KiteGen looks to get wind-power off the ground
By Bryan Clark
December 18, 2011
Wind-power has rapidly evolved over the last
decade to become a key part of the alternative energy mix with towering
rows of turbines now dotting horizons all over the globe. One of the
drawbacks to the conventional windmill approach is that they are still
low to the ground, so why not go to where the winds are stronger and
more consistent - up. Like the Magenn Air Rotor System,
KiteGen technology is aiming to do just that. The system generates
energy by guiding tethered kites over a predefined flight path in order
to rotate a ground based turbine and, while only in the testing and
planning phases, it looks to be a promising solution. Read More
The Amazon Kindle Touch is quite a remarkable
little machine. In many ways, it can be seen as a halfway point between
the Fourth Generation Kindle
e-Reader and the Kindle Fire Tablet. However, it's not simply a
glorified reader, nor is it a stripped down tablet. Rather, it is
another way in which Amazon is building on its lead in the e-Reader
market by optimizing the reader interface and user controls. With the
Kindle Touch sure to find its way under many a tree this holiday season
we put the device through its paces with a hands-on review. Read More
spnKiX motorized shoes edge closer to production
By Pawel Piejko
December 21, 2011
Peter Treadway's battery-powered motorized shoes - which we first spied
as a concept in mid-2010 - are edging closer to production. Called
spnKiX, these electric roller-skates have gone through more than thirty
prototypes over a five year period to reach the final design and if all
goes to plan they will hit the pavement in March 2012. Read More
Santa gets his own Google Voice number, makes and receives holiday calls
By Emily Price
December 19, 2011
Who wants to send Santa a wish list when you can
just call him instead? Santa has scored his very own Google Voice
number, a number you or your children can call the jolly old man at and
say hello, or detail what you'd like to see under the tree. Santa is
obviously pretty busy this time of year, so chances are you're going to
get his voicemail rather than the man himself. This morning his outgoing
message indicated he and Mrs. Claus were working on decorating the
tree, but offered the option to leave a message he could check when the
tree decorating was complete. Read More
GammaTech unveils its rugged Durabook R13C convertible notebook
By Enid Burns
December 19, 2011
Laptops and now tablets are essential to our
daily lives – both business and leisure – but take that computer outside
beyond a sidewalk café, and you'll realize this device is really out of
its element. For those who work in the field, more than just a plastic
or thin metal shell is required to protect their hardware. The R13C
convertible computer from GammeTech has all the features to pass
Military Standard 810G certification, and then some. Read More
The combined computer and guitar amp introduced by Orange Amps last year - and which subsequently found itself being used in a successful Guinness World Record attempt
by fingerboard speed king Tiago Della Vega - has just had some of its
internals upgraded, and been given a bit a price cut, too. The Windows 7
OPC is now available with up to Core i7 processing power and 8GB of
DDR3 RAM, USB 3.0 port connectivity and hundred of dollars worth of
bundled music-related software. Read More
An audacious project to construct a vast
infrastructure housing a neutrino observatory at the bottom of the
Mediterranean Sea is being undertaken by a consortium of 40 institutes
and universities from ten European countries. The consortium claims that
KM3NeT, as it is known, will "open a new window on the Universe," as
its "several" cubic kilometer observatory detects high-energy neutrinos
from violent sources in outer space such as gamma-ray bursts, colliding
stars and supernovae. Read More
The totally new 2013 Mercedes SL in all its glory
By Vincent Rice
December 18, 2011
The SL is a defining vehicle for Mercedes Benz.
It represents the core values of comfort, style and effortless power,
and was for many years the default choice for successful lawyers and
lucky lottery winners. With the outgoing model, introduced in 2003, MB
somehow lost its way. Over time the “Sports Light” model had gained
significant weight and lost design coherence. As a consequence of the
ludicrous Daimler/Chrysler merger costs were slashed, build quality
suffered and the electronics were notoriously quirky. Fortunately
Mercedes has turned that ship around and after the successful launch of
the flagship SLS it’s time to introduce a completely new, and it must be
said, strikingly handsome version of the iconic SL. Read More
Danish based Big Architects has revealed plans to
develop the Levi Resort in Lapland. Named the Koutalaki Ski Village,
the futuristic development will sit on the mountain ridge of the Levi
Ski center overlooking Sirkka village in the municipality of Kittila.
The design seeks to create a new hybrid resort which integrates the
village with roof top skiing from a man-made "peak." Read More
Anyone who has watched as Alzheimer’s disease
robs a friend or family member of their memories and faculties before
ultimately claiming their life knows just what a truly horrible disease
it is. According to the World Health Organization, it is the fourth
leading cause of death in high-income countries and, due to an aging
worldwide population, it is predicted to affect one in 85 people
worldwide by 2050 – unless a treatment can be found. Scientists at the
Salk Institute for Biological Studies have high hopes for a new drug
they have developed that has improved memory and prevented brain damage
in mice and is a promising candidate for the first drug capable of
halting the progression of Alzheimer’s in humans. Read More
Sure you've seen Siri
work her voice recognition magic on an iPhone 4S, but how about on an
older rotary telephone? Davis Remmel took a Bluetooth headset and
retro-fitted a rotary telephone to have Siri work as an operator of
sorts, catering to your questions and placing phone calls by dialing 1
on the phone. Read More
YouTube for Schools provides distraction-free access to educational content
By Jan Belezina
December 18, 2011
Educational videos available online have huge
potential to enrich the classroom experience. There is great content
available on practically every subject merely at the click of a button.
That said, the same click of a button separates school children from
funny cats, silly Internet memes and scantily-clad pop stars. The
problem can be easily solved by banning video sharing sites altogether,
but that of course means denying the students access to hundreds of
thousands of inspiring and informative videos. YouTube apparently knows
this, as it decided to introduce a distraction-free version of its
platform called YouTube for Schools. Read More
Neon unplugged: glowing bacteria made to flash in sync
December 20, 2011
By making colonies of bacteria periodically
fluoresce, a team of researchers at the University of California San
Diego may have hit upon a significant breakthrough in the field of
bioluminescence. Though the development has the potential to unplug the
neon sign, it may also usher in a new generation of hazard-detecting
biological sensors. Read More
When it comes to big screen all-in-one computers,
Apple's iMac seems to rule the roost. PC users have plenty of choice at
smaller screen sizes but there's a bit of a gap at the 27-inch end of
the space-saving format. ASUS has finally introduced its ET2700
All-in-One PC Series to fill the void. Available with up to Core i7
processing power and up to 2TB of onboard storage, the new AIO models
are also said to be the first in the world to offer 10-point multi-touch
display interaction. Read More
In terms of display size, smartphone
manufacturers are faced with striking a balance between a size that is
big enough to be comfortable to view and type on and one that is still
small enough to fit inside a jacket packet. Advances in imaging
technology have enabled miniature projectors that provide extra screen
size in a compact form factor. This has led to a flood of such devices
appearing at CES in recent years, such as the SHOWWX laser pico projector. CES 2012
doesn't look like being any different with QP Optoelectronics
announcing it will debut its LightPad that adds a keyboard and bigger
display to a smartphone at the world's biggest consumer electronics show
this coming January. Read More
When you think about the best-loved movies depicting space travel, what names come to mind? Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek - The Motion Picture, Silent Running, Battlestar Galactica?
Interestingly enough, all of those enduring films were made decades
ago, and utilized hand-built model spaceships for their space-flight
sequences. Today, even low-budget productions usually use CGI
(computer-generated imagery) for the same purpose – it’s logistically
much easier to create and “film” a virtual spaceship on a computer, than
it is to build, light and shoot an actual model. Nonetheless, that
second approach is exactly what New York film-makers Derek Van Gorder
and Otto Stockmeier are taking with their short film, C. Read More
Fans of the sci-fi film Minority Report
will no doubt recall the autonomous insect-like searcher robots deployed
to find Tom Cruise's character mid-way through the flick. While not as
elegant (or sinister) as its film counterparts, the Asterisk robot being
developed by the Arai Robotics Lab at Osaka University in Japan does an
excellent job of resembling a big, mechanical bug with some interesting
skills. After over six years of development, this unusual
"limb-mechanism" robot now boasts an impressive array of functions that
may soon find it performing vital tasks in numerous areas of society,
including search and rescue. Read More
The guys over at Portland, Oregon’s Metrofiets
are a pretty talented bunch when it comes to designing cargo bicycles
for more than ... well, for more than hauling cargo. Not long ago, they
made headlines with their Beer Bike,
that incorporates a tap-equipped wooden bar, space and hardware for two
kegs, and a rack created specifically for carrying pizza boxes. They’ve
also built bikes that have served as a mobile coffee shop, and as a
go-anywhere bicycle repair station. Their latest creation, however, is
aimed at the world of broadcasting – it’s a two-wheeled human-powered
talk show set. Read More
Along with the well known defense applications,
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are also used for crop dusting, bushfire
and environmental monitoring, and infrastructure inspection. Such
applications can see them flying close to the ground and amongst
obstacles meaning it is of the utmost importance for pilotless craft to
be able to accurately determine their heading and orientation to the
ground. By imitating the method insects employ, Australian researchers
have designed a vision-based system to provide real-time guidance for
these eyes in the skies. Read More
Alienware, Dell's subsidiary responsible for
designing gamer-centric PCs, has updated its lineup of desktop PCs with
the Alienware Aurora R4. Like all Alienware offerings, the specs are
customizable with the Aurora R4 offering a choice of Intel Core i7
3000-series six-core CPUs, dual high-end GPUs from AMD or NVIDIA and up
to four HDDs or SSDs. It's also equipped with liquid CPU cooling, active
venting and an easily openable micro ATX chassis with external and
internal lighting, while the famous alien head logo serves as a power
button. Read More
Experimental dressing directs the growth of blood vessels over wounds
By Ben Coxworth
December 19, 2011
In the not-too-distant future, wounds may be
covered not just with regular bandages, but with special "microvascular
stamps" that promote and direct the growth of new blood vessels. A team
of scientists from the University of Illinois have already created such a
dressing, which could ultimately have applications far beyond the
healing of cuts. Read More
Oculus telepresence robot incorporates user's existing netbook
By Ben Coxworth
December 19, 2011
When you think about it, telepresence robots are
quite a neat idea. Not only do they allow you to see and converse with
people in another location through video conferencing, but you can also
move them about within that location – almost as if you were there in
person, walking down the halls. Such devices typically don’t come cheap,
however. As with other robots, part of what you’re paying for are their
computerized “brains,” along with all of their input/output
peripherals. The Oculus Telepresence Robot, however, takes a different
approach. It utilizes a user-supplied netbook to serve as its brains,
eyes, ears and vocal cords. This results in a lower price, potentially
opening up telepresence technology to people who otherwise wouldn’t be
able to afford it. Read More
T3 Motion to launch "Power Sport" consumer three-wheeled EV
By Paul Ridden
December 21, 2011
Since its initial launch five years ago, the T3
Motion's stand-up electric three-wheeler has been snapped up by law
enforcement, security and military concerns in nearly 30 countries.
Shoppers who have looked on with envy as Mall security whizzes past in
pursuit of a shoplifter can now rest easy. T3 Motion is responding to
what it describes as pent up customer demand and will launch a consumer
version called the T3 Power Sport. It won't come with the frightening
fire power of the T3 Non-Lethal Response Vehicle, but it will have a top
speed of 12 mph, a range of up to 40 miles and will be available in a
range of colors and custom paint job or logo options. Read More
Inductive charging devices are already making
their way into the home as a cable-free option to keep the batteries of
everything from mice and keyboards to mobile phones and toothbrushes
juiced up. The increasing availability of practical electric vehicles
has also seen the technology attract the attention of those looking for
for a cable-free way to charge EV batteries.
German automakers are taking the opportunity to put inductive charging
of EVs to a real-world test as part of the "Effizienzhaus-Plus mit
Elektromobilität" project. Read More
FLEXR Sports Bottle uses biodegradable liner to reduce germs
By Enid Burns
December 20, 2011
Water is essential to bring along - and drink -
during long workouts. Yet cleaning water bottles between uses sometimes
doesn't happen. It's hard to get in those long, tall bottles and feel
you've gotten all the germs out. The FLEXR Sports Bottle is a new bottle
that uses a biodegradable, collapsible liner to ensure the bottle is
clean and ready for use. Read More
Magic Lantern announces free HDR video firmware for Canon DSLRs
By Loz Blain
December 20, 2011
Those cheeky gear hackers at the Magic Lantern
team have announced a very interesting upgrade to their custom Canon
firmware mod. As of tomorrow, owners of 550D, 600D and 60D DSLR cameras
will be able to use a very cool new tool to shoot video in HDR, meaning
that you can capture scenes where the lights would normally be too
bright and the shadows too dark to get a workable exposure level. Check
out the demo video after the jump. Read More
Mercedes to debut E 300 BlueTEC HYBRID and E 400 HYBRID in Detroit
By Darren Quick
December 20, 2011
Mercedes-Benz has announced that two new hybrid
models will be making their world premiere at the 2012 North American
International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit next month. The E 300 BlueTEC
HYBRID, which the company calls “the world’s most economical
luxury-class model,” will come in Saloon and Estate versions packing a
4-cylinder diesel engine boasting fuel economy figures of 4.2 l/100 km
(56 mpg US), while the E 400 HYBRID is powered by a V6-cylinder petrol
engine and gets 8.7 l/100 km (27 mpg US) in combined city and highway
driving based on the American CAFE standard. Read More
The Arctic North end of Russia is believed to
hold as much as a quarter of all the world's oil deposits - an utterly
monstrous economic prize, hidden in one of the toughest and least
hospitable environments on the planet. Getting to this prize, and then
transporting it back to refineries, is a monolithic task that requires
one of the most awe-inspiring pieces of machinery man has ever built -
the nuclear icebreaker. Purpose-built to the point of being almost
unseaworthy on the open waves, these goliaths smash their way through
10-foot thick ice crusts to create viable pathways for other vessels -
but fascinating new technologies could mean the days of the dedicated
icebreaker are numbered. Read More
IBM announces its annual "Next 5 in 5" list
By Ben Coxworth
December 20, 2011
It’s late December, and that means that it’s time once again for IBM’s Next 5 in 5
list. Every year since 2006, the corporation has put together an annual
roundup of the top five emerging technologies that its researchers feel
“will change the way we work, live and play” within the next five
years. Here’s a look at what caught their attention this year. Read More
According to a recent study funded by the
National Science Foundation’s Paleoclimate Program, climate change may
be far less sensitive to carbon dioxide fluctuations than previously
predicted. Read More
Have you ever seen children out on the
playground, playing some made-up game that only they know the rules to?
Well, Play Visions’ CyberFire Football Set is kind of like a high-tech
version of that. While onlookers just see a couple of kids with
funny-looking headgear on, passing a foam football back and forth, those
kids will see what appears to be a green or red fireball streaking
through the air between them. Read More
Although owners of the iPod Shuffle might have
something to say about it, Singapore’s Bluetree Electronics has
announced the launch of what it claims is “the smallest touch MP3 player
in the world,” theKube2. The diminutive device has an aluminum body,
runs for six hours on a one-hour charge of its lithium-polymer battery,
and can store approximately 1,000 songs on its included 4GB microSD
card. You can also buy replaceable skins for it, should shiny silver not
be your thing. Read More
A team of researchers from the University of
Notre Dame in Indiana is reporting the creation of a "solar paint" that
could mark an important milestone on the road to widespread
implementation of renewable energy technology. Although the new material
is still a long way off the conversion efficiencies of commercial
silicon solar cells, the researchers say it is cheap to make and can be
produced in large quantities. Read More
The first plus-energy hotel in the Swiss Alps
December 21, 2011
The Romantik Hotel Muottas Muragl located in
Switzerland has recently been awarded the highly-coveted Swiss Solar
Award 2011, Milestone 2011 Tourism Award and the PlusEnergieBau (PEB)
Solar Award 2011, the only prize in the world for buildings that
generate more energy than they consume. The 104-year old Berghotel
underwent extensive renovations during 2010 to transform it into an
environmental-friendly location, giving rise to the first plus-energy
hotel in the Alps. The hotel's recent success demonstrates that luxury
accommodation can be implemented within the framework of a plus-energy
building concept even at 2,456 meters (8,058 ft) above sea level. Read More
A hard material is impregnated with microcapsules
that burst when the material cracks, releasing a stored liquid that
hardens on contact with the air, thus repairing the crack ... it’s a
system that we’ve recently seen used in a number of applications,
including self-healing concrete and polymers.
Now, a research team from the University of Illinois is applying it to
electronics. They have already created a system that automatically
restores conductivity to a cracked circuit in just a fraction of a
second. Read More
Alternative tech could lead to cheaper fuel cells
By Ben Coxworth
December 21, 2011
While fuel cells show a lot of promise for
cleanly powering things such as electric cars, there’s something keeping
them from being more widely used than they currently are – they can be
expensive. More specifically, the catalysts used to accelerate the
chemical processes within them tend to be pricey. Work being done at
Finland’s Aalto University, however, should help bring down the cost of
fuel cells. Using atomic layer deposition (ALD), researchers there are
making cells that incorporate 60 percent less catalyst material than
would normally be required. Read More
New plasma "brush" may mean painless cavity filling
December 21, 2011
We've been keeping an eye on efforts to make the dreaded dentist's drill
a thing of the past for some time, and now there's more good news on
the horizon for the cavity-prone (and pain-phobic). Engineers at the
University of Missouri (MU) in conjunction with Nanova, Inc. have
successfully lab-tested a plasma "brush" that can painlessly clean and
prep cavities so well, there's no need for mechanical abrasion prior to
filling. The really good news is that human clinical trials begin soon
and, if all goes well, the device could hit dentist's offices as soon as
late 2013. Read More
Remember what it was like in the days before the
internet, if you were trying to find out something specific? If you
wanted know what flounders eat, for instance, you would have to
physically go to the library, look up “marine biology” in the card
catalogue, find the appropriate books in the stacks, look up “flounder”
in their indexes – and even then, you might not find what you were
looking for. It was certainly a lot more work than just typing in
“flounder diet” on Google. Well, materials research so far has been kind
of like that pre-Google era, in that scientists have had to spend
months conducting research in order to determine how different compounds
will react with one another. With the launch of MIT’s Materials Project
website, however, it looks like that could be about to change. Read More
We've heard of gadgets being powered by some pretty crazy stuff,
but how about paper? Sony recently showed off a new bio-cell battery
that breaks down paper in order to create power. A paper battery sounds a
little bit far-fetched, but the technology works, and could potentially
change how we power devices in the future. So how does it work? The
process starts with an enzyme suspended in water. When paper is dropped
in, the enzyme starts to break it down and produce glucose that can then
be harvested and used to power a battery. Sony described the break down
process as similar to how a termite might eat and break down wood. Read More
First Earth-size planets discovered beyond our solar system
By Emily Price
December 21, 2011
NASA has discovered the first earth-size planets
outside of our solar system. The discovery was made as part of NASA's
Kepler mission and involves the discovery of two planets currently named
after the project: Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f. If the Kepler name sounds
familiar, that's because NASA also recently announced the discovery of Kepler-22b,
the most Earth-like planet discovered to date. Kepler 22b is orbiting a
star similar to our sun, and is capable of possessing liquid water, an
essential feature for life to exist on a planet. Read More
Four days on from Saturday's PlayStation Vita
launch, a murky picture is emerging in the press of an embattled Sony
eager to make amends for technical difficulties with their next
generation handheld games console, including inoperative touch-screens
and system crashes. However, Sony today denies widespread technical
issues. Read More
Just when you think that USB Flash storage can't
possibly get any smaller, a company pops up with something so tiny that
you're going to need the corded fob to make sure you don't lose it.
Dutch promotional product manufacturer Deonet - maker of a
diamond-studded Golden USB memory stick and an FSC-certified,
maple-enclosed Eco Wood drive - has announced just such a portable
storage solution, and is the latest to claim the title of the world's
smallest USB stick. Read More
The Nook Tablet from Barnes and Noble offers meatier specs than Amazon's Kindle Fire
for half the price of an iPad, but the selection of apps on offer for
the e-reader/tablet hybrid is a bit underwhelming. Fortunately, it takes
less than 30 minutes to turn a Nook into a fully-functional Honeycomb
tablet with access to the Android Market. Read More
Silk microneedles are claimed to better-deliver medication
By Ben Coxworth
December 22, 2011
Microneedles continue to show promise as a
replacement – in at least some applications – for the hypodermic needle.
Typically, a sheet containing an array of the tiny needles is adhered
to the patient’s skin, like a bandage. The microneedles
painlessly pierce the top layer of skin, then gradually deliver the
medication within them by harmlessly dissolving into the patient’s
bloodstream. As an added bonus, once everything is complete, there are
no bio-hazardous used needles to dispose of. Now, bioengineers from
Massachusetts’ Tufts University have developed what they claim is an
even better type of microneedle, which is made from silk. Read More
Pudding vending machine tells kids to scram
December 22, 2011
Let's say you had a sweet dessert that you wanted
to market specifically to adults. Now to spice things up, let's say
you're also a Scooby Doo villain and can't stop wringing your hands over
all the "meddling kids" who are going to ruin your campaign trying to
steal delicious treats from your intended audience. Well, what can you
do about it? Make a vending machine that detects the age of its users
and tells any approaching children to get lost? Apparently yes, as Kraft
Foods has introduced a new machine that scans a person's face to
determine their age and dispenses free samples of their Jell-O
Temptations dessert only to adults. Read More
It's sadly ironic that the very properties which
make our skulls such excellent brain protectors, strength and rigidity,
often work against us after head injuries. Not only does the hard bone
conceal damage from concussions and bleeding, say, but it also confines
the swelling, causing intra-cranial pressure to surge, a situation that
can lead to further brain damage. While CT scans and magnetic resonance
imaging systems are crucial to an accurate assessment, they are rarely
available to emergency medical personnel at remote accident sites or on
the battlefield. To help address the need for rapid and timely diagnosis
of head traumas, separate research teams at the U.S. National
Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) have
each developed hand-held devices that use Near Infra-Red (NIR) imaging
to quickly detect hematomas (internal bleeding) and other
life-threatening traumatic brain injury (TBI). Read More
Music creation at the touch of a button with Tabstrummer
By Paul Ridden
December 22, 2011
Electronics enthusiast Miroslaw Sowa and
programmer Vsevolod Zagainov - both from Montreal, Canada - are
currently busy putting the final touches on a new button-based,
guitar-shaped sound machine called the Tabstrummer. In the same way that
tablature notation has allowed players like me (who are unable to read
score) to learn new songs, this new MIDI instrument allows folks who'd
like to play a guitar, but for whatever reason can't, the opportunity to
easily create some chord-strumming music. The instrument allows chord
shapes to be assigned to clicky buttons on the short neck, which can
then be recalled and played as a song by simultaneously strumming or
picking the virtual strings. Read More
Minimalist, "barefoot" shoes have been one of the
biggest stories of the footwear industry for several years. Some
companies won't be happy until you're essentially wearing a micro-thin
sole on your naked feet. The latest step toward that future is the O1M
One Moment shoes. Read More
Many of the current experimental "invisibility cloaks"
are based around the same idea - light coming from behind an object is
curved around it and then continues on forward to a viewer. That person
is in turn only able to see what's behind the object, and not the object
itself. Scientists from Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
have applied that same principle to sound waves, and created what could
perhaps be described as a "silence cloak." Read More
Korea might be home to a couple of the world's biggest automakers in Hyundai and Kia but, with the exception of concept cars,
it isn't until now that the country has launched an electric vehicle.
Intended exclusively for the Korean market, the Kia Ray EV shares the
same dimensions as the Ray CUV (crossover utility vehicle) that was
launched last month, but instead of a 1.0-liter gasoline engine, the car
is powered by a 50 kW electric motor and a 16.4 kWh lithium-ion polymer
battery pack that gives it a range of up to 139 km (86 miles) on a
single charge. Read More
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