LabLast week, Nathan Myhrvold, founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures presented several of IV’s “malaria projects” to the audience at TED 2010. The Photonic Fence is one piece in a suite of inventions we are working on to help track, understand, detect, treat and eradicate malaria. It has captured a lot of attention and we have received many questions about how it works. In response, we wanted to share some details on the mechanics of this project.
The following video of 3ric Johanson was shot the night before our TED talk at 3 AM in a hallway of the hotel. The hotel staff were good sports despite the death rays and bug boxes.
The Photonic Fence is not for sale today. IV does not produce products, but ideas. To that end, this prototype is a proof of concept. We are looking to partner with another company or organization to make this idea a reality. So stay tuned.
You can learn more about our other malaria projects here and stay tuned to the lab blog for future updates.
14 Comments
Could you briefly tell me about the difference between your Terrapower and fast reactors?
I believe that some of fast reactors(not fast breader reactors) might have the almost same features.
Best wishes,
Yongsoo
Although it maybe off the shelf equioment, it looks to be very sophisticated and expensive. Can it be designed to be manufactured cheap enough for the consumer and still be effective? What would be the target price range. Some innovations get set up high enough so the more well to do can afford them and production can be limited but still very profitable. Not falling into the well to do category, I’d be looking for a resonable price range.
Although it maybe off the shelf equioment, it looks to be very sophisticated and expensive. Can it be designed to be manufactured cheaply enough for the average consumer to afford and still be effective? What would be the target price range? Some innovations get priced high enough so only the more well to do can afford them and production can be limited but still very profitable. Since I don’t fall into the well to do category, I’d be hoping for a reasonable price range.
This system, as shown, is using almost completely off the shelf parts as part of a development cycle. It’s also more complicated as it has demonstration features (video out, tracking screen, etc).
A real product would not have an expensive laptop w/ a GPU.. it would be an custom image processing board, not unlike what you have in your point and shoot camera. Ditto for the optics and lasers. In short, this contains the same level of complexity of a optical disk drive – - laser beam steering, processing image data, and motion control, etc. The exact usage is very different, and with that comes a bit more complication; however, at the end of the day insects move much more slowly than the wobble on a cdrom disc.
Target price is going to have to be ‘cost effective’. We are a bit far away from being able to predict accurate price based on this early prototype. It will also depend on volume produced and the level of packaging done to the device. Yes, the photos of the device look shiny – - we have some amazing photographers at the Intellectual Ventures Lab, and they’ve outdone themselves again.
What kind of laser are you using to do the actual “zapping” of the mosquitoes?
Mr. Johnson: May I state unequivocally that you guys FAWKING RAWK. You and yours have demonstrated again that reason and refusing to be bound to a box of thinking that low cost ingenious solutions can be found that are not only effective, but bury the needle on the Cool-o-meter. This is the very reason I read MAKE, and give subscriptions for Christmas.
Please begin work on the following: a holodeck, better tasting tooth paste and warp drive. I expect them at the end of the week. (ha.)
Respectfully,
Jeffery Rackliff
Please update us on the status of low cost components to build this. There are lots of people waiting to learn more. Happy to buy one as well. So do you have a waiting list?
@David Mabelle
Check out
http://www.intellectualventureslab.com/?p=2498
&
http://www.intellectualventureslab.com/?p=1574
for some updates since this post was written. We’ll reveal more soon
The hope is to license out the technology…so no waiting lists. We invent, then pass it on to others to produce. We’re still on the look out for that special someone.
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