Thursday, December 31, 2015
Sunday, December 27, 2015
12 of the Most Bizarre Non Circular Gears You Will Ever See
12 of the Most Bizarre Non-Circular Gears You Will Ever See
When you think of gears, I bet you think of a bunch of circles. Sure they're covered in little teeth and maybe some are bigger than others, but they're still mostly circles. Well prepare to meet a whole bunch of weirdo gears that have no need for that little limitation.
1 Cube gears
Designed and 3D-printed by the folks at Stratasys, this cube actually comes out of the printer fully assembled. As you can see, each of its corner gears has your typical round parts, but the business sides are closer to quarter-spheres than circles. And then the rest is all sharp angles. This cube is not particularly good at anything other than looking cool, but it's pretty good at that.
2 Nautilus gears
Instead of being totally round, these gears take their cue from the Fibonacci spiral. The result is that at the very end of a rotation, the two big flat sides hit against each other before the next turn starts. It's another mostly pointless exercise, but these gears do exhibit an interesting quality: If one gear is moving at a constant speed, the other will speed up and slow down during the course of its rotation. That's gotta be good for something, right?
3 Oval gears
Oval gears like these have a practical use in devices like mechanical flowmeters. The way the two gears intersect in a T-shape creates two distinct pockets of space. If the gears fit together well enough, these pockets can be completely watertight so that when liquid passes through the flowmeter, you can use the volume of the pockets the gears create combined with the number of rotations to calculate the volume of liquid that's passed through the device.
4 Spherical gears
These weird half-sphere gears are the work of one Oskar van Deventer, a prolific YouTuber who designs a ton of strange gear mechanisms basically just for the fun of it. While Oskar's little toy here is basically just a goof, it does have the interesting capability to fold 180-degrees like a hinge while the gears stay interlocked and spin on a perpendicular axis.
As Oskar notes, it's basically a solution in search of a problem, but it's still pretty rad.
5 Vaguely bean-shaped gears on an old pump
It's hard to tell exactly what's going on here without more context, but like the nautilus gears above, these strangely shaped gears transform the steady torque that powers the gears into something a little more irregular. Probably the slow drawback of a plunger and then a quick push out.
6 Irregular alien gears
It's impossible to even describe how these gears are shaped, but despite their strange and uncanny appearance, these bespoke gears actually function just like any normal pair of circular gears with uniform teeth.
Perhaps more interesting than the gears themselves is the tracing process used to create them, which will flawlessly generate an endless number of alien-looking, hard-to-replace gears that work just as well as something more boring and more practical.
7 A circular gear inside an oval gear
Yes, the gear inside here is relatively normal, other than the fact that it only has teeth on about a quarter of it. Meanwhile, the oval-shaped inside out-ish gear makes the pair something called a "rack and pinion."
This pairing comes in all kinds of different forms but generally includes one circular gear and one long, straight, toothed beam. The result is that the continual circular motion of the traditional gear can be turned into linear movement.
As you can see, the apparatus transforms the steady turn of the inside gear into a tick-tock back-and-forth.
8 Rectangle gears
Another interesting mechanism with no real application, this trio of interlocking pieces is a rectangular version of a mathematical phenomenon called"Borromean rings." It's also a sequence of three identical gears that can move when they're all connected, which isn't usually the case. A fun little curiosity, but they don't serve a purpose other than just being fun to fiddle with.
9 Cube gears in a gyroscope thing
This 3D-printable rig puts a cube of gears like the one we saw above inside another set of gears that spins some concentric circles around them like some crazy gyroscope. Another mostly useless setup, but a neat one that looks like it might rip a hole in spacetime if you got it spinning fast enough.
10 Donut gears
Yet another art piece, this system of gears includes three inseparable and interconnected donut-shaped guys, all powered by a single corkscrew spindle that juts up through the center of the whole thing. Not a lot of practical application here, but it's a fun little desk ornament.
11 "Magic" worm gears
Another invention of Oskar van Deventer, these strange worm-like gears have a hidden superpower. When oriented one way, the outside two spin in the same direction while the middle one spins in the opposite direction, like a normal trio of gears. But when you flip them around just right, all three can interlock and spin in the same direction. How? Well, it's best to let the master explain:
12 Bonus gear montage!
This excerpt of from a 1930 film by Ralph Steiner called "Mechanical Principles" shows off a whole menagerie of weird and unusual gears, but without any real context. So if you can stand the mystery of what most of these are for, enjoy!
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Google Testing Password Free Login (With No Password)
Google has begun testing a new two-factor login system for its online accounts that uses only an email address and an authentication app on your Android device.
The details of the test were revealed by Reddit user Rohit Paul, who's produced slides showing the entire process. In its current form, it's a little unwieldy.
To log in to your Google account in a web browser, you enter your email address as normal. A screen then displays a number and prompts you to use your phone to sign in by pulling down the notification bar and tapping the sign-in notification. The app will ask if you're trying to sign in from a computer and then ask you to select the number that you saw on your browser screen from a choice of three buttons.
Google isn't the first major cloud service provider to move towards a password-free login system. Earlier this year, Yahoo announced that it would be rolling out its Account Key, which send a push notification to the Yahoo app on a user's phone in order to approve a browser login.
The Android Police blog has distributed a copy of the test invitation email, where Google goes into more detail about how the system copes with contingencies.
The email makes it clear that, even if you don't have your phone, "you can still use your password. When you go to sign in, just click the link 'Use your password instead' at the bottom of the page" and says that "if Google ever notices something suspicious about how you're signing in, we might ask you to enter your password."
Meet robot Spencer who will make sure you don't miss your flight
Meet robot Spencer who will make sure you don't miss your flight. A new stately looking robot with a friendly but unstirring 'face' has been developed to help lost passengers find their way around a busy airport.
The robot will be tested over the course of one week, starting tomorrow, at Amsterdam's Schiphol International Airport, researchers said. "Navigating an airport is challenging, there is a lot of glass and a constantly changing environment in terms of temporary obstructions, such as parked luggage trolleys and people everywhere," said Achim Lilienthal, professor of computer science and project leader of Orebro University's contribution to the research project.Meet the robot designed to make sure you don't miss your flight