Using flexible organic semiconductors,
researchers at Queen Mary, University of London and the University of
Fribourg have made a discovery that could lead to the simultaneous
storing and processing of data on the same computer chip, bringing a
dramatic improvement in power efficiency and reduced weight of
electronic devices. Read More
Patient reportedly cured of HIV infection after stem cell transplant
By Darren Quick
December 14, 2010
An HIV-infected man who received stem cell
treatment for leukemia from a donor with natural resistance to HIV
infection appears to have been cured of HIV, according to a report on
the NAM aidsmap website. The treatment, which was carried out in 2007,
opens the possibility of a cure for HIV infection through the use of
genetically engineered stem cells. Read More
KillaCycle: the 500 horsepower cordless drill on wheels
By Ben Coxworth
December 14, 2010
Definitely one of the crowd favorites at last week’s Future of Electric Vehicles
conference was the presentation by Eva Hakkanson and Bill Dube. The
highly-entertaining couple, who design and build electric racing
motorcycles out of their home garage, have set some impressive records
with their KillaCycle
drag bike – it currently holds the title of World’s Fastest Electric
Motorcycle, and is also the world’s fastest EV of any kind. The bike was
on display at the conference, so we asked Eva to give us the nickel
tour. Read More
With the plethora of Wii-mote add-on attachments available it comes as no surprise to see Sony’s PlayStation Move
controller is set to get the same treatment. It also comes as no
surprise that one of the first add-ons for the device was the Move
Shooting Attachment aimed at titles like Time Crisis: Razing Storm and The Shoot.
Now the company has gone one better with its new PlayStation Move Sharp
Shooter Attachment which will hit store shelves alongside the much
anticipated Killzone 3 in February. Read More
Squad Mission Support System set for Afghanistan
By Grant Banks
December 14, 2010
Lockheed Martin’s (LM) Squad Mission Support System
(SMSS) has passed a final round of tests at Fort Riley, Kansas, before
scheduled deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. The system, which turns a
six-wheeled amphibious ATV into a robotic packhorse and charging
station, has been subjected to a variety of simulated warzone
environments in both remote controlled and fully autonomous modes. Read More
Vac 'n' Roll : The Dustball robot cleaning concept
By Paul Ridden
December 14, 2010
We do like our robotic vacuum cleaners
here at Gizmag, but most of those that we have featured so far have,
for good reason, followed a similar short and squat design. Dutch
designer Dave Hakkens has opted to turn his back on this familiar shape
and the household cleaner environment in which such a device might be
found, in favor of a fairly large, industrial-strength ball for cleaning
up public spaces. Read More
New form of corrosive bacteria found aboard Titanic
By Paul Ridden
December 14, 2010
Misfortune continues to take a bite out of the
world's most famous ocean liner – literally. Twenty-five years after the
RMS Titanic's ocean grave was discovered a few hundred miles
off the coast of Newfoundland, researchers have identified a new
bacteria feeding on the great ship's hulk. The scientists believe that
the new micro-organism may work with a complex variety of bacteria,
which inhabit a microscopic world inside porous mounds of rusty
stalactites called rusticles, to break down metal into a fine powder.
Read More
Being wired for sound to a games console can be a
somewhat restricting experience, especially if you're trying to release your inner rock star
with games like Rock Band 3. Astro Gaming has taken its pro-gaming
MixAmp audio technology and made it both wireless and home-friendly.
Users of the MixAmp 5.8 system can plug in just about any pair of wired
headphones to the wireless receiver and benefit from 7.1-channel Dolby
Surround Sound and a virtually interference-free wireless connection to
the transmitter. Read More
New typing interface for touch screens mimics handwriting
By Grant Banks
December 14, 2010
A faster and more natural text input app for
small devices, which mimics handwriting and eliminates typos. Sounds
good? That is what the 8pen app for Android touch phones offers. Read More
It’s not often that you can purchase a millimeter
perfect replica of the current world championship-winning racing
motorcycle, but that’s exactly what Husqvarna is offering with its
commemorative replica of Antoine Meo’s 2010 Enduro class TE250 E1 mount.
Everything is claimed to be identical to the bike which took all before
it this year, right down to the Kayaba fork internals,
offset-adjustable CNC triple clamps, titanium exhaust and the various
exotic metals and carbon fibre knick nacks, not to mention the graphics.
Connoisseurs and collectors had best be quick – production of the
limited 100 machine run began last week and the price seems ridiculously
cheap for what you get. It will vary with exchange rates depending on
where you live, but roughly US$13K plus on road will get your butt on
that anti-slip Dalla Valle seat. Read More
Graham Hawkes explains how a Deep Flight sub can 'fly' underwater
By Ben Coxworth
December 16, 2010
One thing was very clear at the recent Future of Electric Vehicles
conference in San Jose – innovative design and development of electric
vehicles is not restricted to the automotive sector. The case-in-point
is the Deep Flight Super Falcon submersible. The two-occupant underwater
vehicle was designed and manufactured by Hawkes Ocean Technologies, and
is one of only two in the world. Like most of the other Hawkes vehicles, the Super Falcon is more like an underwater airplane
than a submarine, soaring through the water column instead of rising
and sinking. Company founder and Chief Technical Officer Graham Hawkes
was a presenter at the conference, and showed us just how his submarine
is able to “fly” underwater. Read More
Over the last fifty years or so, a family-owned
company in New York has built up quite a reputation for creating
hand-crafted, audiophile-pleasing equipment. The latest addition to the
Grado Labs family has just been announced, a new flagship in-ear
headphone that's said to set a new benchmark in sonic performance. Read More
It’s been a big week in the world of mass-produced electric vehicles. Hot on the heels of Nissan delivering the first of its LEAF all-electric vehicles
to a customer in California last Saturday, a retired airline pilot by
the name of Jeffrey Kaffee has become the first customer in the U.S. to
take delivery of a Chevrolet Volt.
Although the Volt he received wasn’t actually the first available for
sale, with that particular vehicle going to the winner of an online charity auction, which closed on Tuesday with a winning bid of US$225,000. Read More
New technique recycles 100 percent of household plastic
By Ben Coxworth
December 15, 2010
This Christmas, chances are you’ll save the
plastic film and blister packs that your presents come encased in and
send it all off for recycling. According to scientists from the
University of Warwick, however, only about 12 percent of plastic sent to
depots actually gets recycled. Because of problems such as glued-on
paper labels, or different types of plastic being combined in one
product, the rest of it goes to the landfill or is burnt as fuel. Those
same scientists have now devised a system that could recycle 100 percent
of household plastic. Read More
Voyager 1 spacecraft approaches edge of Solar System
By Darren Quick
December 15, 2010
The Voyager 1 spacecraft launched by NASA on
September 5, 1977 continues to add to its impressive list of
accomplishments. Its “Grand Tour" through the Solar System has seen it
become the first probe to provide detailed images of the moons of
Jupiter and Saturn and earn the title of most distant human-made object
in the cosmos. After a 33-year journey, Voyager 1 has now crossed into
an area at the edge of our Solar System where there is no outward motion
of solar wind. Read More
Using a hand saw is nobody’s idea of a good time,
but one inventor is trying to at least make it a little easier. John
Zimmerman, a software developer by trade, has created what he calls the
Recoil Saw. Essentially, it’s just a saw – various types of saws,
actually – with one or more spring-loaded impact bars attached to the
blade. At the end of each stroke, the spring compresses as the bar hits
the material being sawed, then releases that energy back into the
following return stroke. The idea is that users can pretty much just
bounce their way through cutting jobs, as opposed to having to
purposefully stop and start between every stroke. Zimmerman, who admits
he’s probably not the most unbiased tester, said that he has found it
cuts twice as fast as a regular saw. Read More
Interactive touch screen movie lets viewers control the plot
By Ben Coxworth
December 15, 2010
Those of us who grew up in the 70s or 80s may remember the Choose Your Own Adventure
books. Instead of reading the book straight through, from cover to
cover, at the bottom of each page you were presented with a choice like,
“If you decide to open the treasure chest, turn to page 24 / If you
decide to go farther into the cave, turn to page 32.” Interactive movies
follow the same model, except the viewer’s choices result in seeing
different scenes instead of reading different pages. While such films
have been around since the invention of video disc players, a new one
from Israel uniquely incorporates today’s technology. Read More
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) says that an
area of forest the size of Greece is cleared every year and that a
significant proportion of that wood is pulped to make paper. In an
effort to curb the needless printing of documents, the German branch of
the organization has teamed up with Jung von Matt to introduce a new
PDF-like digital file format that actually prevents a user from sending
documents to the printer. Read More
Take rambling to the next level with holographic digital maps
By Paul Ridden
December 15, 2010
It wasn't so long ago when those wanting to
visualize the landscape around them would have to use a topographic map
and a fair bit of imagination. Nowadays we are spoilt by the immersive
opportunities offered by the likes of Google Earth, or even GPS
technology, but there's nothing quite like a holographic image for
recreating a 3D representation of the surrounding terrain on a 2D
surface. While the digital holographic prints produced by Zebra Imaging
are not exactly as pocket-friendly as maps, they are quite simply
stunning. Read More
Tokyoflash,
known for advanced (read "way-out") watch designs, recently asked its
followers to submit and vote on new designs – and the first batch has
gone into production. Read More
For the fifth year in a row, Netherlands-based
Feadship – a co-op between two shipyards and the De Voogt Naval
Architects maritime engineering company – has revealed a concept yacht
to mark the opening of the Monaco Yacht Show. This year’s effort, called
Breathe, has drawn inspiration from biomimicry,
which imitates forms found in nature to solve manmade problems.
However, Feadship has chosen an unexpected natural design to imitate for
a boat – zebra stripes. Read More
First THINK City EV’s roll out of THINK’s new Indiana plant
By Darren Quick
December 16, 2010
Oslo-based electric vehicle maker THINK has started production of the THINK City
EV at its new plant in Elkhart, Indiana. The company hasn’t wasted
anytime getting up to speed either, with the first 15 vehicles delivered
to the State of Indiana for use in its government fleet this week.
THINK aims to build 300 THINK City EVs at the facility by the end of the
year, with plans to scale up production to build 2,500 vehicles for the
American market in 2011. Read More
California approves its first molten salt solar power plant
By Darren Quick
December 16, 2010
One of the biggest problems with solar
energy is that the sun doesn’t shine 24 hours a day. This means that
unless users are only planning on using electricity when the sun is
shining, some form of energy storage system is required. Since storing
excess electricity in rechargeable batteries isn’t really practical for
large-scale solar power plants, another storage system is needed. U.S.
utility-scale solar project developer SolarReserve has now received
approval for the first solar power plant in California that uses molten
salt technology to store the sun’s thermal energy as heat so it can
generate electricity when needed, at any time of the day or night. Read More
'Pocket airports' would link neighborhoods by air
By Ben Coxworth
December 16, 2010
A little over a year ago, we told you about NASA’s Green Flight Challenge.
The Space Agency is seeking designs for low-cost, quiet, short take-off
personal aircraft, that require little if any fossil fuel. The winning
design, to be decided next July, will win US$1.6 million in production
funds. The competition is being run by NASA’s light-aircraft partner
CAFE (Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency), which envisions the
resulting Suburban Air Vehicles (SAVs) taking off and landing at small
neighborhood “pocket airports.” At last week’s Future of Electric Vehicles conference, CAFE president Dr. Brien Seeley outlined just how those airports would work. Read More
Whether it's due to improvements in our
smartphones or the rise of tablet computers, one thing's for sure -
mobile Internet usage is on the rise. That's welcome news for the vast
number of web developers looking to break into the applications market.
Of course, making sure that a new application works correctly across the
various mobile platforms can be a bit of a coding nightmare. Happily,
help is at hand in the form of a new mobile web standard developed by
the international community working to make the web accessible for all.
Read More
Seagate's eco-friendly Barracuda LP HDD has now
got a brand new name and some new features, too. The Barracuda Green
hard drives benefit from cool and quiet operation, and some technology
that is said to deliver best-in-class performance while allowing for
seamless integration into a system without the need for additional
performance utilities. The low power storage solutions are also reported
to be the industry's highest-performance eco-friendly 3.5-inch desktop
drives. Read More
Holy hybrid! E Mobile's pocket WiFi is also an Android smartphone
By Rick Martin
December 16, 2010
Japan has long had a reputation for being on the
cutting edge of technology and innovation, so one might expect that the
country would be blanketed with open wireless for everyone. Therefore,
many travelers are surprised to find that public WiFi is scarce, and
that those who want mobile internet usually have to dish out for a for a
monthly plan. E Mobile has been providing popular pocket WiFi solutions
for some time, but the company's latest is an intriguing piece of
hardware. Read More
Chip Yates took a very American approach when he
began building an electric superbike to race in the TTXGP and FIM ePower
championships. He went for horsepower. One-hundred and ninety-six
horsepower, to be precise, with a massive set of battery cells to keep
the motor fed over a race distance. It was to be the most powerful bike
on the grid. But both the TTXGP and the FIM released rule changes
effectively disqualifying the SWIGZ bike from competition in 2011 - and
rather than change the bike to fit the rules, Yates decided to pull out
altogether - and take it racing against petrol-powered American
superbikes in what is likely to be the first time electric and
gasoline-powered motorcycles have gone head to head in an official race.
But even with nearly 200 horsepower behind him, Yates has one heck of a
tough job ahead of him. Read More
Business travel in the 21st Century is a whole
new ball-game. With the advent of laptops, netbooks and even smaller
form factor connected devices like tablets and smartphones, the task of
taking your office on the road with you is getting easier, but there's
still a compromise between the gear you need to maintain full
productivity and the reality of wrestling your way through airport
check-in queues. So what are the options? In the first of a three part
series that will look at the best of what's new for the mobile
technophile, here's our pick of essential accessories tailored to the
needs of the mobile business traveler. Read More
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