Using earphones to listen to music while on the
move can make long-haul journeys seem a whole lot shorter and enjoyable,
but there are times when you want to share your tunes with others.
While there are numerous house-bound docking solutions
available, music lovers on the road need something mobile that's able
to keep its own batteries topped up or that doesn't require any
batteries at all. The iBamboo speaker from designer Anatoliy Omelchenko
of Triangle Tree is said to use the natural acoustic resonance of bamboo
to deliver a power-free boost to the audio coming from the built-in
speaker of a docked iPhone 4. Read More
One of the aircraft on display at next week's Paris Air Show will be Boeing's new 747-8
Freighter. While the 76-meter (250-foot) jumbo jet will no doubt be
pretty impressive to see on the ground, what many gawkers may not
realize is that its flight from Seattle to Paris will have
marked an aviation milestone - it will be the first time a commercial
aircraft has crossed the Atlantic Ocean using biofuel. Read More
For the last few weeks, there has been a ripple
of a rumor that Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) was about to release a
new product, and now the company has come clean and revealed its new PM1
bookshelf speaker. Designed by Morten Warren's Native - the same people
responsible for work on the iconic Zeppelin
docks - the new mini-monitors have been veritably crammed with high-end
audio technology including a newly designed tapering tweeter, new
bass/midrange driver dampening technology, and a shake-resistant
internal structure known as Matrix. Read More
Because structural integrity is so crucial to the
safe operation of aircraft, their bodies are regularly inspected for
signs of faults such as stress fractures. Some of these fractures can be
virtually invisible to the human eye, so scientists are looking into
the use of permanently-installed sensors, that would continuously
provide information on the state of various parts of the aircraft. Given
that one commercial airliner could potentially utilize hundreds of
these sensors, however, running wiring to all of them could get quite
complex. Using battery-operated sensors is one option, although ground
crews would be constantly checking and changing batteries, plus it would
be wasteful. Researchers from EADS Germany and the Vienna Institute of
Technology now think they might have a better alternative – self-powered
sensors that wirelessly transmit data. Read More
Have you ever complained about too much
complexity in today's mobile devices? If so, then Rimino might meet your
needs. It is meant to be simple, intuitive and user-friendly. Designed
by Sweden's Amid Moradganjeh in collaboration with Microsoft, the
conceptual device is based on color E-Ink technology with an interface
inspired by print posters, aimed at integrating technology and human
nature. Read More
Not long ago, we reported on the GoPano micro
panoramic lens, that allows users to shoot interactive 360-degree
videos on their iPhones. Well, perhaps not surprisingly, it’s got some
competition. Kogeto’s Dot lens also lets iPhone 4 users shoot videos “in
the round,” although in a different configuration. Read More
Since its completion in 1963, the Arecibo
Observatory in Puerto Rico, with a diameter of 305 m (1,000 ft) and a
collecting area of 73,000 square meters (790,000 sq ft), has been the
largest single-aperture radio telescope ever constructed. But Arecibo is
set to lose its title with construction now underway in Guizhou
Province in southern China of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical
radio Telescope (FAST). Upon its expected completion in 2016, FAST will
have a surface area of over 195,000 square meters (2.1 million sq ft)
and will be able to see more than three times further into space and
survey the skies ten times faster than Arecibo. Read More
Getac's range of rugged notebook computers
continues to grow with the release of the company's new flagship X500.
Aimed at Getac's core military customers, the X500 is designed to
withstand the most extreme working conditions. With Intel Core i5-520M
(2.4GHz) and Core i7-620M (2.66GHz) processor options, 2GB of RAM and
the option of a NVIDIA GeForce GT330M MXM GPU with 512MB of VRAM, the
X500 is also the most powerful ultra-rugged PC in the company's 22-year
history. Read More
Following the appearance of the Concept M5
in April, BMW has released details of the new M5 that is expected to go
on sale later this year. The fifth generation of BMW’s flagship
high-performance saloon will be the first vehicle to feature the newly
developed BMW M V8 engine that propels the car from 0-100 km/h (62 mph)
in 4.4 seconds, 0-200 km/h (124 mph) in 13 seconds, before topping out
at 250 km/h (155 mph) or 305 km/h (190 mph) with the optional M Driver’s
Package. But alongside the impressive performance stats, BMW is also
touting the improved fuel efficiency of the new M5. Read More
An assassin waits for his target to walk into
range, then presses a button on a radio transmitter, causing the
target’s pacemaker to deliver a lethal dose of electricity. Such a
scenario may be fictional for now, but as more and more medical implants
are designed to wirelessly send and receive data,
it becomes increasingly possible. Researchers at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) are certainly aware of the dangers of
wireless attacks on implants, so they’ve developed a countermeasure – a
wearable signal jamming device. Read More
Engine variants revealed for MINI Coupé
By Darren Quick
June 12, 2011
The move from concept vehicle to production
vehicle is almost becoming standard practice for Mini. So much so that
when the company first unveiled the Mini Coupé concept
vehicle alongside the Roadster concept vehicle at the 2009 Frankfurt
Motor Show, it was made clear the Coupé would be going into production.
Mini subsequently announced a 2011 release date and, true to its word,
the Coupé will be hitting showrooms this year, while the soft-top
Roadster topless version is set to be released early next year. Read More
Although it may have missed the entry deadline for the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X-CHALLENGE,
a new technology for containing oil spills at sea was recently
unveiled. Developed by Norwegian research organization SINTEF, the
system uses a curtain of air bubbles to contain spilled oil for easier
removal, or to form a barrier around protected areas. Read More
Many people are afraid of riding their bicycles
on busy roads full of motorized vehicles, and it's easy to understand
why. Not only are bikes slower and offer less protection than cars, but
they can also be more difficult for drivers to notice. A device invented
by a British design student, however, could help level the playing
field a little. It's called BLAZE, and it alerts drivers to the presence
of a cyclist by projecting a laser image onto the road in front of the
bicycle. Read More
Many readers might have heard of one of the most
bizarre yet beautiful custom laptop mods in recent years, the Steampunk
Laptop. Designed and built by Richard "Datamancer" Nagy, the device is a
handcrafted steampunk masterpiece, desired by many fans of the
Victorian style. Until now, however, it hasn't been available for sale.
Nagy recently announced that after thousands of inquiries, he's ready to
start building and selling the first batch of Steampunk Laptops. Read More
There’s no denying that listening to some
motivating tunes can help make the time fly by, when you’re working out
or going for a run. Probably just about everyone who has ever worn a
personal music device when doing so, however, has had this happen at
least once: you go to move your arm, and it catches on your earphone
cord, causing your earphones to be violently yanked out. JayBird’s new
JF3 Freedom Bluetooth Buds are designed to keep that from happening.
Read More
The roof of a two mile stretch of tunnel over
Belgium's high speed rail line has been fitted out with 16,000 solar
panels to provide power for trains running through Antwerp Central
Station and the surrounding railway infrastructure. Solar solution
provider Enfinity says that about 4,000 trains per year - or the
equivalent of a full day's worth of Belgian rail traffic - will be able
to run entirely on solar power generated by the installation. Read More
The continuing progress of electric motorcycle
racing was illustrated this week when MotoCzysz won the TT Zero Race at
the Isle of Man for the second year running. In achieving a new lap
record for electric motorcycles of 99.513 mph, the Segway-sponsored
MotoCzysz E1PC went within a whisker of claiming the GBP10,000 prize for
the first electric bike to lap the 37 mile circuit at 100mph at the
same time as demonstrating yet another quantum leap in electric bike
performance from last year’s 96.820 mph average and the 2009 winning average of 87.434 mph. Read More
Having been around for a few centuries, steel is
what is known as a “mature technology” and the basic process of
heat-treating has remained largely unchanged in the modern age. So when
self-taught metallurgist Gary Cola approached engineers at Ohio State
University claiming to have found a way to increase the strength of
steel by seven percent, they were justifiably skeptical. However, after
the engineers tested steel produced using the new method, Cole’s claims
were borne out and the engineers set about understanding what was
happening. Read More
OEM/ODM specialist Dayton Industrial is set to
commence volume production of a low energy Bluetooth 4.0 heart-rate
chest belt using Nordic Semiconductor's new µBlue nRF8001 chip. That
might not seem all that ground breaking at first glance, but it’s a
significant event likely to kickstart a whole new genre of health and
fitness related smartphone apps which use the wireless heart-rate (HR)
belt to monitor, display and analyse heart rate data. Indeed, I can see a
whole new and exciting range of training apps which use social
networking to support and share one's progress. Read More
The 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed kicks off at
the end of the month and one of the vehicles on our "must-see" list is
the Briggs Automotive Company (BAC) Mono. Making its public debut at the
event, the BAC Mono is a single-seat, road-legal (in Europe),
high-performance sports car that looks to just have the edge on its KTM X-Bow and Ariel Atom
trackday rivals with the ability to go from 0-60 mph (96 km/h) in 2.8
seconds on the way to a top speed of 170 mph (273.6 km/h). Read More
Electric motorsport pioneer Azhar Hussain has
been awarded an MBE for his services to motorsport in the United
Kingdom's Queen's Birthday 2011 Honours List. Hussain is the founder
and CEO of eGrandPrix, the organization behind TTXGP,
the world's first sanctioned clean emission motorcycle race. Launched
just two years ago at the Isle of Man TT, TTXGP is now the leading
electric racing series in the world. Read More
Over the years, New Jersey orthopedic surgeon Lee
Berger became frustrated with the lack of information that patients had
on prosthetic devices that had been implanted within their own knees,
hips, feet, or other parts of their skeleton. In order to gather data
such as the size, model, age, serial numbers or manufacturers of these
implants, either X-rays or extensive paper trail hunts were required.
His new product, the Ortho-Tag, is designed to address this problem. All
of the vital data regarding an implant could be obtained by placing a
probe against the patient's skin, plus information on the health of the
surrounding body tissue would be provided. Read More
The UK's Highway Code advises the use of care
when approaching a level crossing and to only drive onto a crossing if
the exit is clear on the other side. After all, finding yourself blocked
on the track when a train is coming is probably not a great position to
be in (unless you can depend on Hancock to stop the train
before it hits). While such things may seem like common sense, that
doesn't appear to prevent drivers from taking stupid risks. Now Network
Rail and Garmin have teamed up to create a special sat nav app which
will sound a train-like whistle when a driver approaches a level
crossing. Read More
If there’s one big environmental concern
surrounding power plants that burn material such as coal in order to
produce power, it’s the amount of carbon dioxide that they release into
the atmosphere. Various experimental technologies
have been developed for removing most or all of the CO2 from smokestack
effluents, although no one system appears to have been universally
accepted as of yet. One technology that shows some promise, and that
could perhaps be used in conjunction with other systems, is called
Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC). Norwegian research group SINTEF is
now building a special new type of CLC system, for use in the DemoCLOCK
pilot project, to be installed at Spain’s Elcogas Puertollano power
plant. Read More
There may not be many people interested in the
precise measurement of all the forces and movements that are at play as
someone walks, but for those few, a new tool has been developed to help
them carry out their research - ForceShoes. Developed by researchers at
the University of Twente's MIRA research institute in The Netherlands,
these modest-looking sandals feature high-tech data-gathering
electronics. Read More
While laser beam-shooting plants or animals might seem like something straight out of Star Trek,
two researchers from the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at
Massachusetts General Hospital recently wondered whether such organisms
could theoretically exist. In order to satisfy their curiosity, Dr.
Malte Gather and Dr. Seok Hyun Yun successfully created a laser that
uses a living cell as its light source. The device, which utilizes a
protein found in jellyfish, could have applications in the fields of
biomedicine and optical computing. Read More
Previously known as NGP, the new Sony PS Vita, was announced last week during E3 fair in Los Angeles. Sony has now provided more details by posting a broad FAQ section on its website. Read More
Anyone inspired the often hilarious adventures of Antoine de Maximy
but looking for a somewhat lighter and less cumbersome video camera rig
may be interested in the launch of a new version of the Looxcie
always-on wearable cam. Version 2 is 20 percent lighter than the original
wearable, always on video cam and has twice as much onboard storage.
Companion apps now offer a choice of capture quality options and the new
Looxcie 2 comes with four adjustable earbuds and two earloops. Read More
Nissan’s gamer-turned-racer Lucas Ordonez
scored a podium finish in his debut drive in the world’s highest
profile motor race yesterday. Ordonez’ Signatech Oreca 03 Nissan team
led the LMP2 class of the 2011 Le Mans 24 Hours early, but a puncture
dropped it to fiftieth place inside the first hour of the race.
Undeterred, the team worked solidly to work its way back to ninth place
outright and second in the LMP2 class, despite a second puncture late in
the race. It’s just three years since Ordonez won the Nissan
Playstation Academy. Check the image gallery to see Lucas living the dream of a professional racer during race week in front of 250,000 fans. Read More
Since Parrot’s AR.Drone
was released last year, iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users have been
able to control the twin-camera packing RC quadricopter via their iOS devices.
At launch time Parrot said support for non-Apple platforms was on the
way and following the release of piloting apps for mobile phones running
Samsung’s bada and Nokia’s Symbian operating systems, Parrot has
announced Android users will be able to find a free piloting app in the
Android Market from next month. Read More
Israeli defense technology company Elbit has
successfully tested an interesting new Forward Ground Control Station
(FGCS) for its Skylark I LE man-packable Unmanned Aerial System (UAS).
The lightweight FCGS is 15 kg (33 lbs) lighter than the existing Skylark
ground control system and is designed to enable dismounted soldiers to
carry minimum gear for optimal operational efficiency, as the UAS can be
launched by Dispatcher Units well to the rear, transferring control of
the operation to the FGCS-equipped Forward Units when the UAS reaches
their range. Read More
Laptop buyers do not have much of a choice in
terms of CPUs these days with the market dominated by Sandy Bridge and
other Intel solutions, but some competition is on the way. Today, AMD
officially announced a full range of multi-core chips for laptops
combining CPU and GPU, the so-called APUs (Accelerated Processing
Units). These complement the AMD Fusion family, and were previously
known as "Llano." Read More
The Fits.me virtual fitting room is an online
changing room where you simply enter your sizing statistics and a
robotic mannequin models how various sizes will look on your torso - all
from the comfort of your own home. Among a host of advantages, the
virtual fitting room saves time - the one commodity destined to always
be in short supply and solves the single biggest problem for online
fashion retail - the lack of a fitting room.
When it was introduced for men last year, sales to new customers increased by 57%, and sales to international customers doubled. Now it's available for women too. Read More
If you come across a word or phrase in another
language, a printed or online dictionary is usually a good place to look
for help. If you're faced with a language that's long been dead,
however, then you've got problems. Those studying the cuneiform texts of
Mesopotamian clay tablets or stone carvings now have reason to rejoice.
After nine decades, the University of Chicago's Assyrian Dictionary
Project has finally been completed - opening an encyclopedic window into
the day to day lives of people from one of the world's first
civilizations. Read More
Samsung Mobile has sealed an agreement with AA that will see 6,000 of its Galaxy Tab
10.1 tablets replacing ordinary in-flight screens on selected
transcontinental and international flights from later this year. With
passengers now being provided with tablet computers and cabin staff on
some airlines also using them on the job, it only leaves the pilots –
and they're set to join the tablet party in the not too distant future
as well. Read More
With consumers used to the convenience of
refueling their vehicle at the gas station in a few minutes, one of the
biggest disadvantages of electric vehicles is the time it takes to
recharge their batteries. Now, by separating the energy storage and
energy discharging functions of the battery into separate physical
structures, researchers at MIT have achieved a breakthrough that could
allow EVs to be recharged in the same time it takes to refuel a
conventional car. The technology could also provide an inexpensive
alternative for energy storage for intermittent, renewable energy
sources such as wind and solar. Read More
Automobiles, appliances, power plants, factories
and electrical utilities all waste one thing: heat. More specifically,
they produce heat as a by-product of their normal operations, but that
heat is just dispersed into the air instead of being put to use.
Researchers from Oregon State University, however, have created a
prototype system that harnesses waste heat to (rather ironically) cool
the device that’s creating the heat in the first place. While it isn’t
the first system to do so, it is claimed to be unusually efficient ...
and, it can generate electricity. Read More
While advocates proclaim the superior immersive
qualities of 3D, the current crop of 3D TVs can actually have the
opposite effect on many people by giving the impression of peering into a
box filled with tiny - albeit 3D - people. Design and advertising firm
NAU proposes a different solution with its latest concept dubbed the
Immersive Cocoon that looks to provide the sense of immersion without
the 3D. Read More
Panasonic has added to its ever growing – yet
ever shrinking – stable of Lumix Micro Four Thirds cameras with what it
claims is the world’s smallest and lightest digital interchangeable lens
camera with a built-in flash. The new DMC-GF3 is 16.7 percent smaller
and 16.2 percent lighter than its predecessor, the DMC-GF2,
which was itself 19 percent smaller and seven percent lighter than the
preceding DMC-GF1. The GF3’s size and weight reductions are largely
thanks to the elimination of an optical viewfinder and mirror-box, which
also means there’s no electronic viewfinder. Read More
Three distant shots of a disguised prototype have
emerged as the latest evidence that longtime dirt bike manufacturer
Husqvarna is to begin building road bikes. We’ve previously covered the
rumors and staged releases from BMW-owned Husqvarna here and here, but
these are the first images yet seen of the naked streetfighter which
will use a new 900cc version of the Rotax parallel twin used by BMW.
Read More
Nintendo has announced that its Wii U gaming
console will not feature a Blu-ray drive, and will instead stick to a
proprietary disc format. Patent fees related to the technology are too
high, the company explained. The Wii U will, however, compete with
existing consoles in terms of hardware - it is equipped with a
customized CPU from IBM and a GPU from AMD, and is rumored to be 50
percent faster than PS3 and Xbox 360. Read More
While today's lithium-ion, lead acid, and nickel
metal hydride batteries may offer far better performance than their
predecessors, they are still not perfect - they're heavy, expensive, and
have been known to short circuit and catch fire.
Now, however, scientists involved in the PolyZion research project are
developing zinc-plastic batteries for use in hybrid and electric
vehicles. Their aim is to produce a rechargeable battery that is
lighter, cheaper, safer, greener and better-performing than anything
currently available. Read More
Is there such a thing as free will, or are our
actions predetermined by the way our brains work? If recent research
conducted at North Carolina State University is anything to go by, it
might seem that the latter is more likely to be true – at least when it
comes to gaming. After analyzing the behavior of 14,000 players of the
online role-playing game World of Warcraft, an NCSU team was able to predict the future actions of those players with up to 80 percent accuracy. Read More
Airbus engineers have outlined their vision of
what passengers could expect from air travel circa 2050 - and it sounds
like a lot more fun than today's cattle class experience. The Airbus
Concept Cabin focuses on high levels of customization tailored to suit
individual needs including auto-morphing seats and personalized
entertainment. Passengers' body heat would also be harvested via the use
of smart materials that integrate the electrical system and do away
with the need for conventional wires. Read More
A nasal spray vaccine currently being trialed in
Australia could prevent the development of type 1 diabetes. Previous
research showed that the nasal vaccine was successful in preventing the
disease in mice, and now the results of a study involving 52 adults with
early type 1 diabetes has provided encouraging evidence that it could
also be effective in preventing the disease humans. Read More
While Google is still by far the most dominant
search engine on the Web, it can't afford to rest on its laurels with
Microsoft constantly adding new features to its Bing search engine. At
Google's 'Inside Search' event, the company has announced several new
features designed to ensure it stays on top of the lucrative search
engine game. Users will now be able to search using images, enter search
terms by voice and have the top search results pre-rendered so they
appear instantly. Read More
There are millions of Brazilian Free-tailed bats
living in caves across Texas, and every night, those bats are somehow
able to swarm through the air without crashing into one another. The
researchers at Boston University’s Intelligent Mechatronics Lab wanted
to know what the bats’ secret was, so that it could be applied to the
flight control algorithms for their autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVs). In order to learn more, they decided to fly a remote-control UAV
into one of these bat swarms, and record the creatures’ reactions with
three ground-based high-speed FLIR cameras, and on on-board 3D HD
camera. The craft that they used, named the Batcopter, is a classic
example of seat-of-the-pants engineering. Read More
Not only is the old inflatable-cuff-around-the-arm an uncomfortable way of having one's blood pressure
measured, but it turns out that it doesn't always provide enough
information, either. If a physician wishes to check for vascular
diseases such as atherosclerosis, thrombosis or aneurysms, for instance,
they're going to want to know how the blood is flowing in areas besides
the patient's arm. Because the cuff works by temporarily stopping the
blood flow, however, it's not going to work too well on a patient's neck
or torso. Fortunately, scientists from The Netherlands' Eindhoven
University of Technology (TU/e) have discovered that ultrasound can be
used instead, and that it provides more details. Read More
When a tailor is making an item of custom-fit
clothing, they first take the client’s measurements, then adjust a
mannequin known as a tailor’s dummy, to match those measurements. That
way, as they’re making the clothing, they can check the fit on the
dummy, instead of repeatedly bringing in the actual client. When it
comes to hearing aids, however, clients often need to pay follow-up
visits to the hearing clinic, in order to get the device adjusted so it
suits their particular type of hearing loss. Recently, though, a team
from the University of Essex have developed software that creates
virtual “hearing dummies.” These could allow for hearing aids to be
tailor-made for each client’s needs, right from the start. Read More
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