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Paper keyboards, with perforated tops to guide the fingers. have been introduced by a woman inventor to help teach typewriting. The charts make it unnecessary to use the real machines at first, so that the student can devote his entire attention to learning the position of the keys and is not distracted by the mechanical operation of the typewriter. In practice, the subject learns the correct hand and finger positions with the chart guides and then, to test his skill, writes the name of the character on the piece of paper under the openings. According to reports, results with this guide have been successful and it is recommended especially for correspondence schools.

 

Visions of what vast possibilities of service still lie in the power of radio were shown to visitors at a recent engineering exhibition in London, at a model-train display. The engines started instantly as a man said "Off," and when the word "Stop" was pronounced, they obeyed as quickly, and also reversed or went forward at spoken commands. The secret of the performance was that the vibrations of the voice, passing through a microphone, affected sensitive controls which released electric current to cause the proper movements. During one of the demonstrations, a collision was avoided. One of the tiny trains ran off the track on a sharp curve. Another was rushing toward it, but the operator saw the impending disaster, shouted "Stop," and the train halted. While the system, as now developed, could not be practically adopted in commercial railroad operation, engineers point out that it holds vast promise in that direction as well as in the performance of other tasks, such as opening doors and windows and doing other duties that ordinarily require the direct muscular effort of some person. The dream of a day when a housewife can sit comfortably in her chair and deliver vocal orders to the oven door to open, the furnace draft to close, etc., is not impossible of realization, radio experts believe.

 



In a German electric station a complete record of the load fluctuations for every day of a whole year is built up in solid form by cutting out the daily graphs and arranging them side by side, as shown. Scales are arranged on two sides, indicating kilowatts, and along the base indicating months and days, and hours of the day and night. The whole gives an easily comprehensible view of the year's output.

