With a few notable exceptions,
the fine art of tabletop tapping has been a purely non-digital
experience for most people. Now, iDevice users can turn their rhythmic
creations into real-time drum sounds, courtesy of the TableDrum app from
Sweden's Dohi Entertainment. Rather than have virtual drummers tap out
the beat on touchscreen icons, this app uses the device's microphone to
pick out individual sounds made by thrumping on different surfaces, and
allows the user to assign them to the various parts of a drum kit. Read More
Samsung has announced its plans to update the
Galaxy lineup with the Galaxy Xcover, one of the world's few rugged
Android touchscreen smartphones. It's an IP67-certified dust- and
waterproof 3.65-inch device running Android 2.3. It looks like the
Motorola DEFY/DEFY+ and the upcoming Sony Ericsson Xperia Active rugged Android smartphones could be getting some "tough" competition. Read More
Two new electric smart vehicles will debut in
showrooms next year. The third generation smart fortwo electric car will
be available within twelve months in more than 30 markets while a smart
pedelec power-assist electric bike will also be available in
dealerships during 2012. Read More
Unveiled at CES 2011 along with the Eee Pad Transformer,
the ASUS Eee Pad Slider tablet PC features a sliding QWERTY keyboard
and a 10.1-inch display. An official product page for the Android
3.1-based Eee Pad Slider has gone live at ASUS' global website, and the
tablet is rumored to be released in September. Read More
Chevrolet's lightweight, all-carbon-fiber
roofless Miray concept is propelled by two front-mounted 15-kW electric
motors for quick acceleration and zero emissions in urban driving. It
can switch from the electric motors to the 1.5-liter four-cylinder
turbo-charged gas engine mounted behind the cockpit, and it can employ
all of the above for maximum sporting performance. Read More
The “Schluckspecht E” electric vehicle built by a
team at the University of Applied Sciences in Offenberg, Germany has
broken the world record for the longest distance traveled on a single
charge. The world record attempt was made at the Bosch test track in
Boxberg with the vehicle traveling a total distance of 1631.5 km
(1,013.76 miles), breaking the previous record of 1,003 km (623 miles)
set by the Japan Electric Vehicle Club last year. Read More
Continental is best known for its tires, but its
latest product could help to significantly improve the handling of the
family sedan when it is shown for the first time at Frankfurt Motor Show
next month. It's a new fixed-type brake caliper for passenger cars, and
in comparison to the fist-caliper brakes widely used at present, the
new design saves around 1.5 kg per wheel. Read More
Despite the widespread belief upon their
introduction to the market in the early 1980s that CDs would safely
store data encoded on them forever, CDs and DVDs are actually
susceptible to damage from both normal use and environmental exposure
and have an average lifespan of under 10 years. A new optical disc
company based in Salt Lake City called Millenniata is set to deliver a
new type of optical disc that can be read on standard DVD drives but
will safely store data for up to 1,000 years. Read More
In order to help boost their range, many electric
and hybrid cars employ regenerative technology where braking energy is
stored in the battery instead of simply being wasted. This idea can also
be applied to electric-assist bikes,
but what about bicycles of the plain old human-powered variety? Isn't
it a shame that after having built up some good momentum, you just have
to write it all off once you stop? Maxwell von Stein, a student at New
York City's Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, thought
so. As his senior project, he recently rigged up a flywheel to an
existing bicycle, in order to harness the energy that's lost during
braking. That energy can then be used to boost the bike when needed.
Read More
Oral hygiene has come a long way from the twigs,
bird feathers and animal bones our ancestors used to clean their teeth.
The first recorded toothbrush in history consisting of a twig with a
frayed end called a chew stick dates back to 3,000 BC but toothbrushes
have since evolved to include electric toothbrushes that move the brush
head more rapidly than our puny wrists can manage. Such devices of
course require charging, which usually means a charge station taking up
valuable real estate on the bathroom counter alongside a rinsing glass.
Now Philips has released a toothbrush that charges when placed in a
glass that can still be used to rinse your mouth after brushing. Read More
Dell rolls out Vostro V131, upgrades Inspiron 13z and 14z
By Pawel Piejko
August 12, 2011
Dell has rolled out three new laptops: the Sandy
Bridge-upgraded Inspiron 13z and 14z, as well as the business-tailored
13.3-inch Dell Vostro V131. Powered by Intel's Huron River platform and a
choice of Intel Core CPUs, the Inspiron 13z and 14z feature 13.3- or
14-inch displays respectively, and come with aluminum lids and palm
rests. The Vostro V131 is a thin (0.83 inch/2.1 cm) and light (3.6
lbs/1.64 kg) laptop, reportedly offering up to 9.5 hours of battery
life. Read More
While commuter bicycles can generally get by with
a rear-wheel-only coaster brake, mountain and cyclocross bikes require
both front and rear brakes – along with the hand levers used to activate
them. Although this doesn’t pose much of a challenge for most riders,
it does for those who only have the use of one hand. One
possible solution is to use a system that joins both brake cables to one
common end, which then goes into a conventional lever. Another
solution, however, is to use Paul Component Engineering’s dual-cable
Duplex lever. Read More
Search giant Google has teamed up with the Bletchley Park
Trust to kick start a fundraising effort to rebuild the records center
known as Block C. A Google-supported garden party was held within the
grounds of the famous WW2 decoding center last week to start off the
restoration fund, which aims to transform the now derelict building into
a visitor and learning center. Read More
Air Swimmers give a new meaning to 'flying fish'
By Ben Coxworth
August 12, 2011
Should someone tell you “Last night, I saw a
great white shark swimming through my living room,” don’t assume that
they’re crazy. It could be that what they saw was an Air Swimmer. The
remote-control toys (which are available as a shark or a clown fish) are
able to swim through the air, turning, diving and climbing on command.
Now all we need is an RC model penguin, that flies underwater. Read More
North Carolina’s Duke University has been
grabbing some headlines over the past few years, due to research carried
out there involving the use of metamaterials for creating functioning invisibility cloaks.
Just this month, Duke researchers announced that they had developed
another such material that could be used to manipulate the frequency and
direction of light at will, for use in optical switching.
Now, Duke’s Prof. Yaroslav Urzhumov has proposed that metamaterials
could also be used to drastically reduce the drag on ships’ hulls, “by
tricking the surrounding water into staying still.” Read More
Vision Research has revealed the latest addition
to its line of digital high-speed cameras, in the form of the Phantom
v1610. It shoots videos at an impressive speed of 16,000 fps, at a
resolution of 1280 x 800. However, if the number of pixels is reduced to
just 128 x 16, the speed can be increased to a whopping 1 million
frames recorded every second. While that's less than the X-ray camera that shoots at 4.5 million fps, the Phantom v1610 is not a scientific one-of-a-kind device. Read More
It’s important to keep your tires sufficiently inflated,
both for the sake of the tires themselves, and in order to maximize the
performance and fuel economy of your vehicle. The problem is that for
many of us, we only think to check our tire pressure when heading out on
a long road trip – if even then. With Goodyear’s Air Maintenance
Technology (AMT), however, that shouldn’t matter. The system, which is
currently in development, would automatically keep tires topped up to
the proper pressure. Read More
One of the nice features of some bent plywood
chairs is the fact that they spring up and down, so they have some give
when you first sit down in them. Well, Polish designer Stanislaw Ploski
has taken that flex appeal, and applied it to a one-of-a-kind bicycle.
Named Bonobo, the bike’s frame is made from curved, laminated layers of
plywood. Read More
One of the big changes ushered in by Apple with OS X Lion
was the form of delivery. Since Lion was initially only available as a
digital download, users no longer had a physical disc if they wanted to
do a reinstall of the OS. Although Lion does automatically create a
recovery partition on your hard drive during installation, this isn’t
much help if the reason you want to do a reinstall in the first place is
because the hard drive itself has failed. Apple has now provided a
simple solution that lets Lion users create their own recovery disk – or
rather, recovery USB drive. Read More
Night Rod Special - cream of the 2012 Harley-Davidsons
By Vincent Rice
August 11, 2011
Harley-Davidson is an American success story. The
company has been manufacturing its iconic machines since 1903 but its
values were forged by association with the post-war "rebel" motorcycle
clubs and paradoxically with the highway patrol police they were so
often in conflict with. Like so much of US manufacturing Harley-Davidson
took a hit from the rise of the Far East in the 1980s but the boom
years of 90's excess saw Harley-Davidson successfully consolidate its
brand into the global symbol of 'the American Dream' that it is today.
Harley-Davidson understands its place in the world and the 2012 model
line up contains variations on all the traditional designs that people
expect, some of them going back to the 1920's. It would be wrong however
to imagine that the company rejects technological advancement - far
from it, and there can be no more beautiful expression of that than the
Night Rod Special. Read More
The distracted driving epidemic seems to know no
bounds. With global road deaths set to exceed 1.5 million human beings
in 2011, almost every country in the world continues to accept the
mayhem on the roads as the cost of doing business. Distracted driving is
the hot topic of the moment with research suggesting 5,800 U.S. traffic
deaths last year were tied to motorists who failed to keep their eyes
on the road. Another study claims American drivers are distracted
between one-quarter and one-half of the time, two-thirds of drivers use a
cell phone while driving, one-third used a cell phone routinely and
observational studies suggest between 7% and 10% of all drivers are
using a cell phone at any given time. If you think that's bad, you
should see what happens in Asia. Mike Hanlon spent a few months on the
road in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand - his photography of
everyday motoring in largely motorcycle-mounted countries will leave you
aghast. Read More
Swarmanoid robots work together ... to steal books
By Ben Coxworth
August 15, 2011
Swarms of small, intercommunicating robots are
now being eyed up for all sorts of potential uses, including the
creation of communications networks for disaster relief, mapping out hazardous environments, or even perhaps helping with the colonization of Mars.
Since 2007, a group of European research groups have been collaborating
on the now-completed Swarmanoid project, in which a variety of
purpose-specific mini robots where programmed to cooperate in order to
accomplish a task. Although the bots have been perfecting their
book-stealing routine since 2009, a video depicting the task won the
Best Video award at last week's 2011 Artificial Intelligence Conference
in San Francisco, and was many peoples' introduction to Swarmanoid. Read More
The first modern vending machines are said to
have appeared in London and New York in the 1880s and respectively
offered post cards or chewing gum in exchange for a coin. Since then,
folks on the move have used such machines to grab a quick snack, brush
up on golf technique, make an emergency bike repair or get hold of a mini gold bar.
Now cinema-goers in California and San Diego queuing to see the latest
3D blockbuster will be able to shun those boring flat passive 3D glasses
handed out before you take your seat, and opt for some fashionable EX3D
eyewear from the vending machine in the corner. Read More
New aquarium designed to put jellyfish on your desk
By Ben Coxworth
August 15, 2011
Jellyfish are definitely fascinating creatures,
that are almost hypnotizing to watch ... you could say, they’re the lava
lamps of the animal kingdom. Unfortunately for aquarists, however, they
also can’t be kept in a regular aquarium, as they’ll get sucked into
the water filtration intakes. That’s why Duke University Biology and
Environmental Science alumnus Alex Andon started experimenting with
adapting regular aquaria to make them jellyfish-friendly. After having
some success with selling these converted tanks online, he decided to
start making them from scratch. His San Francisco company, Jellyfish
Art, is now marketing them as the Desktop Jellyfish Tank. Read More
LG's minimalist new P220 notebook gets Korean release
By Paul Ridden
August 15, 2011
LG has announced Korean availability for its new
premium notebook that squeezes a 12.5-inch widescreen display into the
kind of notebook body size normally reserved for 11.6-inch screens. The
IPS display is also said to cater for multiple viewers at different
viewing angles within a 178 degree arc, without loss of definition or
color. The P220's sharing capabilities continue into wireless territory
thanks to included content sharing software that allows users to let
other DNLA-compliant devices get in on the video, music or photo action.
Read More
Google has announced today that it is going to
purchase Motorola Mobility for a price of US$40 per share, which adds up
to a total amount of US$12.5 billion. Taking Google's patent wars into
account, Motorola's portfolio of 17,000 patents could have been an
important factor behind the deal. According to a blog post by Google's
CEO Larry Page, Motorola will be run as a separate business, while
Android will remain an open platform. Read More
Vuzix has updated its line of video eyewear
with its sleekest and, at 852 x 480 pixels, highest-res model yet - the
Vuzix Wrap 1200. Compatible with both 2D and 3D content, the glasses
can display an equivalent of 75-inch screen as seen from a distance of
10 feet (3 m) and feature separate focus adjustment for each eye as well
as adjustable eye distance and viewing angles. Read More
There have been a number of contenders for the title of world's coolest police car featured on gizmag over the years, among them a number of Lotus
models. This time the British marque is venturing away from home soil
and into the heart of sportscar land where it will join the Italian
Carabinieri. Read More
Wearable electronics generally take the form of clothing embedded with electronics or miniature electronic devices
that can be worn close to the body for purposes such as medical
monitoring and communications. Now engineers have developed a device
that places electronic components onto an ultra-thin skin-like patch
that can be mounted directly onto the skin, paving the way for
skin-mounted electronics that could be used for sensing, medical
diagnostics, communications and human-machine interfaces. Read More
Late last year, we brought news of the
development of a very exclusive hand-built, luxury human-electric bike
from Hungary dubbed the Beast.
The M55 designers had set themselves the task of creating the best
hybrid bikes on the planet and gathered together the very cream of top
notch components to build a unique and eye-catching prototype. Back in
April, the folks at M55 felt that they had at last reached the end of
the prototyping phase and were ready to launch the company's first
commercial hybrid bike - signaling the slaying of the Beast and the
beginning of a new era for Terminus. Read More
Fusion Garage's JooJoo tablet may not have set
the world ablaze when it launched in 2009, but that hasn't stopped the
Singapore-based company from making a fresh foray into the Apple
dominated space. Fusion Garage has unveiled Grid10, a new 10.1-inch
tablet running an Android kernel-based OS known as GridOS. The company
has also announced a 4-inch smartphone - Grid4 - which runs on the same
customized OS. Read More
Golfers, are you still trying to perfect your putt? Well, you could try a five-minute lesson from the RobotPutt machine, have your technique analyzed by the iClub system, or download the iSwing app.
Someday soon, you might also be able to use a new system developed by
Katherine Kuchenbecker, an assistant professor of Innovation Mechanical
Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania. Her
system guides the user's club into delivering the ball straight to the
hole, with the intention that golfers will develop a muscle memory for
what it feels like to execute that "perfect putt." Read More
With the success that Apple has achieved over the
past decade, it's perhaps no surprise that it has outgrown its original
"Infinite Loop" campus and is in need of a new flagship headquarters to
bring the teams together under one roof. Since Steve Jobs will
undoubtedly have been the driving force behind the building's conceptual
design and hey, it's Apple, the architecture for the new campus is
unlike anything else ever built. Indeed, Apple saw fit to engage
London-based über-architect Sir Norman Foster and his team, a company
known for its unashamedly modern, hi-tech and unique approaches to large
buildings such as the Stanstead and Hong Kong airports, the American
Air Museum, the Berlin Reichstag, the Dallas Opera House, The
Smithsonian and part of the World Trade Center re-development. The
statistics of the proposed building are staggering. Read More
Smart String winds up the tape-measuring process
By Ben Coxworth
August 17, 2011
Although it would be wrong to say that tape measures are difficult
to use, they can sometimes certainly be a bit fiddly – a couple of
examples include the measuring of objects that aren’t straight-edged, or
having to squint to count off the exact millimeters on the tape. Pocket
Smart String, however, goes about measuring in a different way. Users
pull a string out from the pocket calculator-sized device, laying it
alongside or winding it around whatever they want to measure. The exact
length is digitally displayed on the device’s LCD screen, and can then
be stored in its memory for calculating things such as area or volume.
Read More
It’s a sad fact of life for tablet manufacturers
looking to produce slim, portable devices that when it comes speakers,
bigger is usually better – which is why so many people prefer to opt for
headphones when using the devices rather than the decidedly lackluster
in-built speakers found in most tablets. But if you’re looking to use an
iPad to
provide some tunes at a get together, show off a game to friends, or
just annoy your fellow passengers on public transport then Logitech’s
Tablet Speaker for iPad might provide the extra audio grunt you’re
looking for. Read More
Human beings may have only discovered how to create the one-atom-thick sheets of carbon atoms known as graphene
in 2004 but it appears the universe could have been churning out the
stuff since much earlier than that. While not conclusive proof its
existence in space, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has identified the
signature of graphene in two small galaxies outside our own. If
confirmed, it would be the first-ever cosmic detection of the material
and could hold clues to how our carbon-based life forms such as
ourselves developed. Read More
Jawbone has built a reputation for producing
slickly designed Bluetooth headsets and the company's latest flagship
model - the Jawbone ERA - continues that tradition. The ERA is an
exceptionally lightweight package that has 25 percent more audio output
than previous models, an updated version of NoiseAssassin noise
cancelling technology, an onboard processor and flash storage, but its
the first ever inclusion of an accelerometer in the unit that has really
grabbed attention. So is this a case of tech for tech's sake or does it
actually add up to a better headset? We've been putting the ERA through
its paces to find out. Read More
The Chilean and Pike River Mine disasters in 2010
highlighted the dangers of sub-surface mining and the difficulties
faced in extracting those trapped beneath the Earth. Collapsed mines
pose countless dangers, not just for those trapped but also those
attempting to free them, such as poisonous gases, flooded tunnels,
explosive vapors and unstable walls and roofs. Dealing with such
potentially deadly conditions and unknown obstacles significantly slows
the efforts of rescuers. To help speed rescue efforts, robotics
engineers at Sandia Labs have designed a robot to provide that most
valuable of commodities for first responders - information. Read More
The US$950,000 Hennessey Venom GT produces 1200
horsepower and weighs twelve hundred kilos (2,685 lbs) WET! By
comparison, it makes the 267 mph, 1184 bhp Bugatti Veyron GT look
overweight. The Veyron GT is 50 percent heavier, tipping the scales at
1,888 kg (4,162 lbs). The 2012 Venom GT will make its first public
outing in its homeland later today when it attends the McCall's
Motorworks Revival, the traditional first event of the Monterey / Pebble
Beach weekend. Read More
The greater share of the value of any significant
collector car is in the provenance – who sat in the seat before you,
and experienced the same vehicle, can make a massive difference to the
price the car commands. What then of a car that was specifically built
for, and used, by Pope Paul VI? It went on to become the focal point of
countless ticker tape parades for the first astronauts to orbit the moon
(Apollo 8's Borman, Lovell and Anders), the first astronauts to set
foot on the moon (Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, plus
Command Module Pilot Michael Collins) plus Apollo 13's Lovell, Mattingly
and Haise and Apollo 15's Scott, Worden and Irwin, President Lyndon
Baines Johnson and Vice President Hubert Humphrey. How much will it go
for? Read More
Perhaps you’ve entertained the idea of becoming a
dance club DJ, but were intimidated by the thought of those expensive
turntables and mixers, not to mention the logistics of lugging them
around, along with stacks of LPs and/or CDs. If so, then you’re the part
of the target market for Numark’s iDJ Live. The one-piece device
features two turntable-like music-cueing decks, a mixer for cross-fading
between tracks, and uses your own docked iDevice as its brains. Read More
Razer has
announced its Tiamat 7.1 gaming headset. Aimed at the most hardcore
gamers, it incorporates what is claimed to be the "world's first
discrete 7.1 surround sound" system implemented in headphones. While
most manufacturers utilize digitally-generated virtual surround system, the Tiamat features five individual drivers in each ear cup, adding up to 10 drivers working in unison. Read More
In April, the University of Southern California
made the headlines when it announced that researchers there had created a
functioning synthetic synapse
circuit using carbon nanotubes. Well, today IBM unveiled a new class of
experimental computer chips that are designed to emulate the human
brain’s abilities for perception, action and cognition. According to the
company, “The technology could yield many orders of magnitude less
power consumption and space than used in today’s computers.” Read More
Soon there could be another reason to replace the
spinning disk-based HDD in your desktop or laptop computer with a
cutting-edge Solid State Drive (SSD)
- Samsung has unveiled its new SSD 830 Series, which utilizes a SATA
Revision 3.0 6 Gbps interface, and is encased in a brushed metal
housing. It is aimed at the retail market. Read More
The Cadillac Converj
luxury coupe, which made such a splash back in 2009 with its
extended-range EV technology, is destined for production and will be
named the Cadillac ELR. Not many details of the new ELR are available
other than that it will feature an electric propulsion system made up of
a T-shaped lithium ion battery, an electric drive unit, and a
four-cylinder engine-generator. Read More
MABEL: the world's fastest knee-equipped bipedal robot
By Darren Quick
August 18, 2011
Although Honda’s ASIMO
has been running around at speeds of up to 6 km/h (3.7 mph) since 2004,
his style is more of a fast sneak than a true running action. Getting
bipedal robot like ASIMO to run like a human is no easy feat - as C-3PO
is sure to attest – but researchers in a University of Michigan (U-M)
lab have done just that with a bipedal robot called MABEL. The
researchers believe that MABEL, which can reach a peak pace of 10.9 km/h
(6.8 mph), is the world’s fastest bipedal robot with knees. Read More
Last week Audi released sketches of a new lightweight all-electric Urban concept
it intends to show at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Now, before we've seen
the Sportback version in the flesh, it has decided to add an open-air
Spyder version of the 1+1-seat technical study. Both cars feature a
continuous, pillarless window area and doors that open upwards for
ingress/egress in tight urban surroundings. Even more intriguing is the
similarity between the Le-Mans-winning R18 and the Urban concept - see
images inside. Read More
iDevices seem to be the control interface of
choice for increasing numbers of remote controlled devices - just look
at Parrot's AR.Drone and the iPhly app. Now Griffin,
a company well known for its range of iPhone, iPod and iPad
accessories, has joined the growing number of iPhone controlled flying
gizmos with its HELO TC Helicopter. The pint-sized, twin-rotored
helicopter works in conjunction with the accompanying HELO TC app that
transforms the multi-touch display of an iOS device into a remote
control. Read More
Up, up and away into near-space in a beautiful bloon
By Darren Quick
August 17, 2011
While space tourism efforts by the likes of Space Adventures and Virgin Galactic
are relying on the tried and true technology of rockets to launch
paying customers into space, Barcelona-based company zero2infinity
proposes a more leisurely and eco-friendly ride into near-space using a
helium balloon. Designed to carry passengers to an altitude of 36 km (22
miles), an unmanned scale prototype bloon was flown to an altitude of
33 km (20 miles) last year and the company is already taking bookings
for passenger flights that are expected to lift off sometime between
2013 and 2015. Read More
0 comments:
Post a Comment