In another world first
in the fight against degenerative eye disorders, scientists from the
Universtiy of California, Irvine, have created an eight-layer
early-stage retina from human embryonic stem cells. Not only is this the
world's first three-dimensional complex tissue structure to be made
from stem cells, but it also marks the first step toward the development
of transplant-ready retinas to treat eye disorders affecting millions.
Read More
Toshiba
Europe has announced a waterproof addition to its Camileo range of
camcorders. Designed for active sports people, adventure travelers and
active families, the BW10 full HD sportcam can withstand immersion in
the wet stuff to a depth of about 6.5 feet and shoots in full HD with
image stabilization. Read More
A partnership has been announced that aims to
give schoolchildren throughout the globe easier access to powerful
tablet computer technology. One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)
and the Marvell Technology Group have joined forces to create a family
of educational tablets based on OLPC's OX-3 and Marvell's Moby reference
designs. The coalition is aiming to show off its first product at next
year's CES. Read More
Alcohol is the oldest and most commonly used of
all recreational drugs, with annual sales exceeding one trillion U.S.
dollars. Beer has been the world's most popular alcohol since before the
invention of the wheel with annual sales now exceeding US$500 billion.
Most of the world’s beer has between 4% and 6% alcohol by volume, and
the strength of beer achieved by natural fermentation brewing methods
has limits, but a well crafted beer that is repeatedly “freeze
distilled” can achieve exquisite qualities and much higher alcohol
concentrations. An escalation in the use of this new methodology over
the last 12 months has seen man's favorite beverage suddenly become
stronger than spirits such as whisky and vodka, and more expensive too.
The world's strongest beer is getting much stronger, very quickly, and
this week we spoke to the brewers at the centre of an informal but
escalating competition to brew the world's strongest beer. New
contestants are gathering, and the race is now on to break 50% alcohol
by volume. Read More
Conventional dental implants are typically
screwed into the patient’s jaw bone, require visits to several types of
clinicians, take two to six months to heal and are still subject to
failure. Not exactly an ideal solution to missing teeth. A professor of
dental medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, however, has
devised a technique wherein implants could be grown in the empty tooth socket, right inside the patient’s mouth. Read More
Not long ago we told you about the Moto Student competition,
wherein teams of students from across Spain and the rest of Europe are
competing to build racing motorcycles. Well, a similar competition is
underway in the US, and it’s called EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge. In this
contest, teams of North American engineering students are competing to
convert GM-supplied vehicles into super-efficient, super-clean-running,
high-tech wonders. The second year of the three-year contest wrapped up
this week, with Mississippi State University (MSU) taking the top spot.
Read More
Traditional taps run the risk of transmitting
dirt and germs from the hand to the tap when turning it on, and
transmitting them back to the just washed hand when turning the tap off.
Kind of counter-productive. Touch sensitive taps like Delta’s Pilar kitchen faucet
are one solution and the sensor activated taps often found in public
toilets are another. Designer Jasper Dekker has come up with an even
better solution with his Spatial Interaction faucet that allows users to
control not only flow, but also temperature and stream type with a wave
of a hand. Read More
First of all, let’s just say it: this is the most bizarre-looking bicycle saddle of all time. Feel free to disagree, but c’mon, just look
at the thing - it’s like the bike is sporting a leaf rake, or perhaps
even a rib cage. Like most funny-looking bike seats, however, the Manta
promises to rectify one of the most common of cyclists’ complaints...
the all-too-familiar “numb bum.” Read More
Flying cars
might still be a long way from becoming a commercial reality, but that
doesn't stop designers letting their imaginations run wild when it comes
to envisioning the airborne automobiles of the future... and they sure
make for some gorgeous conceptual art. A case in point is the YEE,
designed by South China University of Technology (SCUT) industrial
design students Pan Jiazhi, Zhu Wenxi and Lai Zexin. Last month, their
creation won the Gold Award for Best Creative Future at the First
International Concept Car Design Contest in Beijing. One look at it, and
it’s easy to see why. Read More
It's been an incredibly fast paced week at
TweakTown with hordes of new goodies passing through the labs and
leaving memorable impressions. The wrap-up includes a look at OCD's
Vertex 2 'E' series SSD, the latest chassis from Cooler Master and a
very nice 27-inch sized LCD from Dell. Read More
Sometimes it pays to sit back a while and wait to
see what everyone else has to offer before revealing your own hand. But
at this late stage, what could any manufacturer possibly bring to the
e-Reader table? Well, in addition to offering wireless connectivity,
access to a vast library of eBook content, a QWERTY keyboard and a 6
inch e-Ink display, the LumiRead e-Reader from Acer also allows users to
scan ISBN codes on actual books to help quickly locate their digital
counterparts. Read More
If you need something a little more responsive and modern than an Etch-a-Sketch and can't wait for a Scribble
to break cover, then perhaps the Boogie Board can help. The
pressure-sensitive LCD display requires no power to retain an image, and
is ideal for virtually any task that requires a temporary note to be
taken. Read More
Asus kicked off Computex 2010 today with the
announcement of three tablets, the Eee Tablet, the 12" Eee Pad EP121 and
the 10" Eee Pad EP101TC. The biggest surprise? Asus is claiming an
iPad-like ten hour battery life for all three devices. With battery life
being such a crucial benchmark for tablets, we hope this figure holds
up to real world usage. Read More
One of the most frustrating aspects of giving
presentations is finding the perfect spot for the projector. Too close
to the screen and the image is too small to be of any use, too far away
and some unwelcome shadow puppetry may creep in. Sanyo has announced the
forthcoming availability of the world's shortest focus projector, the
PDG-DWL2500J, which may help overcome such issues. Placing it less than
an inch away from the screen, wall or blackboard results in a
comfortably viewable 80 inch projected image. The unit happens to be 3D
ready too. Read More
Skype has updated its iPhone App to include 3G Skype-to-Skype voice calls. While version one of the Skype App
supported VOIP calls via Wi-Fi, the latest version brings this
functionality to the iPhone and iPod touch (2nd generation onwards) over
3G networks. Read More
With the latest attempt to stem the oil flow
from the Deepwater Horizon oil well by pumping heavy drilling liquids
into the well having failed, there is still no end in sight to the
disaster that began more than a month ago. To help shed some light on
where oil is spilling beneath the ocean surface and to aid biologists
and others understand the effects of this catastrophic event, the
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s (MBARI’s) Division of Marine
Operations has sent a high-tech robotic submersible to the oily waters
of the Gulf. Read More
UK students have driven an electric car around
Greater London twice on a single charge. Using a specially modified
electric Radical SRZERO supercar, the Racing Green Endurance (RGE) team
from Imperial College completed two laps of the M25 motorway in the wee
hours of Friday morning, covering a total distance of 250 miles (400km).
The feat is a lead up to an attempt later this year at becoming the
first EV to conquer the longest road on Earth - the Pan American
Highway. Read More
In a world full of scary viruses Ebola surely
ranks right up there amongst the scariest. It can cause fever, rashes,
muscle pain, headache, followed by internal and external bleeding, with
case fatality rates as high as 80 percent in humans. Currently there are
no available vaccines or therapies to combat the virus. Now scientists
report they have successfully prevented monkeys exposed to the virus
from dying from hemorrhagic fever and suggest that such protection
should be possible for humans. Read More
Ask people why they ride their bicycles to work
and they'll tell you it's because they enjoy the physical exercise, the
exertion, a morning workout that gets them awake and feeling sharp for
their 9am meeting. Why, then, would you spend 10 grand on a bicycle that
makes cycling easier and less strenuous, giving you less exercise per
mile? We reckon this guy has the right idea - he's built a modern day
penny farthing called the Monsterbike using a massive monster truck tyre
as the front wheel. Sure, it seems to have a top speed just above
walking pace, and it looks like a heck of an effort to ride - but the
exercise factor is huge, and you'll never feel intimidated in traffic
again! Read More
Kids could soon be looking for another way to
make some pocket money with robotic lawn mowers such as the Husqvarna’s Automower Solar Hybrid robot mower
now staking a claim for the job. The latest yard roaming mower to join
the fray is the Robby Garden XP that uses its patented grass detection
sensors to get the job done without the need to install a virtual
perimeter wire. It also mulches as it goes to help fertilize the lawn
and eliminate the need for post-mowing raking. Read More
University of Sheffield student Jon Leary was
required to “make something useful out of rubbish” as part of his
dissertation. What he ended up doing was transforming lives. As part of
his studies as a Mechanical Engineering major, Jon spent four months in
Guatemala. There, he introduced the locals to his bicibomba movil, a
mobile bicycle-powered water pump. Now, using cast-off bicycles and
discarded pumps, Guatemalan farmers can irrigate their land much more
easily and effectively than ever before. Read More
You may be forgiven for thinking that you are seeing double at the SanDisk booth at Computex...
double the storage that is. The company has just announced that it has
doubled the capacity of its SSD solutions and thrown in a performance
upgrade for good measure, too. The two new flavors will come in various
compact form factors with the G4 running up to 256GB and the P4 to
128GB. Read More
Counterfeiting is a crime as old as money itself.
It causes a reduction in the value of real money and can add to company
losses, as they are not reimbursed for counterfeits. In 1996 Australia
became the first country to have a full series of circulating polymer
banknotes, which are difficult to counterfeit because they cannot be
successfully reproduced by photocopying or scanning. Now scientists have
discovered a way of mimicking the stunningly bright and beautiful
colors found on the wings of tropical butterflies, that could help make
banknotes and credit cards even harder to forge. Read More
Sikorsky Aircraft’s goal of producing the fastest
helicopter ever built has taken another step towards becoming a
reality. Its coaxial X2 Technology demonstrator
has achieved a speed of 181 knots (208 mph) in a test flight – faster
than the 160-170 knot speeds generally possible with conventional
helicopters and edging closer to the eventual aim of delivering 250 knot
(288 mph) cruising speeds. Read More
So infatuated with your new iPad that you can’t
bear to be apart from it for the briefest of moments – not even in the
shower? Then this transparent, waterproof casing from Tokyo-based
company, Tunewear, could be the perfect apparel for your digital pride
and joy. Dubbed the Waterwear for iPAD/Tablet PC the clear plastic
housing allows full multi-touch operation while your device is protected
from dust and water. Read More
Sharp is set to unleash its new LV Series of 3D-compatible
AQUOS Quattron LCD TVs into the Japanese market. The four new LV Series
models will be bundled with 3D glasses and feature the company's "four-primary-color"
technology which adds yellow to the conventional red, blue and green
primary colors to improve the reproduction of colors like (yes) yellow,
gold and emerald green. Sharp has also announced new LX Series and super
slim XF Series 2-D AQUOS Quattron LCD TVs and two new AQUOS Blu-ray
recorders that support 3-D Blu-ray. Read More
Would-be Liberaces could soon be wearing a
keyboard on their hands in the form of the Piano Gloves. Created by
Scott Garner, the prototype gloves let the wearer play a piano on any
surface via buttons on the tips of the fingers. Audio is processed via
an Arduino microcontroller wired to the buttons and presently the
software can be set to play a major scale or ten semitones, which would
limit the gloves to playing tunes comprised of ten or less notes, but
Scott is looking at ways to expand the repertoire. Read More
Despite some notable exceptions,
electric vehicles are still perceived by many as offering less than
impressive performance and the looks to match. The latest EV to
challenge both those preconceptions is the "Dynacar" – an experimental
all-electric car that can reach a speed of 140 kmh (87 mph) in 10
seconds, and accelerate from 0 to 100 kmh (62 mph) in under an estimated
5.7 seconds. Read More
There are times when not being able to hear the
wailing caterwaul that sometimes passes for music would be a distinct
bonus. On the whole, though, the hearing impaired have it rough where
music is concerned. A German designer has proposed incorporating a
membrane into a special collar which resonates when music is played
through it, allowing people with hearing difficulties to really get down
and feel the funk. Read More
Hollywood's V-MODA brings high fashion to quality
audio with the release of the Crossfade LP headphones. Users are
promised premium audio delivery thanks to an efficient new driver
system, a comfortable long-haul experience thanks to memory foam
cushioning and a good-looking set of adaptable cans to boot. Read More
If you were shipping, say... a cargo container of
pineapples from Hawaii to Poland, you would probably want to know what
was happening to those pineapples along the way. For instance, were they
allowed to get too hot or too cold? Did they clear customs? Did they
follow the planned route? Using wireless radio frequency identification
sensors recently developed at Spain’s Public University of Navarre (UPNA
), you could know all these things and more, in real time. Read More
To paraphrase George Michael, “Beer is natural,
beer is good, not everybody drinks it, but everybody should.” OK, maybe
not everybody should drink it, but almost every adult does.
Some of them even go so far as to buy their own beer-brewing kits, both
to save money, and to “bond” with the beverage just that much more. If
someone really wanted to bond with their beer, what would their
next step be, to get a kit where they grow their own grains?! Why, yes.
It would be exactly that. Read More
Sanyo has confirmed it will be expanding its
range of gun-shaped Dual Camera Xacti devices this month with the launch
of the DMX-CA100 - a full HD Dual camera suitable for underwater use.
Able to withstand up to 3 meters of water, the Sanyo DMC-CA100 will have
the capacity to record up to 60 minutes of full HD video MPEG-4 files
(1920 x 1080 pixels). This device will also be able to capture
14-megapixel still images. Available in black, yellow or pink, sales for
the Sony Xacti DMX-CA100 will start at the end of June 2010. Final
prices have yet to be announced. Read More
With its ability to handle any rope thrown at it
with ease, the Powered Rope Ascender would’ve been the perfect device
for those torturous rope climbing activities in gym class. Although
they’ve been around since 2004, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) threw
down the gauntlet to Boston-based Atlas Devices to create an Ascender
for naval use that is lighter, smaller, more functional, and includes a
removable, rechargeable battery. The device the company came up with is
currently on display at Fleet Week New York. Read More
As portable computing devices get thinner and
thinner, component manufacturers appear to be in a perpetual state of
one-upmanship. In the latest round, Hitachi has put its HDDs on a crash
diet and announced a range of super slim drives available in storage
sizes up to 320GB. With a z-height of just 7mm (0.275 inch), the
Z-series family of Travelstar and CinemaStar drives also offer low power
consumption and low noise. Read More
A relationship with the Prancing Horse marque
that stretches back to 2003 has seen Acer release a range of Ferrari
branded products including the Ferrari 4000 Carbon Fiber notebook and the Ferrari F-20 LCD display.
At Computex 2010 this week the company is showing off the latest
devices including the Acer Liquid E Ferrari special edition smartphone.
Read More
The latest flat-panel TVs and computer screens
produce images by an array of electronic pixels connected by a
transparent conductive layer made from indium tin oxide (ITO). ITO is
also used as a transparent electrode in thin-film solar cells. But ITO
has drawbacks: it is brittle; its production process is inefficient; and
it is expensive and becoming more so because of increasing demand. One
potential alternative is to use tiny copper nanowires and researchers
have now perfected a simple way to make these in quantity. The cheap
conductors are small enough to be transparent, making them ideal for
thin-film solar cells, flat-screen TVs and computers, and flexible
displays. Read More
Made famous in concerts by Jean Michel Jarre,
laser harps recently gained a boost in popularity after being featured
in Make Magazine. That's where one Japanese creator, who goes by the
mysterious name of 'nameless911',
found inspiration prompting him to make his own for an exhibition at
his school. Rick Martin was on the scene to capture this and other Tokyo
Make Meeting highlights. Read More
What would you say is the world’s most famous
individual car? KITT from Knight Rider? Mr. Bean’s Mini? The General
Lee? For anyone born prior to the mid 70’s, the answer would probably be
“The ’64 James Bond Aston Martin DB5.” Driven by Sean Connery in the
classics Goldfinger and Thunderball, it featured a long list of spy
gadgetry, and is considered by many to still be the quintessential Bond
car. This fall, for the first time ever, the silver beauty will be put
up for auction. Start saving now, because it is expected to fetch over
US$5 million. Read More
Imagine a material that appears to be the size of
a sugar cube, but when you unfold it, you discover it has the surface
area of a football field. Besides its unbelievable surface area, this
substance can also be tweaked to absorb specific molecules. Such
materials are called metal-organic frameworks, and could be ideal
candidates for filtering the carbon out of smoke stack emissions. With
that end in mind, a team of California chemists are now racing to create
a metal-organic framework that can be used in an industrial carbon
sponge. Because there are millions of possible molecular variations, the
team is using development techniques that are up to 100 times faster
than conventional methods. Read More
It might be OK to see a trainee tag affixed to
the chest of someone serving you a burger, but quite another to see the
same tag on the chest of your surgeon as you’re put under before an
operation. Of course that’s not the reality with trainee surgeons
getting practice alongside more experienced surgeons and on cadavers.
But cadavers don’t grow on trees – thankfully – and practicing on live
patients exposes them to some risk. Now two Buffalo scientists have
paired up to create a new procedure-based, hands-on surgical training
software system that promises to deliver effective training in emerging
robot-assisted surgical techniques. Read More
Just before the doors opened to this year's Computex,
MSI announced that it was going to show off over 30 notebooks spanning
six series, as well as a few other bits and pieces. Gizmag had a good
look round the company's booth in Taipei this week and snapped some of
the wealth of tech on offer. Read on for a round-up of Micro-Star
International's show announcements... Read More
At Computex 2010
AMD gave the first public demonstration of its Fusion processor that
combines the Central Processing Unit (CPU) and Graphics Processing Unit
(GPU) on a single chip. The AMD Fusion family of Accelerated Processing
Units (APUs) not only adds another acronym to the computer lexicon, but
ushers is what AMD says is a significant shift in processor architecture
and capabilities. Read More
Spider Podium is a versatile dock that can hold
almost any mobile gadget. Manufactured by Breffo and available from
Japanese company JTT, the same people who brought us the Chobi Cam
a few weeks back, the Spider Podium provides a third hand to grip and
display compact cameras, iPods, iPhones, PSPs and more. Read More
Panasonic is hoping to help photographers get
much more from their snapping by including a 24-120mm equivalent
ultra-wide angle lens on the latest addition to its LUMIX
compact camera range. The 14 megapixel LUMIX DMC-FX75 also promises to
bring some clarity to action shots, gives a choice of four aspect ratios
and shoots in a choice of high definition and standard formats. Read More
Genetic fingerprinting using DNA is such a staple
of TV cop shows that it’s easy to take such technology for granted. But
it wasn’t all that long ago that DNA fingerprinting was cutting edge
technology that was horrendously expensive. However, as the cost of such
technology has plummeted, the DNA-based applications available to
common folk have multiplied. Aside from using DNA testing to uncover
ones genealogy, we’ve even got dating sites making matches based on DNA.
Now man’s best friend can benefit from DNA technology with a DNA Breed
Identification Kit that can identify the breeds that come together to
make up your lovable pooch. Read More
Hitachi-LG Data Storage has come up with a novel
idea that combines physical storage with an optical drive. The HyDrive
is capable of reading CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs but also has a solid
state drive (SSD) slotted in. Initially coming in 32GB and 64GB
versions, the company has plans to scale on up to 256GB by March of next
year. Read More
“A chilling blue Japanese inspired LED watch from
an entropic tomorrow which gives its master below zero Kelvin supremacy
by blurring the boundaries of how temporal intelligence (time) is
shown...” Good Lord, I can’t top that. That’s how online retailer
Chinavasion describes the Ice Samurai watch, a very cool-looking and
suspiciously-inexpensive timepiece that offers yet another take on displaying the time. In this case, it’s done with blue - sorry, ice blue LEDs that are incorporated into the watch band itself. And you know what that watch band is made of? Get ready... “Samurai sword carbonized steel folded 1000x over!” Read More
In what is turning into an annual occurrence,
Qualcomm has unveiled a bunch of devices based on its Snapdragon
platform at Computex 2010. Products on show include smartphones, pocket tablets, and smartbooks
in both tablet and clamshell form factors, from companies such as Acer,
Dell, HP, HTC, Huawei and Lenovo. The new devices pack first and second-generation Snapdragon chipsets and the company also revealed it has shipped its third-generation Snapdragon chipsets featuring two cores running up to 1.2 GHz designed for even more advanced smartphones. Read More
THINK electric vehicles are heading south. Following on from plans to introduce its electric vehicle range in the U.S.,
the Scandinavian electric vehicle maker has now announced a deal with
energy provider CPFL Energia to conduct a feasibility study on its THINK
City EVs in the Brazilian market. Read More
embryonic stem cells Reverse the ageing process, combat age-related disorders and help treatment of various diseases by renewing the body cells with Stem Cell therapy..
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