David Szondy
A team of scientists at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland has developed computer monitors that can detect when a person has stopped looking at them. At first glance, this may sound like some Orwellian micromanger’s dream, but its true purpose is to reduce distraction and increase productivity while taking the pressure off people whose jobs require staring at multiple displays for long periods. Read More
If you've ever been stuck in an airport due to weather, industrial action, or even a volcano, there comes a point where you've probably felt like giving up and building yourself a hotel room in the waiting area. That idea is no longer completely mad because designers Roberto De Luca and Antonio Scarponi, working for the Swiss firm daskonzep, have come up with a private space that folds up into a roller trunk. Read More
The Neiman Marcus fantasy gift guide is famous for offering extravagant items for the person who has everything – last year's guide included the Jetlev flyer and a special edition McLaren 12c Spider, for example. Also on the list was an item that at first glace might seem a bit pedestrian in comparison – a caravan. But the Bulleit Frontier Whiskey Woody-Tailgate Trailer is luxury all the way, unfolding into a luxury rolling bar complete with a giant ice chest and leather appointments that ensure it will add a touch of class to any tailgate party. Read More
Last year, we covered Lyonheart’s take on the classic Jaguar E Type, the Lyonheart K. Not much has been heard of it since then, but thirteen months later, the Coventry-based car maker has resurfaced with an announcement of the Lyonheart K Coupé, including Convertible prices and production numbers. Read More
NASA is taking an enforced holiday of sorts in April as it suspends Mars exploration missions for 17 to 21 days. This isn't due to budget cuts, but rather because Mars will be in conjunction with the Sun during April, which will make direct communications with the probes difficult, if not impossible. Read More
Maps of the internet have been around in one form or another since the late 1990s, but most of these tend to be static, two-dimensional affairs. PEER 1 Hosting of Vancouver, British Columbia, is adding bit of depth to internet charting with its Map of the Internet app for iOS and Android devices that provides an interactive 3D representation of the online world. It’s purpose is to act as an educational tool showing the evolution of the internet from 1994 to the present, with projections going forward to 2020. Read More
Amazon.com founder and the man behind Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, has recovered parts of the F-1 rocket engines used in the Apollo missions. Recovered by remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) from the multi-purpose offshore vessel Seabed Worker, they were brought up from a depth of over 14,000 feet (4,267 m) over a three week period. Bezos has been working on the project for over a year in hopes of recovering the engines used to launch Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969. However, the serial numbers for the recovered engines are missing or partly missing, so identifying which mission the rockets are from will be difficult. Read More
Has Voyager 1 left the Solar System? Is it officially the first spacecraft to reach interstellar space? It depends on whom you ask. NASA says no, but W.R. Webber of the New Mexico State University Department of Astronomy and F.B. McDonald of the University of Maryland Institute of Physical Science and Technology say yes. They contend that the unmanned, nuclear-powered probe left the Solar System on August 25, 2012 at a distance of 121.7 AU (18.2 billion km) from the Sun when its instruments on board detected a major shift in cosmic ray intensity. Read More
NASA has released images and findings from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which witnessed the impact of NASA's twin GRAIL (Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory) spacecraft as they struck the Moon near the North Pole in a controlled impact on Dec.17, 2012. The unmanned orbiter sent back before and after images of the impact sites and used its Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) instrument to study the plume of dust and gas thrown up by the double impact, producing new insights into the processes going on in the interior of the Moon. Read More
Fujitsu Laboratories has developed a technology to measure a person’s pulse from a facial image taken by scans from the built-in camera in a PC, smartphone or tablet. Fujitsu’s goal is to help people to track their health data in real-time and store it in the cloud for later analysis. Read More
