Word: gadget
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...research strategy is to interrupt thought processes and study them in parts. For example, visual perception involves seeing many things simultaneously. Bruner breaks down this process with a gadget called an "ambiguitor," which brings a picture into focus so gradually that a viewer gets trapped into false hypotheses about what he is seeing. Result: embryo techniques for perceiving more astutely. The Center bustles with other odd projects, from teaching quadratic functions to young children to time-lapse photographs of tots drawing (the best way to see how they see). All this is pure research, but out of it may someday...
...wildest dreams of the hi-fi industry, which has always made the most of planned obsolescence. Whatever the hi-fi fan bought, it was declared outmoded by all the pseudo-scientific trade journals almost before he could get it wired up, with the warning that only a still newer gadget could keep him in the forefront of the hip. For the trade, stereo had a classic simplicity: all the hi-fi fan had to do was exactly duplicate the equipment he already had (any change or cheaper equipment would spoil the "balance...
...those whose means are evil though their ends be good, and the world goes happily back to war. The paper-airplane crowd may find the ethics of the film a bit confusing, but they are bound to get a bang out of The Albatross, which is indeed a gorgeous gadget. Made entirely of impregnated paper, it checks out at 200 m.p.h. and looks like a cross between a blimp, a helicopter, a giant bat and a 19th century resort hotel. It even has a side porch...
...over the U.S., a new order of restless American stalks city and countryside carrying tiny transistors. He can't stand silence. With his gadget turned up full-blast, the bleatnik goes about his pursuits with ear and mind cocked to sportscasts, disk-jockeywockey and what passes for pop music. He plods along, swinging his radio like an attaché case, or stuffs it into his shirt pocket, while the unrelenting blabber transists him like exhaust fumes. If he is using an earpiece receiver, identification may be more difficult, but there are certain telltale signs, as there are of hopheads...
Hunt's suggestion touched off theoretical research that looked better and better as it progressed. In 1959 Columbia University's Hudson Laboratories took over the development of Artemis and called on Frank Massa, president of the Massa Division of Cohu Electronics Inc. to build the necessary gigantic gadget for creating sound. No such underwater transducer (noisemaker) had been built before, but the very first units were successful. The largest Massa transducer is now installed in the converted Navy tanker, Mission Capistrano. It is so huge that when it is retracted, part of its soft, length shows above...