With the launches of Sony's PlayStation 4 and
Microsoft's Xbox One now a matter of mere days away, excitement and hype
levels have entered the stratosphere. On paper, the PlayStation 4 has
arguably looked the more capable games console, with Xbox One tailored
more as an all-in media hub. But with the first cross-format games
emerging, some are concerned that the performance gap may be bigger than
foretold. Why? And can the gap be closed? Read More
Email may have decimated snail mail,
but luckily for postal services and couriers, packages aren't as easy
to send as bits and bytes. This Christmas is likely to be another bumper
year for presents being sent in the mail and Australia Post is
providing gift-givers with the ability to attach a video message to
their parcels. Read More 
Anyone who has left youth behind them knows that
bumps and scrapes don't heal as fast as they used to. But that could
change with researchers at the Stem Cell Program at Boston Children's
Hospital finding a way to regrow hair, cartilage, bone, skin and other
soft tissues in a mouse by reactivating a dormant gene called Lin28a.
The discovery could lead to new treatments that provide adults with the
regenerative powers they possessed when very young. Read More
Zayak Sea Sled clears the way for underwater close-ups
By C.C. Weiss
November 11, 2013
Looking like a cross between a raft and a massage
table, the Zayak Sea Sled is a new snorkeling alternative. It opens up
the same type of underwater views, only without the need to submerge
your face and breathe through a tube. You can explore the sea without
getting a single strand of hair wet. Read More
Japanese PM climbs aboard autonomous Nissan Leaf
By David Szondy
November 11, 2013
Autonomous cars took to the roads of Tokyo for
the first time on Saturday with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as a
passenger. The Prime Minister rode on the public roads in the National
Diet Front Garden in a Nissan Leaf
and autonomous cars built by Honda and Toyota. According to Nissan,
Saturday’s drive was meant to show the Japanese government’s support for
the development of autonomous cars, as was symbolized by the venue
located between Japan's parliament and the Imperial Palace. Read More
Coxa Carry reroutes backpack straps to free your arms
By C.C. Weiss
November 11, 2013
Backpacks have seen plenty of changes and innovations of late, as evidenced by the Pelican S100 and TYLT Energi+ device-charging backpack,
but most of those changes relate to the pack itself. The folks behind
the Coxa Carry system leave the pack alone and focus on the straps and
belt, creating a solution that they believe is more comfortable and
functional than the typical set of shoulder straps. Read More
Asus has announced what is claimed to be the
world's first Bluetooth 4.0 headset to feature NFC technology. The
ergonomically-designed EB50N earphones support one-touch pairing with
smartphones and tablets, feature full-range stereo drivers, and boast a
long battery life. Read More
This morning, at about 1:00 am CET, ESA’s Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE)
satellite reentered the atmosphere and burned up somewhere along its
orbital path extending from Siberia, across the western Pacific Ocean,
the eastern Indian Ocean, and to Antarctica. According to the space
agency, it disintegrated in the upper atmosphere and though some debris
may have reached the surface, no damage was reported. Read More
With Nippon Moon, UNStudio is bringing more than
sheer scale to the concept of the enormous observation wheel. Though the
height of the wheel has not been fixed, Nippon Moon is clearly intended
to put Japan on the map (the map of gigantic ferris wheels, that is),
and compete with, if not surpass, the likes of the 165-m Singapore Flyer
and the 135-m London Eye. However, UNStudio hints that smartphone apps
or even augmented reality could be used to enhance the ride, and make it
an observation wheel fit for the 21st century. Read More
Electric bicycle wheels are coming
to the masses, and they are coming from multiple sources. A few years
ago we saw the Copenhagen Wheel, and now a similar product is making its way to market – the FlyKly Smart Wheel. Read More
The Council on Tall Buildings and
Urban Habitat has declared that New York's still-unfinished One World
Trade Center is the tallest building in the USA, and for that matter,
the western hemisphere. Read More
Vamoose jacket tucks and folds into a backpack
By C.C. Weiss
November 12, 2013
Designers seem to love convertible, multifunctional backpacks, as evidenced by designs like the Glyde Gear Fly and WalkBag. They don't mind the occasional convertible jacket, either - just look at the weird-but-real JakPak. The Vamoose jacket is both. Similar to the Xip3, the jacket transforms into a backpack when not needed for rain and cold. Read More
GRAIL mission casts new light on the "Man in the Moon"
By David Szondy
November 12, 2013
Sometimes great mysteries hang right over our
heads. We’re so used to looking up and seeing the “Man in the Moon” that
we often don’t realize that those familiar dark areas on the face of
our nearest neighbor are part of a centuries old question that has yet
to be answered. Many hypotheses have been put forward and now data from
NASA's twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL)
lunar orbiters has provided new insights into how the surface of the
Moon formed and how its distinctive “seas” came to be. Read More
DIWire desktop machine bends wire into 3D sculptures
November 12, 2013
Over a year ago, Pensa Labs caught our attention with its impressive DIWire Bender,
a small machine that bends thick wires into elaborate 3D shapes by
following simple vector drawings. Since then, the company has been
refining the wooden prototype we saw before into a sleek fabrication
device that's fit for consumers. The result is a more compact,
easier-to-use DIWire that can turn pieces of wire into creative 3D
sculptures while sitting comfortably on a desktop. Read More
Help could be on the way for people who don't
have enough bone to support dental implants, who are missing bone due to
a birth defect, or who have suffered bone-damaging injuries. Scientists
at the University of Iowa have created an implantable collagen patch
seeded with particles containing synthetic DNA, that instructs the
patient's own cells to produce the protein that leads to bone growth.
Read More
The Ziesel works kind of like an off-road armchair
By Ben Coxworth
November 12, 2013
How many times have you heard people say that we
should all get out of our comfy chairs, and go experience the great
outdoors? OK, maybe never, but it's certainly a common sentiment. In the
case of the Ziesel, however, you can do both. It's essentially a chair
with electric motors, suspension, and caterpillar-type tracks. Read More
Honda flashes a glimpse at its next-generation fuel cell vehicle
By C.C. Weiss
November 12, 2013
Honda plans to hit the Tokyo Motor Show hard with concepts.
Creating a multi-theater concept attack, the automaker will save at
least one reveal for the LA Auto Show, which runs at the same time. The
fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) Concept previews the styling direction
of its next fuel cell vehicle, which will launch in 2015. Read More
NASA team uncovers new data on Chelyabinsk meteoroid
By David Szondy
November 12, 2013
On February 15 of this year, the Earth dodged a bullet of cosmic proportions as a meteoroid exploded over Chelyabinsk,
Russia with the force of a nuclear weapon. Last Friday, NASA announced a
new report published in Science that used videos and eyewitness
accounts to provide new insights into the incident and the nature of the
object that caused it. Read More
Inspired by the kind of brown or muddy tones produced by ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons on tracks like Loaded
from the 1996 album Rhythmeen, Jedrzej Lewandowski of Poland's Le 2
Workshop architects created the Farmer's Mill, which was unleashed,
appropriately enough perhaps, on April 1 2012. The second generation has
now been released. It's a little bigger than its predecessor, a lot
better, and is now available in orange as well as white. Gizmag has
spent the last few weeks making guitars wheeze, cough and splutter like
they've been smoking 40-a-day since birth, and walks way mighty
impressed with the destructive capabilities of the Mark II Electric Mud
Grinder. Read More
Electric bicycle wheels are coming
to the masses, and they are coming from multiple sources. A few years
ago we saw the Copenhagen Wheel, and now a similar product is making its way to market – the FlyKly Smart Wheel. Read More
Two Portuguese designers based in Sydney have
come up with a practical idea for facilitating communication between
people when sign language is involved. Catarina Araujo and Sofia Santos’
project, still at the development stage and looking for financial
backers, taps Leap Motion technology to create a wearable sign language translator to be worn as a necklace. Read More
UK-based Jaguar restorer Classic Motor Cars of
Bridgnorth unveiled a rather unique project this week. It calls it the
world's first stretched Jaguar E-Type. While the few inches of stretch
don't necessarily do anything for the 1968 E-Type Series 1 4.2
roadster's timeless beauty, they purportedly improve its ride for
passengers and driver alike. A matching E-Type trailer finishes off a
strange but interesting package. Read More
If you're currently running Windows 7 and want to
upgrade to Windows 8.1, the process is relatively easy using
Microsoft's Upgrade Assistant utility. However, there are a few things
you need to know before going ahead with the upgrade. The main thing to
know is that, unlike upgrading Windows 8 to 8.1,
your files and data will transfer, but you'll need to re-install all of
your software applications. Here's a look at what you need to know, and
the steps to take to make the process as easy and seamless as possible.
Read More
Motorola hits a new low (in a good way) with the $180 Moto G
November 13, 2013
Before Motorola announced the Moto X,
many of us thought the phone would be sold for an affordable,
off-contract price. That wasn't to be, but Moto does have a new handset
on its way that blends respectable specs with a rock-bottom, budget
price tag. Meet the Moto X's baby brother, the Moto G. Read More
The Council on Tall Buildings and
Urban Habitat has declared that New York's still-unfinished One World
Trade Center is the tallest building in the USA, and for that matter,
the western hemisphere. Read More Crowdfunding launch for the Panono throwable panorama camera
November 13, 2013
Panoramic and 360 degree imaging capabilities
have been available to photographers for years through DSLR manual mode
captures and smartphone apps. The Panono offers something a little
different. It's a throwable ball camera, armed with 36 tiny lenses,
that's capable of capturing a 72 megapixel spherical scene from an
elevated position. The developers are now pinning production hopes on a
successful Indiegogo funding campaign. Read More
Oops! Invisibility cloaks actually make objects easier to see
By Brian Dodson
November 12, 2013
It's often a case of swings and roundabouts. If
you save money by buying a house out of town, you spend more time and
money commuting. If you really measure the momentum of an electron, you
have no idea where the little guy is located. And now, according to a
new analysis by a pair of University of Texas electrical engineers, the
better an object is hidden by an invisibility cloak at a given
wavelength of light, the easier it is to see at other wavelengths.
Swings and roundabouts. Read More
French design studio Bruit du Frigo has drawn
inspiration from fallen down tree trunks, which often provide shelter
for small animals, to create an eco-shelter for humans in the forests of
Bordeaux. Dubbed Le Tronc Creux, which means "The Hollow Trunk," the
low impact shelter is roughly the same size as a shipping container and
can easily be transported by truck to different locations when required.
Read More
The home 3D printing revolution has picked up pace in recent times with printers such as the MakiBox and Buccaneer making 3D printing increasingly more affordable. Although not as cheap as the homemade LEGObot,
the QU-BD One Up has taken the title as the world's cheapest
production-ready 3D printer with a price tag of under US$200. Read More
In the old days, astronomy was simple – comets
had tails and asteroids didn’t. Now, as if to not only disprove such
established views, but drive the point home, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took images in September of an asteroid called P/2013 P5 that has not one, but six comet-like tails. Read More
The thing with spending just a few weeks with a loaner Nexus 5,
Google and LG's Android 4.4 KitKat reference device, is that I'm not
able to enjoy what's easily this phone's most attractive feature – the
fact that it only costs $349 unlocked from the Google Play store in the
US. That's not to say that there isn't plenty more to love about the
Nexus 5. It comes with a great screen, quality software upgrades and
plenty of hefty components that allow it to compete with any other
flagship phone out there today. Read More
The European Aviation Safety Agency is following in the footsteps of the US Federal Aviation Administration by easing restrictions on the use of Personal Electronic Devices (PEDs) by passengers during flights. Read More
Robugtix tarantula robot gets a new, more affordable sibling
November 13, 2013
Robugtix has been hard at work fulfilling orders for its T8 tarantula robot
that debuted earlier this year, as well as showing off its lifelike
motion engine in a new video. Now the company has also announced a much
cheaper version of the robot called the T8X which can be pre-ordered for
a fraction of the cost of the original. Read More
When Apple announced that the iPad mini with Retina Display
was coming "later in November," most of us assumed that meant the end
of the month. Well, who said Apple couldn't surprise us anymore?
Yesterday the company quietly launched the highly anticipated tablet,
and, despite limited supplies, we got our hands on the Retina iPad mini.
Read on for our first impressions. Read More
The European Aviation Safety Agency is following in the footsteps of the US Federal Aviation Administration by easing restrictions on the use of Personal Electronic Devices (PEDs) by passengers during flights. Read More Zepp Labs outs 3D swing analysis systems for baseball, golf and tennis
By Mike Hanlon
November 13, 2013
Zepp Labs' training systems for Baseball, Golf
and Tennis go on sale this week, offering sophisticated scientific
analysis in three of the most commonly played and universally loved
sports. A small bat/racket/glove-mounted unit containing a powerful ARM
processor and multiple sensors, captures data at 1,000 data points per
second on the athlete's swing, then transfers that data via Bluetooth to
a smartphone or tablet for immediate analysis and feedback. Read More
According to iRobot, the global market for vacuum
cleaners costing over US$200 is worth $6 billion a year. The company is
looking to grab a greater share of this pie with its new Roomba 800
Series robot vacuum that was rolled out this week. The 800 Series boasts
a number of innovations, the biggest of which is its new AeroForce
Extractors, which see conventional bristles replaced with textured
rollers to provide what the company claims is a 50 percent improvement
in performance. Read More
The UNiMO continuous-track electric adventure wheelchair
By Mike Hanlon
November 13, 2013
The tracked UNiMO 400 W EV drive-train debuted at
IREX last week, promising new levels of personal mobility for
wheelchair users. Both models of the Unimo wheelchair will be in
production by the end of this month: the US$18,000 Unimo Grace and the
US$10,000 Unimo Adventure, one a stylish armchair on wheels, the other a
sport model for going places you cannot normally go in a wheelchair.
Read More
US Army experiments with crowdsourcing equipment design
By C.C. Weiss
November 13, 2013
The US Army Rapid Equipping Force (REF) is
experimenting with internet-based collaboration. With the help of the
crowdsourcing gurus at Local Motors, it has launched ArmyCoCreate.com, a
website designed to let soldiers, designers and engineers collaborate
on identifying soldier requirements and designing prototypes to address
them. Read More
Review (with video!): DJI Phantom 2 Vision quadcopter
By Ben Coxworth
November 13, 2013
It was less than two weeks ago that DJI Innovations released its Phantom 2 Vision quadcopter, the camera-equipped successor to its popular Phantom
model. Since then, I've received a review unit from the company, which
I've had a few chances to try out – between snowfalls and high winds,
that is. My verdict? It's awesome, despite a couple of surprising shortcomings. Read More
Social trash box robot solicits human help to pick up garbage
By Ben Coxworth
November 13, 2013
Wouldn't it be great if we had robotic garbage
cans that could move around on their own and pick up litter? Well,
engineers from the Interaction and Communications Design Lab at Japan's
Toyohashi University of Technology are part-way there. Their bots,
however, ask people to pick up the trash for them. Read More
Alter e-bike uses a hydrogen fuel cell to expand range
By C.C. Weiss
November 14, 2013
While e-bike designers like Concept Cycle
have been consumed with finding new ways to hide the battery, a group
of French partners has developed a way of augmenting it. The Alter Bike
is an electric motor-driven pedelec bike that's powered by a combination
of lithium-ion battery and hydrogen fuel cell. The e-bike is soon to
join the other vehicles and electronics available on the growing fuel cell market. Read More
Among the concepts put forth for decreasing the range anxiety associated with electric cars, one is to embed electrical coils within the asphalt.
This would allow vehicles to wirelessly draw power from the road as
they traveled, although it would also involve having to tear up existing
roads to install those coils. An alternative could be on its way,
however. Scientists at North Carolina State University are developing a
system in which power could be transmitted from stationary roadside
stations to mobile receiver coils in cars passing by. Read More
BXR reveals its garage-built Bailey Blade XTR supercar
By C.C. Weiss
November 14, 2013
As promised earlier this year, BXR Motors has
revealed the Bailey Blade XTR, a garage build turned visceral supercar.
After working well into the 11th hour to ready the 750-hp sports car,
BXR debuted it at last week's SEMA Show. Read More
You probably first heard of IBM’s cognitive supercomputer Watson when it bested human competitors on Jeopardy,
but soon it may interact with you through the cloud. With the
announcement today that Watson will be available to application
developers, software can make use of Watson to add meaning to massive
amounts of unstructured data, while interacting with humans in a way we
understand. Read More
Although things like NFC-enabled smartphones are
making this less of an issue, the fact is that most of us still carry
around a wallet full of credit, debit, loyalty or other cards that we
routinely have to rifle through. That's why the Coin was invented. It's a
single card-shaped device, on which all your other cards can be stored
and accessed electronically. Read More
City of Vancouver launches cigarette butt recycling program
By Ben Coxworth
November 14, 2013
What can you say about cigarette butts? They
instantly make wherever they are look seedy, they don't biodegrade, plus
they're highly toxic to aquatic organisms. It turns out, however, that
they are good for something. The City of Vancouver and
TerraCycle Canada launched a first-of-its-kind pilot program this
Tuesday, in which the butts will be collected for recycling. Read More
The Nomadic Chair is built for portability over comfort
By Dave Parrack
November 14, 2013
Spanish designer Jorge Penadés believes that our
idea of what makes a piece of furniture a luxury item has now changed.
In a press release, he explains how luxury is "not anymore a matter of
comfort." Instead it's being able to "decide where you want to have a
moment of peace, a chance to escape from hectic activity of contemporary
lifestyles." This philosophy is in plain view with his Nomadic Chair,
which sees comfort reduced to a minimum to increase its portability.
Read More
Of all the questions one might like to ask Manuel
DomÃnguez about his architecture thesis project, why he called it Very
Large Structure is probably low on the list. DomÃnguez' concept depicts
compactly planned cities atop vast mobile structures, capable of
crawling to new locations as the needs or desires of the populace
dictate. The idea clearly recalls Ron Herron's Walking City essay for
Archigram in 1964, and though DomÃnguez cites that as an inspiration, he
says it's just one among many. Real-world technology seems to have been
the main influence. Read More
iLoud speaker offers musicians studio quality audio on the move
By Paul Ridden
November 14, 2013
Thanks to mobile audio processing and recording
apps, composing on the road has never been easier. Showing off your
latest killer riff to the rest of the band through tablet or laptop
speakers is less than satisfying, however. There are a good many
battery-powered micro amps out there which might help a little, but the
output is often, to put it delicately, sub-par. Italy's IK Multimedia
demonstrated a wired/wireless audio thrower at the Winter NAMM show back
in January that promised studio monitor sound quality in a portable,
chunky tablet-sized package. Developed specifically for musicians and
audiophiles, the 40 W iLoud has now been released. Read More
Honda to show smaller, lighter UNI-CUB Personal Mobility Device
By Mike Hanlon
November 14, 2013
Honda has announced that yet another version of the UNI-CUB personal mobility device
will be shown at next week's Tokyo Motor Show. The UNI-CUB β is
smaller, lighter, lower and can be used as a seat, making it a potential
alternative to the office chair. Read More
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