Recently the MagQuest competition on improving the measuring of the Earth’s magnetic field announced that the contestants in the final phase have now moved on to launching their satellites within the near future. The goal here is to create a much improved World Magnetic Model (WMM), which is used by the World Geodetic System (WGS). […]
Your shiny new personal electronic device is likely to be designed solely as an app platform to run the products of faceless corporations, so the story goes, and therefore has an ever smaller hacking potential. Perhaps that view is needlessly pessimistic, because here’s [JP3141] with an example that goes against the grain. It’s an Apple […]
Diamonds are nearly perfect crystals, but not totally perfect. The defects in these crystals give the stones their characteristic colors. But one type of defect, the NV — nitrogen-vacancy — center, can hold a particular spin, and you can change that spin with the correct application of energy. [Asianometry] explains why this is important in […]
There are moments when current measurement is required on conductors that can’t be broken to insert a series resistor, nor encircled with a current transformer. These measurements require a completely non-invasive technique, and to satisfy that demand there are commercial magnetometer current probes. These probes are however not for the light of wallet, so [ensgoldmine] […]
Having a motorized gate on your driveway is great, but only if there’s an easy way to trigger it. [Andrew] says the gate at his parent’s place could only be controlled by manually pushing a button on the panel or with a dinky remote that didn’t have nearly the range they wanted. So he decided […]