Three Dyson Inventions You'll Never See In Stores

Article by Megan Wollerton via CNET

Dyson just recently announced plans to expand beyond its trademark vacuums, but it turns out that the brand has been working on non-vacuum prototypes all along.

Dyson's DC41 Animal Complete vacuum cleaner.

 - Colin West McDonald/CNET

Dyson, the British luxury small appliance manufacturer, is best known for the colorful cyclonic filters it uses on its vacuum cleaners. But it wants the world to know it's been working on other kinds of products, too, revealing three never-before-seen prototypes to show off its innovation expertise.

Is it coincidental timing that Dyson is offering up this broader view of its R&D operations, less than 24 hours before news of an anticipated expansion by Apple into smart home tech? The projects listed here aren't exact corollaries to, say, a set of smart light bulbs, but as Google, Facebook, and other tech companies start expanding their horizons, why not one more?

James Dyson, the company's founder, famously went through thousands of vacuum prototypes (5,127, to be exact) to perfect his vision before bringing it to production. Today, he employs teams of scientists and engineers who continue to develop products within the industry, but the company has been building all sorts of other concepts for years now, too -- many of which have nothing to do with vacuums or its other high-end retail items.

James Dyson wearing the Dyson Halo N066 augmented reality headset.

Dyson Halo N066 smart glasses and watch

The N066 was a full-color 3D augmented reality headset that Dyson started working on in 2001. It projected a 10-inch display about 1 meter (3.3 feet) in front of you and let you select among a list of applications. Sound familiar?

The headset relied on a pocket-sized computer to give you information about things in your immediate area. Through audio and visual prompts, it helped wearers perform tasks, like reading emails. A virtual keyboard also allowed you to write emails on any surface.

You could disconnect the portable computer, dock it, and use it as a desktop computer of sorts.

The controller is another hardware component of N066. It was designed to be worn on the wrist like a watch and worked like a laptop pointing stick so you could move the virtual cursor across the virtual display.

The Dyson Halo was in development for three years before the project was stalled. The team of engineers were asked to focus on bringing the brand's existing product categories to the US instead. However, tech from N066 is being used in more recent projects.

The Dyson Diesel Trap X007

Dyson Diesel Trap X007 engine filter

Another Dyson prototype was inspired by the brand's signature cyclonic vacuum filters. Since the cyclone technology is used to remove allergens and other harmful particles from your floors, Dyson decided to apply the same theory to diesel fuel engines. The idea was that it would help filter out more of the hazardous environmental pollutants that diesel engines expel.

Early versions of X007 relied on cyclone tech, but needed too much energy to run properly. Several iterations later and Dyson had a working prototype. Dyson claims that it had a hard time getting people interested in this product -- as manufacturers were more interested in ceramic filters -- and stopped developing the X007.

The Dyson Digital Motor V4HF

Dyson Digital Motor V4HF

The goal of this project was twofold: to develop a digital motor for a fuel cell and to simultaneously decrease its size and increase its performance efficiency. Ten engineers worked on the digital motor project for three years. Eventually, the team came up with V4HF.

According to Dyson, this small, lightweight motor did improve efficiency and increase power density. It also made the notoriously slow fuel cell start-up time nearly three times faster. While this prototype hasn't shown up anywhere yet, Dyson is still considering possible applications for V4HF.

Earlier this year, we reported on Dyson's $8 million investment in a robotics research lab and its plans for a large-scale $420 million R&D build-out expansion at its headquarters in Wiltshire, UK. Growing its R&D branch will give Dyson the opportunity to focus even more attention on its side projects. And while we haven't heard specifics just yet, Dyson decided to excite our anticipation by sharing a few of its pre-R&D-expansion concepts. These three never-before-seen Dyson prototypes didn't advance beyond the concept stage, but might just give us an idea of what to expect from the vacuum-maker-turned-tech-innovator in the future.

TECHNOLOGY - NEXT GEN ULTRASOUND MOBILE GESTURES

Touchless gestures like scrolling and advancing a photo or music track are going to get a lot more interesting, according to Elliptic Labs, seen at CES 2014.

LAS VEGAS -- Waving your hand over a phone or tablet instead of touching the screen is cool in theory, but often jerky or temperamental in practice. Elliptic Labs is rewriting the rules of touch-free gestures using the sense of sound.


When you turn on gesture control, ultrasonic speakers begin emitting sound waves above 20kHz, outside the range of human hearing. These waves hit your hand, then bounce back to the listening microphones. From there, software turns signals into action.
Touchless inputs generally use camera optics or infrared to get their gestural commands, which means you need to be fairly close to the screen in order to trigger the action, and fairly precise. The use of sound waves, however, mean you'll have a much larger field of action to work with, and the presence or lack of light won't make a difference at all.



Elliptic Labs says it can give device-makers up to 180 degrees of sensitivity, which means you can wag your fingers and hands all around the device, and be inches away from the screen. There is such a thing as too much sensitivity, however, but OEMs can restrain and fine-tune the parameters so users get fewer unintended results, a must for people who talk with their hands.

Even with a more constrained field of motion, sound waves allow for more elaborate gestures. Spinning your hand up or down could control volume, for example, and spinning to the side could launch another action.
Another advantage? These integrated ultrasound speakers are low power, which means they'll sip at your battery stores rather than gulp.

Elliptic Labs unveiled its demo smartphone and tablet at CEATEC in Japan this past October and promises that it's actively working with device-makers to incorporate the technology in 2014. Since the Samsung Galaxy S4 was the demo smartphone, the forthcoming flagship Samsung Galaxy S5 could very well be a debut device.













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