Vertical Prison leaves criminals up in the air
By Darren Quick
March 15, 2010
The idea of tailoring architecture to the requirements of a prison is by no means new - most famously the Panopticon
design by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham has
been the blueprint for many prisons since the late 1800s. A new Vertical
Prison concept is not as draconian in its ambitions with its aim of
rehabilitating prisoners by allowing them to remain a part of society
and contribute to it, while using height as a wall to keep them
physically separated from it. Read More
There's no doubt in our mind that Spencer
Conway's solo circumnavigation of Africa by motorbike will offer more
than enough dramatic material for a hollywood film, if not at least a
television reprise of Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman's Long Way Down.
At time of writing, Spencer has been on the road for 134 days, 23
hours, 58 minutes and counting, since leaving Biddenden, Kent on
November 1st 2009. His route will take him clockwise around the outer
countries of Africa and will cover 60,000km in total. The project,
sponsored by Swaziland-born Richard E. Grant aims to raise UK£28,000
(US$42,000) for charity organization Save the Children, and so far he
has traveled across 28 countries, through 30 borders, and biked
27,000km. Read More
If you’re the kind of person whose wallet or
purse is overflowing with credit cards, and locating the lone card that
hasn’t yet been maxed out is proving more and more difficult, the Credit
Card Holder could be just what you need. Unfortunately, it won’t help
you pay off said card, but it will make it easier to find the card you
want, when you need it. Read More
If you thought micro-pistons were only found in
very small cars, think again. These rapid-action mechanical cufflinks
are made up of more than 45 micro-components, micro-pistons are just
some of them. These super high-tech mechanical cufflinks with their
exclusive pushpiece system for easy locking and unlocking will save time
when dressing for that black tie engagement – probably micro-seconds.
Read More
3D is the big news in the world of TV
this year and now even cell cultures are getting in on the act. A team
of scientists has taken aim at a biological icon - the two-dimensional
petri dish – and unveiled a new technique for growing 3D cell cultures.
The new process uses magnetic forces to levitate cells while they divide
and grow to form tissues that more closely resemble those inside the
human body. This represents a technological leap from the flat petri
dish and could save millions of dollars in drug-testing costs. Read More
We recently looked at a breakthrough in using sunlight to create hydrogen
but now scientists have found a way to use ambient noise to turn water
into usable hydrogen fuel. The process harvests small amounts of
otherwise-wasted energy such as noise or stray vibrations from the
environment to break the chemical bonds in water and produce oxygen and
hydrogen gas. Read More
One of the benefits of a flat panel TV is the
small amount of space it takes up depth-wise compared to CRT TVs. But
many viewers don’t take advantage of the extra space saving and sleek
look because they are put off from having to purchase an expensive mount
and installing it on their walls. Well, what if installing a flat panel
TV – up to 50kg – was as easy as hanging a picture? Read More
MSI has announced U.S. availability of its Wind
U160 ten-inch netbook which is less than an inch thick and is claimed to
squeeze some 15 hours from its 6-cell battery. The netbook also offers
smooth action video rendering thanks to an 8ms response time, 802.11n
WiFi and is only MSI's second product to feature Intel's energy efficient Pine Trail Atom N450 processor. Read More
We've all seen mesmerizing footage of the sun's
fiery surface as it bubbles and seethes at 6.5 million degrees, but now
we can hear it! Researchers from University of Michigan and a composer
from Alumnus School of Music have interpreted the sun's solar wind into
music by a process called sonification. This has allowed them to
understand events happening the sun in a whole new way. Read More
For the past 18 years, the cop car of choice for
North American police forces has been a modified version of the Ford
Crown Victoria. And here’s an interesting fact about the Crown Vic: it
hasn’t been available to the general public since 2008. Here’s another:
it looks like something your grandpa would drive. While police forces
like the cars because of their V8 engines, rear-wheel-drive, and
easy-to-repair body-on-frame construction, they have become
aesthetically and technologically dated. It’s time for a change, so the
Ford Motor Company is offering one - last Friday, they revealed a new
purpose-built Police Interceptor, which will take over when the Crown
Victoria goes out of production in late 2011. The Ford Taurus-based
sedan is said to exceed the durability, safety, performance and fuel
economy of the Crown Vic. Read More
JakPak, an all-in-one waterproof jacket, sleeping
bag and tent could be a very useful piece of clothing for Man vs
Wild-type adventurers or anyone unexpectedly caught in the outdoors. Or,
if you’ve ever had to queue overnight for those impossibly hard to get
concert or sports tickets, this little gem could make you the envy of
everyone else in the line. Read More
The appropriately named ‘sofa boat’ is
essentially a sofa slapped on top of a floating platform that is sure to
make maneuvering among other craft in crowded marinas a most relaxing
affair. The all-electric craft employs a joystick for steering, a
folding sun canopy covering for some protection from the sun’s rays and a
solar version is on the way. Read More
iCab Mobile is a web browser for the iPhone and
iPod Touch with a great feature set and some unique and useful items not
found in other iPhone browsers. One useful feature is scrolling via a
scrollpad (tap the screen with three fingers to activate) that lets you
go to any location within the web page instantly. iCab supports Tabs,
Bookmarks and has a built-in filter that blocks many advertising
banners. Read More
Polyethylene is the most widely used polymer in
the world, most commonly used for packaging and plastic shopping bags.
And like most polymers it is a very good insulators for both heat and
electricity. But now an MIT team has developed a new process that causes
the polymer to remain an electrical insulator but conduct heat very
efficiently in just one direction, unlike metals, which conduct equally
well in all directions. This may make the new material especially useful
for applications where it is important to draw heat away from an
object, such as a computer processor chip. Read More
Researchers at IBM have made important progress
toward creating silicon circuits that communicate using pulses of light
rather than electrical signals. This is thanks to a device called
nanophotonic avalanche photodetector (NAP), which, as detailed on the
journal Nature, is the fastest of its kind and is a major step
toward achieving energy-efficient computing that will have significant
implications for the future of electronics. Read More
What really annoys me about doing the laundry is
having to sort through all the colors and fabrics. Especially when -
despite my care - I accidentally include something red with all my
whites and I’m left with oodles of pink sports socks and tees! A clever
design concept from Yali Dai could solve all my laundering problems. The
Individual Washer is an upright washing machine that can sort and wash
all your clothes together – regardless of color, material or washing
temperature requirements. Hooray, that means no more extra sorting, no
more color bleeding and no excess water usage! Read More
Sony Playstation Move motion controller official
By Darren Quick
March 10, 2010
Sony’s motion controller for the PS3 first unveiled at E3 in 2009
now has a final design along with an official name. At the Game
Developer Conference (GDC) 2010 the company officially announced the
PlayStation Move motion controller touting its precision and calling it
the “next generation of motion gaming”. The controller works in
conjunction with the PlayStation Eye camera that tracks the controller’s
glowing “light sphere” in three dimensions and that is the key to the
Move’s accuracy. Read More
Selling watches is no doubt getting harder these
days as their primary function, keeping track of time, is duplicated by
another technological item that is becoming ubiquitous – the mobile
telephone. In recent times we've seen watches given a
point-of-difference by including artifacts from the Titanic and the Moon,
and the Louis Moinet Jurassic Tourbillon will feature at Basel in
Switzerland this month. The Jurassic Tourbillon's dial contains
fragments of authentic fossilized dinosaur bones around 130 million
years ago. Read More
Just what, you may ask, is a gribble? It’s a tiny
marine isopod, and it eats wood. For centuries, they destroyed wooden
ships. Today, they continue to munch away on docks and piers. Unlike
creatures such as termites, however, gribbles have no helpful microbes
in their digestive system to help them digest wood - they themselves
possess the enzymes necessary for converting it to sugar. British
researchers are now suggesting that what works for the gribbles could
also work for converting wood waste and straw into liquid biofuels. Read More
Rather than tempt users with a raft of fancy (but
infrequently used) features, the "Zero Crash" N4200 Network Attached
Storage (NAS) unit from Thecus concentrates on providing peace of mind.
Offering what's dubbed as a "6D" approach to storage stability, the unit
benefits from running a second version of the operating software as a
precaution against primary failure and a backup power supply. Read More
In today’s water-conscious environment, any
device that helps conserve precious H2O should be applauded. Paul
Priestman from design company Priestmangoode has created the Water
Pebble – a gadget that monitors how long you’re taking in the shower by
flashing red when it’s time to get out. But what makes Water Pebble
different from other timing devices is that the Water Pebble memorizes
how long you took for your first shower and sets about gradually
minimizing the amount of water you use by reducing the time it takes for
the device to flash red in subsequent showers. Read More
Researchers have developed transgenic rainbow
trout with enhanced muscle growth that results in fish with what have
been described as six-pack abs and muscular shoulders. Aside from
ensuring the muscular trout don’t get bullied by other fish, the
development could provide a boost to the commercial aquaculture
industry. Read More
Just as consumer cameras
continue the shrink, so too are cameras designed for military and other
commercial applications. The latest is a compact 3D imaging camera
launched by Boeing that is designed to be deployed on a wide range of
platforms, including unmanned aerial and ground vehicles. The
cube-shaped camera is one-third the size and uses one-tenth the power of
most comparable cameras. Read More
The ever popular partnership of a sunny day mixed
with one’s favorite tunes takes on a new meaning with Japanese company
Landport’s Solar Sound speakers. Charging up via embedded solar panels
the uniquely shaped portable units offer up to eight hours play from a
single charge as well as optional USB connectivity for those cloudy
days. Read More
You will probably never get the chance to race a
Bugatti Veyron against a Eurofighter Typhoon, play "car darts" or fire an anti-tank gun at a flying Ford Scorpio
- because unless your name is Clarkson, May or Hammond, you don't have
the best damn job in the world. But if you fancy a taste of the
incredible life the Top Gear crew enjoy, you might be
interested to hear that Arctic Trucks, the Iceland-based company that
took the lads to the North Pole in 2007's Polar Challenge, is now
offering a range of two-day, five-day and longer expeditions across the
same territory - in the same beefed-up Toyota 4WDs that raced against
Hammond's dog sled team. Bring your own smug British humor. Read More
Hydrofloors are vertically movable floors that
mean you’ll literally be able to walk on water. Designed to reclaim the
surface area of a swimming pool that is wasted when the pool is not in
use, the floor height of the pool can be lowered mechanically to reveal
the already full pool or raised to cover the water and provide some
extra floor space. Read More
While politicians grapple and stop-start over the
growing concern for the welfare of our planet, more of us are wondering
what we can do to reduce the size of our carbon footprint at home. This
sort of thinking has given rise to the Greener Gadgets 2010 Conference
recently hosted in New York City by the Consumer Electronics Association
(CEA). The event celebrated a wide range of exciting prospects in
household innovation and design from a variety of leaders at the
forefront of green technology and sustainability. Read More
There's a Battle of the Bands scenario brewing
now that a new contender has arrived on the "play along to your favorite
tunes with a game controller instrument" scene. Seven45 Studios has
just released details of its new gaming system called PowerGig where the
buttoned and plunger interface of the familiar Guitar Hero and Rock
Band gaming interface has been tossed out in favor of a real six-string
guitar. Read More
Engineers at University of Wisconsin-Madison have
found a way to convert 95% of the energy of cellulosic biomass into jet
fuel using stable, inexpensive catalysts, basic equipment and minimal
processing. The end hydrocarbon product is so similar to jet fuel that
it is ready for application by present internal engine designs. Read More
Pentax unveils 645D medium format 40MP digital SLR
By Paul Ridden
March 11, 2010
It's been just under a year since Pentax first
released images of its 645D medium format digital SLR camera and the
company has finally announced its launch, albeit only in Japan for the
moment. Offering 40 megapixels, dual-memory support and
professional-level image processing you could be in for a pleasant
surprise if you were assuming an astronomical price tag. Read More
Remarkable new imaging technology developed by
researchers at the University of Wisconsin can not only capture the
heart in 3D showing blood flow, direction, and velocity, but can also
show them relating to a fourth dimension - time. The procedure is fast,
and requires no invasive procedures, no contrast agent or general
anesthesia and could have significant consequences for patients at risk
of cardiac problems. Read More
If you’ve ever considered the humble urinal, you
might have noticed that it uses much less water than a toilet. It only
makes sense - since they don’t receive any feces, urinals don’t need all
the water necessary to carry such solid waste through to the sewer
line. When you use a toilet and just urinate, however, you’re still
flushing away just as much water as if you, uh, went “Number 2.” If you
were using a NoMix toilet, however, the Number 1 and Number 2 would go
separate places, with the flushes being needed for solid waste only.
It’s a good enough idea that in a recent pilot project, users in seven
European countries gave the device a thumbs - or should that be bottoms?
- up. Read More
With Samsung's TL350 compact digital camera,
users can enjoy the benefits of full high definition video recording, a
10.2 megapixel sensor, five times optical zoom on a wide-angle lens and a
bright AMOLED display for preview and review. Would-be action movie
makers might also be interested in the super slow motion possibilities
offered by a 1,000 frames per second video recording mode, but what
first caught our eye was the nifty analog capacity gauges on top which
indicate remaining battery and memory. Read More
If the stereotype is to be believed, guys who use
gas lawn mowers would love to someday own a riding mower - after all,
few things could be more macho than doing circuits of your lawn sitting
on a miniature tractor with spinning blades on the bottom. But what
about suburbanites who use non-polluting push mowers? What bigger and
better type of lawn mower can they fantasize about? Until recently, that
would have been a hard question to answer, but now the solution is
here... yes, it’s the human-powered Mow Cycle riding mower. Read More
Current computers operate using binary coding;
thousands to trillions of small electrical circuits representing a
binary digit (bit) of information that represent a "1" when the circuit
is switched on and a "0" when switched off by means of an electronic
switch. The future of computing is to move this to a quantum scale,
where the weird properties of subatomic particles can be used to create
much faster computers. A new device developed by Harvard scientists
which uses nanostructured diamond wire to provide a bright, stable
source of single photons at room temperature represents a breakthrough
in making this quantum technology a reality. Read More
First seen at this year's CES in Las Vegas,
Samsung's entry into the e-Reader market has now been made official. The
device offers much of what we've all come to expect from an electronic
reader such as e-Ink display and WiFi but, thanks to a deal with Barnes
& Noble, users will have access to over a million book titles,
magazines and newspapers. Read More
Yamaha has finally released full specifications
for its new middleweight street sportsbikes, the naked FZ8-N and
semi-faired Fazer8. A 779cc engine derived from the FZ1 donk is the star
of the show, with a complete FZ1 frame and swingarm as well. The new
engine makes significantly more torque than the smaller FZ6 for a
gruntier, more accessible power curve around town - but builds to a
healthy 105-horsepower top end rush when it's time to get a boogie on.
It looks like a fun, fast and friendly street sportsbike - and yes, FZ6
fans, it has formally replaced the 600 in the FZ lineup. Read More
Japan, like many other countries, faces a rapidly
aging population sparking concerns about how the elderly will be cared
for in their twilight years. Japan being Japan has turned to robotics
with researchers developing robots to assist the elderly with everything
from exercise and independent living to shopping. Twendy-One is the latest robotic helper to join the fray designed to support aging people in their daily activities. Read More
Lotus rolled-out this carbon fiber clad Evora showcar alongside its 414E Hybrid plug-in concept at the 80th Geneva Motorshow.
Retaining the same aluminum chassis of the production car, the Evora
Carbon Concept mixes exposed carbon fiber panels - including a
structural carbon fiber roof - with white pearlescent paint and diamond
cut forged 19” alloy wheels. Read More
Japanese manufacturer Green House has just
released one of the most compact cameras you're ever likely to see. But
you'll have to get in really close because the Mini Digi is so tiny that
you might just miss it! Amazingly, it measures 2.5 x 1.8 x 1.2 inches,
and weighs just under an ounce. So, for photographers who don't want to
take their hefty DSLRs with them all the time, attaching a Mini Digi to
your keychain could be a fun alternative. Read More
The Guitarbud from the cable arm of guitar
manufacturers Paul Reed Smith Guitars allows you to plug a guitar
directly into an iPhone or iPod Touch, slap on a pair of headphones and
use the multitude of guitar apps available to record your magical
moments of inventive creativity, tune up your six-stringed companion,
jam along to your favorite artists or capture a killer riff and send it
to your friends. Read More
Cancer is a disease whose treatments are
notoriously indiscriminate and nonspecific. Researchers have been
searching for a highly targeted medical treatment that attacks cancer
cells but leaves healthy tissue alone. A team of scientists at
Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) is working on gold nanocages
that, when injected, selectively accumulate in tumors. When the tumors
are later bathed in laser light, the surrounding tissue is barely
warmed, but the nanocages convert light to heat, killing the malignant
cells. Read More
I suppose 'camerawomen' would be more
appropriate, given that Athena is a woman's name. But what's in a name?
Regardless of what you call it Gitzo's fully electronic,
remote-controlled head was one of the sweetest gadgets on display at CP+
2010 Focus on Imaging exhibition in Yohohama this past weekend. Read More
Today watches are built to withstand varying
degrees of water pressure and shocks and scrapes of all sorts. But a new
watch from Seiko has been built to withstand the harsh environments
found when the wearer is enjoying a pleasant Sunday afternoon spacewalk.
Touted as the first watch ever designed for use in outer space might
restrict the target market for the Seiko Spring Drive Spacewalk watch
somewhat, which is probably why Seiko will release a limited edition of
only 100. Read More
City Lights Globe shows how the Earth looks at night
March 14, 2010
Gizmag wouldn't normally advocate urban light
pollution but there's no doubt the twinkling lights of the cities around
the world at night create a pretty light show. The City Light Globe is a
6" revolving globe that shows you both Earth and all its named
countries as seen during the day, and automatically illuminates the city
lights around the world as seen from orbit as each country falls into
night-time. Read More
As regular readers will know, we cover more than
our fair share of breakthroughs promising next-generation
super-efficient solar cells. Everything from growing photovoltaic crystals, applying special coatings or using carbon nanotubes
teases us with cheaper, more efficient solar energy - eventually. In
this latest news, scientists are using current technology in a new type
of concentrating array which they say is four times more efficient and
three times cheaper than current solar cells. Read More
It is known that intense sound can be produced by
electrically-powered nanotubes stretched into sheets, but researchers
from University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas) have furthered this
principle by arranging sheets of carbon nanotubes into "forests" which
produce high-quality sound when struck with lasers. This is an exciting
advancement in the field of acoustics since it is thought these forests
could be used to form invisible wireless speakers that could be embedded
into walls, windows, computer screens, cars - the list is endless. Read More
Scientists at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia,
have built on feats of Mother Nature to develop the most potent
homogeneous catalyst known for water oxidation, which they hope will
lead to producing clean hydrogen fuel using only water and sunlight.
Could cars of the future be powered by water and a solar collector on
the roof? Read More
Chances are, you wouldn’t be on this website if
you didn’t love gadgets. And one thing that gadget-lovers seem to go
especially ga-ga over are multitools, like the Leatherman or the Swiss Army Knife
- there’s something very appealing about the idea of one little object
that can do all sorts of useful things. Well, for all of those
situations where bringing along your pocket-knife-on-steroids might seem
like overkill, there’s a new product that can easily clip onto your
pocket protector: the 13 Function in 1 Pen. Read More
Does the name Charles Thacker mean anything to
you? Here’s a hint – he has recently been awarded the Turing Award – the
most prestigious award honor in computing and considered to be the
computing equivalent of a Nobel Prize. What has he done to earn him such
an illustrious award? It’s more a case of what hasn’t he
done...Charles Thacker designed the Alto – the world’s first personal
computer and a prototype for networked personal computers. He also made
significant contributions to the Ethernet local area network, as well as
the first multiprocessor workstation and the prototype for a tablet PC.
Currently employed by Microsoft, Thacker joked that many of his
achievements happened way before “Microsoft even existed, when Bill
[Gates] was in short pants.” Read More
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