Laptop computers have come a long since the heady days of the early 80’s when carting around a “portable computer” could significantly increase your risk of developing a hernia. Thankfully, laptops these days are much thinner and lighter, making portable computing a much less physically strenuous activity. A perfect case in point is Lenovo’s upcoming ThinkPad X1 Carbon, a 14-inch Ultrabook that tips the scales at less than three pounds (1.3 kg). Read More

The Quadrofoil is new form of watersport recreation - a two-person electric hydrofoil which offers a thrilling and dynamic 40 km/h (25 mph/22 knot) ride along with completely silent running. Due to the remarkable efficiency of hydrofoils, it achieves all this with just one 3.7 kW electric motor, and thanks to its lightweight (150 kg/330 lb) carbon fiber and Kevlar body and in-built 4.5 kWh lithium batteries, it has a range of 100km (62 miles). Read More

Potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) are a subset of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) that have the potential to come within five million miles (eight million kilometers) of Earth, and are of a size large enough to make it through Earth’s atmosphere to cause significant damage on a regional, or greater, scale. NASA’s asteroid-hunting NEOWISE mission has now provided the best estimate yet of the number of PHAs in our solar system, along with their origins and the potential dangers they might pose. Read More

While there’s little doubt that dolphins are saying something to one another with all their clicks, squeals and whistles, we’re still not entirely sure just what it is that they’re communicating. We may be getting closer to figuring it out, however, as Japanese scientists have created an underwater speaker that’s capable of playing back the creatures’ entire acoustic range. The next step - see how they respond. Read More

Smartphone cameras are undoubtedly handy for snapping a picture of a receipt, memo or other note to quickly record or remind you of some task that needs taking care of. It's faster than using a dedicated scanner, but the results are often below par. Scanbox aims to improve the quality of these phone camera "scans" by providing a portable stage that puts the camera and the subject in just the right position. Read More

Porsche's hybrid 918 Spyder is a 770 bhp supercar that can top 320 km/h, accelerate from 0-100 km/h in under three seconds and lap the Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit in seven minutes 22 seconds. The carbon fiber 918 Spyder will hit showrooms before the end of 2013, with pricing beginning at US$850,000. It's all standard fare for a supercar except for one small thing - its fuel consumption of 3.0 l/100 km (94 mpg). Read More

Once upon a time, tasters were employed by the well-to-do, in order to check that their food or drink wasn't poisonous. Today, there are electronic biosensors that can do more or less the same thing. Unfortunately, as was no doubt sometimes the case with the tasters, the biosensors can’t always give us immediate results. Additionally, they’re usually only able to test for specific substances, and not simply for “anything that’s toxic.” An experimental new device known as the Dip Chip, however, is said to address both of those problems. Read More

When most of us realize that we’re overdressed for the weather, we can simply take off that extra jacket or whatnot that’s causing us to overheat. Police officers, however, don’t have the option of taking off their bulletproof vests ... and those vests aren’t exactly known for being lightweight and breathable. Fortunately, a team from Swiss research institution Empa has developed just the thing for those hot cops – an air-conditioned ballistic vest. Read More

In a bid to mitigate the risks associated with fuel transportation and to make soldiers’ work less technically complex, U.S. military scientists have started to test microgrids that would provide clean energy to soldiers in the field. Since 2009, scientists from the Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) have been developing two systems – RENEWS and REDUCE – which are being tested at the Fort Irwin National Training Center in California, and by U.S. Africa Command. Read More