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Femto Fairy Lights - Touchable Holograms (i-programmer.info)
mikejuk writes with this story about a Japanese team working on creating touchable holograms. I Programmer reports: "One method of creating a volumetric, i.e. true 3D, display, is to use a high power laser and focus it on a small spot in space. The air in that spot will be heated to the point where it ionizes and glows with a bright blue light. Scan the laser really fast and you can make a full 3D arrangement of glowing points of light — not exactly a hologram but as good as. Of course, the big problem is that you have a lot of energy being focused on small areas and human interaction could be a problem. You might well get burned by the laser if you attempted to touch or interact with the display. The solution is to use a really fast laser, a femtosecond laser, that heats a small spot to a high temperature but only for a very short time. This is much safer because the total energy involved is smaller. This is the reason you can touch sparks without getting burned."
Nothing to do with the subject. I was in the United Kingdom and I needed a temporary bank account so I opened up an account with Santander, a Spanish company trading in the U.K. anyway it was easy to open the account. So I decided to travel around England and I purchased or tried to purchase a train ticket and I was knocked back saying rejected. Totally embarrassing I telephoned the bank and told them I'm trying to buy a train ticket. They said we just wanted to make sure it was you. Bastards. I then tried again to purchase my train ticket it was successful this time. We needed to get some food so we went for a meal and God dammit! Debit card was rejected again. A total loss of face for me! I received a text message on my mobile phone asking me did I just tried to pay for food if I did please push this number and please push this number and confirm your date of birth. I was on a smart phone it hasn't got key numbers! Eventually we sorted it out and I managed to use the debit card to pay the restaurant. Anyway now I am scared to use the card just in case I get rejected again! What is the matter with YOU people in the U.K. WHY DO YOU SUFFER THIS GET SOME BACKBONE... I put quite a few thousand in the account to cover the trip plenty of money dam...