Posts Tagged ‘Finland’
Finland’s All-Electric Race Car Charges in Just 10 Minutes
The RaceAbout is slated to compete for the $10 million Progressive Automotive X-Prize starting in April
The four-wheel drive RaceAbout features a 124-mile (200-km) range and can fully charge in just 10 minutes. Its chassis also weighs half as much as similar-sized cars, in part because the direct-drive electric motor eliminates heavy gearboxes. The vehicle also incorporated other lightweight materials and technologies.
RaceAbout came out of the Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, but also received help from many Finnish companies. It's just one of 44 teams scheduled to compete in a "shakedown stage" of the X-Prize at the Michigan International Speedway this April.
A final winner will emerge in September for having developed the best production-capable electric vehicle that exceeds 100 MPG. But anyone tired of just being a spectator can already place orders for that get to 60 MPH in five seconds.
[ via ]
Finland Launching National Pilot Program To Open and Scan All Snail Mail
Is online delivery a viable future for inconvenient old paper mail?
In the program, the volunteers will have images of all their letters viewable on a computer or phone, and then optionally physically delivered later on. The postman will still arrive twice a week to deliver the scanned letters, as well as any packages. Additionally, the postal service will filter out junk mail for the volunteers, essentially adding a spam filter to physical mail.
Itella, the state-owned company that operates Finland's postal service, has vowed that employees will not read the letters, that all sorting and opening will occur in specially secured facilities, and that employees will sign strict confidentiality agreements. 126 families and 20 businesses have already signed up for the service, which will begin on April 12th.
Itella stresses this program is only an experiment designed to discover what types of snail-mail the Finnish people feel comfortable receiving in this fashion. However, despite the small size, experimental nature, and high security of the program, some Finish citizens have already begun drawing comparisons between Itella and Communist-regime security services.
A similar service, , already operates commercially in the US, and claims to serve tens of thousands of users. Whether Itella can replicate Earth Class Mail's success remains to be seen. But given the high level of technical savvy amongst the Finnish population, as well that citizenry's more robust trust in the responsibility of their government, Itella's scanning program may very well be the future of mail.
[]
Lightweight Ceramic Coatings Based on Abalone Shells Could Form Tough Armor for Airplanes
The nacre material that protects abalone shells uses interconnected plates of very hard material that is prone to shattering, but combines that with softer yet durable material to create the shatterproof finish. Researchers have long sought to mimic that enviable combo with synthetic materials.
Researchers at the Helsinki University of Science and Technology mixed disc-shaped clay platelets with a soft polymer, polyvinyl alcohol, and water, which created a slurry that could either become paper or paint. The resulting lightweight armor resembles nacre with a structure consisting of nanoclay discs stacked in rows similar to plates in a cupboard, Technology Review notes.
Such material acts as a superb reinforcing armor that adds very little extra weight, but cannot yet replace steel as the main structural support for building beams or engine turbines. But there's an additional plus from the current version, because it shrugs off the heat and fire from flamethrowers with ease.
Other denizens of the deep have also served as -- a deep-sea snail's three-layer shell could be adapted for flak jackets, helmets and Arctic pipelines.
[via ]