Really amazing stuff. Given a huge drop in price I could see entire cars, buildings, bridges being made this way. Add in some photoelectrics so you could "close the blinds at night". Imagine embedding colored electronic ink in it as well, instant mural for your house, augmented reality out your window, turn a cloudy London day (like today) into a sunny one. Have your Google Tech Talk follow you around the house on the adjacent walls as you get up to get a sandwich. Embedded microcameras for virtual presence in your room, the other walls becomes another place, another time.
Soon we are going to see the app store model hop off the straightjacket of our phones and into everything we can see, touch, feel. Everything around us will be programmable, customizable, downloadable. An appified world.
Key sentence: "successfully resists a huge, powerful .50 AP bullet that smashes easily through more than twice that thickness of conventional laminated glass armor"
So in reality this is a modest improvement (2x) over existing laminated glass armour for use where both thickness and resistance are critical (ie. probably for specialist military applications only)
> So in reality this is a modest improvement (2x) over existing laminated glass armour
More than 2x actually - the guy behind the glass would be dead, unlike the one behind their improved glass. I'd say this is a significant difference - they deserve some extra credit for keeping the guy behind their armor alive.
I do find the title a little misleading though, since this has nothing to do with metallic aluminum as one would expect from reading the title.
If the new stuff is the same weight by volume as conventional laminated glass, then you'd have a 50% weight savings.
If the new stuff is thinner, and lighter, then it'd be useful for applications where the current glass is too thick and/or heavy.
Also, in applications like secure windows for bank tellers and such, something thinner would probably be better aesthetically. When you're dealing with someone behind a thick sheet of glass, it puts a different tone on the interaction.
Alon is ~3.7g/cc which is about twice what ordinary glass weighs. Not sure how it compares to laminated glass. They probably use a denser glass than I'm used to for armored glass, but it's layered with other, presumably less-dense material.
Without knowing the failure points of both products I am not sure how you can make such a claim. The glass failed in this demonstration and the ALON did not. Obviously the glass needs to be even thicker (making it a ridiculous solution in most cases) and the ALON might work even if it is thinner.
"The material, aluminium oxynitride, known as AION, is four times harder than fused silica glass, 85 per cent as hard as sapphire and stable up to a temperature of 1,200C."
From the comments, it seems not many people got the reference. That's a shame, as it means people are either not a fan of Star trek (blasphemy), or are not old enough to get the reference, which makes me feel antiquated.
Those sites that are completely blacked out, like makezine and Wikipedia, are doing exactly what many accuse DRM of doing. Annoying their users while producing no real benefit. Google's and HN's methods are better.
ADDED: Most of them don't particularly matter to me, I rarely use Wikipedia, for example. The one that has annoyed me is the Internet Archive blackout - www.archive.org
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[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 104 ms ] threadSoon we are going to see the app store model hop off the straightjacket of our phones and into everything we can see, touch, feel. Everything around us will be programmable, customizable, downloadable. An appified world.
So in reality this is a modest improvement (2x) over existing laminated glass armour for use where both thickness and resistance are critical (ie. probably for specialist military applications only)
More than 2x actually - the guy behind the glass would be dead, unlike the one behind their improved glass. I'd say this is a significant difference - they deserve some extra credit for keeping the guy behind their armor alive.
I do find the title a little misleading though, since this has nothing to do with metallic aluminum as one would expect from reading the title.
I think what twelvechairs meant is that you have to buy (at least) twice as much of the old stuff to keep the guy alive.
If the new stuff is the same weight by volume as conventional laminated glass, then you'd have a 50% weight savings.
If the new stuff is thinner, and lighter, then it'd be useful for applications where the current glass is too thick and/or heavy.
Also, in applications like secure windows for bank tellers and such, something thinner would probably be better aesthetically. When you're dealing with someone behind a thick sheet of glass, it puts a different tone on the interaction.
Quote from the Daily Mail article linked above.
This material is not metallic transparent aluminum. It is a transparent aluminum ceramic.
A lot of ceramics are made (in part) of aluminum. I think that this is interesting because it's transparent.
Maybe they can do a followup on transparent silicon next: this silicon dioxide stuff is super clear!
I think it comes up in the same scene where Scotty is flustered because the 1980's computer doesn't respond to voice commands...
Which is, incidentally, a Mac Plus.
Scotty picks up mouse, speaks to it
"Hello computer..."
From the comments, it seems not many people got the reference. That's a shame, as it means people are either not a fan of Star trek (blasphemy), or are not old enough to get the reference, which makes me feel antiquated.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/macbook-gun-shot-israel-sec...
ADDED: Most of them don't particularly matter to me, I rarely use Wikipedia, for example. The one that has annoyed me is the Internet Archive blackout - www.archive.org
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2088257/Star-...
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_oxynitride