Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have created a composite material
that they claim can store hydrogen densely and safely, yet that also
allows it to be easily accessed for creating electricity. Some materials
that are currently used for hydrogen storage
have a relatively small capacity, and need to be superheated or
supercooled in order to work at peak efficiency. The new material,
however, is said not to have either of these limitations. Read More
General Electric (GE) has already chosen a dozen
new partners to accelerate and commercialize technologies to help build
the next generation power grid, as part of Phase I of its ecomagination
challenge. Idaho's Solar Roadways
project received the highest number of community votes in that round,
and looks to be doing well in the current phase. As the hopefuls in the
"Powering Your Home" phase go before the judges, we take a quick look at
some of the entries that have caught our attention. Read More
If you’ve ever removed the battery from a laptop,
then you will know that it constitutes quite a large percentage of the
total weight of the computer. Well, if you think you’ve got it tough
lugging that laptop battery around, consider the plight of infantry
soldiers – they have to carry multiple batteries to power devices such
as weapons, radios, and GPS equipment, and they have to do so
for hours at a time, often under very harsh conditions. Attempts to
lighten the 45 to 70 kg (99 to 154 lb) loads typically carried by
soldiers currently include the use of fuel cells, li-ion batteries woven into their clothing, and autonomous pack horse-like vehicles. Now, UK researchers are adding their two pence-worth, by developing wearable solar and thermoelectric power systems. Read More
In some cases, looking at a living cell under a
microscope can cause it damage or worse, can kill it. Now, a new kind of
microscope has been invented by researchers from the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute that is able to non-invasively take a three
dimensional look inside living cells with stunning results. The device
uses a thin sheet of light like that used to scan supermarket bar codes
and could help biologists to achieve their goal of understanding the
rules that govern molecular processes within a cell. Read More
With the plethora of mouse alternatives available
or in development you'd be forgiven for thinking the humble computer
mouse was some kind of torturous device inflicted upon computer users.
But despite challengers such as the trackball, the WOW-PEN Joy, the ErgoSlider Plus, the Orbita Mouse and the AirMouse – just to name a few – the mouse has maintained its dominance while remaining largely unchanged since its unveiling in 1968.
Now there's another alternative cursor relocation device set to hit the
market called the evoMouse that turns just about any flat surface into a
virtual trackpad with your finger as the pointer. Read More
U.S. scientists have developed a new miniature,
wearable Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner which enables the
simultaneous study of brain function and behavior in animals. PET scans
are much like Computed Tomography (CT) scans and have helped uncover the
molecular underpinnings of conditions like drug addiction, brain
diseases such as dementia and they have been used in the medical imaging
of cancers. Read More
As Japan, and indeed the world, struggles to
comprehend the devastation resulting from the 8.9 magnitude earthquake
and tsunami that struck on March 11, countries around the world have
rushed to offer support in a number of ways. Amongst the aid flowing
from the U.S. is a U-2
high-altitude, all-weather surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft
that will be used to capture high-resolution, broad area synoptic
imagery to help the Japanese identify the location and extent of damage
caused by the earthquake and tsunami. Read More
Academics from the University of Manchester have
developed a process of creating working human muscle tissue from sea
squirts. The research holds promise for the engineering of muscles,
ligaments and nerves from cellulose which is usually found in plants and
is the main component of paper and plant based textiles such as cotton
and linen. The creation of muscle from scratch along with the ability to
repair existing muscle has the potential to improve the lives of
millions of people around the world. Read More
Anyone in the market for one of Apple's new Thunderbolt-equipped 2011 MacBook Pros
would be forgiven for thinking the machines only support up to 8GB (2 x
4GB) of RAM since that's what's listed on the tech specs and is the
maximum build-to-order option available through Apple. However online
store OWC
says the new 2011 MacBook Pro models can actually support up to 16GB (2 x
8GB) and is selling the 8GB sticks you'll need to make it happen. The
only catch is the price, which is more than the asking price for either
of the two 2011 13-inch MacBook Pro models currently available. Read More
Pioneering audio engineer Owsley 'Bear' Stanley dies at 76
By Alan Brandon
March 14, 2011
Owsley “Bear” Stanley, pioneering audio engineer
for the Grateful Dead, died in a car crash near his home in Australia on
March 13. The sound designer, artist, and counterculture icon was
perhaps best known for producing massive amounts of LSD during the
psychedelic 1960s. But it was his groundbreaking sound work that may
have the most lasting effect on rock musicians and audiences. Read More
Like its stablemate the Domespace house,
David Fanchon's elegant eco-friendly design is aimed at maximizing
passive solar energy – though unlike the Domespace there's no rotating
option. Dubbed "The Pearl," the standout features of the domed structure
are its integrated solar panels which can be adjusted to different
angles to provide additional shade and optimize energy collection
through the changing seasons. Read More
Mountain Dew’s green bottles could become even “greener” with an announcement from PepsiCo
claiming it has developed the world’s first polyethylene terephthalate
(PET) plastic bottle made entirely from plant-based, fully renewable
resources including switch grass, pine bark and corn husks. The bottle
not only offers a significantly reduced carbon footprint compared to
petroleum-based PET, but is also 100 percent recyclable. Read More
Perhaps I'm of a certain age, but when someone
says the word "Jukebox" I immediately think of a Wurlitzer 1015 bubbler,
although I've only ever seen one actually working. Or, at a pinch,
perhaps a Seeburg M100C – the Happy Days model, as it became
known much later. For decades, these music players were at the very
center of popular music, and their modern descendants can still be heard
in watering holes the world over. TouchTunes Interactive Networks and
frog design have teamed up to re-ignite the social spirit of vintage
jukeboxes, in an updated device designed to engage a generation used to
on-demand digital content. Read More
U.S. paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division
recently took part in a field exercise at Fort Bragg, North Carolina,
in which they experimented with a tool not normally used by the armed
forces – a smartphone. And no, they weren’t playing Farmville. Instead,
they were using custom phones running custom apps, to coordinate the
swarming of a mock village and the capture of a high-value target.
Judging by how the exercise went, smartphones could soon be showing up
on battlefields everywhere. Read More
As chips continue to get smaller, the
technological possibilities just get larger. One of the trade-offs of
miniaturization, however, is that smaller things are also often more
fragile and less dependable. Anticipating a point at which chips will
become too tiny to maintain their current level of resilience, a team of
four companies and two universities in The Netherlands, Germany, and
Finland have created what they say could be the solution – a chip that
monitors its own performance, and redirects tasks as needed. Read More
Yves Béhar, the industrial designer behind such diverse products as the WattStation EV charging station, the Jawbone Bluetooth headset and Mission One electric sports motorbike
has turned his talents to that most essential of modern day devices –
the mobile phone. The result is a stylish handset that comes in either
stainless steel or gold versions priced at 7,250 euro (approx.
US$10,140) and 42,000 euro ($58,740) respectively. But anyone expecting a
phone at those prices to do everything short of fixing you a fine meal
and cleaning up afterwards will be sorely disappointed as the +YvesBéhar
phone has been designed firmly with simplicity in mind. Read More
New cooking aid developed for arthritis sufferers
By Paul Ridden
March 16, 2011
For those who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis,
just taking a pan of boiling vegetables from the cooker to the sink can
be an awkward and dangerous adventure. After numerous interviews with
sufferers, Australian university student Ching-Hao Hsu discovered that
many regularly risk injury by trying to carry one-handled pans with the
aid of a towel. To make such tasks a might easier, Hsu has designed the
Arthritis Handle. The device slips over the forearm and allows the user
to safely support the cookware on its journey around the kitchen. Read More
Using a complex model to perform a theoretical calculation based on a U.S. Geological Survey, Richard Gross of NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has determined that by changing the
distribution of the Earth's mass, the earthquake that devastated Japan
last Friday should have sped up the Earth's rotation, resulting in a day
that is about 1.8 microseconds (1.8 millionths of a second) shorter.
Read More
One of the big criticisms leveled at rhythm-based guitar games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band
was that they don’t actually teach you to play guitar. Ignoring the
fact that this was never the intention of the games and not necessarily a
bad thing ... it’s true. With the curtain recently brought down on the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises, Ubisoft has stepped onto the stage with Rocksmith – the first videogame that lets players use any real guitar and is designed to teach them how to actually play it. Read More
For all the people out there who like listening
to the radio while they’re in the shower, various companies offer
waterproof battery-operated “shower radios.” There’s nothing
particularly wrong with these radios, but ... why change or recharge the
batteries if you don’t have to? No, we’re not suggesting running a
power cord into the shower. Instead, you might be interested in getting
an H2O Power water-powered radio. Read More
Clarkson University (New York) was the overall
winner in the 2011 Clean Snowmobile Challenge, a collegiate design
competition put on by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and
hosted by Michigan Technological University. This year’s competition was
billed as “the greenest yet,” with a record number of electric
snowmobiles participating. The event was held March 7-12 at MTU’s
Keweenaw Research Center in Houghton, Michigan. 17 student teams
competed in the zero emissions and internal combustion categories. Read More
Western Digital
has announced the immediate availability of a new 6TB Mac-formatted
storage solution. Created with digital artists, graphic designers,
photographers, legal and medical workers in mind, the dual-drive My Book
Studio Edition II system is fully compatible with Apple Time Machine,
supports RAID configurations, and benefits from four connectivity
options. The drive bays are user-accessible for upgrades or maintenance,
and there's a capacity gauge to keep you informed of how much space
remains. Read More
iClooly brings the magic of landlines to your iPhone
By Ben Coxworth
March 17, 2011
Last year we told you about a product called the Phone x Phone,
which is an iPhone dock that essentially turns your mobile into a
desktop phone. Well, while it has a decidedly 70s retro appeal, the
Phone x Phone now has some competition in the form of the sleek and
modern-looking iClooly Handset and Sync Stand. You just lay your iPhone
4, 3GS, 3G, or Android phone with a 3.5 mm headphone jack into the
stand, plug in the landline-style handset, and pretend that cell phones
were never invented. Read More
As we demand more and more quality and detail in
digital photography and high definition videography, the size of the
output files is the first to take a hit. So, it's good to see that Lexar
Media has confirmed that the 128GB 133x Professional SDXC media card
announced in January
is now shipping. The company says that the new card benefits from Class
10 rated speed and carries a much more affordable price tag, to boot.
Read More
Students of music history, historians and music
lovers alike can't help but be moved by the sight of an original
manuscript by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Now, thanks to a Library of
Congress partnership with five other institutions, folks can get up
close and personal with some of the world's most valued music
manuscripts from the comfort of their own living rooms. A new
free-to-view online portal brings together digitized copies of
manuscript scores and first and early editions of works by composers
such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Richard Wagner, Ludwig van Beethoven,
Claude Debussy, Georges Bizet, Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky.
Read More
Tired of your glasses fogging up on cold days, or
of having to spit in your dive mask before putting it on? Those hassles
may become a thing of the past, as researchers from Quebec City’s
Université Laval have developed what they claim is the world’s first
permanent anti-fog coating. Just one application is said to work
indefinitely on eyeglasses, windshields, camera lenses, or any other
transparent glass or plastic surface. Read More
An essential part of my travel kit is my digital
music player. I also carry a small set of speakers in case I want to
share some tunes with those I meet along the way, but I'm forever having
to worry about batteries and, despite their size, it's all extra weight
to have to lug around. I need some fold-away, lightweight, power-free
amplification, and that's precisely what the Tembo Trunks speakers
offer. The creation of brothers Scott and Mike Norrie, the horn speakers
are said to have been born out of frustration in not having an external
iPod speaker that was small and light enough to travel with them around
Africa. Read More
As promised
at this year's CES, Motorola has announced that the Wi-Fi version of
its Xoom Android tablet will be available this month. The 10.1-inch
device is the first tablet to benefit from all the widgets,
multi-tasking, browsing, notifications and customization capabilities of
Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), and is powered by a 1GHz dual-core processor
supported by a gigabyte of RAM. It's not as thin as the new iPad 2 but
is by no means chunky at 0.5-inch (12.9mm) and does sport a 1280 x 800
resolution (150ppi), high definition touchscreen display with HDMI-out
for onward connection to a big screen TV. Read More
In the heat of battle I imagine things can get
pretty hectic and pinpointing just where the shooting is coming from as
quickly as possible could mean the difference between life and death. To
give its soldiers an edge in this regard the U.S. Army
will begin providing its forces in Afghanistan with the first of 13,000
gunshot detection systems later this month. The Individual Gunshot
Detector (IGD) uses the sound waves generated by enemy gunfire to
instantaneously determine the location and distance toward the enemy
fire. Read More
CryoEnergy System uses liquid air to store energy
By Ben Coxworth
March 16, 2011
Balancing demand for energy with timely
production is a juggling act that is particularly relevant to renewable
sources such as wind and solar. Because the wind isn't always blowing
and the sun isn't always shining, the energy produced by these systems
needs to be stored efficiently so it can be used when it's needed. While
some scientists are looking into storing such energy by converting it
to natural gas,
Britain's Highview Power Storage has its own approach, which is already
in use in a pilot project. In a nutshell, the company is storing excess
energy as liquid air. Read More
The first MotoGP race of the year has been run
and won, so we've got our first glimpse at what season 2011 is going to
look like. And it seems it's going to look like the Honda Cup.
Delivering on the promise the bike showed last year, Honda's RC212V took
four of the top five finishing spots in Qatar, with only defending
champion Jorge Lorenzo waving the flag for Yamaha in second place. Ben
Spies rode to an encouraging sixth place for Yamaha, and the
Rossi/Ducati combination started with a whimper, not a bang, in 7th.
Smart money would have to be on Australian Casey Stoner for the title;
after a brief dice with a wearied Dani Pedrosa, Stoner strolled away to a
3.5-second win. Read More
This is one home security alarm you won't want to
trigger by mistake! Burglar Blaster mounts on a wall inside the home,
and once armed, uses an infrared beam to detect when an intruder has
entered the house. It then emits a cloud of pepper spray, that will
severely inconvenience anyone within 2,000 square feet (186 square
meters). Read More
Handheld portable recorders with XY microphone
configurations are great for tight stereo imaging but if you want to
capture a wider ambient sound then an AB configuration would probably be
better. With the forthcoming release of its DR-07 MkII recorder, both
methods are brought to the one device. A host of new and useful features
have been added to the update of Tascam's best-selling portable
recorder, including overdub and reverb. Read More
A lot of us have one "mothership" desktop
computer, along with a laptop or notebook that we take on the road. Many
of us also use one computer at work, and another at home. Inevitably,
there are occasions where we're using one computer, but wishing we could
access a file on the other. While there is remote access
software that allows you to do so, the iTwin system offers what seems to
be a much simpler solution – two flash drive-like sticks that plug into
either computer, and let them communicate for free over a secure
internet connection. Read More
Just as there are a variety of types of bicycle
locks, so there are a variety of ways in which riders carry them.
U-locks can be thrown into a backpack or pannier, clipped into a
mounting bracket, or just left to dangle from the handlebars, while
cable or chain locks are often jauntily looped around the rider’s torso,
like a shoulder bag. The makers of the Hiplok, however, claim that
their product has all of those approaches beat – it’s designed to be
worn like a belt. Read More
While fingers are by far and away the most popular form of input device for touchscreens these days, using a stylus
offers an accuracy that stubby fingers like mine just can’t match.
While just about any stick of plastic will do for resistive
touchscreens, capacitive touchscreens that rely on a distortion of the
screen’s electrostatic field require a stylus that is electrically
conducting. If your day finds you switching between devices that use
different touchscreen technologies then the new Quillit 3 in 1 Stylus
Pen from Proporta will cover all the bases. It will even let you
interact with that most ancient of displays – paper – as it its third
function is as an ordinary pen. Read More
MESSENGER becomes first spacecraft to orbit Mercury
March 18, 2011
NASA has reported that its MESSENGER spacecraft
is now in orbit around the planet Mercury – the first ever mission to
achieve this feat. More than 40 years on from the first moon landing in the age of the Mars rovers and space tourism,
it's easy to overlook just what a remarkable a feat this is. These
amazing facts might just jolt our sense of wonder – before reaching
orbit on Thursday at approximately 9 pm EDT, MESSENGER traveled for six
and a half years and covered 4.9-billion-miles in which it went through
three flybys of Mercury, one of Earth and two of Venus. After firing its
main thruster for 15 minutes the spacecraft slowed by 1,929 mph
(leaving around 10 percent of fuel in the tank for orbit correction
maneuvers) and it is now in a 12 hour elliptical orbit around the
innermost planet some 96.35 million miles from Earth. Read More
Doing the laundry probably isn’t high on anyone’s
list of fun things to do, so anything that speeds up the chore, while
also cutting down on the amount of water and energy used, is going to be
welcome. A new washing machine
from Russell Hobbs looks to accomplish all these goals with its “super
rapid wash” cycle rinsing and spinning a load of lightly soiled clothes
in a world record time of just 12 minutes as opposed to an average
90-minute wash cycle. Read More
While LG
might be best known for its consumer electronics products, the South
Korean conglomerate has plenty of strings to its bow with around 40
subsidiary companies in areas including electronics, telecommunications
and chemicals. One such subsidiary is LG Hausys, which is Korea's
biggest building and decorative material company. Its products include a
solid surface material called HI-MACS and to demonstrate the "limitless
design possibilities" of the material, LG Hausys teamed up with Korean
architect Shi-hyung Jeon to create Horn, a hand-made iPod speaker dock featuring the smooth, curved shape from which it gets its name. Read More
If you had to use a commuting bicycle in a race,
you would probably set about removing the kickstand, fenders, racks and
lights to make the thing as fast and efficient as possible. When
engineers at Houston’s Rice University are developing small, fast,
energy-efficient chips for use in devices like hearing aids, it turns
out they do pretty much the same thing. The removal of portions of
circuits that aren’t essential to the task at hand is known as
“probabilistic pruning,” and it results in chips that are twice as fast,
use half the power, and are half the size of conventional chips. Read More
Google has announced that its Nexus S Android
smartphone will shortly be available on Sprint's WiMAX/4G network. The
curvaceous device benefits from a Super AMOLED display that's said to
offer an HD-like multimedia experience, Samsung's application processor,
a couple of cameras and a decent helping of onboard memory. The Sprint
deal comes with the added sweetener of Google Voice support, which holds
the promise of using one number for numerous phones. Read More
Everything that went under the hammer at the recent sale
of guitars and amps at Bonhams in aid of Eric Clapton's Crossroads
Centre was sold, bringing in three times the amount expected. For the
first time, the legendary musician offered amps and cabinets from his
own collection, including a 1966 Fender Super Reverb. The sale also
included instruments from Fender, Music Man, Gibson and Martin as well
as memorabilia and collectibles, and attracted fans from all over the
world, hoping to take home a piece of Clapton history. Read More
Simple One bicycle folds to become a shopping cart
By Ben Coxworth
March 21, 2011
Of the various cycling goodies that were on
display last week at the 2011 International Taipei Bicycle Show, one
that stood out for its ingenuity was the Amxma Simple One folding bike.
Made by Taiwan’s Long Antelope Enterprise Company, the Simple One is for
the most part just like any other folding bicycle – what makes it
special is the fact that when it’s folded up, it can be wheeled into
your local grocery store and used as a shopping cart. Read More
My first encounter with the tremolo guitar effect was on the breathtaking sixties rock anthem I Had Too Much To Dream by the Electric Prunes. Most people will be familiar with the effect from Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones, or Green Day's Boulevard of Broken Dreams
for the more youthful among us. This rapid wobble to the groove has now
been given a futuristic update with the release of the Tremvelope from
Pigtronix. The new effects unit mixes up classic tremolo effects with
envelope sensing to produce rotary effects that evolve and change based
on what's being played. Read More
There are occasions when mobile computing needs in the field simply can't be met by notebook or tablet
solutions. The kind of high performance processing needed for
applications like geospatial imagery analysis, UAV ground control, or HD
digital video processing is often given over to rack-mounted servers,
but NextComputing has another option. Sporting the latest off-the-shelf
components within a rugged dual-design chassis, the Vigor EX compact,
mobile, all-in-one workstation solutions are built to withstand more
than the odd bump and designed to operate in harsh environments. Read More
Like its Super Nova and Ocean Empire LSV
stablemates, the 78 meter (256 ft) Ark Angel LSV (Life Support Vessel)
from Sauter Carbon Offset Design harnesses energy from a variety of
renewable sources to achieve up to 100 percent reduction in fuel
consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. When using its four 400 kW
Daimler Bluetec Turbo Compound DD16 diesel engines, Sauter says that the
green megayacht is capable of sailing at 28 knots while still reducing
fuel consumption and emissions by 50 percent. Read More
While we've looked at a couple of efforts to
upgrade the humble white cane's capabilities, such as the ultrasonic Ultracane and the laser scanning cane,
the decidedly low tech white cane is still one of the most commonly
used tools to help the visually impaired get around without bumping into
things. Now, through their project called NAVI (Navigation Aids for the
Visually Impaired), students at Germany's Universität Konstanz have
leveraged the 3D imaging capabilities of Microsoft's Kinect
camera to detect objects that lie outside a cane's small radius and
alert the wearer to the location of obstacles through audio and
vibro-tactile feedback. Read More
AeroVironment and Better Place are among six organizations to receive a share of US$2.6 million in federal stimulus funding as part of Hawaii's push to boost electric vehicle
infrastructure. AeroVironment's $820,000 contract will see up to 320 of
its EV charging docks rolled-out on the islands while the $854,000
awarded to Better Place will support the introduction of EVs to a rental
car fleet as well as installation of charging stations. Read More
With Apple recently updating its iPad, German aftermarket tuning company Brabus
has taken the opportunity to update its iBusiness multimedia system for
Mercedes’ S-Class vehicles to version 2.0. The iBusiness 2.0 system
integrates one or two iPad 2 tablets into the rear compartment of the
Mercedes S-Class that are connected via Wi-Fi to an Internet-connected
Mac mini housed in the trunk. Through an app, the iPad 2 can be used to
control not only the on-board entertainment system, but all the
functions of the S-Class COMAND system, such as radio, navigation and
phone, from the rear seat. Read More
Chemists at the University of California are
developing a future display technology using nanoscale-sized iron oxide
rods that shine when exposed to an external magnetic field. Though in
its early stages, the research could pave the way for producing
magnetically responsive, ultra high-res displays with significantly
reduced dimensions and power demands. Read More
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