Prototype

Shifty Blades
Shape-shifting rotor blades could boost helicopters' flight ranges and payload capacities. Designed by researchers at the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the Naval Air Systems Command, and Boeing, a new "torsional actuator" twists a rotor blade along its length like someone trying to pop ice cubes out of tray. The angle of rotation is no greater than two degrees in either direction, but the resulting shape change can customize the blade's aerodynamics for either hovering or flying forward. Installed in the blade near the rotor hub, the actuator has a core made of NiTinol, a nickel-titanium alloy that deforms when subjected to an electric current. This deformation rotates a rod running through the blade; the rod in turn torques the blade. Calculations indicate that using such a blade instead of a fixed-shape blade could increase helicopters' payload capacities by 40 percent. The actuator project is scheduled to be completed in 2008, after which the device could be retrofitted into existing vehicles.

Pixel Perfect
Get too close to your TV screen, and you'll notice that each of its dots, or pixels, contains a trio of vertical stripes or "subpixels" colored red, green, and blue, with narrow black areas between them. This arrangement dates from the dawn of color television but has persisted into the age of advanced liquid-crystal-display computer monitors. A Cupertino, CA, startup called ClairVoyante thinks it's time to mix things up -- and believes the result will be brighter, cheaper displays. Red, green, and blue together make white, but to make a screen's whites even whiter, ClairVoyante's designers are adding a white subpixel to the mix (top). At the same time, they're making each subpixel wider, so that a pair of subpixels will take up the same space as three conventional subpixels (bottom). That means there's less black space overall; the combination of white subpixels and the new geometry almost doubles a screen's brightness. It also cuts manufacturing costs, since the design requires only two-thirds as many "source drivers," the electronic devices at the top edge of a screen that control each column of subpixels. ClairVoyante expects Asian manufacturers such as Samsung to launch the first "RGBW" devices -- probably small-screen gadgets such as cell phones -- in 2006.