New and Emerging Technology News part 191 ~ NEW GEN TECH LIFE : new generation technology news

Friday 7 February 2014

New and Emerging Technology News part 191

The Hummingbird kit allows children to turn their art projects into moving, interactive ro...
Children generally love to create art and are fascinated by robots, so what if there was a way for them to turn their art projects into robots? Well, there is. Carnegie Mellon University spin-off company BirdBrain Technologies has introduced the Hummingbird kit, which contains everything kids (or adults) need to add powered movement and interactivity to their dragons, kitties or spaceships.  Read More
tablift's four adjustable, bendy legs and three-position mount offer versatility and stabi...
A few years back Joby gave boring old camera tripods a much-needed kick up the rear when stiff, straight, dull-but-dependable legs were replaced with bendable knobbly goodness in the shape of the Gorillapod. Versatility and adaptability are central to its success, attributes that make the tablift iPad stand from Santa Monica's C. Scott Blevins a similarly attractive proposition. While there are vast numbers of tablet stands already available, tablift can provide the hands-free stability others may fail to offer when used on uneven or somewhat changeable surfaces like a sofa, comfy chair or bed.  Read More
A microscope image of aerographite, which is now officially the world's lightest solid mat...
While they were each once hailed as the lightest solid material ever made, metallic microlattice and aerogel have now been moved back to second and third place (respectively), with aerographite taking the crown. Developed by a team from the Technical University of Hamburg and Germany’s University of Kiel, the material is composed of 99.99 percent air, along with a three-dimensional network of porous carbon nanotubes that were grown into each other.  Read More
Brazilian researchers have made new discoveries about the relationship between good and ba...
New research carried out at São Paulo University’s School of Medicine in Brazil reveals that HDL concentrations in the blood influence the synthesis and absorption of cholesterol by the body, besides being linked to how insulin impacts on the metabolism of glucose. HDL, or high-density lipoprotein, is also commonly referred to as "good cholesterol."  Read More
Equipment, furniture, fixtures and fittings spanning a 70-year residency at Bush House in ...
At noon today, the very last BBC World Service broadcast was aired from London's Bush House, ending a residency lasting over 70 years. The whole of the Corporation's famous international service has now moved to new state-of-the-art offices at Broadcasting House in Portland Place, near Oxford Circus. All of the equipment, furniture, fixtures and fittings, however, have been left behind and are being sold off to the highest online bidder. The first of two sales is already open for bidding and includes complete mono and stereo mixing studios, a TV studio, a mind-boggling catalog of studio equipment, BBC memorabilia, office furniture and a Steinway grand piano.  Read More
Joscha Weiand's Hangout open for business
Described by its designer Joscha Weiand as "the world's first tent house," Hangout is a semi-permanent shelter aimed at travelers and festival-goers. In attempting to fuse stay-at-home comfort with the practicality of a tent, Weiand has his sites firmly set on the "glamping" (glamor plus camping) dollar.  Read More
The Korean T50B added a splash of color to Farnborough's overcast sky (Photo: Gizmag)
The skies over Hampshire, England, may have been resolutely overcast, but there has been nothing dull about the spectacle of the biennial Farnborough International Airshow taking place in them this week. Crowds composed mostly of media, military and millionaires endured airport-style security checks to observe aerial displays from ear-piercing fighter jet fighters, enormous airliners and aeronautic display teams of dubious sanity.  Read More
Google Maps walking directions for Africa
Google has just announced an update for its popular Maps service, extending support for walking directions to an impressive 44 African countries. Following the mandatory safety warnings that come with the beta tag (routes may be missing pedestrian crossings etc.), Google is encouraging residents to try out the service, available today on both web and mobile. A separate update will no doubt be appreciated by cyclists in Europe and Australia.  Read More
A new algorithm developed at the University of Birmingham is capable of making accurate ed...
Phones obviously already know where we are and where we have been, thanks to GPS and other clever positioning technologies. Now, thanks to an algorithm developed by researchers at the University of Birmingham, your smartphone may soon be able to make accurate educated guesses as to where you’re going to be in 24 hours time. And here’s the dirty trick responsible for the algorithm’s future-telling powers: it spies on your friends and connects the dots where necessary.  Read More
The Garmin Fenix is a GPS navigation tool for adventurers
Garmin signals its entrance into the outdoors GPS watch segment with the fÄ“nix. Despite its annoying punctuation and emphasis baggage, the watch appears to be a fully featured and functional wrist top for the outdoors set. More than just a watch with a GPS chip, Garmin sees the fÄ“nix as a hands-free navigation solution. Unlike its existing GPS sports watches, the Fenix (we've humored Garmin long enough) offers a more robust feature set that will navigate you into and out of the wild.  Read More

Pedal Lock clamps to the wheel of a bicycle to prevent a thief from making a quick or clea...
Owning and riding a bike can be very rewarding; it gives you the freedom to explore your surroundings, is cheaper than public transport in the longterm, and healthier than driving a car. Unfortunately being a bike owner means dealing with the possibility of having your favored mode of transport stolen, especially in urban areas where the incidence of bike theft is high. This means the majority of bike owners need to own and use a lock every time they park their bike up. Two Taiwanese designers have concocted a new way of preventing bike theft: one that sees the pedals used to both clamp the wheel of, and (if necessary) incapacitate, the bicycle.  Read More
Gizmag recently took the opportunity to ride the newest addition to London's public transp... Gizmag recently took the opportunity to ride the newest addition to London's public transport system, a kilometer-long (0.62-mile), 93-meter tall (305 ft) cable car system offering passengers commanding views of East London and beyond.  Read More
Penny Arcade's mockup of its website, minus all advertising
Advertising is the bread and butter of most content-based websites these days, but many readers still view them as just a necessary drawback for the sites to continue running. Even widely popular sites like Penny Arcade rely on advertising for most of their profits ... but maybe not for much longer. The folks behind the video game culture webcomic recently started a Kickstarter campaign asking fans to donate money in exchange for removing advertising from the website and producing more comics and other content.  Read More
SABRE is a crucial part of Reaction Engine's plans for the SKYLON spaceplane
Reaction Engines has announced that is has successfully tested the key pre-cooler component of its revolutionary SABRE engine crucial to the development of its SKYLON spaceplane. The company claims that craft equipped with SABRE engines will be able to fly to any destination on Earth in under 4 hours, or travel directly into space.  Read More
A newly-discovered third type of fat cell could be a target in the fight against obesity (...
The existence of two different types of fat – or adipose tissue – in mammals has long been known: white fat, which stores calories and in excess results in obesity, and brown fat, which burns calories to generate energy and heat. Now scientists at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have confirmed the existence of a third, genetically distinct type of fat called “beige fat,” which they say is a potential therapeutic target for treating obesity.  Read More
The U140 Elite Tablet Backpack protects your tablet with a hard case Pelican Products, Inc. is an established name in rugged, waterproof hard cases for electronics and other gear. Recently, the company had an epiphany: "Why not offer our hard cases in a more portable form." Thus, the ProGear Urban Backpack line of hybrid case-packs was born.  Read More
Necomimi feature NeuroSky's brain-computer interface technology to control the motion of t... NeuroSky’s brain-computer interface (BCI) technology has found its way into a variety of devices over the last few years, from the MyndPlay media player and MindSet video game headset to the XWave and XWave Sport. The latest product sporting the company’s brainwave-reading technology features a slightly more fun form factor – fluffy, wearable cat ears.  Read More
MIT’s Media Lab has proposed a new technique for multiple-perspective and glasses-free 3D ...
Though 3D movies have been around for a while, the experience of visiting a cinema to catch the latest blockbuster is dampened by unwieldy glasses and the limitation of only one fixed perspective being offered to all. The illusion of depth is present, but this is far removed from the hologram-like, multiple-perspective experience which would truly wow movie-goers. MIT's Media Lab’s Camera Culture group proposes a new approach to 3D images that promises glasses-free multiple-perspective 3D. Perhaps best of all though, MIT's technique uses inexpensive existing LCD technology, clearing the way for the tech to be implemented into TV's.  Read More
The image is animated with a moving background using the LZRTAG Android app (Photo: LZRTAG...
Several years ago, every inch of the New York City Subway system – along with other public transportation systems around the world, was covered in graffiti. Now there's fewer tags, but more ways to express yourself. The virtual world is one new venue for graffiti and the art of tagging. Augmented reality app LZRTAG is hoping to advance those tags to images and even animations, but you need a smartphone to make that happen.  Read More
Scientists have had success in tracking the passage of blood cells within the body, by lab...
Thanks to advances in stem cell therapy, it is now possible to use engineered white blood cells to fight diseases such as HIV within the human body. When such treatments are being developed, however, it can be difficult to track where the introduced cells travel within a patient’s system, and how many of them make it to their target. Now, thanks to research being carried out at the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Cardiovascular Science, those cells can be magnetically labeled.  Read More
 
A sample of Fraunhofer's CryoSolplus phase-change battery coolant
One of the big enemies of electric vehicle batteries is heat. Batteries already warm up under normal use, but when hot summer temperatures or high workloads are thrown in, overheating becomes a real possibility. According to the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology, running a battery at ten degrees over its maximum “comfort level” of about 35ºC (95ºF) can deplete its service life by half. That’s why researchers there have developed a battery coolant known as CryoSolplus, which is said to offer three times the cooling capacity of plain water.  Read More
Yamaha's Arp & Drum app for iPad The Yamaha Arp & Drum Pad app for iPad is a music creation app that's not only capable of transmitting notes to external MIDI instruments, but includes a built-in virtual keyboard, allowing the user to trigger the arpeggiator and play numerous patterns from a variety of instruments.  Read More
A table tennis game, and the 1ms Auto Pan-Tilt system's shot of the ball A friend of mine who works in television once told me how he was shooting a hockey game, and was impressed with his uncanny ability to keep the puck centered in the shot at all times ... it turns out that the “puck” he was following was actually a speck of dirt on his viewfinder. A new system from the University of Tokyo, however, can automatically follow moving objects such as pucks with amazing accuracy.  Read More
The BenQ G1 is being billed as 'the world’s slimmest F1.8 swivel-screen digital camera'
BenQ might not be the first manufacturer you think of when it comes to digital cameras ... or even the second, third, fourth or fifth. But the new G1 is an intriguing proposition, featuring as it does a fast F1.8 lens, a swivel-screen, and thumb wheel for manual settings, while still coming in at a modest price of €239 (that's around US$291).  Read More
Portugal now has a fleet of eight Leaf police cars
Portugal's Polícia de Segurança Pública (that'll be PSP from here on out) has put the world's first Nissan Leaf police car fleet on the streets. The eight-car fleet will help PSP in its goal to reduce its carbon footprint.  Read More
The Katz electric scooter is ready to roll
Ben Katz has spent the last few months ripping apart and reassembling an old kick scooter to build what he describes as an all-terrain electric scooter. He's mixed in bits and pieces from robotics projects and mountain bikes, supersized the wheels, created custom shocks, built a novel disc brake, and added lots of aluminum to make a pretty sweet ride. He still has a few finishing touches to add but it's ready to roll, as you can see in the video after the jump.  Read More
Stainless steel and aluminum are used to offer a more durable build
The GoPro HD Hero 2 comes with its own waterproof case, but that case wasn't tough enough for Marc Ellis. So, he built his own Hero housing made out of aluminum and stainless steel. We can't verify that it's more rugged in the field, but it definitely gives the GoPro a tougher, no-nonsense look.  Read More
A team of scientists have created elastic conductors using silver nanowires, which are sai...
Earlier this year, a team led by North Carolina State University’s Dr. Yong Zhu reported success in creating elastic conductors made from carbon nanotubes. Such conductors could be used in stretchable electronics, which could in turn find use in things like bendable displays, smart fabrics, or even touch-sensitive robot skin. Now, he has made some more elastic conductors, but this time using silver nanowires – according to Zhu, they offer some big advantages over carbon nanotubes.  Read More
The FACE robot is capable of mimicking facial expressions
Introduced by Japan’s Masahiro Mori, the “Uncanny Valley” principle states that the more a humanoid robot strives and fails to mimic human appearance, the less appealing it is to humans. In yet another attempt to cross the valley, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Pisa, Italy, endowed a female-form humanoid called FACE with a set of complex facial expression features. They did so in the hope of finding the answer to one fundamental question: can a robot express emotions?  Read More
Serbian luxury yacht producer Art of Kinetik has recently launched its latest pleasure boa... Serbian luxury yacht producer Art of Kinetik has recently launched its latest pleasure boat for the summer season. Named Antagonist, the vessel is a sleek wooden model that features clean elegant lines that are reminiscent of the 60s and 70s. With its deep wooden hull and a top speed of 42 knots, this speedboat is not only fit for a Sean Connery-era James Bond, but it’s impressively powerful.  Read More

The Spy Hawk's 5 megapixel camera beams video back to the remote-control unit
If you’ve ever found yourself bemoaning the relative dearth of viable personal UAV (or "drone") options but still find the idea of an eye in the sky alluring, then you may well be in luck, because UK-based gadget purveyor RED5 has unveiled the Spy Hawk: a remote-controlled plane which runs from a rechargeable battery and features a video camera to facilitate easy snooping from up above.  Read More
Stretchy Bowl expands as needed to accommodate more fruit, all of which should stay freshe... We're all encouraged to eat more fresh fruit - whether by parents, partners, or physicians - but it isn't always the easiest advice to follow. Fresh fruit doesn't stay fresh for long, especially if it sits in a bowl with other types of fruit that are closer to being past their best. It's also difficult to know what size of bowl you need to own in order to accommodate the differing numbers and types of fruit you are storing at any one time. Stretchy Bowl is an effort to solve both these issues.  Read More
VOX Amplification has given new life to two 1960s iconic guitar bod shapes with the releas...
Sadly, the funding campaign for the Unlimited travel guitar with built-in speaker that we covered late last month was unsuccessful, but fear not because VOX Amplification has come to the rescue in impressive retro style. The company has dipped into the past to bring back two of its most iconic guitar shapes as modern travel/practice instruments. The beautiful VOX Teardrop and Phantom have been reborn as the Apache Series, each featuring two speakers, built-in effects and rhythm patterns, and the ability to jam along to favorite tunes via direct input from an external MP3 or CD player.  Read More
A chemical that affects the biological clock could help provide a new class of drugs to tr...
Scientists have long suspected that metabolic disorders, such as type 2 diabetes and obesity, could be linked to our circadian rhythm or biological clock. For example, laboratory mice with altered biological clocks often become obese and develop diabetes. Now biologists at UC San Diego have discovered that a chemical, which affects the activity of a key protein that regulates our biological clock, can repress the production of glucose by the liver, offering a promising new direction for the development of a new class of drugs to treat diabetes.  Read More
A new “spintronic” OLED glows orangish exposed to a magnetic field from the two poles of a...
We’ve seen a number of next-generation display technologies emerge in recent years, such as Sony’s “Crystal LED,” Uni-Pixel’s time-multiplexed optical shutter (TMOS) technology, and quantum dot LED (QLED) display technology from LG and QD Vision, and now there’s another one to add to the mix. While displays based on the new “spintronic” OLED technology invented by physicists at the University of Utah are still some years off, the researchers say they should be brighter, cheaper and more environmentally friendly than the LEDs found in the current crop of TVs, computer displays, traffic lights and other electronic devices.  Read More
Muti-touch can be used to do things like manipulate a 3D model or pan, zoom and rotate an ...
Muti-touch functionality was added to Wacom's Intuos5 graphics tablets earlier this year and, after winning much praise from users, it's no surprise to see it arrive on the company's Cintiq range of interactive pen displays. The Cintiq range was first introduced in 2005 and the addition of the Cintiq 24HD touch now allows users to use their fingers to pan, zoom and rotate the canvas at the same time as using the pressure and tilt sensitive pen.  Read More
A view of the distribution of dark matter in our universe, based on the Millennium Simulat...
For the first time, a team of astronomers has "observed" a filament of dark matter connecting two neighboring galaxy clusters. Dark matter is a type of matter that interacts only very weakly with light and itself. Its very nature is mysterious. Mapping the dark matter filament's gravity was the key observation. The result is considered a crucial first step by scientists - it provides the first direct evidence that the universe is filled by a lacework of dark matter filaments, upon which the visible matter in the universe is distributed like small beads. This groundbreaking observation is consistent with modern cosmological models, but the story of dark matter actually starts some 80 years ago.  Read More
500 terawatt shot -  The preamplifiers of the National Ignition Facility (Photo: Damien Je...
Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF) have achieved a laser shot which boggles the mind: 192 beams delivered an excess of 500 trillion-watts (TW) of peak power and 1.85 megajoules (MJ) of ultraviolet laser light to a target of just two millimeters in diameter. To put those numbers into perspective, 500 TW is more than one thousand times the power that the entire United States uses at any instant in time. Pew-Pew indeed ...  Read More
The Andromeda Lamp is based on the Picatinny rail
Most lamps are strictly functional. Save for the light they add to a dark room, they essentially disappear quietly amidst louder, larger, more noticeable home accessories. The Andromeda Lamp is a different kind of lamp. The military-inspired lamp is a functional and fashionable (if military-spec-style lighting is to your taste) design that promises to stand out in any room.  Read More
University of Wisconsin researchers discover nannorod catalyst that works as well as plati...
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) have identified an inexpensive nanorod catalyst with efficiencies rivalling that of platinum. Composed of nitrogen-enriched iron-carbon nanorods, the new catalyst holds the promise of cheaper, more efficient microbial fuel cells (MFCs) that generate their own hydrogen from waste water  Read More

The clog-free inkjet printer nozzle uses a droplet of oil to prevent the ink from drying o...
There was a time not so long ago that my inkjet printer saw a lot of action. Nowadays, however, it can sit idle for weeks or even months before being called into service. But when it is called upon, the long break between print jobs means the print heads are usually clogged and an ink-wasting head clean needs to be performed. Taking inspiration from the human eye, researchers at the University of Missouri (MU) have developed a print nozzle that prevents the ink inside from drying out when not in use.  Read More
Artist's impression of a proton-proton collision producing a pair of gamma rays (yellow) i...
The recent discovery at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) of a massive particle "consistent with" the predicted properties of the Higgs boson hit the news with the force of a hurricane. But the phrase "consistent with" suggests that the CERN observation may also be "consistent with" other types of particle. Is it or isn't it? We're going to attempt to clarify the situation for you.  Read More
Kuchofuku's Air-Conditioned Cooling pants feature two battery powered fans to keep your le... If you’re looking to complement your air-conditioned shirt with a pair of pants to help keep your bottom half cool in the summer heat then Japanese company Kuchofuku has you covered. The Kuchofuku Air-Conditioned Cooling pants feature two battery-powered fans to direct a refreshing flow of air onto your legs and nether regions.  Read More
Master Lock's dialSpeed electronic combination padlock Well, it only makes sense ... they’ve come up with an electronic replacement for the door lock key, so why not the combination padlock, too? That’s what Master Lock has done, with its new dialSpeed lock. Although the retro grouch in some of us may find it a bit overdone, it does offer a couple of useful features.  Read More
The new Nissan Note sports a new 'Squash Line' exterior character line Nissan has unveiled the second-generation of its Note Mini MPV. The original Note was launched in 2004 in Japan, with the European model going on sale in 2006. The redesigned hatchback sports a new “Squash Line” exterior character line and more aerodynamic body shape and also includes Nissan’s Around View Monitor (AVM) system.  Read More
The hydrogen-powered Forze V race car recently competed against gas-powered cars, at the F...
For the past 14 years, teams of engineering students from around the world have pitted their custom-built race cars against one another, at the Formula Student competition in the UK. This year’s event, which took place once again at the Silverstone Racing Circuit, saw a milestone in the event’s history – it was the first time that a hydrogen-powered car raced against petrol-burning competitors. The car was the Forze V, from The Netherlands’ Delft University of Technology, and it actually did pretty well ... out of a total of over 100 vehicles, it ended up tied for 29th place last Saturday.  Read More
The prototype picoprojector, which incorporates the new polarizing technology (Photo: Imag...
Liquid crystal video projectors could be getting smaller, more energy-efficient, and less expensive. Currently, such devices require polarized light for the projection of images. Unfortunately, conventional LEDs only produce unpolarized light. While an optical filter is typically used to polarize it, the polarization process wastes over 50 percent of the original light, converting it into heat instead of allowing it to pass through. That heat, in turn, must be dissipated using a noisy, power-consuming fan. Now, however, researchers have created a new polarizing system that allows almost 90 percent of the LED light to be converted to usable, polarized light.  Read More
MIT researchers have developed a semiautonomous safety system which allows a human driver ...
We all like to think we're in control ... never more so than when we're behind the wheel of a car, but there are occasions when errors in judgement can lead to a gentle bump, or something far worse. MIT researchers have developed a semiautonomous collision avoidance system where the human driver has full control of the vehicle until the system detects that the car is headed for a collision or is too close to an obstacle for safety. When such a hazard is detected, the system will take control of the vehicle, bring it back within a calculated safe zone, and then hand control back over to the driver.  Read More
Aston University's hydrogen-fueled, flat-pack cardboard and plywood creation
Aston University's entry into this year's Shell Eco-Marathon may look a little low-tech, but that didn't stop the hydrogen-fueled cardboard and plywood flat-pack car from scooping the Eco-Design award at the European event, held in Rotterdam in May.  Read More
SkyCube: the first satellite launched by you
Southern Stars Group LLC, the company responsible for the popular SkySafari apps for iOS, Android and Mac OS X, is thinking a little bigger with its next project. The publicly funded SkyCube is a miniature CubeSat satellite that will orbit the planet, transmitting low-resolution images of the Earth while broadcasting short messages from sponsors in the form of data pings. In short, it's the world's first social space mission.  Read More

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