With the Nintendo 3DS
release date fast approaching, Nintendo's keynote address at the Game
Developers Conference in San Francisco was an opportunity to showcase
more of what we can expect from the new handheld. The most connected
Nintendo device ever released according to company President Satoru
Iwata, the 3DS will incorporate Netflix video streaming and gain access
to over 10000 AT&T wireless hot spots across the United States. Read More
There was also a time when wood was relatively
cheap and plentiful in much of the world thanks to the number of trees
just standing around waiting to be turned into useful things like
floorboards. Unfortunately wood is neither as cheap nor plentiful as it
once was, so it’s important to make the most of every tree. Instead of
following the traditional line of straight-edged floorboards, Dutch
company Bolefloor maximizes the coverage area of floorboards made from a
particular tree by following the tree's natural curves. Read More
Thousands of organizations around the world are
working towards protection of ecosystems, yet the sharing of data is
extremely limited and often localized – swathes of information that
could be important are unknown, unpublicized and from a global
perspective, wasted. The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA),
developed by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), could
pave the way for a new era of understanding. It aims to bring together
multidisciplinary data allowing researchers and decision-makers the
means to assess, monitor and forecast protected areas globally. Read More
We’re a little non-plussed on Porsche’s
announcement of a reconstructed Semper Vivus, which it is claiming was
presented at the Paris Show of 1900. There’s a video of the construction
of the vehicle, but the scant info available is at odds with previous
Porsche historic information on the Lohner Porsche
and the normally fastidious Porsche press department hasn’t issued any
details of the Semper Vivus yet. The Semper Vivus was a series electric
hybrid with its two engines charging the batteries and Porsche electric
hub motors delivering the power. It must be said the Porsche execs
looked anything but comfortable driving the Semper on stage. Read More
Christian von Koenigsegg has once again created a
hypercar of the highest order – the new Agera R is capable of
approaching 400 km/h and features so much innovation that we’re not
going to even attempt to squeeze it all into the introductory paragraph.
The 5 litre V8 bi-turbo engine is the lightest and most compact
hypercar engine in the world, and produces 1100 hp on E85 bio fuel with
peak torque of 1200 Nm spread over over a 3300 rpm rev range. It’s most
notable feature though, is a Thule Roof Box which ensures you can take
all your gear as well as having a show car with the standard roof when
you get there. Read More
One of the most remarkable things we’ve seen in a
long time is this deconstructed 2010 F1 car on display at Mercedes-Benz
World in Surrey, UK. The Mercedes GP Petronas F1 comprises 3200
components and every one of them is hung in the display. The display
itself was arranged by Dutch artist Paul Veroude and definitely fits
into the “how can you do that?” category. Its subject is equally as
fascinating, accounting for 90,000 man hours of design time, 200,000 man
hours of manufacturing manifested as 600 kg finished form manufactured
to the most exacting tolerances of the world’s most exotic substances -
carbon fiber, titanium, aluminum and magnesium. To look at, the car is
predominantly carbon fiber (85% by volume) but it’s so light that it
accounts for only 30% of the mass. Read More
There is no greater accolade than to be judged
the finest by your peers. This year the car design fraternity has
delivered an overwhelming verdict for the concept design of the year to
the Pininfarina – 40% of all the voters (all car designers) voted for
the Pininfarina 2uettottanta ahead of some quite outstanding competition
in the form of the Jaguar C-X75 and Renault DeZir. The Car Design of the Year 2010 Production category gong went to Range Rover's Evoque ahead of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta and Audi A7. Read More
As the Missing Persons song goes, “nobody walks
in LA.” But with the release of the 2010 Los Angeles Bicycle Plan, the
city hopes to make it easier to ride there. As part of the city’s
commitment to transform LA from an auto-centric metropolis to a city
with a multi-modal transportation system, the City of Los Angeles has
released the draft 2010 Los Angeles Bicycle Plan, which designates 1680
miles (2700 km) of bikeway facilities and proposes three new bicycle
networks that will crisscross the city. Read More
ASUS Republic of Gamers came out in force at CeBIT 2011
to launch some new additions to its gaming range. On show were some new
notebooks, a couple of motherboards, graphics cards, a 3D monitor, a
router and some headsets. Features of note include a wide-viewing-angle,
glasses-free 3D experience from one of the notebooks, XONAR audio and
802.11n on a Black Edition mainboard, and a Wireless-N router that can
support simultaneous connections for lag-free, online gaming. Read More
We can’t say we weren’t warned. Last August,
Japan’s Eager Co. Ltd. announced that it was planning to begin sales of
the Telenoid R1
telepresence robot in October. The toddler-sized ghostly-looking robot
is intended to be a physical stand-in for a remote user during internet
communications, mirroring that person’s movements via real-time face
tracking software on their computer – their voice also comes out of the
device. Well, Telenoid now has a little sibling. The Elfoid P1, as it’s
called, was unveiled at a press conference yesterday in Japan, and is
intended to serve as a combination mobile phone and mini telepresence
robot. Read More
Engineers from the Bristol wing of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS)
have announced the development of the first bicycle using Additive
Layer Manufacturing (ALM) technology. The manufacturing process involves
"growing" the components from a fine nylon powder, similar in concept
to 3D printing.
Said to be as strong as steel, the end product is claimed to contain
only a fraction of the source material used by traditional machining,
and the process results in much less waste. It also has the potential to
take manufacture to precisely where the component or product is needed,
instead of being confined to factories often located a great distance
away. Read More
Charlie Sheen it seems, does not do things by
halves. Within a week of opening his Twitter account, he’s being
followed by 2.2 million people and creating some serious personal "share
of attention" in the entertainment world. He's poised to race past Time
magazine, People, the New York Times and the NBA and Irish bookmakers
are now taking bets on just how far Charlie's record-breaking following
will grow. Amazingly, the oddson a range of special bets and
achievements are quite short that Sheen will be close to the top 10 most
powerful Twitter opinion makers in the world - perhaps even at number
one. Read More
If your kids are always running late for school
then this little number might be just the transport option to ensure
they arrive on time. Made by Micro Electric Vehicles (MEV), the Mini
Seven is a hand-built, proportionally accurate child’s motorized car
that is a slight departure from MEV’s other vehicles, which are powered
by electric motors, as it is powered by a small petrol Honda HP motor
that can propel the Mini Seven to 19 mph (30 km/h). Read More
There might be many harmless reasons for sending
anonymous emails – confessing your undying love for someone, seeking
anonymous advice, or simply playing a joke on a friend – but there are
also plenty of harmful reasons – making threats against someone,
distributing child pornography or sending viruses, just to name a few.
While police can often use the IP address to locate where an email
originated, it may be harder to nail down exactly who sent it. A team of
researchers claims to have developed an effective new technique to
determine the authorship of anonymous emails that can provide
presentable evidence in courts of law. Read More
Anyone who thought making the switch from their
old 4:3 analogue TV to a 16:9 widescreen digital model would mean the
end of unsightly black bars at the top and bottom of the picture will
likely have discovered otherwise – particularly if they also picked up a
Blu-ray player along with the new TV. With most movies filmed in the
wider 2.35:1 or 2.40:1 and many of these now available on Blu-ray,
cinephiles are once again faced with the choice of viewing the entire
image with black bars, or zooming or stretching the image so it fills
the entire screen. The new Cinema 21:9 Gold Series LED TV from Philips solves this dilemma with its 21:9 aspect ratio allowing widescreen movies to be displayed in all their glory. Read More
Sledding can be a lot of fun, but pulling your
toboggan, inner tube or sled back up the hill ... well, that isn’t part
of the fun. Yes, it definitely is good exercise, but it’s not fun.
While the rest of us just quietly resign ourselves to the long climb
back up, however, Pennsylvania’s Josh Smith did something about it – he
built his own powered sled-and-rider-towing winch. Read More
Heading away from the use of polluting fossil
fuels towards sustainable clean energy, we are discovering more and more
novel ways to use or harness the wind. Even though solar panels have become almost commonplace, we're still seeing the technology being pushed into new ground. More projects are surfacing that harvest energy from the oceans. Meanwhile, we're also coming up with inventive ways to monitor
pollution. Now an initiative from Mario Caceres and Cristian Canonico
of the Influx Studio in Paris, working with SHIFTboston, is looking to
roll out a man-made forest of air-cleaning Treepods throughout Boston
... which are powered by solar and kinetic energy. Read More
The Transatlantic Seafloor Research Challenge is
not a real competition, but that hasn't stopped British designer Philip Pauley from envisioning it, and the watercraft that would take part in it. If it were
to exist, the challenge would require underwater vehicles to cross from
the UK to the US using whatever route their team members thought was
the quickest, but they would have to stay in physical contact with the
sea floor for as much of the distance as possible. Pauley's Pathfinder
submarines would be equipped with wheels or tracks for trundling along
the bottom on most of the crossing, but would also theoretically be able
to propel themselves up through the water when necessary. Read More
While the various flavors of games console have
introduced gaming to the living room, the weapon of choice for most
serious gamers is the PC. Not many would settle for an off-the-shelf
gaming PC like the one in front of me, opting for a self build or custom
model instead. Those who fall in the latter group will definitely be
interested in the Luxury edition gaming PC from Pure PC. Benefiting from
an open design that's said to help dissipate heat without the need for
too many noisy fans, the high-end gaming rig is powered by a Core i7
chip which can be overclocked to 5GHz, at least two NVIDIA graphics
cards and up to 24GB of memory. There's a choice of twin SSD or dual HDD
storage, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 connectivity and a Blu-ray burner. So how
much would such a system cost? Read on to find out ... Read More
Tiny video cameras mounted on the end of long
thin fiber optic cables, commonly known as endoscopes, have proven
invaluable to doctors and researchers wishing to peer inside the human
body. Endoscopes can be rather pricey, however, and like anything else
that gets put inside peoples’ bodies, need to be sanitized after each
use. A newly-developed type of endoscope is claimed to address those
drawbacks by being so inexpensive to produce that it can be thrown away
after each use. Not only that, but it also features what is likely the
world’s smallest complete video camera, which is just one cubic
millimeter in size. Read More
With the situation in Libya causing a spike in fuel prices worldwide there's some good biofuel-related
news out of the U.S. Department of Energy's BioEnergy Science Center
(BESC) that could help to reduce many countries' dependence on oil
imports. For the first time, BESC researchers have succeeded in
producing isobutanol directly from cellulosic plant matter using
bacteria. Being a higher grade of alcohol than ethanol, isobutanol holds
particular promise as a gasoline replacement as it can be burned in
regular car engines with a heat value similar to gasoline. Read More
Final assembly of the first U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon
production aircraft is underway. The Boeing 737-800 derivative which
will replace the P-3 Orion as an anti-submarine and long-range
surveillance aircraft has been undergoing airborne testing since 2009 and delivery of the production aircraft is set to begin in 2012. Read More
Hydrogen has great potential as a clean fuel source for powering our cars and airplanes,
but it also poses some big hurdles – in particular, how to store it.
Making practical use of hydrogen in gas or liquid form raises
difficulties in terms of volume and pressurization – a hydrogen gas tank
for a car would need to be around four times larger than current
petroleum tanks. Another possible solution is the use of solid state
hydrogen and the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS),
along with the University of Glasgow, hope to boost this approach by
developing a new storage system using materials modified at the
nanoscale that receive and release the hydrogen at a faster rate. Read More
Warner Bros. is hoping to leverage the popularity of social networking juggernaut Facebook
by becoming the first Hollywood studio to offer movies directly through
the site. Facebook users will be able to purchase and rent titles from
the Warner Bros. catalog using Facebook Credits and play, pause and
resume the movies through their Facebook account for up to 48 hours from
the time of purchase. An initial test offering of The Dark Night
to fans who “Liked” said movie on Facebook can now rent the title
through the movie’s official Facebook page, with additional titles to be
made available in the coming months. Read More
As solid-state drives
(SSDs) continue to drop in price they also continue to improve in
performance. A perfect example is Intel's latest SSD 510 Series, which
improves upon the company's previous X25-M SSD
by adding SATA 6 Gbps performance to take advantage of the higher SATA
bus interfaces found on recently introduced 2nd Generation Core
processor-based platforms. This allows the 510 Series to boast
sequential read speeds of up to 500 MB/s – double that of Intel's
current 3 Gbps SSDs – and sequential write speeds of up to 315 MB/s –
more than triple that of its current SSDs. Read More
Not too long ago, we were all salivating at the
release of NVIDIA's GTX 580 graphics card and scrambling to make the
most of the world's fastest Direct X GPU. Now AMD has bounced back with
the announcement that its new Radeon HD 6990 card has beaten NVIDIA's
3DMark 11 performance score in industry standard benchmark testing for a
single graphics card. AMD says that its new powerhouse GPU is able to
automatically unlock higher clock speeds, features technology aimed at
giving gamers the best possible visual experience, and supports a number
of different display options, including expanding the field of view
over five monitors with Eyefinity technology. Read More
When a patient has an arrhythmia (an irregular
heartbeat), cardiologists will often treat the disorder by inserting two
tube-like catheters into the patient’s heart. The first catheter is
used for mapping out the heart tissue, identifying the location of cells
that are causing the arrhythmia. The second catheter, which has an
electrode on the end, is then directed to those locations, where it
kills the aberrant cells in a process known as ablation. Scientists have
recently developed a single catheter with added stretchable electronics, however, that does both jobs in one step. Read More
Given the deepwater working conditions endured by
submarines, one of the last things most people would want to do is
drill holes through their hulls. That’s exactly what is necessary,
however, to allow power and data to flow to and from audio and other
sensors mounted on the exterior of the vessels. Not only do these holes
present a leakage risk, but they also diminish the hull’s structural
integrity, and the submarine must be hoisted into drydock in
order for any new sensors to be added. Now, a doctoral student at New
York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has come up with a method
of using ultrasound to transmit power and data wirelessly through a
sub’s thick metal hull – no holes required. Read More
My very first electronic typewriter was made by
Olivetti. It was a sturdy beast and quite the reliable performer. So,
it's good to see that the Telecom Italia-owned company is keeping up
with the times as it announces the release of Italy's first tablet
computer – the OliPad 100. The 10-inch Android tablet is powered by
NVIDIA's Tegra 2 platform, has Bluetooth, 3G, Wi-Fi, and sports SD card
expansion if its 16GB of onboard memory proves to be too restrictive.
Read More
It’s extraordinary what pops up in the in-box
each week. Those with a keen eye for fashion will note that the picture
is from the sixties – the Ford Comuta was a concept presented at the
Geneva Motor Show in 1967. It was all-electric, had a top speed of 40
mph and a range of 40 miles, and that was 40 years ago. The upcoming
electric Ford Focus has more than double the range (160 km) and double
the top speed of 84 mph (135 km/h), but surely the Comuta is worth
digging out of the archives for a second look. With modern motors and
advanced controllers and high density batteries, the Comuta might be
quite suitable for European cities such as London where road speeds
haven’t progressed much since the horse and cart. Read More
The University of California at San Francisco
Medical Center is now starting to use robots, not humans, to dispense
medication from its hospital pharmacy. While robots are often brought
into workplaces as a cost-cutting measure, UCSF claims that in this
case, it's to minimize the chances of patients receiving the wrong
medication. So far, it seems to be working out well – out of 350,000
doses of oral and injectable medication prepared to date, not a single
error has occurred. Read More
A new manufacturing method that incorporates
laser technology may result in thin film solar panels that are less
expensive and more efficient than anything presently on the market.
Currently, a stylus is used to mechanically etch microchannels into such
panels, which electrically connect the individual solar cells and allow
them to form an array. Researchers from Indiana’s Purdue University,
however, are developing a technique in which an ultrafast pulsing laser
is used to do the etching. Not only will it hopefully be quicker and
cheaper than mechanical “scribing,” but it should also produce cleaner,
sharper microchannels that offer superior performance. Read More
In the late seventies, Roland took the sonic
palette available to keyboard players and opened it up to guitarists,
with the introduction on the GR-500. It was quite simply a marvel, but
is positively primitive when compared to the latest evolutionary leap
taken by the company with the GR-55 guitar synthesizer. Featuring a pair
of independent synthesizer sound engines and a Composite Object Sound
Modeling (COSM) engine, the device makes hundreds of different sounds
available to the player – anything from pianos to strings, drums to
synths, various acoustic and electric guitar and bass emulations, as
well as numerous amplifiers. Read More
Deliver-E Trike quietly takes on uneven ground
By Ben Coxworth
March 11, 2011
When those of us who live in urban areas picture
letter carriers – or posties, or mailmen/women – we usually think of
them as people who deliver the mail by foot. The fact is, however,
letter carriers in much of the world use small motorcycles to make their
deliveries. If Australian inventor Simon Williams has his way, many of
those motorcycles may soon be replaced by his electric three-wheeler.
Not only is the Williams Deliver-E Trike quieter and cleaner than
gas-powered bikes, but its two rear swing arms pivot independently,
allowing the vehicle to lean into turns and stand upright when parked at
the side of a sloping road. Read More
Logitech has announced that its veteran digital
5.1 speaker system, the highly regarded Z-5500, is to be retired and
replaced by a newer model at the end of the month. On the face of it,
the upgrades to the new Z906 system appear to be purely cosmetic. It
offers similar specs to its ancestor but loses out slightly on the total
RMS output, although Logitech says that it will still shake your house.
The system benefits from multi-source simultaneous digital and analog
input, wire-free remote and room-filling Dolby and DTS surround sound
technology. Read More
iPod Classic: Thanks for the memories?
March 10, 2011
The iPod celebrates its ten year anniversary in
2011. Since its launch on Oct 23rd 2001, six generations of the device
have been produced, with more than 300 million units sold of the various
iterations. On September 1, 2010 Apple announced updates to the entire iPod line – with the sole exception of the iPod Classic. Some are wondering whether this could mean the end of the product that sparked Apple's resurgence. Read More
Last January, we said that the Robrady-designed db0
was one of the best folding electric bikes we'd seen. The Swiss entry
into the market has turned its back on this traditional
bicycle-with-motor design in favor of a folding pedal-electric assist
scooter. Users are said to be able to fold or unfold the Voltitude bike
in about one second, and with one hand, thanks to its unique EasyFold
system. Swiss and EU legislation limits the electric assist to 15.5 mph
(25 kph), although some frantic footwork could see it achieve faster
speeds if required, and the onboard battery is good for between 12 and
25 miles (20 to 40 km) between charges. Read More
Direct observation of sunspots has, more or less,
been going on continuously since they were first observed in the
seventeenth century. So, you can imagine the puzzled expressions on the
faces of astronomers the world over when the phenomena all-but
disappeared from view for a couple of years recently. Now, research
sponsored by NASA and the government of India has produced the first
computer model that explains the prolonged cyclic minima during 2008 -
2009. The simulations suggest that plasma currents deep inside the sun
interfered with the formation of sunspots. Read More
If you’ve seen Avatar or Aliens, then you’ve seen futuristic versions of exoskeletons
– mechanical systems that human users wear over their bodies, to
augment their own physical abilities. While exoskeletons are already
available and in use today, they’re sometimes a bit more machine than
what is needed. After all, why put on an expensive full- or half-body
contraption, when you’re performing a task that mostly just requires the
use of one arm? That’s where the x-Ar exoskeletal arm support comes in.
Users wear it on their dominant arm, and it moves with them, providing
support as they do things such as holding tools out in front of
themselves. Read More
Just like a regular-sized device requires a regular-sized motor to operate, a nanodevice likewise requires a molecular-scale motor.
In some cases, that motor takes the form of a piston, and building a
piston that’s just a few nanometers long ... well, it’s pretty hard. It
can and has been done, but it’s an extremely fiddly process. Now,
scientists from France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(CNRS) and the Université de Bordeaux, along with colleagues in China,
have developed a molecular piston that is capable of assembling itself.
Read More
Stealth Computer has taken some of its rugged industrial PC
know-how and developed an all-in-one solution for interactive kiosks,
outdoor computing, or marine, aviation, security and industrial
environments. The SVPC's panel is sealed against windblown dust and
rain, splashing and hose-directed water, comes in three screen size
options and benefits from touchscreen user interaction. The PC part of
the package offers dual-core processing, HDD or SSD storage and sports a
multitude of I/O connectivity options. Read More
Although it's pretty impressive how the screen
content of an iPad can be manipulated entirely by touchscreen, one need
look no farther than the popularity of Bluetooth keypads to see that
sometimes users want separate physical controls. Now
gamers-on-the-go can buy gizmos that allow them to play their iPad-based
games in a way that offers much more control than simply sliding their
finger back and forth on glass – the latest of these tablet joysticks to cross our desk is Ten One Design's Fling. Read More
Almost incomprehensible as the devastation from
last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan has been, scientists warn
that more aftershocks are on their way. In order to get all the
information on current seismic activity in one place, researchers at
Texas Tech University’s Center for Geospatial Technologies have
developed an online, publicly-accessible world map that displays data on
disturbances worldwide, almost as soon as they have occurred. Read More
New form of computer memory uses 100 times less power
By Paul Ridden
March 14, 2011
Researchers from the Electrical and Computer
Engineering Department of the University of Illinois have developed a
new low-power digital memory which uses much less power and is faster
than other solutions currently available. The breakthrough could give
future consumer devices like smartphones and laptops a much longer
battery life, but might also benefit equipment used in
telecommunications, science or by the military. Read More
The skin of a banana has been used to great comic
effects in numerous slapstick routines for many years. It's also good
for the skin and is a traditional cure for warts. You can polish shoes
and silver with it. You can make wine with it and it's even been known
to find itself being dried, wrapped in paper and smoked. Now, research
published in the journal of the American Chemical Society claims that
mashed up peel can remove heavy metals from river water. Read More
While it might be better known for vehicles of the motorized variety, for over 60 years BMW
has also been manufacturing a range of high-end bicycles. The company’s
new 2011 range provides something for everyone – or at least everyone
with a well stocked wallet – with a Cruise Bike, Touring Bike and a
couple of mountain bikes. And for the first time BMW has extended its M
Series branding to its two-wheeled vehicles, but despite the M standing
for Motorsport it’s not for a motorbike, but rather the new 2011 BMW M Bike Carbon Racer bicycle. Read More
Google adds EV charging locations to Google Maps
By Darren Quick
March 13, 2011
One of the big advantages of driving fossil
fuel-powered vehicles is that it's easy to find a place to fill up. In
the more than a century since the world's first purpose-built gas
station was built in St. Louis, Missouri in 1905, a massive worldwide
infrastructure has emerged to keep our vehicles running. As automakers
make the move to electric vehicles, early adopters are faced with a lack of infrastructure to keep batteries charged, however, the number of public EV charging stations is steadily growing and Google
is now doing its bit to help make tracking them down easier by adding
EV charging station location information to Google Maps. Read More
Long before before the days of canned food and canine coffee,
dogs had to work for their supper. Stimulating these natural hunting
and foraging instincts is an important part of keeping your pet healthy
and happy – as well as preventing your Chesterfield lounge from being
torn to shreds – and this "interactive dog food dish" is designed to do
just that. The paw-shaped Aikiou (pronounced "IQ") bowl is made up of a
series of compartments with sliding covers where food can be concealed,
turning mealtime from a slobbering free-for-all into an entertaining and
challenging exercise that will help keep Fido's mind and body fit. Read More
The Yikebike
is a miniature, electric penny farthing made of carbon fiber and now
it's on sale, it is quickly gathering a cult early-adopter following
thanks to its weight of 10.8 kilograms, that it folds so small it can
fit in a backpack, and that it will run at 25km/h (15 mph). Until now,
it has ticked all the boxes except one - its limited range of just 10
kilometers. Now it has released an extender battery pack so you can add
additional 10 kilometer increments to the range of your YikeBike. Each
battery costs US$195 and weighs 1.95kg and there's a special backpack to
carry multiple batteries so it becomes a very practical solution that
offers the Yikebike unsurpassed bang-per-kilogram and versatility as a
commuting appliance. Though it's hard to equate the US$3600 price tag
with primary transport, the addition of a Yikebike to any automobile
storage compartment significantly extends the capabilities of both
vehicles. The facility to carry secondary transportation inside cars has
been explored many times in recent years by Honda and Ford in
particular … and it makes a lot of sense. Read More
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