Tracking down the source of a leak in water pipes
can be a tricky business. Current techniques rely on acoustic sensing
with microphones often used to identify noise resulting from pressurized water escaping the pipe. In plastic pipes in particular, that noise can fall away quickly, making leak detection difficult and time consuming. Researchers at the University of Sheffield
claim to have developed a much more accurate system that locates leaks
by sending a pressure wave along the pipe that sends back a signal if it
passes any anomalies in the pipe’s surface. Read More
While the spotlight this month has been firmly on Curiosity's rendezvous with the Red Planet,
NASA has also been showcasing some of the technology we can expect to
see on future missions in the form of the Morpheus Lander. Read More
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With the swimming program of the London Olympics
now completed and medals awarded, many will now be casting their
attention to Rio in 2016 and how competitors can be helped to swim
faster, how they can be made stronger, and what swimwear can be
developed to improve their performance. Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology are hoping to answer these questions by developing a humanoid robot able to reproduce realistic swimming strokes. Read More
Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a degenerative eye disease that affects 200,000 people in the United States
and Europe and has left 15 million people permanently blind worldwide.
German biotechnology firm Retina Implant AG has developed a microchip
that provides a useful degree of artificial vision in patients who have
been blind for even long periods. The 3 x 3 mm (0.118 in) chip is
implanted below the surface of the retina where it electrically
stimulates the optical tissues. After successful clinical trials in Germany, the chip is now being tested in Hong Kong and Britain before moving on to planned trials in the U.S. Read More
Here's one for gun collectors with an eye for
detail. The SwissMiniGun C1ST is a double-action .09 caliber six-shooter
that's just over two inches (5.5 cm) long weighing 0.7 oz (19.8 g). The
level of detail is amazing – the Swiss gunsmiths behind the MiniGun are
experienced in jewelry and watchmaking crafts, and have orders to
produce works of art that happen to be fully functioning guns. And the
price? We think you ought to sit down first ... Read More
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The US Patent Trademark Office
(USPTO) has made public an application for an iPad cover encompassing a
flexible touch-screen display. The product detailed in the patent that
Apple filed for nearly a year ago would aim to “greatly enhance the
overall functionality of the tablet device.” Read More 
Wouldn’t it be nice to lounge in the pool and
enjoy your favorite music without risking the health and well-being of
your precious mobile device? We have seen a number of waterproof MP3
players and accessories over the years, including the Speedo Aquabeat, the Fitness Technologies UWaterG2 and more recently a waterproof smartphone case with a built-in speaker, ECOXGEAR’s ECOXPRO. Until now, though, we hadn't seen a waterproof Bluetooth speaker (as opposed to water-resistant, like the iShower)
like ECOXGEAR’s new ECOXBT. It allows you to listen to your favorite
songs in the water while your cell phone or Bluetooth compatible MP3
player remains safely on dry land. Read More
With London 2012 in full effect and all eyes on
UK's capital, Nissan has chosen a shrewd Monday morning to announce that
its NV200
is to be certified as a London black cab. Nissan claims that the taxi
variant of its light commercial vehicle is 50 percent more fuel
efficient than other black cabs, allowing the automaker to position the
NV200 as the next generation London taxi, just as it has for New York and Tokyo where NV200 taxis are also set to appear. The fully electric model, the e-NV200, is set for London testing next year, and could see service as early as 2014. Read More
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As a child, there was something magically
rewarding about dropping some small change into the slot of a gumball
machine, turning the lever and being rewarded with some hard candy. The
Razorfish Emerging Experiences team has now updated the mini-vending
machine for the digital age with a prototype Digital Gum Machine that
delivers a digital treat to a smartphone in exchange for a 50 cent coin.
Read More
A two year old girl born with arthrogryposis, a
congenital disease that left her unable to lift her own arms, although
able to walk, has been given a new lease on life by a 3D printed robotic
exoskeleton, enabling her to move freely for the very first time. The
exoskeleton, made of a similar material to Lego, was manufactured using a
Stratasys Dimension 3D printer so as to create a prosthetic light
enough for young Emma to continue walking around freely. Read More
The Clean Bottle, a two-lidded
bottle designed for easy cleaning, is getting an upgrade in the form of
the Clean Bottle Square. It adds a rigid, stainless steel option to
Clean Bottle's line. Read More
If you were in Peru right now, at the
long-abandoned Inca village of Mawchu, you might see something very
modern flying over it – a Skate unmanned aerial vehicle.
The aircraft is the key part of a system designed by a team from
Nashville’s Vanderbilt University. Once perfected, it should be able to
accomplish in 10 to 15 minutes what would take an archeological team two
to three field seasons to complete. Read More
Researchers from Nagoya University and Fujitsu have spent the last few years developing an automated detection system that alerts the recipient to possible phone phishing scams. After successful simulation testing, the team has now announced plans for household field trials. Read More
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Tuners are a staple in the high performance auto
market, building bigger, badder and more extreme versions of sports and
luxury cars. AC Schnitzer is one such tuner, offering services for BMW
vehicles. The latest vehicle it's chosen to tune isn't a 7 Series or an
X5; it's a bicycle. Read More
After a successful landing on Sunday, the NASA rover Curiosity has begun sending back images of the planet including the first color pictures
and 3D stereographs. In addition to images from the surface of the red
planet, the lander has also sent back images captured by onboard cameras
during the craft’s dramatic descent
through the Martian atmosphere and landing. Meanwhile, an orbiter from
an earlier NASA mission sent back images of Curiosity’s descent. Read More
According the UK’s National Health Service, one person in 50 over the age of 80 will develop venous leg ulcers. The ulcers occur when high blood pressure
in the veins of the legs causes damage to the adjacent skin, ultimately
resulting in the breakdown of that tissue. While the ulcers can be
quite resistant to treatment, a team of scientists is now reporting
success in using a sort of “spray-on skin” to heal them. Read More
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"People who live in glass houses
shouldn't throw stones," is a proverb not usually taken literally, but
anyone brave enough to live in architect Carlo Santambrogio's glass
house (designed by Ennio Arosio) may want to do so. They'll also need to
not be the shy and retiring type, have a fair amount of money in the
bank, and own a plot of land with no close neighbors or easy points of
access. Not for the faint-hearted then, but a property we can all aspire
to one day live in ... if we ignore the obvious practical concerns.
Read More
When the Kickstarter-funded Ouya Android gaming console was first announced,
we all stood up and took notice. Now, its makers have announced that
they are going to be adding even more new features. Early adopters will
be able to enjoy XBMC, OnLive and TuneIn right from their US$99 Ouya
console. Read More
€7,000 circular home built using corn cobs
August 7, 2012
French architectural firm St. André-Lang has
designed and built a compact circular housing prototype that
incorporates corn cobs within the walls. The 20 square meter (215 square
foot) pavilion style home is located in the protected parklands of
Muttersholtz, France and recently won the Archi<20 competition for
low-cost, environmentally-friendly architecture. “The total cost of the
project was €7,000 [US$8,705],” St. André-Lang architect and co-creator
Bastien Saint-André told Gizmag. “But we had some partners (carpenter,
woodworker) – the real cost would be around €10,000 [US$12,435].” Read More
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Flashlight manufacturer Fenix is bringing its
lighting expertise to the bike market with plans to launch a pair of
bike lights that combine powerful output, low pricing and an established
brand name. Some bikers already mount Fenix torches to their handlebars
in place of more purpose-built lighting systems but its new bike light
line will just give users a more integrated package for lighting up the
road or trail with Fenix power. Read More
As well as being the third largest source of
vegetable oil in the world – after soybean and oil palm – rapeseed (also
known as rape, oilseed rape, rapa, rappi and rapeseed) is cultivated in
Europe primarily for animal feed. But due to high levels of
glucosinolates that are harmful to most animals (including humans) when
consumed in large amounts, its use must be limited. Now researchers at
the University of Copenhagen have found a way to stop unwanted toxins
entering the edible parts of the plant, thereby increasing the potential
of the plant to be used as a commercial animal feed. Read More
The RUNNUR is a sort of belt for
your upper body. More like Batman's utility belt than the average
leather pants-hiker, the RUNNUR offers all kinds of storage compartments for everything from your cell phone to your water bottle. Its look is questionable, but its storage capacity isn't. Read More
Not even a month since researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF) announced a 500 trillion watt laser shot,
researchers at the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA) have managed
to deliver a record-breaking petawatt, that is, a quadrillion watts, in a
pulse just 40 femtoseconds long at a rate of one pulse every second. To
put that in perspective, a petawatt is more than the combined output of
all electric power plants in the world at any given time and one femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second. Read More
The RUNNUR is a sort of belt for
your upper body. More like Batman's utility belt than the average
leather pants-hiker, the RUNNUR offers all kinds of storage compartments for everything from your cell phone to your water bottle. Its look is questionable, but its storage capacity isn't. Read More
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If you can’t be bothered to head to London, but still want some Olympic excitement, London 2012,
the official game of the event (one of them, anyway) has come to
Windows, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and OnLive. Gizmag raced the Xbox 360
version once around the track: read on to see if wins a gold medal. Read More
As useful as 3D printers are becoming in industrial design,
they still aren't exactly eco-friendly and are still mostly limited to
small scale objects. You couldn't really use one to print a building
just yet, but a group of architects may have taken a step in the right
direction with a new machine called the Stone Spray. Using natural soil
and sand, the Stone Spray can construct intricate solid structures at
almost any location, even on vertical surfaces. Read More
DayZ, a zombie survival horror mod for PC
military simulator title ArmA II that has attracted rave reviews, has
been given the green light by developer Bohemia Interactive to make the step up into a fully-fledged standalone title. The mod, which according to its New Zealand
creator Dean Hall has attracted over one million users in the four
months since its release, has propelled ArmA II back to the top of the
Steam sales charts a full three years after that title's release and
it's expected the standalone game will enjoy the same kind of success.
Read More
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With mobile telecommunications technology and
social networking revolutionizing the way people communicate, various
automakers, including Audi, GM
and Daimler, are looking at ways to looking to improve the
communications capabilities of vehicles to allows them to easily
exchange information with each other and infrastructure to help improve
safety, efficiency and driver convenience. Daimler’s effort, called
car-to-X (C2X) has now begun its largest ever field trial with 120
network-linked vehicles hitting the roads in Germany’s Rhine-Main
region. Read More
Looking not unlike a plastic Popsicle stick, the
Flamestick from Germany's AceCamp is a firestarter made from recycled
thermoplastic that measures 3.5 inches (8.9 cm) long by 1/4 inch (6.4
mm) wide. While plastic may sound like a strange way to start a fire,
the Flamestick offers several advantages over more traditional
materials. Read More
UAVs have proven very successful as surveillance,
intelligence-gathering and mapping craft, but their ability to interact
with the ground has been largely confined to launching missiles. Now,
Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is planning to endow
them with arms and hands to allow them to work on such tasks as
repairing infrastructure and disaster recovery while hovering near the
ground. Read More
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At Newspace 2012, hosted by the Space Frontier
Foundation in Santa Clara, California, Armadillo Aerospace announced it
has been awarded a two-year launch license by the FAA for the launch of
its STIG-B payload-carrying vehicle into suborbital space this (northern
hemisphere) summer from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Read More
We have seen wooden-framed computers
before, although those have generally been off-the-shelf machines that
have simply received a steampunk makeover. A team of engineers from
Ireland’s MicroPro Computers and Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for
Reliability and Microintegration have gone considerably farther,
however. Their wood-bodied iameco (“I am eco”) v3 touchscreen computer
reportedly has 70 percent less carbon footprint than a regular desktop
PC with a monitor. Read More
The European Commission plans to make Autonomous
Emergency Braking systems (AEBs) a mandatory requirement in all new
vehicles on the Continent by 2014. These systems typically use one or a
combination of radar, lidar or video-recognition technologies to measure
the distances between vehicles, warn drivers if they get too close, and
to then engage the brakes if the driver fails to take any action. Read More
Revamping a concept that was first explored forty
years ago, researchers at the University of Southern California (USC)
are putting the final touches on a patent-pending design for cheap,
rechargeable, high energy density iron-air batteries. Because of their
unique features, the batteries look particularly well-suited to the kind
of large-scale energy storage that could accelerate the adoption of
renewable energy sources. Read More
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If you were an animator who was instructed to
“Make a street that looks like it’s in Paris,” chances are you might not
know what to do. Sure, you could occasionally put the Eiffel Tower in
the background, but you couldn’t do that for every shot. If you were
using a new data-mining system developed by Carnegie Mellon University
and INRIA/École Normale Superiéure in Paris, however, it would show
you what you should include. The software automatically looks through
photos taken in various cities, and identifies the recurring visual
features unique to each place. Read More
The Clean Bottle, a two-lidded
bottle designed for easy cleaning, is getting an upgrade in the form of
the Clean Bottle Square. It adds a rigid, stainless steel option to
Clean Bottle's line. Read More
The snail-like Tiki USB microphone
from Blue that caught our attention at CES 2012 has now been released.
The PC/Mac-friendly, plug-and-play microphone features background
noise-cancellation and auto-muting for online comms and a high quality
voice/instrument recording mode, too. Gizmag has spent the last few days
chatting, recording, listening, testing, and generally getting to know
Tiki a little better. Does it live up to its early promise? Read on to
find out ... Read More
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It is now possible to control a computer by
touching a house plant – touching the plant in different places can even
cause the computer to do different things. While using a mouse or
touchscreen still might be more intuitive, Disney Research’s
experimental Botanicus Interactus system does hint at what could be
possible down the road. Read More
Everyone knows that it’s possible to identify
different species of birds by their vocalizations, but did you know that
it’s also possible to differentiate between different types of bats
based on their echolocation calls? Well, now you do. So far, however,
there hasn’t been a standardized system of doing so – it’s been left up
to individual human listeners to decide on the closest match. That may
soon no longer be the case, though, as the new online iBatsID tool comes
into use. Read More
A patent filed in November of last year shows
plans for an eye tracking unlock system. The plans strongly suggest that
the feature is intended for use with Google Glass, Mountain View’s hot-topic, wearable-tech product. Read More
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It became an iconic drug that entered pop
cultural folklore, but fluoxetine, marketed as Prozac, has put a smile
on the faces of researchers for a purpose other than the treatment of
depression. Studies carried out at UCLA have found that fluoxetine is a
promising antiviral agent, particularly for enteroviruses that can be a
cause of death in several parts of the world. Read More
The Rhino Slider is a camera track designed to
lend DSLR cameras some lateral movement when shooting video. Pitching to
a similar market to the similarly successful Genie time-lapse controller
from Syrp, it's not surprising to see the Rhino Slide has received more
than double its US$20,000 Kickstarter target with 40 days left on the
clock. The Rhino Slider is a deliberately simple and therefore
affordable device which relies on the camera being slid either by hand,
pulley or by gravity. Read More
It may read like a Scandinavian
misspelling of a common tree, but the Fikkes is actually an innovative
piece of gear that combines two staples of the outdoors. This pole will
help you fish distant bodies of water of all kinds. Read More
Britain's Evanta Motor Co. has paid
tribute to the iconic Aston Martin DBR1 with a unique replica of the
1959 Le Mans winning vehicle. This isn't your average replica though -
the parts are laid out on a gigantic AirFix-style frame that measures
6.35 meters (20.8 ft) wide and 3.30 meters (10.8 ft) tall. Read More
Best known for its Swiss Army knives
and watches, Wenger has been expanding into other types of gear and
accessories, including tents, shoes and sunglasses. Portable solar
chargers are some of the latest additions to this expanded line. Read More
Game developer and distributor Valve
has announced that come September 5, its online distribution platform
Steam is to begin selling non-game software. Read More
One thing that’s generally expected of a chair is
that it stays still. True, it might rock or swivel or recline, but if
we’re sitting still, we expect the chair to do likewise. Dr. Patrik A.
Künzler, head of the Swiss start-up Inno-Motion, disagrees. He has
invented the US$8,500 LimbIC - a deliberately wobbly ergonomic chair
that's billed as being comfortable to sit in for hours while promoting
better health and creativity. Read More
Slingshot controller made just for Angry Birds
August 9, 2012
It's hard to believe just how popular Angry Birds
and its spin-offs have become since the first game's release in 2009,
but there are plenty of people still enjoying Rovio's series even now.
With numerous ports for almost every popular mobile device, game
console, and web browser, not to mention downloads totaling over one
billion, it's clear that casual gamers are still enamored with the game
about suicidal birds and explosive pigs. A couple of students have even
gone so far as to create a slingshot-style controller just for the game
out of a motorized slider from a sound mixer and an Arduino
microcontroller. Read More
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It may read like a Scandinavian
misspelling of a common tree, but the Fikkes is actually an innovative
piece of gear that combines two staples of the outdoors. This pole will
help you fish distant bodies of water of all kinds. Read More
Compact snappers looking to zoom in on distant
subjects have been given a wallet-friendly helping hand from Nikon with
the launch of its new COOLPIX L610 superzoom digital camera. It features
a 14x zoom lens that runs from the wide-angle 25-mm right up to the
350-mm telephoto end (35-mm film equivalent), a low-light-friendly 16
megapixel sensor and is capable of full HD movie recording with one
touch activation. Read More
Britain's Evanta Motor Co. has paid
tribute to the iconic Aston Martin DBR1 with a unique replica of the
1959 Le Mans winning vehicle. This isn't your average replica though -
the parts are laid out on a gigantic AirFix-style frame that measures
6.35 meters (20.8 ft) wide and 3.30 meters (10.8 ft) tall. Read More
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The International Lunar Observatory Association
(ILOA) is being backed by Google Lunar X Prize contestant Moon Express
in placing a small telescope on the Moon's surface to test and
troubleshoot operating protocols for a fully loaded remote telescope.
Last week, the ILO-X, the first ILOA telescope that will be sent to the
Moon, was remotely tested by ILOA and Moon Express on the summit of
Mauna Kea, and passed with flying colors. Later ILOA/Moon Express
missions will include landing considerably larger telescopes at
strategic locations on the lunar surface. Read More
Best known for its Swiss Army knives
and watches, Wenger has been expanding into other types of gear and
accessories, including tents, shoes and sunglasses. Portable solar
chargers are some of the latest additions to this expanded line. Read More
If the idea of your mobile gadget running out of
juice leaving you incommunicado (or, heaven forbid, bored) fills you
with fear, then a battery pack is the obvious solution. But what if your
power needs vary from day to day? Exogear has developed a battery pack
that it touts as the world’s first stackable battery pack that is
designed to adapt to suit your battery needs, no matter how small or how
great. Read More
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Game developer and distributor Valve
has announced that come September 5, its online distribution platform
Steam is to begin selling non-game software. Read More
Ford definitely appears to have Toyota in its sights with its 2013 C-MAX line. Having already revealed the C-MAX Hybrid will be cheaper than Toyota’s Prius v,
the U.S. automaker is now boasting that its hybrid utility vehicle
beats the Prius v in the fuel economy stakes by up to 7 mpg (33.6
liters/100 km). It is also the first vehicle to offer the same fuel
economy rating in both city and highway driving. Read More
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