Word: gadget
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...heart of the gadget is a TV picture tube shrunk to the size of a small flashlight. But for the person who straps it on his head, the Hughes Aircraft Company's "Electrocular" does a giant-sized job: it is as efficient as a pair of eyes in the back of the skull. A small, semi-transparent mirror projects in front of the wearer's right eye, reflecting whatever picture the TV tube presents. So close to the eye is the image that it looms large and clear, but Hughes engineers insist that a user quickly learns...
...mistake. Slightly bigger than three packs of cards, the missile whistle contains five electronic filters that make it deaf to everything except a combination of five different radio waves transmitted simultaneously on narrow frequency bands. The most complex electronic babble sounds like silence to a missile equipped with this gadget, but when the five-part signal comes, it picks it out of the racket and obeys its command. The five frequencies can be varied, giving millions of combinations, so each missile of a group can have, if necessary, its own drop-dead signal...
...precious data come from a 440-lb. satellite observatory launched last week from Cape Canaveral into an orbit averaging 355 miles high. The satellite, called OSO (for Orbiting Solar Observatory), is a gadget-lovers' dream, the most complex object launched into space so far. Yet at last report it was working perfectly...
...that turns into an insistent squeak once the radar zone has been entered. At high speeds Radar Sentry is almost useless; there just isn't time to slow down before police radar has tracked the car's telltale blip. But at speeds in the lower 60s, the gadget is a fairly faithful watch-bird within 300 ft. of the radar installation. Radar Sentries are being turned out at a clip of 200 to 500 a day by Radatron, Inc. in North Tonawanda, N.Y.. and the company claims to have sold 25,000 Sentries in the last...
...Chicago, the District of Columbia, and the state of Connecticut have banned Radar Sentry. Other states take some comfort from the fact that Radar Sentry is erratic; in informal tests. New York experts found that even diathermy machines and neon lights can trigger its squeal. But if the gadget continues to sell, many states will consider banning it. Says New York State Motor Vehicle Commissioner William...