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Flogo Clouds Are Floating Ads
Flogos are artificial "clouds" made by Francisco Guerra and Brian Glover; they float into the sky, carrying your commercial message into the heavens.
(Flogo cloud logos)
Here's what makes Flogos float: a mixture of soap-based foams and lighter-than-air gases like helium are used to create floating cloud-like forms that can last for up to an hour.
Depending on wind conditions, Flogos typically hover at around 300-500 feet, but can rise up to 20,000 feet into the air. Made of environmentally friendly soap, they eventually just evaporate into the air.
This invention was predicted by sf writer Alan Nelson in his 1953 story Soap Opera. In the novel, an ad company executive was displeased with standard sky writing; he wanted something that would last longer. Employee Everett Mordecai had the answer.
Mordecai hauled out a stop watch, turned his eyes upward to the slogan he'd just written."Possibly you'd like to time these letters..."
Automatically Spurgle gazed up too. The letters, still firm, still strong and perfectly formed, seemed to be settling earthward, undisturbed by the brisk breeze that scudded across the field...
Silently the three walked over to the slogan. Spurgle kicked at the letter G... It was a monstrous white thing, ten feet thick, half a city block long...
(Read more about permanent skywriting)
In an ominous note, inventors Guerra and Glover are now working on increasing the size of their Flogos; they have in development a Flogo generator able to create objects up to six feet across.
Let's hope they aren't working on making them more permanent.
Via Sky-High Ads Float Like Clouds; see also the Flogos website and a brief Flogos video.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 4/16/2008)
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