http://www.newscientist.com/article
A futuristic flexible material that instantly hardens into armour upon impact will protect US and Canadian skiers from injury on the slalom runs at this year's Winter Olympics.
The lightweight bendable material, known as d3o, can be worn under normal ski clothing. It will provide protection for US and Canadian skiers taking part in slalom and giant slalom races in Turin, Italy. Skiers normally have to wear bulky arm and leg guards to protect themselves from poles placed along the slalom run.
I'm not quite sure how it works but I love this potential for the product
Another potential application may be sound-proofing. The propagation of sound waves should generate a similar strain to an impact, so it may be feasible to create a material that becomes more sound proof in response to increasing noise. "It could have some very interesting, unexplored properties," Green says.
Having intelligent materials at a mollecular level sounds outrageous and I'd love to know how it really works but it looks like they have real products available already
http://www.d3o.com/product
The future for product designers has to be outrageously bright with technology like this becoming available.
Cheers,
Dean
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