In 1992, Litos et al. patented their bio-mimic throw-in-the-air toy called the ‘Autorotative Flyer’. It might not occur to everyone that the passive toy could be updated, and militarized, with the addition of a supersonic jet pack. But occur it did to high-tech weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin Inc. which has just received a US patent […]
Tag: weapons
How to Kill People
“How to Kill People” is a TV documentary made in 1960. The underlying theme: how to design weapons that kill people, but — as the occasionally-coughing on-camera host George Nelson, himself an influential product designer, explains — does not murder them. The passing years have added blurrgh-blurrgh-blurrghiness to the sound track: (HT Paola Antonelli) BONUS […]
Bubble Weapons: one way to sink a ship
The next time you hear the phrase : “You can’t sink a battleship by blowing bubbles at it.” you’ll be able, with some degree of confidence, to inform the speaker that they’re probably wrong. A new US patent issued on Feb 12th 2013, describes what the inventors call a Bubble Weapons System. Fanciful though it […]
I ‘Heart’ Hunter-Killer Nuke Subs
A giant fading heart might not be the first graphical device to spring to mind if you were tasked with publicly profiling the latest generation of nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines – but the world’s number two ‘defence contractor’, the UK’s BAE Systems, consider it appropriate – having published just such a design in the November 2012 […]
