Monthly Archives: November 2013

The Great New York City Caverns

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The average New York City commuter thinks nothing of an hour-long commute to and from work every day. Some of us at Canopy commute even longer than that. We don’t mind, but at the same time it could always be better, and it’s hard to see any way the city is trying to improve it. However, beneath our very feet, a massive construction project is taking place in the bedrock of the island of Manhattan that will become the biggest public transportation infrastructure project in the United States.

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The East Side Access Project is the tunneling endeavor taking place 160 feet below Grand Central Terminal. The goal is to eventually connect the Long Island Railroad with Grand Central, creating much shorter commute times for some 160,000 commuters. The project is long from complete, expecting to see construction until some time in 2019, and needs to overcome some hefty obstacles before the first trains will make their way beneath the East River and into the brand new Grand Central Terminal LIRR Platform.

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The first issue facing the construction is the creation of two 1,050 foot long caverns beneath Grand Central without disturbing the daily commute of the thousands who go through every day. The self-described “stealth project” is endeavoring to be as unobtrusive as possible. The second major issue is the Northern Boulevard Crossing, where the soft earth threatened to collapse, and engineers ran coolant through the ground to freeze it in place and allow the traffic to continue above the construction. The third issue is located at the Howard Interlocking, where rail traffic can’t be stopped for construction purposes. Between construction and daily trains, the work is “like a dance.”

The East Side Access Project has its roots in 1969, but its not going to be too long before it’s going to be ready for the multitude of commuters to make their way to the city. The newest pictures from the MTA show soaring caverns and new support equipment, all showing that there is steady, amazing progress being made.

What Sparks Our Fire: The dedicated and creative methods that the MTA is using to ease the commute for thousands of New Yorkers.

Will you benefit from the completion of the East Side Access Project?

The Power of Movement

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We’ve covered devices before that power your smartphone off the grid, creating power with fire. Now, you won’t even need the fire. The Genneo Mobile Charger is an alternative power source that harnesses the energy of movement and converts it to electricity.

Like most movement-based chargers, the Genneo uses electromagnetic energy generated by the movement of a magnet through wire coils, which creates a small charge. The design is similar to a shaker flashlight, but co-founder of Genneo, Blake Isaacs, improved the functionality of that design to a point where a consistent charge can be provided, where 7 hours of movement can lead to 1 hour of talk time. This is not a huge amount of power, but for off-the-grid, non-fire sources, you really can’t do much better.

What Sparks Our Fire: Completely sustainable energy, off the grid, but WITHOUT fire. Nifty.

Do you think the charge is worth the movement?

Touching The World Around You

A few weeks ago, we talked about Disney’s new touchscreen technology, which would allow a user to feel the objects onscreen via an electric current that fools the fingers into feeling bumps and textures. Now, Disney has made another leap in haptic interfaces, creating a system that would allow the user to feel the interface in midair.

Similar to an Xbox Kinect, this is a three dimensional interface that allows you to touch simulated objects in midair. Called “Aireal”, the developers state that the device provides “interactive tactile experiences in free air,” basically blowing concentrated ring of air in the direction of the user, basically using sound waves to create the sensation of haptic interaction.

This is an entirely new way of conceiving touch-based technology. Most interfaces use actual surface to hand or surface to body technology to utilize haptics. Midair interaction is a completely untested form of interface, and it will be fascinating to see what uses this technology could have in the future.

What Sparks Our Fire: New technologies are leading us closer and closer to a fully 3-D interactive experience.

Do you see the Aireal becoming an integrated part of systems in the future?