Tokyo Flash's trippiest watch ever: Kisai Wasted
By Rick Martin
October 28, 2010
As crazy as most of Tokyo Flash's watches are,
the company just might have set a new standard with the a new
psychedelic design, appropriately dubbed the Kisai Wasted. With a
hypnotic multi-colored array of LED lights on the face, this latest
watch is sure to be a hit (no pun intended) with the stoner demographic.
Read More
ROCCAT releases multi-funtion precision KONE[+] gaming mouse
By Paul Ridden
October 28, 2010
Hamburg-based ROCCAT Studios has released a
high-precision laser sensor gaming mouse that gives users access to 22
programmable function buttons without going button crazy.
The Kone[+] mouse also sports precise aiming assistance, eye-catching
multi-color light strips along its back, a sound feedback system and the
option to alter its feel by adding weights. Read More
Panasonic's Power Loader Light gives your legs a power-up
By Rick Martin
October 28, 2010
We've covered a number of amazing exoskeletons here on Gizmag, ranging from the solutions for paraplegics – see REX Bionics' and Berkley Bionics' exoskeletons – to the downright wacky Kid Walker mecha for children. Last year we saw Activelink's Power Loader, an exoskeleton that takes its name from the suit of the same name in James Cameron's Aliens.
The company, a subsidiary of Panasonic, has now come out with a
lightweight version, appropriately named the Power Loader Light. Read More
Where would you expect to find the world’s
largest indoor theme park? If you answered "Dubai," you’d be close (but
no cigar). It’s basically next door in, Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s capital.
And you might be surprised to find that it’s not another Disney park or
Universal Studios attraction – no, the world’s largest theme park is
Ferrari World, and it opened today (27 October 2010) to the media. The
public opening has been delayed as a sign of respect for the passing of
Sheik Saqr bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi, Emir of Ras al-Khaimah. Gizmag has
given readers an insight into Ferrari World in the past, but shortly you’ll be able to visit for yourself. Read More
The giant Straddling Bus
we reported on earlier this year could be headed to the U.S. This week
the inventor of the bus, Mr. Song Youzhou, announced that his
Shenzhen-based company is aiming to form partnerships or licensing
agreements with specialized manufacturers to build the vehicle for the
American market. Designed as a way to reduce traffic snarls without the
need for much in the way of new infrastructure, the “Elevated High-Speed
Bus” straddles two lanes of traffic allowing cars to drive underneath.
Read More
Two mile long runway opens at Spaceport America
By Gizmag Team
October 27, 2010
Virgin Galactic's first generation of commercial
space vehicles now have somewhere to land with the completion of the
runway at Spaceport America
in New Mexico. The 42-inch thick, almost two mile long "spaceway" was
dedicated in a ceremony attended by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson,
Buzz Aldrin, Sir Richard Branson and around 30 soon-to-be space
tourists who have signed up as Virgin Galactic's first customers. Read More
In an effort to overcome one of the main
drawbacks of battery electric vehicles, Volvo is initiating development
of a hydrogen fuel cell that is expected to increase an electric car’s
operating range by up to 250 km (155 miles). In the first phase of the
project the company, together with Powercell Sweden AB, will conduct a
study into a Range Extender, which consists of a fuel cell with a
reformer that breaks down a liquid fuel – in this case petrol – to
create hydrogen gas. The fuel cell then converts the hydrogen gas into
electrical energy to power the car’s electric motor. Read More
Scientists have successfully mimicked the process
of bone formation in the laboratory. A cryoTitan electron microscope
was used to capture the process in great visual detail and the results,
which contradicted previous assumptions, could be applied to areas other
than medicine. Read More
MIT develops solar-powered, portable desalination system
October 27, 2010
Researchers from MIT's Field and Space Robotics
Laboratory (FSRL) have designed a portable, solar-powered desalination
system to bring drinkable water in disaster zones and remote regions
around the globe. Designed to be cost-effective and easy to assemble,
the prototype system uses solar panels to power high-pressure pumps
which can deliver up to 80 gallons of clean water a day in a variety of
weather conditions. Read More
engadget has published the first unofficial pics of what appears to be the much-rumored PlayStation phone, which looks like the result of mating a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 with a PSP Go. Read More
Sencha about to unleash CSS3 Flash animation killer
By Paul Ridden
October 29, 2010
Adobe is not the only company preparing for the
heralded death of Flash on the web. Sencha has announced the developer
preview of a new CSS3-based animation tool for the creation of rich
media animations in HTML5-enabled browsers. The new desktop application
is said to allow developers to bring web animations to life without
having to mess around with hundreds of lines of complicated code. Read More
Escort integrates GPS and radar technology in one device
By Paul Ridden
October 29, 2010
Automotive radar and laser detector manufacturer
Escort has announced the release of Passport IQ, which combines GPS
navigation and radar detection technology in one handy unit. As well as
getting you safely from A to B, the new driving accessory is said to be
the first that also protects you from annoying and costly tickets by
providing information on red light and fixed position speed cameras,
known speed traps, speed limit information and more. Read More
Just when the future of broadband appears to be
tipped towards the mass roll-out of optics, Nokia Siemens Networks
proves that there's still life in the old copper wires yet. Using a
virtual channel to supplement physical copper wire, data transmission
speeds of 825 Mbps were recorded. Okay, so it was only over a distance
of 400 meters (just over 1,312 feet) but the circuit managed to sustain
750 Mbps when the distance was increased to 500 meters (about 1,640
feet), with the technology promising broadband speed increases of
between 50 and 75 per cent over existing bonded copper lines. Read More
As Breast Cancer Awareness month draws to a
close, some promising news has emerged from the University of
Manchester's School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Professor
Zhipeng Wu has developed a portable breast scanner that offers concerned
patients real-time video images that clearly show the presence of a
tumor. The lunchbox-sized scanner uses similar radio frequency
technology as mobile phones, but at a fraction of the power and lends
itself to being used in doctor's surgeries for instant screening or even
continued monitoring at home. Read More
Carbon capture and sequestration
(CCS) is a hot area of research in the effort to fight global warming
through the process of removing carbon from the atmosphere and ferreting
it away within carbon soaking materials, a team from the University of
Calcutta has found an unexpected (or should that be uneggspected)
material that could trap carbon from the atmosphere in the form of
eggshells. The team has demonstrated that the membrane that lines an
eggshell can absorb almost seven times its own weight of carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere, allowing the gas to be stored until environmentally
friendly methods of disposing, or even using it, can be found. Read More
Lockheed Martin's HULC Robotic Exoskeleton MK II
October 28, 2010
Lockheed Martin is putting an updated, ruggedized version to its HULC Robotic Exoskeleton
through lab evaluation tests. The hydraulic "power-suit" now boasts
better protection from the elements, improved fitting and easier
adjustment, increased run-time and new control software. Read More
LaCie has given a bump to its USB 3.0 external
hard drives in terms of both capacity and speed with its latest d2 and
2big drives. Taking advantage of 3TB hard drives and the performance of
USB 3.0, the company’s dual drive 2big USB 3.0 offers 6TB of storage and
a 20 percent speed boost to 306MB/s – claiming the fastest performance
of any 2-bay RAID solution to date – while the single drive d2 USB 3.0
offers 3TB of storage and transfer speeds of 156MB/s. Read More
At a major sporting event I attended recently, it
proved impossible to get a connection on a mobile network that was
swamped as many of the 100,000 strong crowd attempted to contact friends
and family. While the influx of calls was the result of a thrilling
draw, it highlighted the weakness of overloaded communications networks
that would struggle in the event of a disaster in a heavily populated
area. A new system being developed by researchers at Queen’s University
Belfast could turn this weakness into a strength by allowing members of
the public carrying wearable sensors to form the backbone of new mobile
Internet networks. Read More
It’s one of those things where if you think about
it too much, your head might explode... we know there are 1,000 grams
in a kilogram, and 1,000 kilograms in a metric ton, but how was it ever
decided what any of these units actually physically weighed?
Well... the modern metric system is part of the Système International
d'Unités (International System of Units) or SI. It states that a
kilogram is the weight of one specific 130 year-old platinum-iridium
cylinder, which is kept in a vault at the International Bureau of
Weights and Measures in France... and no, don’t ask how they knew if
they’d got its weight right, when they were making it. The
problem is, that cylinder’s mass changes slightly over time. Now, a
worldwide effort is under way to change the definitive weight of a
kilogram to something more permanent. Read More
When most of us think of Tesla Motors, we think of the US$100,000 all-electric Roadster.
The fact is, though, the first time that most of us ever see a Tesla in
real life, it will probably be the less expensive, five door Model S
sedan. While the company has sold over 1,300 Roadsters worldwide, the
Model S has yet to start production. When it does, however, it will be
in the new Tesla Factory,
unveiled this Wednesday in Fremont, California. It is the state’s only
auto assembly plant and the world’s first facility dedicated exclusively
to the mass production of electric vehicles. Read More
Cream brought the country blues classic Sittin' on top of the world
to an international audience in the late 1960s... and now you can watch
it on YouTube while you're sitting there. Through its subsidiary Ncell,
the Swedish telecommunications group TeliaSonera has launched 3G
services in the Mount Everest area of Nepal – which makes the company
the providers of the world's highest mobile data service. Read More
U.S. Army to demonstrate Manned Unmanned System Integration Concept
By Darren Quick
October 31, 2010
The U.S. Army is planning the largest ever
demonstration of its Manned Unmanned Systems Integration Concept
(MUSIC). The technology, which we first covered back in 2006,
allows pilots to control the payload of a nearby Unmanned Aerial System
(UAS) from the cockpit of an Apache Attack helicopter. The
demonstration to be held at Dougway Proving Ground, Utah, is aimed at
analyzing the progress of evolving manned-unmanned teaming technologies
and will showcase level-4 UAS interoperability, which includes the
ability to control the payload and view feeds from UAS systems in
real-time from the cockpit. Read More
Despite ongoing advances in prevention techniques and monitoring systems,
heart disease remains the world’s leading cause of death. A study from
the University of Michigan (U-M) Cardiovascular Center has looked to the
past for a future remedy in a study that examines the legality and
basic logistics of recycling pacemakers after they have been removed from a deceased person. Read More
New software processes hundred-billion-pixel photos in seconds
By Paul Ridden
October 31, 2010
Computer scientists from the University of Utah
have developed computer software that allows editing of "extreme
resolution" image files in a matter of seconds, a process that could
previously have taken hours. Whereas existing editing suites require the
full gigapixel image to be loaded into a computer's memory before
manipulation can begin, the new development draws a lower resolution
preview image from an externally-stored image into the editing screen.
Users are said to benefit from being able to make image-wide
modifications in seconds rather than hours and on devices normally not
nearly powerful enough for such things. Read More
North America's largest living wall completed
October 31, 2010
Not content with having the largest non-industrial living roof in Canada and North America,
designers in Canada have gone one step further with the completion of
the largest and most biologically diverse living wall in North America.
Green wall designers Green Over Grey recently completed work on the
living wall at the Semiahmoo Public Library and Royal Canadian Mounted
Police Facility in Surrey, British Columbia, which consists of a unique
design covering nearly 3,000 square feet (279 square meters) and
consisting of over 10,000 individual plants. Read More
Gibson announces limited Firebird X with built-in effects
By Paul Ridden
October 31, 2010
After a couple of weeks of Apple-esque hype,
Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz gave what he calls the revolutionary the
Firebird X a smashing start at the press launch in New York. Featuring
built-in effects, robotic tuning and coming with wireless pedal controllers, the lightweight new model is being offered in a strictly limited run. Read More
In the current day and age of design, you might
have imagined we'd have come up with an aesthetic, intuitive and
practical answer to the “Push – Pull” dichotomy frustrating and
embarrassing confused shoppers and office-workers everywhere. While
there are solutions such as the push bar – pull handle design often
found in schools, student designer Jeon Hwan Soo has come up with a
smart and instinctive all-in-one design that could reduce the number of
people pulling an arm out of its socket or running into a door when they
have pushed when they should have pulled or vice versa. Read More
Using just the power of thought to control
onscreen computer activity, subjects in a recent study led by
neurosurgery professor Itzhak Fried, M.D., Ph.D have managed to choose
to bring one of two merged images into sharp focus while making the
other disappear. Not only were only a few brain cells found to be used
when selecting one picture over another, but each cell appeared to have
its own image preference. Read More
We've been covering the Nissan LEAF with interest for some time and right on track to meet its previously-stated production deadlines, the 100% electric, Nissan LEAF has gone into manufacture at the Oppama facility in Japan. Read More
Mail order retailer Hammacher Schlemmer is hoping
that someone out there will be willing to plunk down the price of a
luxury automobile on its Emotive Robotic Avatar. The US$65,000 device is
essentially a stationary remote-control robot, through which its user
can carry on conversations, make gestures, and convey five different
emotions. On one hand it's a taste of the future, on the other... that's
a very expensive puppet. Read More
FlexUPD AMOLED display takes the gold WSJ Technology Innovation Award
By Paul Ridden
November 2, 2010
The paper-thin, flexible AMOLED display developed
by Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has taken gold in
the Wall Street Journal's Technology Innovation Award. Catering for
two-sided surface visibility, FlexUPD could see its way into rollable
mobile phones or e-Readers, or incorporated into clothing to provide
information about the wearer – for medical purposes, for instance. Read More
With the Jack PC, the computer's in the wall!
By Paul Ridden
November 2, 2010
The Jack PC from Chip PC Technologies offers a
neat and novel thin-client desktop computing solution where the computer
doesn't just plug into the wall, it is the plug in the
wall. Running on power provided by the ethernet cable that also
connects it to the data center server, the computer-in-a-wall-socket
supports wireless connectivity, has dual display capabilities and runs
on the RISC processor architecture – which gives the solution the
equivalent of 1.2GHz of x86 processing power. Read More
Logitech ditches keyboard batteries in favor of sunlight
By Paul Ridden
November 2, 2010
One of the most annoying things about typing on a
wireless keyboard is the sudden shutdown that often occurs right in the
middle of a particularly inspirational key-tapping session. By the time
the batteries have been replaced, the muse has vanished. Logitech's
latest keyboard is designed to end such woes. The slim, wireless K750
sports a couple of solar strips above the row of function keys which
provide the keyboard's power. The company says that it can draw energy
from internal lighting as well as the sun and will keep on going even
after being kept in the dark for a few months. Read More
Introducing the EKING S700 electronic memorandum
By Paul Ridden
November 2, 2010
The e-Reader has been a success story, there's
not much doubt about that. But with only various shades of gray offered
by e-Ink, most manufacturers are now diving into color LCD devices (with
the notable exception of Amazon). Now China's Shenzhen Guangxuntong
Communication Technology has announced a paper-like color display on its
new S700 e-notepad, although exactly what technology is used to achieve
this has not been revealed. Here's what we do know... Read More
Mercedes-Benz tests switchable transparency roof for new SLK
By Darren Quick
November 2, 2010
If you like the idea of zipping across the landscape on a stand-up tracked vehicle, but find the likes of the DTV Shredder and Scarpar
just a little too intimidating, then you might like the Mattracks
Powerboard. Designed specifically for use on snow, the device features
one continuous snowmobile-type rubber track on the bottom, that is
powered by a mid-mounted 200CC 4-cycle gas engine. Delivering a top
speed of 18mph (29kph), this thing probably isn’t going to be appearing
in any sports drink ads anytime soon, but it still looks like it could
be fun. Read More
In the quest to grow replacement human organs in
the lab, livers are no doubt at the top of many a barfly’s wish list.
With its wide range of functions that support almost every organ in the
body and no way to compensate for the absence of liver function, the
ability to grow a replacement is also the focus of many research
efforts. Now, for the first time, researchers have been able to
successfully engineer miniature livers in the lab using human liver
cells. Read More
Nissan unveils New Mobility CONCEPT ultra-compact EV
By Darren Quick
November 2, 2010
Nissan might not be planning on putting all its electric eggs in one basket with the upcoming LEAF.
This week the company unveiled its “NISSAN New Mobility CONCEPT’ that
takes the form of an ultra-compact 100 percent electric vehicle designed
as a convenient mode of transportation for the increasing numbers of
the elderly and single person households and also addresses the trend of
driving short distance or in smaller groups. Read More
Quadro to sell four wheeled tesseract-style motorcycle
By Mike Hanlon
November 2, 2010
The convergence of the car and the motorcycle we forecast last year
looks set to continue with the first public showing today at EICMA 2010
in Milan of a range of three and four wheeled scooters by Italian
start-up Quadro. The start-up is particularly exciting because the
company is to be run by Luciano Marabese, the man who designed both the
Piaggio MP3 three-wheeled scooter and the Yamaha Tesseract four-wheeled
motorcycle shown in 2007. The new machines will use an hydraulic tilting
system patented by Marabese. In 2011 we’ll see the 350cc three-wheeled
Quadro and later in the year, a 500cc four-wheeler. The four-wheeled
motorcycle will evolve into a full family of supersports, hybrid,
electric and off-road models, offering better braking, faster cornering
and more safety and stability than a motorcycle. Read More
Mobile automated system detects traffic violations
By Ben Coxworth
November 2, 2010
In July of 2008, the European Union launched
ASSETT (Advanced Safety and Driver Support for Essential Road
Transport), a program aimed at reducing accidents caused by traffic rule
violations. It involves a consortium of 19 partner organizations in 12
countries, but it boils down to one thing thing for European drivers –
the police will be handing out more tickets. In order to cover a larger
number of vehicles, while making things easier for officers and more
fair for motorists, VTT Technical Research Center of Finland is
currently testing a mobile system that monitors traffic and notes when
infractions occur. Read More
One of the more interesting news items of the
last week came from the release of the Independent Scientific Committee
on Drugs’ first piece of research – Drug harms in the UK: a
multi-criteria decision analysis. The findings of the committee, based
on wide ranging criteria, apply scientific methodology to answering the
perpetually vexing question of exactly how much harm certain drugs do to
their users and those around them. The table above summarises the
findings and the full paper is available free on the web, where you’ll
see just how complex the equation actually is. Most interesting of all
was that without government meddling and industry lobbying, alcohol was
rated more harmful than any other drug, while tobacco (the only other
taxed legal drug on the list), is more harmful than cannabis. Read More
Going all terrain with the Hanebrink electric bike
By Paul Ridden
November 3, 2010
With its chunky fat tires, 14-speed gears and
centrally-located electric motor, the Hanebrink all-terrain vehicle
looks like a fun ride. Built to cope with a multitude of off-road
situations with style and speed, the pedal-assist electric bike is
classified as a bicycle throughout the U.S. so should also be good for
popping down to the local mall and hauling back the week's shopping on
the rear cargo rack. It's also managed to claim first place in the very
first Interbike Hill Climb Challenge. Read More
Color changing dressing to indicate infections
By Darren Quick
November 3, 2010
Wounding yourself can be bad enough, but having
to regularly remove the dressing to check for infection can be painful
and can also compound things by exposing the wound and giving germs the
chance to enter. Now researchers have developed a new material for
dressings and plaster that changes color if an infection arises, making
it possible to check wounds without changing the dressing. Read More
We’ve seen cars that transform into boats, into airplanes, and even into helicopters,
so why not one that transforms into all three? That’s the idea behind
UK designer Philip Pauley’s Halo Intersceptor concept. Now, before you
start picturing a kind of Swiss Army knife-type vehicle, you should know
that the Intersceptor concept revolves around a central car that
remains unchanged, that simply “plugs in” to different attachments. It’s
definitely an intriguing idea, even if you may never be able to buy
one. Read More
What does a labrador and a clothes washer have in
common? Not much you might say. Think again. A team of researchers from
the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, have unlocked the secrets
behind how animals such as dogs, mice and even brown bears dry
themselves and the key is all in the spin cycle. Much like your
household washing machine these animals use resonant frequencies to shed
water and given the results of their research, graduate student Andrew
Dickerson and his advisor, professor David Hu, are now looking at how
they can apply their results. Read More
While the European motorcycle industry is in
crisis due to dramatically falling sales, BMW is moving in the opposite
direction thanks to its loftier perspective of the mobility (as opposed
to motorcycle) industry. After years concentrating on larger capacity
two wheelers, it is moving into the scooter field. Having already shown an electric version of its ultra-safe C1 scooter, plus several MINI scooter concepts
in recent weeks, BMW Motorrad yesterday unveiled a maxi scooter
concept. Two premium scooters will be derived from the concept vehicle
in the near future and there’s also an electric version being
investigated. Read More
Agloves give full 10-finger gloved touchscreen functionality
By Darren Quick
November 2, 2010
With capacitive the technology of choice on the
majority of touchscreen devices hitting the market, people have been
coming up with all kinds of interesting ways to interact with their
devices when the winter chill sets in and gloves become a necessity.
Many South Koreans apparently turned to using sausages as a stylus but
if you’d prefer not to be hassled by dogs as you type a text there are
less meat product-based solutions, such as the North Face Etip gloves.
Now there’s another glove-based solution in the form of Agloves, which
provide even greater touchscreen friendly surface area for your hands.
Read More
Researchers have discovered that activated carbon
cloth is very effective at filtering harmful compounds out of air and
liquids. The material was first developed in the 1980s, to protect
British soldiers from chemical attacks. It is still in use today, in
chemical, biological and radiological warfare suits for the military.
This recent study, however, indicates that it could have a number of
other uses. Read More
Utilizing a recently-developed technique called
HARDI (High Angular Resolution Diffusion Imaging), researchers at the
Eindhoven University of Technology have created a software tool that
could reduce the need for exploratory brain surgery. The new technology
converts MRI scans of the brain into three-dimensional images, which
provide neurologists with a “road map” of the wiring of a patient’s
brain. Read More
The Urbee hybrid: the world’s first 3D printed car
By Darren Quick
November 2, 2010
In the early 20th century Henry Ford
revolutionized automobile production with the introduction of the
assembly line for the iconic Ford Model T. Now, almost a century later, a
car has been produced using a process that could prove just as
revolutionary – 3D printing. Code-named, Urbee, the streamlined vehicle
is the first ever to have its entire body, including its glass panel
prototypes, 3D printed with an additive manufacturing process. Read More
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