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Science

Submission + - Laser Camera Can See Around Corners (upi.com) 1

Hugh Pickens writes: "Researchers at MIT have developed a laser camera that can "see" around corners and take pictures of a scene not in its direct line of sight. The camera system fires extremely short bursts of light that can reflect off one object, such as the open door of a room, and then off a second object inside the room before reflecting back to the first object and being captured by the camera, after which algorithms can use the information to reconstruct the hidden scene exploiting the fact that it is possible to capture light at extremely short time scales, about one quadrillionth of a second. By continuously gathering light and computing the time and distance that each pixel has traveled, the camera creates a "3D time-image" of the scene it can't directly see. "It's like having X-ray vision without the X-rays," says Professor Ramesh Raskar. "We're going around the problem rather than going through it.""

Comment Re:Comparing a Car to a Two Stroke Engine?? (Score 1) 528

Actually, nearly all lawnmowers are built on four-stroke engines. Notice how lawnmowers have separate fuel and oil tanks. Weedwackers and chain saws typically use two-stroke engines because they need to be able to run at different angles and orientations to do their jobs. These engines run on a mixture of fuel and oil, which they use simultaneously as a lubricant and a fuel. In simple four-stroke engines, the oil from the oil pan would run into the piston if the engine were tilted to extreme angles. Four-stroke engines make power 1 out of every 4 strokes, while two-stroke engines make power every other stroke. Four-strokes are generally more powerful, more efficent, and cleaner, though, because they burn a much more pure mixture of fuel and air, with very little oil contamination.

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