The “magic” in this plastic flying carpet [1] is pure technology, nothing wizardly or genie-liscious about it. Shove off Aladdin, move over Solomon, technology is catching up with fantasy, the BBC reports. The prototype flying carpet is described in the journal Applied Physics Letters [2]: “We use integrated piezoelectric actuators and sensors to demonstrate the propulsive force produced by controllable transverse traveling waves in a thin plastic sheet suspended in air above a flat surface, thus confirming the physical basis for a ‘flying’ carpet near a horizontal surface…