MagneMotion ~ Cool Linear Synchronous Motors

I'm happy to be reminded yesterday of a very interesting MIT-spinoff company MagneMotion which makes modular, scalable Linear Synchronous Motors (LSM) for uses ranging from mass transit, factory flow, elevators, and more. They get rid of the need for chain & belt, hydraulic actuators, screws & gears and other mechanical failure modes and so is along a macro-trendline I find fascinating -- i.e. ever more things going towards digital, solid-state, electromechanical and scalable-modular and away from analog, fluidic, etc. They give a summary technical overview. And here's just one video example of their demo material handling system. Note the lack of rollers and the incredibly zippy interleaving of the packets...