It goes concave for a call, waves the bottom for an email, flip a corner at you for a text message, and even bend up and down to dictate urgency.
- Brammo wanted to create the world’s fastest production electric motorcycle so they partnered with Parker’s Electromechanical Automation Division to create the global vehicle motor, or GVM, for use on Brammo’s Enertia and Empulse motorcycles.
- The new fast-charging system from Volvo and Siemens is cutting recharge times in electric vehicles down to 90 minutes. The new 22 kilowatt fast-charger system is an on-board charger that operates on a 3-phase supply, and uses a 3-phase outlet to provide enough charge for a range of 102 miles in 90 minutes.
- French students are working on a prototype screw-propelled snowboard, Propul-Surf, to help knuckle-draggers over flat ground and up hills. The design is based on Archimedes’ screw, known for moving water from low to high ground, tracing back to the third century B.C.
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