The first time you see quantum levitation, it's hard not to be blown away. As Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." The Internet, as it turns out, is quick to remind us of this on a daily basis.
The "Japan Institute of Science and Technology" has more directly targeted people like you and me with its work, which brings the concept of futuristic racing series Wipeout to life on a miniature scale. However, the presentation and lack of details surrounding this project make me skeptical that it's legitimate, despite the seemingly magical nature of quantum levitation.
Conceptually, I'm satisfied with this little setup, even if it isn't wholly on the level. I'd buy one. (Assuming it was for real, of course.)
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1) Science is real, but they are using the wrong equipment to cool the car, that's a CO2 canister
2) Controls are wrong. The cars should levitate but then they need to be pushed manually (by hand) to go anywhere
and best of all
3) check out 1:14 ish - Car goes BEHIND the track wall, cloud of vapor emitted from car goes IN FRONT of the track wall
I'm not sure if it's fake, I mean Japan's had http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JR%E2%80%93Maglev for a while now, applying that in miniaturisation seems a pretty logical step (if the vid's indeed legit). Rgardless- looks pretty durn neat.
I kind of want to believe it was legit, but there's still the nagging bit about all the other suspension experiments I've seen using disc shapes, which those ships clearly are not. :/
One day, man. Same day they figure out how to make the quake weapon from the game feasible.
I don't see how this is interesting; even if it weren't fake. Can someone recommend a quality video game news site/blog? Destructoid has never been good, but at least it was tolerable. This last year or two has brought it down to a new low. I can't even take it anymore!
It isn't fake, its quantum locking using superconductors. Look it up. Shit is awesome. They are using liquid nitrogen to cool the car to get the effect.
Apart from the mistake Fashtas pointed out, the vapor is an obvious particle effect anyway. Nothing really comes out in little spherical puffs like that. And if we're supposed to believe the vapor is what's propelling these things, then the near-instant speed changes when the guy is playing with the knob at 0:48 are impossible. Also the quality of the lighting on the model ships in the guy's hand is inconstant with the moving ones.
@toadie
Maglev trains can't use multiple lanes like that. If you scroll down the page you linked it shows how they work. The quantum levitation these guys claim to be using is totally different.
It could entirely be fake (There are points where it almost does look it), however the research that has been put into superconductors (used often for electromagnets) use liquid nitrogen to cool the unit. A friend of mine who's PhD is on room temperature super conductors has used similar research to levitate small objects and have them move rail like objects. Through the use of magnets both attracting and repelling the cars they could have them travel the track like that.
I sincerely hope you mean that, hpv. Clearly, you aren't adequately entertained by us, and haven't been for a long time.
Please, by all means, bring your cynicism to another website. Try not to get banned and come back here. If the majority of your comments didn't try SO hard to be contrarian or belittle, perhaps we would've listened to your feedback.
I know it's far easier to be a negative prick online than neutral or even slightly positive, but come on. You don't make that your persona. And you certainly don't expect a website/company/whoever to exist only to serve you personally.
I should have done a little more research before making assumptions. The vapor isn't for propulsion but cooling like Rampart said up there. Looks like the movement could be accurate but the other stuff holds. It's still a fake, but a better one than I initially believed.
Also, how could anyone think this is real? I was almost ready to believe it might be something like those tops that levitate on a magnetic base until I saw the ships in motion and I literally almost did a spit take from laughter.
That would be good CG for some dude working out of his basement but it doesn't look remotely real.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a virus from the papillomavirus family that is capable of infecting humans. Like all papillomaviruses, HPVs establish productive infections only in keratinocytes of the skin or mucous membranes. While the majority of the nearly 200 known types of HPV cause no symptoms in most people, some types can cause warts (verrucae), while others can – in a minority of cases – lead to cancers of the cervix, vulva, vagina, and anus (in women) or cancers of the anus and penis[1] (in men). It can also cause cancers of the head and neck (tongue, tonsils and throat).[1] Recently, HPV has been linked with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.[2]
More than 30 to 40 types of HPV are typically transmitted through sexual contact and infect the anogenital region. Some sexually transmitted HPV types may cause genital warts. Persistent infection with "high-risk" HPV types — different from the ones that cause skin warts — may progress to precancerous lesions and invasive cancer.[3] HPV infection is a cause of nearly all cases of cervical cancer.[4] However, most infections with these types do not cause disease.
Most HPV infections in young females are temporary and have little long-term significance. Seventy percent of infections are gone in 1 year and ninety percent in 2 years.[5] However, when the infection persists — in 5% to 10% of infected women — there is high risk of developing precancerous lesions of the cervix, which can progress to invasive cervical cancer. This process usually takes 10–15 years, providing many opportunities for detection and treatment of the pre-cancerous lesion. Progression to invasive cancer can be almost always prevented when standard prevention strategies are applied, but the lesions still cause considerable burden necessitating preventive surgeries, which do in many cases involve loss of fertility.
In more developed countries, cervical screening using a Papanicolaou (Pap) test or liquid-based cytology is used to detect abnormal cells that may develop into cancer. If abnormal cells are found, women are invited to have a colposcopy. During a colposcopic inspection, biopsies can be taken and abnormal areas can be removed with a simple procedure, typically with a cauterizing loop or, more commonly in the developing world — by freezing (cryotherapy). Treating abnormal cells in this way can prevent them from developing into cervical cancer.
Pap smears have reduced the incidence and fatalities of cervical cancer in the developed world, but even so there were 11,000 cases and 3,900 deaths in the U.S. in 2008. Cervical cancer has substantial mortality in resource-poor areas; worldwide, there are an estimated 490,000 cases and 270,000 deaths each year.[6][7]
HPV vaccines (Cervarix and Gardasil), which prevent infection with the HPV types (16 and 18) that cause 70% of cervical cancer, may lead to further decreases.[6][8]
I'm sorry to sound like an ass here; but this is so obviously CGI that I find it hilarious anyone even considers the fact that it might be real.
The track is magically made out of easily-rendered objects, the camera moves like a camera would in a CG environment, and (as another user pointed out prior to me)around 1:14 the render object of the red vehicle's smoke trail goes over the track edge instead of behind it like the car.
This is CG I would expect from a commercial advertisement's budget, and the name Wipeout Quantum just SCREAMS the next Wipeout's title.
Wow after watching g this I can't believe anyone thought it was real in the first place...the cars in motion look NOTHING like the ones shown for all of two microseconds in the close up on the super-scientific gloved hand...the vapor trail, especially at the very beginning is a complete joke, as is the shot which "demonstrates" that the super-scientific scientists are "controlling" the vehicles...
I don't argue with the technology or even this supposed application of it- the former has been demonstrated and the latter is easily imaginable, but this video is a bad joke or a bad advertisement, but probably both.
@hpv I think 4chan might suit you a little more.
Please leave, you are a blight among an amazing site & community. Do us all a favour and get the fuck outta here.
All an ad agency pitching for Sony has to say is- "We understand that people won't accept your bullshit anymore". That's it. That's a very large pitch completely sold.
Why don't you start your own gaming blog so you can write with all the grammatical accuracy you can muster. Also, you can write the articles YOU want to read and then you can sit there all by yourself and be happy for the rest of your life!
The only way I'd see this as working is if there were little magnets underneath the track that are being controlled by the knob. You move the magnets after "quantum locking" the Wipeout cars above them.
I'm basing this theory off of literally five minutes of research, so don't get snippy if it is wrong for some simple reason.
Until they come out and say it's fake or describe exactly how it was achieved, I'll merely look at the video as a cool concept.
The technology is absolutly real, but the same can not be said for the video.
In other news, did you know that you can actually buy lab coats for under $20 on amazon?
Didn't think it was possible to gain the ire of every Editor on Destructoid but the STD seems to have done it. Also, I believe this is legit. Seen enough physics labs to believe it.
Even the track is CGI, light doesn't work like that (shadows between the border and the tracks? They're way too big to be real, that's one pitfall of ambient occlusion).
While I have seen firsthand experiments in previous physics classes demonstrating very similar phenomenon, there is an element of weirdness to this video. It looks a just a tad too altered in certain ways, but I could be entirely wrong. However, the smoke and the motion look a bit off at times.
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Contest:
8:00 PM on 01.03.2012 | 
1) Science is real, but they are using the wrong equipment to cool the car, that's a CO2 canister
2) Controls are wrong. The cars should levitate but then they need to be pushed manually (by hand) to go anywhere
and best of all
3) check out 1:14 ish - Car goes BEHIND the track wall, cloud of vapor emitted from car goes IN FRONT of the track wall
One day, man. Same day they figure out how to make the quake weapon from the game feasible.
Apart from the mistake Fashtas pointed out, the vapor is an obvious particle effect anyway. Nothing really comes out in little spherical puffs like that. And if we're supposed to believe the vapor is what's propelling these things, then the near-instant speed changes when the guy is playing with the knob at 0:48 are impossible. Also the quality of the lighting on the model ships in the guy's hand is inconstant with the moving ones.
@toadie
Maglev trains can't use multiple lanes like that. If you scroll down the page you linked it shows how they work. The quantum levitation these guys claim to be using is totally different.
You know you can choose which articles to read, right? As in, you don't have to click on articles that don't interest you.
Video looks fake to me. My guess would be CG cars move-matched to the track. Looks nice though, whoever is behind it did a good job.
Please, by all means, bring your cynicism to another website. Try not to get banned and come back here. If the majority of your comments didn't try SO hard to be contrarian or belittle, perhaps we would've listened to your feedback.
I know it's far easier to be a negative prick online than neutral or even slightly positive, but come on. You don't make that your persona. And you certainly don't expect a website/company/whoever to exist only to serve you personally.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
Also, how could anyone think this is real? I was almost ready to believe it might be something like those tops that levitate on a magnetic base until I saw the ships in motion and I literally almost did a spit take from laughter.
That would be good CG for some dude working out of his basement but it doesn't look remotely real.
More than 30 to 40 types of HPV are typically transmitted through sexual contact and infect the anogenital region. Some sexually transmitted HPV types may cause genital warts. Persistent infection with "high-risk" HPV types — different from the ones that cause skin warts — may progress to precancerous lesions and invasive cancer.[3] HPV infection is a cause of nearly all cases of cervical cancer.[4] However, most infections with these types do not cause disease.
Most HPV infections in young females are temporary and have little long-term significance. Seventy percent of infections are gone in 1 year and ninety percent in 2 years.[5] However, when the infection persists — in 5% to 10% of infected women — there is high risk of developing precancerous lesions of the cervix, which can progress to invasive cervical cancer. This process usually takes 10–15 years, providing many opportunities for detection and treatment of the pre-cancerous lesion. Progression to invasive cancer can be almost always prevented when standard prevention strategies are applied, but the lesions still cause considerable burden necessitating preventive surgeries, which do in many cases involve loss of fertility.
In more developed countries, cervical screening using a Papanicolaou (Pap) test or liquid-based cytology is used to detect abnormal cells that may develop into cancer. If abnormal cells are found, women are invited to have a colposcopy. During a colposcopic inspection, biopsies can be taken and abnormal areas can be removed with a simple procedure, typically with a cauterizing loop or, more commonly in the developing world — by freezing (cryotherapy). Treating abnormal cells in this way can prevent them from developing into cervical cancer.
Pap smears have reduced the incidence and fatalities of cervical cancer in the developed world, but even so there were 11,000 cases and 3,900 deaths in the U.S. in 2008. Cervical cancer has substantial mortality in resource-poor areas; worldwide, there are an estimated 490,000 cases and 270,000 deaths each year.[6][7]
HPV vaccines (Cervarix and Gardasil), which prevent infection with the HPV types (16 and 18) that cause 70% of cervical cancer, may lead to further decreases.[6][8]
Thanks a lot. /leavessiteforever /dies
kotaku.com
The track is magically made out of easily-rendered objects, the camera moves like a camera would in a CG environment, and (as another user pointed out prior to me)around 1:14 the render object of the red vehicle's smoke trail goes over the track edge instead of behind it like the car.
This is CG I would expect from a commercial advertisement's budget, and the name Wipeout Quantum just SCREAMS the next Wipeout's title.
I don't argue with the technology or even this supposed application of it- the former has been demonstrated and the latter is easily imaginable, but this video is a bad joke or a bad advertisement, but probably both.
Please leave, you are a blight among an amazing site & community. Do us all a favour and get the fuck outta here.
Also lolfake
Sooner or later Japan will have proof of concept for genetically-altered organism tentacle rape and affinity for schoolgirl uniforms.
HORY SHET, TENTAKURU REYPU IS LEAR! AND SCHOORGIRR UNIFOLMS ALL A BEACON!
And IT WILL BE GLORIOUS.
Up until they show the first male subject in their studies.
Why don't you start your own gaming blog so you can write with all the grammatical accuracy you can muster. Also, you can write the articles YOU want to read and then you can sit there all by yourself and be happy for the rest of your life!
I'm basing this theory off of literally five minutes of research, so don't get snippy if it is wrong for some simple reason.
Until they come out and say it's fake or describe exactly how it was achieved, I'll merely look at the video as a cool concept.
The ships wouldn't necessarily need to be pushed by hand. They could probably be anchored to contemporary slot cars, hidden by another layer of track.
In other news, did you know that you can actually buy lab coats for under $20 on amazon?
The process actually allows locking regardless of position so you could flip the track upside down and it would still work.