Dragon's Eye News

For the latest Holography Forum contest I made a hologram of Snoopy and Woodstock.

I'd originally planned for the final hologram to be a bit different but I'm happy with what I've got.

Read on for the making of Friends.

Through October 6th, 2006.

Upon entering the Davis Art Gallery, the panes of glass mounted on stands and hanging from the wall seem transparent, as if you could see the entire exhibit by peering through a single pane.

But with a few steps forward, a sudden, silent firework explodes, flooding your retina with colored lights that seem to jump from the glass sheet. By moving your head and feet, a pattern of circles and triangles form and continue to alter as you change your vantage point.

It's Video Friday!

More silliness with a cat chasing a laser dot, again at the now defunct Celtic Store in Dallas.

Have a great weekend.

According to uni-protokolle.de:

A group of physicists led by Prof. Sergej Demokritov from the Institute of Applied Physics, University of Münster, in cooperation with physicists from Kaiserslautern University of Technology (Germany), Oakland University (USA), and Kiev University (Ukraine) has recently found a tricky way to enhance the number of magnons in the gas significantly by exciting additional magnons using microwaves. Thus, the number of magnons in the gas could be increased considerably. Although the additional magnons exist only during one millionth of a second, the scientists were able to investigate the gas behaviour using a laser probe beam technique. Thus, the scientists from Münster who are performing their work in the Münster Center for Nonlinear Science, have succeeded to show that additional magnons in fact initiate the condensation of magnons in a collective quantum state even at room temperature, as it was predicted by A. Einstein. A report on this work has been recently published in Nature.

Alright, so China's already aggressive in a number of ways.

Now they're getting into the act by testing their laser systems on spy satellites.

According to Defense News:

China has fired high-power lasers at U.S. spy satellites flying over its territory in what experts see as a test of Chinese ability to blind the spacecraft, according to sources.

Given that China is the current leader in cheap lasers, I wonder what kind of power they're holding back for military use.

If you keep looking over the fence at you neighbor’s back yard, you’re going to get poked in the eye, so it’s not surprising that China might be worried about U.S. forces stationed on their doorstep

Related to the entry I made back on June 5, it's apparently becoming increasingly easier for people to steal your information while you're shopping on insecure sites.

The Washington Post has a new article and related blog entry available showing just how easy it is for scammers to hack into some sites and retrieve your credit card information.

Be careful out there.

Maldon Meehan & Ronan Regan will be in the Plano, TX area Thursday, October 19th and have offered to teach a workshop on the Connemara Set and steps that go with it. If you haven't seen set dancing and the fancy footwork that can be added to spice it up, take a look at this video showing some of the Clare Plain set.

You won't be expected to dance like that by the end of the workshop, but you will learn the figures in the Connemara Set and basics of the steps that go with it. It's a lively and quite popular set.

The location for the workshop has not yet been determined and depends entirely on how many people can attend and what studios are available. It will most likely be held in the Plano area. The workshop will run from 7:00 - 9:00pm and will cost $15 per person.

If you are interested and can plan to attend the workshop please contact us as soon as possible so we can determine how much space we'll need. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn a fun dance from two talented instructors; don't miss it!

If you know someone who might be interested in this workshop, please pass the word on.

Researchers at St Andrews University have developed a method of using a femtosecond laser to pierce cell walls to allow drugs and DNA to enter the cell. The cell is able to heal itself but not before material is assimilated into the cell.

The art of using a laser to make a hole or pore in a cell membrane is called photoporation. Such a procedure creates an opportunity for DNA to enter the cell before the pore closes and the cell heals itself. If the DNA is then transcribed and translated into a protein, the process is known as optical transfection

Continue reading "Cell piercing with lasers"

Intel and UCSB have developed a hybrid silicon laser and both emits and guides light. This could have wide-ranging effects on the telecommunications and computer industry.

This breakthrough addresses one of the last major barriers to producing low-cost, high-bandwidth silicon photonics devices for use inside and around future computers and data centers.

It's pretty easy to imagine very high bandwidth connections between devices that would allow all sorts of computing extensions using less space on the desktop and without one central "box" that many of us have become used to.

Ever spun laser light in an Erlenmeyer flask? I have.

I like to think that it couldn't happen here. The fact is that cameras are on their way to becoming as common in the USA as they are in Britain. Did you know that there's one camera for every four families in Britain? Can they even go to the bog without being watched?

The Daily Mail precently osted an article on a new development in people-watching by the British government with the addition of loudspeakers that allow the watchers to start talking as well as watching.

The Mail on Sunday watched as a cyclist riding through a pedestrian area was ordered to stop.

'Would the young man on the bike please get off and walk as he is riding in a pedestrian area,' came the command.

The surprised youth stopped, and looked about. A look of horror spread across his face as he realised the voice was referring to him.

He dismounted and wheeled his bike through the crowded streets, as instructed.

Law-abiding shopper Karen Margery, 40, was shocked to hear the speakers spring into action as she walked past them.

Afterwards she said: 'It's quite scary to realise that your every move could be monitored - it really is like Big Brother.

'But Middlesbrough does have a big problem with anti-social behaviour, so it is very reassuring.'

I certainly don't have much complaint with methods that reduce crime, but the Big Brother of 1984 is definitely settling in to stay over there.

How much time will pass before the cameras start appearing in people's homes? How often do the operators, or even more likely hackers, record video from those cameras and post them on the internet? What sort of controls are in place to keep the operators from behaving as though they can dictate lawful behavior?

I also wonder how long it will take before people who live and work in high traffic areas get sick and tired of the disembodied voice interrupting their lives. It's bad enough having to listen to people going by, talking loudly on their cell phones. What's it going to be like having to listen to a government loudmouth shouting at people all day?

Continue reading "Big brother is definitely here, well, there"

I don't know what their journalistic reputation is these days but the article recently published by Rolling Stone is one that should really get everyone thinking.

And then it should get everyone mad. Republican, Democrat or Independent. Hopping MAD.

The article starts out with the simple question of "Was the 2004 election stolen?" and then makes the case that, yes, it was.

Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.

I can't possibly do it justice even in summary. Get comfy and go read the article.

How many people do you know that voted for Bush? Maybe it's just the circle I run in but I only know one person that helped put him in office.

Unfortunately the picture is of their monochrome "cigarette pack" system but Light Blue Optics has recently demonstrated their color system to the editors of Electronics Weekly.

The device uses an active LCD to modulate the three laser beams and generates several images in each color per frame to reduce the "noise" (speckle?) produced.

The image actually leaves the modulator with a narrow divergence angle which is broadened by anything up to 115 degrees by a two-lens group.

A considerable amount of number-crunching goes into driving the LCD, using algorithms developed by the firm.

These algorithms allow the image to be: pointed in any direction within its angular limits, and altered in geometry.

For example, imagining the projector like a small camera standing on a desk, the image could be computed for a vertical screen sitting on the desk, or for the desk surface in front of the projector. Both would be neat, rectangular and focused images, and no change in the optical path would be required to switch between the two.

Some pictures and video from the September 16, 2006 Denton Ceili are available in the gallery.

It was a fun ceili hosted by the Denton Celtic Dancers and played by the Lone Star Ceili Band and I'm definitely looking forward to the next one.