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The Hoverboard is Almost Here!

posted by n1 on Wednesday October 22 2014, @06:58AM   Printer-friendly
from the $394-per-mm-of-air dept.

mcgrew writes:

Ever wish you could have a hoverboard like in Back to the Future II? Now you can... kind of.

The story I ran across this morning was short on technical details, but the hoverboard will only work above a conductive surface and its battery only lasts seven minutes, apparently using magnetism.

"Our engineering team has been amazing, rapidly iterating on design after design. In fact, this our 18th prototype, and we continue to make advances week after week," says the company’s Kickstarter campaign.

"The magic behind the hoverboard lies in its four disc-shaped hover engines. These create a special magnetic field which literally pushes against itself, generating the lift which levitates our board off the ground."

A pledge of $10,000 will get you one of the first production boards. Expected delivery is October 2015.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by jcross on Wednesday October 22 2014, @01:54PM

    by jcross (4009) on Wednesday October 22 2014, @01:54PM (#108659)

    > accessible copper doesn't tend to stay around for long

    I can't see any reason they couldn't (electrically) insulate the copper with a layer of vinyl or something. Seems like then it should have similar durability to something like romex wiring. The whole thing might be pretty expensive though, given copper prices these days.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22 2014, @04:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22 2014, @04:33PM (#108755)

    > accessible copper doesn't tend to stay around for long I can't see any reason they couldn't (electrically) insulate the copper with a layer of vinyl or something. Seems like then it should have similar durability to something like romex wiring. The whole thing might be pretty expensive though, given copper prices these days.

    GP isn't referring to losses due to environmental factors; it's more of human factors (ie, stealing) - and high copper prices will only make it worse.