Some misc. cool tech stories today:
A real hoverboard built with high-temperature superconductors and flying above a special track with magnets: Lexus maglev hoverboard: 20 minutes of magic in a skatepark – ExtremeTech
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A big advantage of an electric car is that you can top off the battery every night with a garage charger. Of course, that means you have to remember to plug it in every evening. Tesla Motors shows off a prototype robotic system to automatically connect a charger to a Tesla whenever it is parked in the garage:
Elon Musk on Twitter: “Tesla Snakebot autocharger prototype. Does seem kinda wrong :)”
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An engineer wins $20,000 in a challenge contest sponsored by General Fusion to solve the company’s problem of finding a way to seal the hammer and anvil system from the molten lead surrounding the cloud of plasma that will be compressed by the lead to produce nuclear fusion reactions : General Fusion Announces Winner of Crowdsourced Engineering Challenge – General Fusion
Here’s a video describing the General Fusion system, which Jeff Bezos and other notables have invested in: