David Szondy

Volkswagen debuted its seventh-generation Golf GTI at the Geneva Motor Show this month. To mark the occasion, the car maker presented for the first time two versions of the GTI – the standard 220 PS and GTI Performance with 230 PS.  Read More

Boeing has announced improvements to the lithium-ion batteries for its 787 Dreamliner. A series of modifications to the batteries and their casings were made in response to battery fires in mid-January aboard two 787s in Boston and over Japan that resulted in all 50 of the planes delivered to customers being grounded. According to a company press release, the modifications along with improved testing regimes should prevent a repeat of the incidents.  Read More

Workplace safety is a major concern, but training to avoid accidents often involves little more than reading manuals and watching videos before getting behind the controls of a potentially dangerous machine. University of Buffalo spinoff Tactus Technologies’ 3D Forklift Trainer uses gaming technology and software to produce a virtual environment, where beginner forklift drivers can practice without racing about a warehouse in a very heavy vehicle with prongs on it.  Read More

ESA and the Russian federal space agency, Roscosmos, have entered into a project to jointly explore the planet Mars. During a ceremony on Thursday (Mar. 14) at ESA Headquarters in Paris, the two agencies formed a partnership for ESA’s ExoMars program when a formal agreement was signed between ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain and Head of Roscosmos Vladimir Popovkin. This agreement covers shared responsibilities for two missions involving three spacecraft in 2016 and 2018.  Read More

Working on arctic oil rigs and similar sites doesn't just mean putting on a jumper and a scarf. It’s arduous, exhausting and dangerous, and requires careful judgment at all times to deal with the hostile frozen environment. To make this a bit less hazardous, the Scandinavian research organization SINTEF is developing clothing equipped with sensors to monitor temperature and activity, with an eye on helping supervisors to determine when it's time for workers to stop work and return inside.  Read More

The Geneva Motor show isn't just about supercars. There’s also room for a bit of lateral thinking. Online fashion retailer Zalando may seem an unusual participant in the show, but the company’s Zalando fashion car concept aims at merging motoring and shopping for clothes. The concept uses an iPad augmented reality app to spot, identify, order, and pick up fashions worn by passing pedestrians, and the car even morphs into a changing room to try on the items.  Read More

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has discovered a rock outcropping that may have been a suitable habitat for microbes in ancient times. Based on a sample collected by unmanned rover’s drill at the John Klein area in Gale Crater and analyzed using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) and Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instruments, the findings contribute to Curiosity's primary mission of seeking out areas of the Red Planet where life may have once or still could exist.  Read More

Payphones may seem like yesterday’s technology, but they aren’t quite dead yet ... at least not in New York. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced semi-finalists in a competition designed to drag payphone infrastructure into the 21st century – the "Reinvent Payphones" Design Challenge.  Read More

Electric cars haven’t exactly stolen the limelight at this year's Geneva Motor Show, but Exagon Motors is bucking the trend with the highly customizable, “haute couture” Furtive-eGT electric sports car.  Read More