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Lexus has made a real, rideable hoverboard called 'SLIDE', it claims

Video shows a long, misty board — and finishes before the rider actually steps on it

Andrew Griffin
Wednesday 24 June 2015 13:12 BST
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Lexus, the car company, claims that it has made a real hoverboard that people can actually ride.

The company hasn’t revealed much about the project, only releasing a short trailer where the hoverboard doesn’t actually get ridden and just hovers a little above the ground. But it claims to have “created a real, rideable overboard” in its promotional website for the project.

“The Lexus Hoverboard uses magnetic levitation to achieve amazing frictionless movement,” the website claims. “Liquid nitrogen cooled superconductors and permanent magnets combine to allow Lexus to create the impossible.”

Other hoverboard projects that have used similar techniques have used magnets on a metal surface, so that the hoverboard is kept in the air by being repelled from the floor.

But the mist coming out of the sides of the hoverboard are similar to examples of quantum levitation, as Mashable points out. That also uses magnets, with special materials bending the magnetic field to keep things in place.

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