Gizmodo: shaking

NASA Proposes High-Tech Fix for Shaking Moon Rocket: Springs

Kit Eaton — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:55:00 EDT

Development of NASA's Ares Moon rockets continues apace, despite criticisms from an team designing an alternative. Now NASA engineers have announced how they're going to deal with a potentially serious vibration problem in the crew-launched Ares I: springs.

During the development and early testing of the smaller Ares I rocket, there've been fears that uneven fuel burning in the motor could lead to high-g shaking when in flight. If the shaking builds to a high enough intensity, it could be deadly to both the crew and vehicle.

So Ares Is will have an adaptive damping system built into the rocket base: essentially spring-mounted weights, with smart springs that can be adjusted so the system compensates for severe vibrations—a little like some anti-earthquake systems employed in modern buildings.

Apparently the design team has enough margin in the power-weight ratio of the rocket's current configuration to accommodate the extra safety equipment. "I'm comfortable that they'll be able to absorb the mass impact that these things imply, with no problem," said the Constellation program manager. Though whether or not this adds more delays to the development of the rockets remains to be seen. [New Scientist]

ShakeSMS Lets You Shake Your Nokia to Read Text Messages

Jason Chen — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:30:48 EST

Shaking a phone to read text messages is as intuitive as swiping your finger across the screen to unlock it, but once you're trained it becomes second nature. In this case, ShakeSMS is an app for Nokia phones that lets you jostle your phone to view an incoming SMS. Jigger it again to go back to the home screen. That's pretty much all the app does, but it does it well. [ShakeSMS via Phonemag]

Kinetic Mobile Phone Patents Convert Coffee to Battery Power via You

Jason Chen — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 19:00:01 EST

Similar to these cellphone concepts, this kinetic phone patent allows cellphones to be charged by movement. Sure, kinetic recharging is great for watches, where power consumption is low, but cellphones? Sounds iffy.

We're not sure that a day's worth of jostling around in your pants will get you more than a few minutes of extra talk time, but sometimes that's enough. – Jason Chen

Kinetic powered mobile phone patented [Mad4mobilephones via PocketPicks via Textually]

The Die is Cast: LED Shaking Dice Kit

Charlie White — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 13:58:27 EDT

If you're sick and tired of those damned analog dice, now you can build your own up-to-date dice for the mid-00's with the LED Shaking Dice Kit. It's a $15 set of parts that includes all the components you need to assemble a single die (get two for some real dice throwing).

Shake this assembled contraption, and it flashes its lights and then displays a number of lit LEDs that may or may not be random. Good luck finding an opponent who doesn't think these things are hackable. Now exactly what was wrong with the old-fashioned kind of dice? – Charlie White

Product Page [Think Geek, via Sci Fi Tech]