Word: fannings
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Dyson Inc.'s new bladeless electric fan resembles anything but a fan. The company calls it an "air multiplier." To the average sci-fi enthusiast, it looks like a miniature replica of a stargate - but alas, this gadget does not create a wormhole that teleports people to distant worlds. (See pictures of 50 years of the hovercraft...
When introduced recently to students in a cafeteria at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the ring-shaped contraption immediately drew curious onlookers. "It's clearly a fan," said engineering student Sergei Bernstein, 18, placing his palm before the draft of cool air flowing from the circular frame. "But it looks completely different, very modern," said his friend John Berman...
...surprise that Dyson, the company behind the bagless vacuum cleaner, would devise a bladeless fan. Since the invention of the electric fan in the late 19th century, the air-stirring apparatus has not changed in any significant way - a quick Google Images search suggests that every model from the classic 1950s table fan to the industrial exhaust fan to a Batman-inspired fan has one consistent, characteristic feature: rotating blades. But Dyson did away with those, replacing them with a graceful ring set atop a cylindrical base. In essence, the device works like a vacuum cleaner in reverse. The motor...
Conventional fans, by contrast, are messy, says Andy Samways, senior design engineer at Dyson, explaining the reasoning behind this latest invention. "In a regular fan, the blade is chopping the air up and hurling the packets of air [at you]," he says. The Dyson Air Multiplier bathes users in a constant cool breeze. (See the best inventions...
...despite its striking looks (compared with a dusty box fan fished out of the basement, the Dyson product could pass for sculpture) and gracious soundlessness (the machine emits a gentle hiss, no louder than the air conditioner in your car), it's hard to see how the new fan is a functional improvement over age-old models. While Dyson's past inventions - such as the bagless vac and the ultra-high-speed hand dryer - significantly enhanced the performance of those devices, the Air Multiplier doesn't exactly make a quantum leap in terms of its primary function, cooling...