Hey , tiddler ! Today ’s vocabulary word isvaporware ! This means that a company has created a spate of hype about a intersection , but then the company never releases or even cancels that product . It just evaporates .
So , can you use today ’s vocabulary Christian Bible in a judgment of conviction ? How about this one : The magnetized air machine that was promised in 2008 and expected in 2010 never materialized – meaning that by 2012 , this technology was vaporware .
According to closet reports , Magnetic Air Motors of San Jose , Calif. , was creating a fuel - less car that used compact air andmagnetsto power the vehicle . The company was careful to direct out that their mind was different from Tata Motor ’s aircar image , which used Walter Piston . The Magnetic Air Car lived up to its name . It was n’t call the Piston - Pumping Air Car , after all .
Its name was all it lived up to , however . Even the images that circulated with the press release were of the GTM Supercar uncommitted from kit railway car manufacturing business Factory Five – a car that ’s genuinely available at a price of about $ 20,000 [ source : Factory Five ] .
But the Magnetic Air Motors railway car was n’t even alone the first of its kind . In 1932 , a man cite J.M. Custer built a prototype fomite which ran on compressed melodic phrase . Of course , the people behind the New Magnetic Air Car knew this , and even based their patent on Custer ’s anterior engineering .
But here ’s the peculiar thing about vaporware : It ’s almost like Freddy Kruger and his claws or Jason and his machete ; it can always come back when the clip is right-hand . permit ’s take a fast look at the technology behind the Magnetic Air Car so we ’ll know it when ( if ) we see it in the future .
How it Works…or Worked…or How it Should Work
countenance ’s walk through the process of getting the Magnetic Air Car fired - up and ready to drive .
First , at the tour of a key or the thrust of a button or the swipe of a menu – or however this motorcar was supposed to part – a 12 - voltbattery(similar to the one in your car ) sparks the vehicle to lifespan .
The stamp battery starts a charismatic motor , which hightail it a ticker compressor that works to fill two 10 - gallon storage tank with air compressed to 200 pound per square inch in 10 minutes or less . The flat line then runs four air - bearingturbochargers , which according to the company can make speeds of one million revolutions per minute and do n’t require maintenance for 100 year . This is where the latest in punctuation might come up in ready to hand – the interrobang : ? !
The compressed air is sent to a pneumatic torsion converter , which transfers the power mother by the Air Cycle Machine ( as the ship’s company called it ) to a infection and then to the wheels . And voila ! You ’re driving a charismatic line railway car .
In theory , since a epitome was never figure in populace , the Magnetic Air Car would never have to be refueled , would have outright drive chain of mountains , and thanks to a water system filtration system that was said to clean the air as it was reprocess within the system , any air leaving the magnetic air car would have actually been cleaner than the air that went into it . Oh , and buyers were also to receive a free unicorn with leverage .
To be honest , the technology does n’t seem that far - fetched . It ’s essentially an electric cable car with air tanks rather than atomic number 3 - ion batteries . But the claim of unlimited drive chain and no maintenance for a century make it seem like it ’s sneak into unending movement district , which should make most of us turn a doubting eye .
Magnetic Air Motors did indeed charge a patent of invention for this propulsion system in 2008 , and the patent was granted in 2011 . In other words , there ’s still a slim chance this thing could pass on the realm of vaporware and become ( at least ) a prototype in the real domain . mayhap .
I run up against a surprising well-formed problem when writing this article : What tense does a soul use when publish about a car that never existed , but might still come into being ? preceding tense , because all of the details we have it away about the car came from 2008 ? Conditional tense , since it might one mean solar day be a material railroad car ? Future tense , which would verbalise optimism and hope for this radical engineering ?
In the end , I go with present tense . If you need to get really nerdy about it , it could even be refer to as a kind of " historical present , " which is often used in books to make ancient issue seem current and fresh . It puts the lector in the history , and I wanted to put you in the car . Also , I just had to make a alternative .
