While hydrogen is considered a “clean” fuel
because the only waste product it generates is water, the conventional
way to produce it relies on electricity, which is usually produced
through the burning of fossil fuels. Researchers at the University of
California, San Diego (UCSD), have now developed a “3D branched nanowire
array” that they claim could cheaply and cleanly deliver hydrogen fuel
on a mass scale. Read More
Hailing from New Zealand, "land of the extreme,"
the Gyroboard is a balance board for general exercise and off-season
training that appears to have the potential to become a fun hobby on its
own. Gyro Enterprises, the brains and bills behind the device, says
that it helps your core strength, balance and coordination. It can be
used for injury rehabilitation, sports training, fitness, etc. The board
simulates the movements of board sports like skateboarding and
snowboarding, so it's a good way to practice in the comforts of your own
backyard or home. Read More
At some point, we’ve probably all had a
supermarket cashier ask us to identify the mysterious fresh produce that
we’re attempting to buy. Once we’ve told them what it is, they have
then had to manually type in its code – they have to enter it
themselves, of course, given that fruits and vegetables don’t have
barcodes. Thanks to Toshiba Tec, however, those days may be coming to an
end. The company’s new Object Recognition Scanner is able to instantly
identify grocery items of all types based on their appearance alone.
Read More
Though it's long been known that there are two
forms of fat or adipose tissue, white, which stores calories, and brown,
which burns them for energy and warmth, figuring out how to safely
create more of the desirable brown type has remained elusive. In an
ideal world, there'd simply be a switch one could flip to convert white
fat into brown and obesity would eventually become a thing of the past.
Now, UC San Francisco (UCSF) Diabetes Center brown fat researcher Shingo
Kajimura and his team have made a discovery that leads them to believe
they've found that switch and one day, it just may lead to the
long-sought solution for human obesity. Read More
While our DNA is determined at conception, researchers reporting in the March issue of Cell Metabolism,
say that we can beneficially alter our DNA molecules in a matter of
minutes, simply by exercising. Furthermore, caffeine may also offer
similar effects. Read More 
People with limited mobility face a challenge
when getting into a conventional vehicle. Not only do they have to put
aside their crutches or get out of their wheelchair, but they are also
required to step up and across the vehicle’s door sill and swivel
themselves sideways onto the seat. One option is to get a converted van,
with a side- or rear-mounted ramp. Autoadapt, however, is now offering
an alternative. The Swedish company’s Turny Evo system actually lifts
the front driver or passenger seat out the door of the vehicle, turns it
toward the user, and lowers it down. Once the user has seated
themselves, the seat and passenger are then pulled back inside, and
driving can commence. Read More
There are a number of reasons that some people
choose not to eat meat – for instance, they may not want to support the
slaughter of animals, they may wish to avoid the health risks associated
with consuming too much animal protein, or perhaps they’re not big fans
of the environmental impact of raising livestock on a commercial scale.
Unfortunately, if these people still want to eat meat-like foods, a lot
of the meat alternatives currently available are kind of ... yucky.
Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging,
however, is working on a device nicknamed the “vegetarian cutlet
factory.” It produces continuous slabs of veggie-based mock meat, which
is reportedly quite similar to the real thing. Read More
When you live in a country as seismically active
as Japan, thinking about earthquakes (and tsunamis) probably occupies a
good deal of your time. Inventor Shoichi Sakamoto took it a step
further. He decided to do something about it and invented a technology,
remarkably simple in concept, to protect homes from the devastating
shaking - an airlift system capable of automatically raising and
isolating the whole house until the temblor stops. Read More
The Renault ZOE electric passenger vehicle
premiered at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show represents quite a change from
the concept first shown
at 2009's Frankfurt Motor Show, although many of the features promised
three years ago have made it into the final design. The French auto
maker says that the first of its Z.E. range benefits from a battery
range of up to 130 miles, a top speed of 83 miles per hour and a new
onboard charger that is capable of juicing up the battery pack at any
level. There are some really nice design touches and lots of spanking
new technology, but the real winner for the ZOE is likely to be its
attractive price point - although owners will also have to stump up a
monthly hire charge for the battery. Read More
It's long been suggested that white rooftops
could help reduce the heat bubble microclimates that surround our cities
simply by reflecting solar radiation directly back into space, and in
2010 we reported on NCAR efforts to demonstrate the effect through computer modeling.
A new study goes one better, putting the theory into practice and
pitting three white materials against one another on three New York
rooftops. The results of the study appear to be overwhelmingly
positive, with white roof coatings reducing peak rooftop temperatures in
summer "by an average of 43 degrees Fahrenheit (about 24 degrees C)."
Read More
Hyundai's 80 kW four-seater i-oniq electric sports hatchback concept
rolled out at Salon International de L’Automobile this week, using a
range-extending petrol engine to boost the electric-only range of 120
km (75 miles) to beyond 700 km (435 miles) at just 45 g/km of CO2. Big
gallery. Read More
Lotus unveiled its Exige S Roadster
at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show this week, marking the sportscar
manufacturer's first Exige model with a soft top equipped straight out
of the factory. Read More
In a sign of the times, Ducati has
announced it will be selling two very recent Ducati Desmosedici GP
machines at auction. The bikes, a GP11 2011 factory Desmosedici which
brought Valentino Rossi his only top three finish of the 2011 season,
and the other a 2010 model GP10 which Casey Stoner took to victory in
the 2010 Australian Grand Prix, are subject to an undisclosed reserve.
The buyer will be required to enter into a confidentiality agreement.
Read More
When the Great Depression claimed
E.L. Cord’s industrial empire, the Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg marques
went with it. The Cord L-29 was perhaps one of the most distinctive cars
ever produced, thanks to the extra long bonnet necessitated by the
straight eight engine and front-wheel-drive system. Though cloaked in
various bodies, the long low lines of the L-29 are unmistakeable. The
world's best known Cord, winner of countless awards, fell under the
auctioneers hammer yesterday, and sold for a record US$2.42 million.
Great piccies. Read More
The B&O PLAY Beolit 12 is about
the size of a small car battery, weighs 2.8 kg and contains a
substantial battery, a digital Class D 120 Watt amplifier, plus two 2"
tweeters and a 4" woofer. It also connects via Apple's AirPlay, so it
plays seamlessly from your iPod, IPad or iPhone by AirPlay for four
hours, or wired to your iThing for eight hours. Based on our past
experience with B&O, the sound will be exquisite, but the Beolit 12
might also be the most expensive accessory you'll consider for the
iPhone - EUR700 or US$800. Read More
Those looking to bring a little more
“depth” to their photos might want to check out the custom-made photo
reliefs from Portland, Oregon, based BumpyPhoto. Using 3D-printing
technology, the company will produce a full-color 3D relief sculpture
from a 2D photo to give an even better indication of the size of that
sun dial that Uncle Barry calls a nose. Read More
Pet owners will know that the joys
of having a furry friend around the house can be offset somewhat by the
mess they make - particularly come molting season. Such pet owners, as
well as allergy sufferers, are who Neato Robotics is targeting with its
latest automatic vacuum cleaner, the XV-21. Read More
Simply called Unavailability,
this achingly simple piece of design is a one-man wooden-framed fold-up
fishing hut with chicken wire-mesh walls that can be packed with ice by
the user to keep out the wind while letting in light. Read More
In First World countries' medical systems, the
standard way of checking a patient's body fluid samples is to send them
off to a lab. In developing nations, however, such labs often don't
exist, nor does the infrastructure for transporting biological samples.
Fortunately, a number of groups have been developing simple, inexpensive
testing devices that could be used by clinicians in these countries. One of the latest gadgets is the very
simple origami Paper Analytical Device, or oPAD – it's made out of
paper, could be purchased for under 10 cents, and is folded together by
the user. Read More
Hyundai's 80 kW four-seater i-oniq electric sports hatchback concept
rolled out at Salon International de L’Automobile this week, using a
range-extending petrol engine to boost the electric-only range of 120
km (75 miles) to beyond 700 km (435 miles) at just 45 g/km of CO2. Big
gallery. Read More
If there's one thing that you don't want
happening on board a ship, it's a fire. People on board burning ships
can't simply run out onto the streets, as they hopefully could
in the case of a structural fire, plus many people caught belowdecks
don't have windows nearby to climb out of. Then, there's also the fact
that crew members fighting such fires have to work in narrow,
claustrophobic passageways, instead of wide-open roads. Given that fires
are particularly possible on military ships, due to attacks by enemy
forces, America's Naval Research Laboratory is now developing a special
something to help fight fires at sea - it's called SAFFiR, the Shipboard
Autonomous Firefighting Robot. Read More
It may not be the sexiest electric vehicle on
display at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show, but the Mercedes-Benz Vito E-Cell
is definitely one of the hardest working. The MPV carries up to seven
passengers without blowing a puff of tailpipe smoke. Mercedes used the
show to present a transparent model of the upcoming van. Read More
Autonomous underwater vehicles, better known as
AUVs, are increasingly finding use in applications such as oceanographic
research, mapping, military reconnaissance, and deep-sea oil-well
maintenance. As these independent underwater robots make their way
through the world’s oceans, they use GPS transceivers to keep themselves
on a predetermined route. When they encounter challenges such as
cross-currents, one might assume that their best course of action would
be simply to power straight across them, in order to travel the shortest
distance possible. Engineers from MIT, however, have developed a system
that allows AUVs to reach their destinations sooner, by traveling out
of their way to “go with the flow.” Read More
Repairing and refueling satellites robotically
may seem rather mundane, especially when compared with moon landings,
Mars rovers and the Hubble space telescope, but NASA's two-year Robotic
Refueling Mission (RRM) experiment, now underway on the International Space Station
(ISS), turns out to be surprisingly complex. Designed to demonstrate
that servicing working satellites with remotely-controlled robots is a
feasible option, NASA, in conjunction with the Canadian Space Agency
(CSA), initiated the first of several RRM test tasks just a few days ago
and the results look very promising. Read More
Lotus unveiled its Exige S Roadster
at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show this week, marking the sportscar
manufacturer's first Exige model with a soft top equipped straight out
of the factory. Read More
A new marker of Alzheimer’s disease can predict
how rapidly a patient’s memory and other mental abilities will decline
after the disorder is diagnosed, according to researchers at Washington
University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Just released in Neurology
were the results of a three-year long study that followed 60 patients
with early Alzheimer's disease. The study found that rapid mental
decline was predicted by the presence of larger levels of visinin-like
protein 1 (VILIP-1) in the spinal fluid. Read More
The 2012 Game Developers Conference is in full
swing right now, with video game companies clamoring to show off their
newest tech. But while there are plenty of impressive demos of the
latest in graphics software, none have stood out quite as much as
Quantic Dream's short film showing off its innovative motion capture
technology. Aside from an expertly crafted narrative, the seven-minute
video, titled KARA, shows one of the most powerful performances
from a virtual character to date, which is even more extraordinary
given the fact that each jaw-dropping frame is rendered in real-time on a
PlayStation 3. Read More
Getting into space is one of the harder tasks to
be taken on by humanity. The present cost of inserting a kilogram (2.2
lb) of cargo by rocket into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is about US$10,000. A
manned launch to LEO costs about $100,000 per kilogram of passenger. But
who says we have to reach orbit by means of rocket propulsion alone?
Instead, imagine sitting back in a comfortable magnetic levitation
(maglev) train and taking a train ride into orbit. Read More
Well-known film director and deep-sea explorer
James Cameron is no stranger to setting records, but this time, instead
of box office gross, he's setting his sights on something more akin to a
single-handed lunar landing - a solo trip to the ocean's deepest point,
the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench off Guam. Billionaire
entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson is hard on Cameron's heels but it appears almost certain the genius behind the blockbusters Titanic and Avatar
will be the first to get there alone - he just snagged the record for
deepest solo dive off Papua New Guinea on March 6th with a depth of
26,791′ (8.2km). Read More
In a sign of the times, Ducati has
announced it will be selling two very recent Ducati Desmosedici GP
machines at auction. The bikes, a GP11 2011 factory Desmosedici which
brought Valentino Rossi his only top three finish of the 2011 season,
and the other a 2010 model GP10 which Casey Stoner took to victory in
the 2010 Australian Grand Prix, are subject to an undisclosed reserve.
The buyer will be required to enter into a confidentiality agreement.
Read More
When the Great Depression claimed
E.L. Cord’s industrial empire, the Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg marques
went with it. The Cord L-29 was perhaps one of the most distinctive cars
ever produced, thanks to the extra long bonnet necessitated by the
straight eight engine and front-wheel-drive system. Though cloaked in
various bodies, the long low lines of the L-29 are unmistakeable. The
world's best known Cord, winner of countless awards, fell under the
auctioneers hammer yesterday, and sold for a record US$2.42 million.
Great piccies. Read More
The B&O PLAY Beolit 12 is about
the size of a small car battery, weighs 2.8 kg and contains a
substantial battery, a digital Class D 120 Watt amplifier, plus two 2"
tweeters and a 4" woofer. It also connects via Apple's AirPlay, so it
plays seamlessly from your iPod, IPad or iPhone by AirPlay for four
hours, or wired to your iThing for eight hours. Based on our past
experience with B&O, the sound will be exquisite, but the Beolit 12
might also be the most expensive accessory you'll consider for the
iPhone - EUR700 or US$800. Read More A NOSH-aspirin a day may just help keep cancer away
By Brian Dodson
March 11, 2012
What began as an effort to make aspirin safer for
regular use may have resulted in a powerful new weapon in the fight
against cancer. Scientists from The City College of New York (CCNY) have
developed a new aspirin compound that is safer than the classic
medicine cabinet staple, but also exhibits greatly enhanced anticancer
properties. Read More
Gizmag has featured many guitars over the years
that have veered well away from slight design variations on the
ubiquitous Les Paul or Strat body shapes. There have been those which
are just stunning (Di Donato/Stereo Acoustic/Tesla Prodigy), others have a look that's both familiar and strange (Ministar/Jetson/Sonic Wind), and others still that are quite frankly bizarre (gAtari 2600/iTar).
I think it's fair to say, though, that none have ever looked quite as
extraordinarily beautiful as Olaf Diegel's 3D-printed Scarab and Spider
electric guitars. Read More
Already one the world's fastest cars, the
Koenigsegg Agera R has been reworked for the 2013 model year, raising
peak horsepower from 1115 to 1140 bhp, giving it a top speed of 440 km/h
(273.4 mph) - Koenigsegg intends to prove it sometime soon. The world's
fastest production car is the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport at 431 km/h.
Lots of new features in the new car. Read More
Chronic venous insufficiency - or CVI - is a very
common medical condition in which veins in the legs cannot pump enough
oxygen-poor blood back to the heart. It is caused by faulty valves
within the leg veins, and causes blood to pool in the legs, which can
lead to edemas and even open ulcers. Typically, treatment consists of
anti-inflammatory drugs and diuretics, along with the use of items such
as compression stockings. Now scientists have developed a method of
mass-producing artificial venous valves, that could replace the
malfunctioning natural ones. Read More
Nissan unveiled its new Hi-Cross Concept at the
Geneva Motor Show this week. It's unclear if the concept will become an
actual model - or if Nissan even really has room for another crossover -
but the car does show a potential design direction for future models.
It also shows how seven people and a hybrid powertrain can fit neatly
into a relatively small crossover. Read More
Elegance and practicality are a killer
combination, and both are abundant in the latest concept from Peugeot.
The company's rethinking of the traditional urban bicycle won't suit
everyone, but it will almost certainly appeal to enough cyber-serfs to
warrant production. The design highlight is the positioning of bike's
leather laptop compartment, which is safer for the laptop, and provides a
better balanced bike that's nimble and fun to ride. You can even lock
the briefcase in place. Read More
Spider silk is turning out to be a remarkably versatile material. Aside from having a higher heat conductivity than any other organic matter and proteins for inserting genes into cells,
strings from a spider have also been found to have a very high tensile
strength. One researcher in Japan has studied this property of spider
silk for decades, and recently unveiled a new application for it by
weaving together thousands of strands of spider filaments and using them
as violin strings. Read More
Whether you think the Bugatti Veyron is the
pinnacle of sports car development or agree with Professor Gordon Murray
that it's the "most pointless exercise on the planet," we all somehow
seem drawn to the name and its continuing deeds. This week saw the
unveiling of another Bugatti milestone, the 1200 bhp Bugatti Veyron 16.4
Grand Sport Vitesse - the roadster version of the world's fastest
production car is also the world's fastest roadster at 255 mph. Great
picture library of this quite arresting automobile. Read More
Those looking to bring a little more
“depth” to their photos might want to check out the custom-made photo
reliefs from Portland, Oregon, based BumpyPhoto. Using 3D-printing
technology, the company will produce a full-color 3D relief sculpture
from a 2D photo to give an even better indication of the size of that
sun dial that Uncle Barry calls a nose. Read More
If you're going to design a sports car, you could
do worse than going back to the classics and AC Cars has done just that
with the unveiling of its Zagato AC 378 GT at the Geneva Motor Show.
It's a rolling tribute to not only 111 years of the AC Cars marque, but
also its Anglo-Italian heritage and its long relationship with the
Zagato design group going back to the AC Ace Zagato of 1957. The
supercar, which will be sold in the UK for GBP89,990 (approx US$140,870)
and Germany for EUR109,990 (US$144,970), is also part of AC Cars'
relaunch on the European market as a specialized car maker after a
decade of false starts. Read More
Pet owners will know that the joys
of having a furry friend around the house can be offset somewhat by the
mess they make - particularly come molting season. Such pet owners, as
well as allergy sufferers, are who Neato Robotics is targeting with its
latest automatic vacuum cleaner, the XV-21. Read More
Not too long ago, brothers Randy and Michael
Gregg were out on a hunting expedition. It was the day after deer season
had ended, yet they spied a handsome animal bedded down in the snow.
Not wanting to pass up an opportunity, they silently crept up on their
quarry, raised their rifle, lined the deer up in the crosshairs ... and
then took a picture through the scope with a mobile phone. That photo
provided all the proof they needed that they had successfully stalked
their prey, without bringing home an illegally-obtained carcass. It also
inspired them to create the Kill Shot photo/video-recording rifle. Read More
Today's weather on HD 189733 b: It will be hazy
with high wispy clouds. The wind will be steady from the east at speeds
approaching 6000 miles per hour. Daytime temperatures will average a
balmy 800 degrees C (1,472 degrees F), while the equatorial hot spot at
30 degrees longitude is expected to top 900 degrees C (1,652 degrees F).
But, there is a high chance of silicate snow showers, with
accumulations expected except in the vicinity of the hot spot. Read More
Are 3D printers not amazing enough already?
Apparently some scientists at the Vienna University of Technology (TU
Vienna) didn’t think so, as they have now built one that can create
intricate objects as small as a grain of sand. While the ability to
3D-print such tiny items is actually not unique to the TU Vienna device,
the speed at which it can do so is. According to the researchers, this
makes the commercial production of things such as medical implants much
more viable. Read More
Last Thursday at the Optical Fiber Communication
Conference in Los Angeles, a team from IBM presented research on their
wonderfully-named “Holey Optochip.” The prototype chipset is the first
parallel optical transceiver that is able to transfer one trillion bits
(or one terabit) of information per second. To put that in
perspective, IBM states that 500 high-def movies could be downloaded in
one second at that speed, while the entire U.S. Library of Congress web
archive could be downloaded in an hour. Stated another way, the Optochip
is eight times faster than any other parallel optical components
currently available, with a speed that’s equivalent to the bandwidth
consumed by 100,000 users, if they were using regular 10 Mb/s high-speed
internet. Read More
Designed by Norwegian architects Jensen &
Skodvin, Juvet is a nature retreat that blends seamlessly with its wild
environment. It's a striking landscape hotel, featuring seven small wood
cabins perched on a river bank and nestled amongst birch, aspen, pine
and nature-sculpted boulders. Located outside the small town of
Gudbrandsjuvet, Norway (approximately five hours drive north of Oslo),
the hotel is positioned amid its main attraction - the pristine forest.
Read More
On March 5, 1937, a new automotive marque was
born in the form of the Atalanta Sports Tourer. The high-tech Atalanta
was well received but when Britain went to war just two years later, all
production capacity was turned toward the war effort and the marque
ceased to be. Last week, exactly 75 years later, the Atalanta marque was
relaunched as a traditional sportscar built to modern standards with
modern electrics, brakes, suspension, chassis and a grunty 185 bhp 2.5
litre VVT engine. Read More
What do you do when you want to build a
worry-free home on land that also happens to be a 100-year flood plain?
If you're smart, you'll do what the owner of Delta Shelter did and have
Olson Kundig Architects build you a metal fortress to withstand the
elements in style. The compact 1,000 sq ft (93 sq m) steel-walled
hideaway with a footprint of only 200 sq ft (18.6 sq m) looks ready to
handle whatever the Washington wilderness can throw at it - even,
perhaps, a 1,000-year flood. Read More
The original A-Class was a strange thing. An
attempt to bring the Mercedes magic to the masses its tall boxy styling,
though practical, was not a thing of beauty. Unfortunately the high
center of gravity meant that it infamously failed the Swedish “moose
test” and had to have its suspension modified. This caused the ride to
be unacceptably hard for its target market of middle-class mums and the
poor quality of the interior finish did nothing for MB’s reputation. The
new A-Class launched at the Geneva show could not be more different.
Read More
Having trouble getting the lid off that pickle
jar? Well, perhaps the Human Grasp Assist device can help. Designed
through a collaboration between GM and NASA - and also known as
Robo-Glove or K-Glove - the device is based on grasping technology
initially developed for the hands of the space-going Robonaut 2.
Essentially a power-assisted work glove, Robo-Glove is designed to
minimize repetitive stress injuries in both astronauts and autoworkers.
Read More
Last year, we told you about a smartphone-based system that can be used to find your missing stuff, known as BiKN.
It consists of an electronic case that the phone slides into, which
tracks the whereabouts of paired radio frequency tags that the user
attaches to their car keys, purse, children – you name it. The phone
displays the location of the sought items, or can sound an alarm if one
of them gets too far away. Now, it looks like BiKN might have some
competition, in the form of the similar-but-different U Grok It. Read More
Germany's Nurburgring is possibly the most famous
racetrack in the entire world. Not only does it host racing
competitions, but it also provides the ultimate testing grounds for new
cars and prototypes – manufacturers from around the world travel to
Germany to test their cars. Speedway Motorsports wants to make some of
those journeys a little shorter, by building an exact replica of
Nurburgring just outside of Las Vegas. Read More
For some time now, speech-recognition programs
have existed that attempt to reproduce the user’s spoken words in
another language. Such “speech-to-speech” apps, however, provide their
translations using a very flat, synthetic voice. Now, experimental new
software developed by Microsoft is able not only to translate between 26
different languages, but it plays the translated speech back in the
user’s own voice – complete with the inflections they used when speaking
in their own language. It looks like a real-life version of Star Trek’s universal translator could soon be here. Read More
When the petal of a flower is being formed, its
shape is achieved by cells in one area expanding more than cells in an
adjacent area. This uneven expansion causes the material to buckle,
creating the desired curves and creases. Scientists from the University
of Massachusetts, Amherst have taken that same principle, and applied it
to flat polymer gel sheets that fold themselves into three-dimensional
shapes when exposed to water. Some day, such sheets could serve a number
of useful purposes. Read More
The Allochroous is the Dream Boat category winner
of the 9th Millennium Yacht Design Award (MYDA), an international
competition for yacht designers around the world. Conceptualized by
beginner entrants Ezgi Aksan and Ambra Ceronetti, Allochroous is a
futuristic representation of what their dream yacht would be. Drawing
upon innovative technologies, the key feature behind the concept is that
the yacht is able to transform its functionality. The vision was to
create a sustainable yacht that is ideal for enjoying a summer concert
at sea. Read More
Simply called Unavailability,
this achingly simple piece of design is a one-man wooden-framed fold-up
fishing hut with chicken wire-mesh walls that can be packed with ice by
the user to keep out the wind while letting in light. Read More 
Really nice post. The efforts you people are making is completely adorable. This is a great website.
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Really nice post. The efforts you people are making is completely adorable. This is a great website.
ReplyDeleteTechup Next
TechupNext
Upcoming Technologies
Tech News
Android and IOS
Artificial Intelligence
Bid Data
Latest Upcoming Technologies
Technoloy News
Techupnext.com