RM Auctions believes it has just sold the world’s
most coveted car - a rare 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO. The marque (chassis no.
4675 GT), in unmistakable Ferrari red and with the prancing horses
emblazoned on the hood, has an excellent pedigree. One of only 36 250
GTOs originally produced in 1962/63 and one of a limited few with Series
II GTO bodywork, it left the factory in April 1963 and was subsequently
raced by Guido Fossati, Jean Guichet, Oddone Sigala, Vincenzo Nember
and Luigi Taramazzo, rarely finishing outside the top three in its class
and achieving numerous race wins. Read More
With increasing numbers of people accessing the
Internet on mobile devices there is a call for a quick, easy way to sort
locally relevant content from the mountain of online data. To address
this need HP is dipping its toes in the geo-tagging waters with Gloe – a
concept service that allows users to find, recommend and contribute
locally relevant web content on mobile devices. Read More
Black & Decker has a tool that fits
comfortably between a chainsaw and a branch lopper. It’s the Alligator
Lopper LP1000 and can cut through branches and logs up to four inches
thick. It uses its patented scissor action to grab the offending piece
of wood, clamps it tight and then powers through it with a 4.5Amp motor
driven chainsaw. Read More
Earlier this year we looked at a technique to grow 3D cell cultures
using magnetic forces to levitate cells while they divided and grew,
forming tissues that more closely resemble those inside the human body.
Now researchers at the MIT-Harvard Division of Health Sciences and
Technology (HST) have devised a new way to achieve the same goal by
using "biological Legos". Read More
The latest in our series of early technologies from Michael Bennett-Levy’s collection
looks at the world’s first commercial business computer, the LEO II/3.
The LEO II (short for Lyons Electronic Office) was the successor to the
LEO I, which was designed by Oliver Standingford and Raymond Thompson of
J. Lyons and Co. – one of the UK’s leading catering and food
manufacturing companies in the first half of the 20th century. Read More
The prospect of more affordable large screen OLED
TVs has taken another step towards becoming reality with the
announcement by DuPont that it has developed a manufacturing process
that can be used to print large, high-performance OLED TVs cost
effectively. The announcement could see OLED TVs become more widespread
and affordable than the pint-sized and prohibitively-priced offerings
that we have been restricted to until now. Read More
Everyone knows that when certain bacteria are
present in an environment, they can cause infections. These infections
can take the form of diseases such as bubonic plague, cholera, leprosy,
and tuberculosis. The problem isn’t simply that the bacteria are present, however, it’s that they communicate with one another - essentially coming up with a battle plan. This signaling process, called quorum sensing,
has now successfully been blocked by British scientists. They did it
using plastics similar those used by dentists for repairing teeth. Read More
Scientists from Columbia University, Arizona
State University, the University of Michigan, and the California
Institute of Technology (Caltech) have created a robot that’s just 4
nanometers wide. And no, it doesn’t have flashing lights, video cameras
or wheels. It does, however, have four legs, and the ability to start,
move, turn, and stop. Descendants of the molecular nanobot, or “spider,”
could someday be used to treat diseases such as cancer or diabetes.
Read More
While Optimus Prime and his fellow Transformers
may be pure fiction, shape-shifting cars are destined to become a
reality. Over the years here at Gizmag we’ve featured several examples
including the Vauxhall Flextreme GT/E with its retractable aerodynamic body panels, the Rinspeed iChange with its ability to change from a one- to a three-seater, and the flexible-skinned BMW Gina.
Now, it’s time to add another one to the list, as a design concept if
not an actual prototype - the wheel-configuration-changing Cell. Read More
A far cry in terms of both size and capability
from the “bricks” of just over a decade ago, the smartphones of today
are virtual offices and entertainment arcades that fit in your pocket.
As we reported last month, America’s Department of Homeland Security is
examining whether the ability to detect dangerous airborne chemicals
should be the next function that mobile phones add to their
ever-expanding utility belts. Researchers at the University of
California, San Diego (UCSD) have now begun work on a prototype sensor
that could help map airborne toxins in real time. Read More
If you've ever been annoyed by the impatiently
waiting for an office building elevator, this might just be the perfect
building for you. Each of the new elevators installed by Mitsubishi
Electric in Umeda Hankyu Building’s new office area in Osaka, Japan
measures 11.2 x 9.2 feet in area by 8.5 feet high (3.4m wide, 2.8m long
and 2.6m high), thus allowing for a whopping 80 person capacity. Read More
Being a single, childless (as far as I know),
male my experience with baby strollers is largely limited to trying to
avoid parents using them as battering rams at my local shopping center.
That task could get a whole lot tougher if the Roller Buggy gains
widespread popularity. A simple pull of the lower body extends a
platform and transforms the Roller Buggy from a run-of-the-mill baby
stroller into a scooter that lets parents transport baby around town at
breakneck (hopefully not literally) speed. Read More
The miniaturization of electrical sensors coupled with the development of flexible silicon technology
paves the way for a wide variety of medical sensors that can be
implanted into the human body. One of the major obstacles facing the
development of such devices, not to mention artificial organs,
is how they are powered. Currently devices need to be constantly
recharged via an external power source or, as is the case with
battery-powered pacemakers, replaced altogether. Now a team of French
researchers has implanted a new type of biofuel cell into rats that
overcomes these problems by generating electricity from a potentially
limitless source - sugar in the rat’s bodies. Read More
It’s become an accepted fact of life that people
tend to lose much of their hearing as they get old. This is because our
hair cells, the cells in our ears which allow us to hear, cannot
regenerate - we’re born with 30,000 per ear, but once they die off or
get damaged, they’re gone for good. Stefan Heller, a professor of
otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat stuff) at Stanford University,
wants to change that. To that end, he recently succeeded in creating
mouse hair cells in a petri dish. Could an end to deafness be far
behind? Read More
Stress balls are a great way to relieve tension
and help combat repetitive strain injuries such as carpal tunnel
syndrome. They’re also an easy answer for office workers looking for a
gift when social convention states you need to get a little something
for someone you work with, but don’t really know that well. Since no
gift is complete nowadays unless it comes with a USB cable dangling from
it, this tech-take on the stress ball could be the answer. The USB
Stress Ball not only provides some physical stress relief, but some
virtual stress relief as well. Read More
If shows like CSI have taught us
anything about lifting fingerprints, it’s that we do it by dusting them
with powder or fuming them with chemicals... and that we have to turn on
blue accent lighting and play moody electronic music while we’re doing
it. Approaches like these rely on chemical reactions with the deposited
finger skin oil to provide the print. A new method developed at Penn
State University, however, lets the physical geometry of the print do
the talking. The oils are left unaltered, which could make all the
difference in a criminal investigation. Read More
Schooling fish, it turns out, have a lot to teach
us about setting up wind farms. That’s the conclusion reached by John
Dabiri, a fluid dynamics expert from the California Institute of
Technology (Caltech). One of the biggest current problems with wind
farms is the large land area that they require - if you place the
turbines too close to one another, they will be adversely effected by
each other’s turbulence. By applying principles learned from observing
fish, however, Dabiri thinks he might have found a solution. Read More
HP has boosted its range of laptops quite
substantially, with its largest single introduction of AMD-powered
notebook PCs to date. Fourteen new machines are on offer in total,
pitched towards both business customers and home users. All of the
models in HP’s new notebook range include updated AMD multicore
processors. Among the new brood is a set of Phenom II Dual-Core N620
systems promising to offer users up to 69 per cent faster performance
than previous models. Read More
Pauley Interactive's Bi Computing concept looks
to provide "the perfect platform for gamers, Internet surfers, business
applications or watching TV and movies all at the same time, in the same
place." The design crunches a couple of computers into one unit with
back to back displays, an idea that could help ease the battle for space
in homes and offices positively overflowing with gadgets and gizmos.
Read More
Anyone who likes to get their gear off for a spot
of naked sunbathing in the backyard may have to think twice in the
future. Researchers have developed a new nanotechnology-based
“microlens” that could lead to a new generation of ultra-powerful
satellite cameras and night-vision devices. Thankfully, the new lens is
used for infrared imaging, so the technology is more likely to be used
for security and monitoring climate change and deforestation than spying
on naturists boosting their vitamin D levels. Read More
The world's largest study into the link between
mobile phones and brain tumors is inconclusive according to a Canadian
scientist. Over 10,000 people took part in the study led by
epidemiologists from more than ten countries but the findings, according
to University of Montreal professor Jack Siemiatycki, are "ambiguous,
surprising and puzzling." Read More
Last year, we brought you the story of tech company AeroVironment’s life-size artificial hummingbird,
that flies solely by flapping its wings. Now, a group of Japanese
researchers has successfully built and flown a flapping-wing-powered
swallowtail butterfly. Besides looking incredibly cool, the
life-size “ornithopter” has also proven a principle that could have big
implications in the field of aerodynamics. Read More
Solar power might be stealing the limelight when it comes to the subject of renewable energy, but ocean waves
are also seen as a great, largely untapped source of clean power. The
latest news surrounding attempts to mine this potentially limitless
energy source comes from Scottish marine energy technology developer,
AWS Ocean Energy, which has started testing its new wave energy device
in Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. Read More
Purveyor of weird watches, Tokyoflash, has
blended the old with the new in its latest creation, the Kisai Round
Trip Pocket Watch. Designed to attach to a key chain, belt loop or even
on a chain in your top pocket like a traditional pocket watch, the Round
Trip continues Tokyoflash’s history of releasing timepieces that make
telling the time a puzzle to be decoded. Read More
It’s billed as “the most powerful tool ever
developed for biometric identification,” and it could well be. L-1
Identity Solutions’ HIIDE is a rugged, portable device that can
establish and then verify peoples’ identities using three separate
biometrics - iris, fingerprint and facial recognition. It must be pretty
impressive, as the US Department of Defense recently ordered ten
million dollars worth of the suckers. Read More
He may look like he stepped straight out of
Second Life, but he isn’t here to kid around. Santos is a
computer-generated auto worker who will perform various tasks on a
virtual Ford assembly line, showing real-world researchers how those
tasks affect his body. The avatar was originally developed for the US
Department of Defense at the University of Iowa as part of the Virtual
Soldier Research program where he was used to determine the physical
strain that soldiers would experience in a variety of situations. Hmm...
auto worker, soldier, university education, muscular, exotic name...
perhaps he did just step out of Second Life. Read More
You're looking at the first exclusive images of
what we expect to become the Personal Water Craft V 3.0 – it's the Green
Samba. It has the same straight line 65 mph performance of the fastest
260 bhp sit-down PWCs, combined with handling and agility far beyond
those of a stand-up PWC. The biggest benefit though, is that the Green
Samba uses twin direct drive electric propulsion pods (unit pictured
bottom left), so it doesn't directly deliver any hydrocarbons, CO2 or
NO2 into delicate marine environments. Equally as important as the lack
of noxious gases, the Green Samba is also completely silent, removing
one of the greatest causes for complaint against PWCs and no doubt
offering respite for those creatures with extremely delicate hearing
which live on and under the water. A working prototype of the carbon
fiber construction Green Samba will be on the water for testing purposes
in Q3, 2010. The pictured action shots (bottom center and bottom right)
of the Samba are the most recent development of the internal combustion
Carbon Samba we first wrote up this time last year. Read More
The contribution of aircraft to greenhouse gas emissions has been well documented and while biofuels are being trialled
in an effort to combat the issue, an expected doubling in air traffic
by 2035 suggests that a fundamental shift in technology is needed to
make real progress. That's the starting point for the D “double bubble” –
a design concept presented to NASA by an MIT led research team which
promises a 70 percent improvement in fuel economy, reduced noise, lower
nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions and the ability to use shorter runways.
Read More
This is one of those ingenious inventions that’s
so simple, it’s amazing no one’s come up with it until now. A team of
Art and Design students at the University of Michigan have created a
prototype electronic doodle pad called the Scribble that animates your
drawings. You simply hand-draw a series of successive images on it, then
it runs them all together in a Flash-like cartoon. Why didn’t I think
of that? Read More
It’s probably safe to say that just about
everyone is impressed with the incredible performance offered by
lithium-ion batteries. They make our cell phones and laptops viable for
real-world use and will be powering just about every electric vehicle on
the road. These batteries do have one problem however: they sometimes
catch fire. That’s not good. Fortunately, scientists at Cambridge
University think they’re on the road to solving this problem - a new
technique allows them to “see” the chemistry at work inside batteries.
Read More
Hoping to capitalize on over-protective pet
owners (like myself!), Softbank is rolling out its innovative – and
admittedly cute – Mimamori Camera. This clever pet monitoring system
allows you to keep tabs on your pet remotely via your mobile phone, all
in real time using a Japanese handset's 'TV call' function. Read More
ViewSonic has announced U.S. availability for its
new handy VOT125 mini-PC. Coming with a quartet of ultra-low-voltage
processor options from Intel to help cut down on power draw and
benefiting from Windows 7 Home Premium, its petite dimensions may well
see the unit being squeezed into the tightest nook of limited home and
office space. Read More
MSI has announced the launch of a Windows-based
software tool that puts an end to all that bothersome fiddling around in
the BIOS to enable inactive processor cores. The tool lists available
cores, and with a few simple clicks on the basic interface and a reboot,
a user is able to unleash previously disabled ones. Read More
A five year Shell Eco Marathon fuel efficiency
record has been smashed by a team of French students. Team Polyjoule
broke the record on the first day of the event by recording an
astounding result of 4,414 kilometers on the equivalent of one liter of
fuel (that's 10,382 mpg). The team then went on to break its own record
by a further 482 kilometers. But the students still expect even more
from their hydrogen fueled vehicle and are already looking toward next
year's Marathon. Read More
General Motor's Joint-Venture partner in China,
Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) rolled out a concept
alongside GM's EN-V
at Expo 2010 which in many ways is more ground-breaking than the EN-V.
The idea behind the YeZ Concept is that it will photosynthesize,
absorbing carbon dioxide from surrounding air and emitting oxygen back
into the atmosphere. Among the many futuristic aspects of the YeZ
(Chinese for “leaf” as Nissan already uses the name
for a clever green concept that is heading for production) is a roof
that incorporates solar panels and wheels that incorporate small wind
turbines to harvest energy from the environment. And if you think this
is not within reach by 2030, think again – artificial photosynthesis has proven elusive, but there's every indication it will be a commercial reality within two decades. Read More
The alarming number of safety recalls appearing
in headlines of late is worrying enough. Now researchers have shown that
it's possible to take away driver control of a moving vehicle by
remotely hacking into relatively insecure computer systems common in
modern automobiles. The team managed to break into key vehicle systems
to kill the engine, apply or disable the brakes and even send cheeky
messages to radio or dashboard displays. Read More
The last time most of us heard of Roger Linn, it
was when he put his name to the revolutionary Linn LM1 drum machine that
became such an integral part of the sound of 1980s pop music - it was
used on so many #1 hits that you'll recognize its signature sound
straight away. Now, Linn has come up with a new and equally novel tool
for musicians - a digital music interface that uses a pressure-sensitive
multitouch pad and a layout that combines a piano keyboard with a
guitar fretboard. The LinnStrument is one of the most expressive,
evocative and enticing new musical instruments we've seen, and its
potential is enormous - but it seems this innovative device might be
prevented from coming to the market due to unfortunate IP squabbling in
the multitouch sector. Read More
Aside from the obvious fashion concerns arising
from donning 3D glasses (which is already being addressed with the
release of designer 3D eyewear)
the biggest drawback of active shutter glasses is crosstalk. This
refers to the ghosting of images when the right eye sees some residue of
the image intended for the left eye and vice versa. Toshiba has now
developed new high-response LCD panels that can be used in active
shutter glasses to reduce crosstalk. Read More
OmniVision has developed a 1/6-inch, native HD, 2
megapixel CMOS sensor capable of delivering full 1080p high definition
video at 30 frames per second. Likely headed for webcams, notebooks and
video conferencing technology later in the year, the tiny OV2720 sensor
is also claimed to provide best-in-class low light sensitivity and is
capable of removing image contamination. Read More
Watches, movies, poems and paintings... a lot of
people think that the harder any one of these things are to understand,
then the better they are. We’ve certainly covered some
intentionally-obscure watches here at Gizmag before, with everything
from a row of LEDs to numbers on a sphere to dots that get filled in and stained glass-like patterns
used to display the time. Now, Japanese weird-watch-maker EleeNo brings
us one that displays the hours, minutes and seconds on a climbing line
graph. Read More
The challenge: to design and build a high speed
road-racing motorcycle from scratch, with an eye towards cost-effective
production. Could you do it? The folks at Spain’s Universidad
Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) think that a team of their engineering
students can. The team is competing in the Moto Student competition,
which pits university teams from around Europe and the rest of the world
against each other to see who can design the best commercially-viable
bike. Read More
Google's front page today pays tribute to the iconic video game, Pacman.
It's just 30 years ago today since Pacman was first released in Japan,
indicating the warp speed at which gaming has become part of the global
social fabric. Fittingly for such a landmark date for a landmark game,
Google's front page is more than just an idle tribute – it is actually a
fully playable game of Pacman and will be seen around 3 billion times
during this 24 hour period. Read More
Although the idea of a solar sail was first
proposed some 100 years ago, to date none has been successfully used in
space as a primary means of propulsion. The Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency (JAXA) is looking to change all that with its IKAROS project –
not a misspelling of Icarus, rather an abbreviation of Interplanetary
Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun. Launched today aboard
the H-IIA Launch Vehicle (H-IIA F17), IKAROS is a space yacht that
gathers energy for propulsion from sunlight pressure (photons) by means
of a square membrane measuring 20 meters (65.6 ft) diagonally. Read More
The VGA labs at TweakTown have been running
overtime this week with Galaxy's GeForce GTX 470 GC and the GIGABYTE HD
5870 1GB Super Overclock series video cards under the microscope. This
week's wrap also includes a look at some heavy duty storage in the form
of Proware's EPICa Series EN-T800 SAS-ready NAS, four highly popular
models in the world of gaming mice and Crucial's half-size 128GB
capacity model of its well renowned RealSSD C300. Read More
A research team, led by Craig Venter of America’s
J. Craig Venter Institute, has produced the first cell controlled by a
synthetic genome. The team had previously synthesized a bacterial
genome, and transplanted the genome from one bacteria to another, but
this is the first time they have combined the two techniques to create
what they call a “synthetic cell” - although only its genome is actually
synthetic. They now hope to be able to explore the machinery of life,
and to engineer bacteria designed for specific purposes. Read More
Without doubt, one of man's greatest delights is
to experience firsthand the stereo staccato of an exhaust system
trumpeting the sound of a high performance engine being controlled by an
expert touch on a mountain road. Sadly, the same engine, exhaust and
expert touch become highly anti-social in urban confines, so German
tuning company Cobra has come up with the perfect invention for
socially-responsible petrolheads – a remote-control exhaust system. At
the push of a button, one can engage an electronically controlled flap
on the twin 120mm tailpipes, changing the noise from subdued and refined
sportiness through to unrestrained and joyful F1-madness … and back
again. Read More
Earlier this month, we told you how Dutch EV charging company Epyon was promoting its new fast charging station. It can reportedly charge a Nissan LEAF up to 80 percent within 30 minutes, and certain other EV’s within even half that time. Now, Epyon is announcing the opening of its first commercial fast-charging station in Europe. Read More
Microsoft has signed an agreement with
Australia’s dominant pay TV provider, Foxtel, to stream over 30 channels
to Xbox 360 consoles through Xbox LIVE. The Foxtel by Xbox LIVE service
will allow Xbox 360 owners in Australia to access Foxtel channels
without the expense of a Foxtel installation and set-top box. Instead,
to access the subscription service users will need an Xbox 360 console,
Xbox LIVE Gold subscription, broadband connection and a Foxtel by Xbox
LIVE subscription. Read More
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