Subscribe to Gizmag's RSS feed
Follow Gizmag on Twitter
Loz Blain
- Under the sea: Dubai's underwater hotel takes shape (122,584 Views)
- Canadian T-REX 3-wheel street racer (112,050 Views)
- The 3D air-mouse you wear as a ring (110,806 Views)
- Zero Pollution compressed Air Car set for U.S. launch in 2010 (108,692 Views)
- The flying motorcycle - road-registered and available now (102,523 Views)
All Articles by Loz Blain
Unfair advantage? Team BMW Oracle Racing takes 'wind mapping' technology to the America's Cup
By Loz Blain
20:31 February 4, 2010 PST
Imagine you're a competitive sailboat racer, about to go into the richest and most storied of all sailing races with a squillion-dollar boat and a razor-sharp crew. Now imagine somebody hands you a device that can quite literally map out the wind activity up to a kilometre out in front of you, showing wind speed, direction and turbulence - and giving you the almost superatural ability to adjust your sails and take maximal advantage of a wind pattern before you even reach it. It's almost an unfair advantage, isn't it? Well, this is the situation that BMW Oracle Racing's Russell Coutts finds himself in as the team gears up to take on defending champions Alinghi in the 2010 America's Cup. The device is called a Racer's Edge laser wind sensor, and it's built around a technology base that's being used to optimise wind power generators. We caught up with Phil Rogers, CEO of Catch the Wind, Inc, to find out more. Read More
Gizcast #13: discussion - Apple iPad, new-age sex toys and the virtual minefield
By Loz Blain
22:39 January 31, 2010 PST
This week, Loz Blain and Mike Hanlon agree to disagree on the upcoming iPad, we take a look at a couple of upcoming stories on next-gen sex toys, check out the Metal Storm virtual minefield and look at how Thailand is moving to prevent petrol fraud. Read More
Video: SoundRacer V8 turns your boring family car into a fire-breather
By Loz Blain
21:20 January 28, 2010 PST
Call me childish, but I reckon this is one of the best gadgets I've seen in years. The SoundRacer plugs into the cigarette lighter socket of your boring family car, then sends an FM signal to your car stereo that makes your car sound like a roaring V8, faithfully matching revs and basically making the meekest of cars feel like a monster truck. So you can enjoy a ribald hoon factor from the driver's seat without looking or sounding like a petrolhead to passers-by or the local constabulary. We had a blast making the demo video after the jump. Read More
GizCast 12: discussion - digital gastronomy and the Japanese robotics revolution
By Loz Blain
21:12 January 22, 2010 PST
We've gone to a new format for our first podcast of 2010 - Loz Blain and Mike Hanlon sit down for a broad and fun discussion on a few recent stories that we see as real potential life-changers. Starting with the Digital Gastronomy project and moving on to cover some of the fun, fascinating and scary things Mike saw at last December's robotics trade show in Tokyo, it's your chance to sit in on the kind of discussions that happen every time the Gizmag team gets together. Read More
Oregon man thrashes local children in treehouse-building contest
By Loz Blain
21:06 January 20, 2010 PST
Everyone loves a treehouse - they seem to inspire a universal feeling of childlike wonder, and done right they really tickle the old 'living in harmony with nature' glands too. We've covered some beauties over the years here at Gizmag, but this one has to be the grand-daddy of them all. The work of architect Robert Harvey Oshatz, the Wilkinson Residence makes use of a steeply sloped block to put the house's main level right up in the tree canopy. Stunning from every angle, it uses curves and waves to echo the owner's love of the natural landscape with a slightly musical theme. Read More
Genius or lunacy? BMW Oracle Racing team set to wing it for the 2010 America's Cup
By Loz Blain
13:38 January 20, 2010 PST
America's team BMW Oracle Racing (BOR) has taken full advantage of a "wide open" set of design rules for this year's America's Cup to produce one of the most staggering and ambitious vessels ever seen on the water. Throwing out the cloth main sail, team BOR have fitted the BOR 90 with a gargantuan, motorized, solid carbon-fiber wing, nearly twice the size of a Boeing 747 wing at 190ft, or 57 metres tall. The engineering and logistics surrounding this incredible boat are mind-boggling - imagine trying to work out where to store the giant wing structure, how to transport it and how to fix it vertically onto a boat - let alone how to sail the thing - but the benefits of a non-deforming main sail include the potential for the multimillion-dollar trimaran to travel at up to 2.5 times wind speed. It's a crazy, massively expensive and hugely risky experiment that's never even been prototyped, and will only get a few weeks' worth of testing before it races in February. Read More
Capture sliding dolly shots with the UKP175 GlideTrack SD
By Loz Blain
21:15 January 17, 2010 PST
Prosumer-level video equipment is getting cheap enough that serious image quality is well and truly within the reach of the hobbyist. And thus, you've got a whole new market of amateur videographers trying to work out how to get pro effects like sliding dolly shots into their work. Devices like the UKP175 GlideTrack SD strike an excellent balance between smoothness, quietness, portability and low cost - and the results look amazing, as you'll see in the demo video after the jump. Read More
MD80 video camera - unbelievably cheap spy/helmet cam
By Loz Blain
03:10 January 15, 2010 PST
There's not a lot that's particularly remarkable about the MD80 mini spy camera - it's pretty tiny, it records reasonable 640x480 video in AVI format at 25 frames per second, and it can be set to standby for up to 250 hours until it's activated by a sound, making it a good little spy cam unit. It's pretty similar to any number of helmet cam/mini video cam units but for one fact - it costs less than US$25 on eBay, delivered to your door. For the price it's an outstanding product and the sort of thing you could habitually carry around in your car, recording driving conditions for an instant evidence stockpile in case of an accident or incident. And more broadly it's an example of how Chinese design and manufacturing can get a competitive, quality product to market at a price point that absolutely annihilates the competition, to the point where if you're still concerned about quality, you might just as well buy five of the things in case four break. Which they're not doing nearly so much these days. Read More
Cornucopia: Digital Gastronomy - could 3D printing be the next revolution in cooking?
By Loz Blain
23:49 January 14, 2010 PST
Wouldn't it be great to have a digital food machine sitting in your kitchen that could create any dish, real or imagined, from scratch at the touch of a button? Cornucopia: Digital Gastronomy is a concept design that uses the well-established principles of 3D printing - plus precisely timed and temperature-controlled mixing and cooking - to open the door to a virtually limitless realm of replicable, creative cuisine in shapes and combinations that are simply impossible using our current, centuries-old cooking techniques. It's a wonderful look into the future of cooking, from the creative food lover's perspective. Read More
Video: Voice Band iPhone app - stunning multitrack rock band recordings using only your voice
By Loz Blain
22:55 January 14, 2010 PST
The iPhone's application capabilities continue to astound us. We've seen on-the-fly multitrack recording already in our a cappella review of Sonoma's 4Track app, but this one takes it to a whole new level. Voice band is a multitrack recording app that lets you build up the sound of a full band, including guitars, bass, drums, sax, synths and vocals, using only your voice as an input. The demo video after the jump shows just how simple this process is, and how astoundingly good the results are. Amazing stuff. Read More
Robo Cafe: robot waiters make a restaurant a one-man operation
By Loz Blain
13:59 January 14, 2010 PST
Back in the 70s, the robots were coming for our crappy manufacturing jobs. Now, it seems, they're coming for our crappy table service jobs. Korean company ITM Technology has developed a restaurant concept around a cute little robot that fulfills the role of a waiter - it takes orders from customers, either verbally or through a touch screen, then relays them to the kitchen, and brings the food out when it's ready. Robo Cafe eliminates ordering errors, reduces staffing costs dramatically for restaurant owners, and even brings the boss all the tips. It's probably not going to be nearly as interesting to Tiger Woods, though. Read More
Textecution app stops kids from texting while they drive
By Loz Blain
21:55 January 13, 2010 PST
Motor vehicle accidents are the single highest cause of death for young people - and the dangerous practice of texting while driving is on the rise among teens and young adults. Textecution is an Android app that parents can install on their kids' phones. It's designed to shut down all texting functions - sending and receiving - if the phone handset is moving at more than 10mph. It's a flawed solution, but a first step towards combatting a very serious issue that's only going to become worse as smartphones proliferate. Read More
Hyundai brings future-sexy Blue Will concept to Detroit
By Loz Blain
21:53 January 13, 2010 PST
Hyundai's tasty Blue Will concept car turned up at the Detroit NAIAS this week for its first showing on American soil. We got to take a close-up look at the Korean company's blue-sky plug-in hybrid and were impressed by some of the details - headlamp surrounds made from recycled PET bottles, a full undertray for sleek aeros, a glass roof impregnated with solar cells, drive-by-wire steering column and a thermal generator to turn waste heat from the combustion engine into electricity. Read More
Chevy's 2011 Aveo platform gets the 'hot hatch' tuner treatment
By Loz Blain
11:13 January 13, 2010 PST
The effects of 2008's petrol crisis are showing no signs of abating at this year's Detroit NAIAS - small cars, electrics and hybrids are the big stars of 2010 in Motor City. And Chevy is looking to capitalise, with a new muscled-up 'hot hatch' concept based on a revitalised update to its lukewarm Aveo platform. The 138-horsepower, 1.4 litre Aveo RS is Chevrolet's tricked-out take on what the tuner community should be able to do when the new, improved Aveo platform launches in 2011 - and Chevy's hoping this funky show car helps turn around the current Aveo's reputation as a rebadged Korean econobox. Read More
US$699 Optoma HD66 - 300 inches of 720p 3D projection for the home theatre
By Loz Blain
00:18 January 13, 2010 PST
No matter how much you spend, there just doesn't seem to be any clear way to future-proof your home theatre system. You can have the biggest HD screen on the block, but suddenly, if it can't do 3D, it's all but obsolete. With the rush of 3D content that's under development in the gaming, TV and cinema worlds, 3D is set to become the new HD within the next couple of years - and with that in mind, Optoma has pulled the covers off its HD66 digital projector at CES - a US$699 home theatre projector capable of showing 720p content in 3D with a max image size around 300". Read More
Next-gen video technology lets you look around - inside a movie
By Loz Blain
13:21 January 11, 2010 PST
Now that 3D is finally taking off again at the movie theatre - thanks in large part to James Cameron's evangelism in the leadup to his groundbreaking Avatar film, it's clear that immersive video technologies are big business again. And if the latest 3D stuff doesn't put you in the picture enough, how's this: Immersive Media has adapted the same 360-degree cameras used by Google's Street View cars to shoot video. That means you can actually look around as you watch the video... Which can feel absolutely bizarre, as in the case of the BASE jumping video after the jump. Extraordinary. Read More
2010 Comoto blurs the boundaries between electric motorcycle and MTB
By Loz Blain
02:31 January 11, 2010 PST
Once you throw out the internal combustion engine and all the bulky bits that go with it, the definition of a motorcycle can suddenly become a lot wider. Take the Comoto from Hirsch Design - it's even smaller than the Zero S bike, and begins to blur the boundaries between motorcycle and mountainbike. Using an electric motor mounted in the rear wheel hub to eliminate the need for a chain drive, the Comoto can do more than 40mph (65kph) and do just over 30 miles (~50km) on a charge under normal riding conditions. Best of all, it weighs just 118 pounds (53kg), making it one of the lightest motorcycles we've seen. Read More
The serious truth behind the adorable PARO baby seal-bot
By Loz Blain
00:16 January 7, 2010 PST
PARO is an animatronic baby seal companion robot designed by some very clever people with one simple purpose in mind - to make you love him. From everything we've seen, he's exceptionally talented at his job, melting the hardest hearts and bringing a big silly smile to everyone who meets him. But although he might be a wonderful toy, PARO's real purpose is to address a serious problem that's affecting Japan right now, and will soon spread across much of the Western world. Read More
US$15k uPrint personal 3-D printer brings rapid prototyping to the desktop
By Loz Blain
21:23 January 6, 2010 PST
3-D printing technology is maturing to the point where rapid prototyping machines are becoming affordable to small business owners - and even for high-end home use. Dimension's uPrint 3D printer has just been released at a retail price of US$14,900, giving anyone with CAD skills the ability to prototype and even manufacture pretty much any small shape they want in hard ABSplus plastic - including pre-assembled objects with moving parts. What would you create if you could have any plastic shape you wanted? Read More
US$249 PocketRadar - a speed measurement tool the size of a mobile phone
By Loz Blain
01:52 January 6, 2010 PST
Speed radar technology has become pretty much ubiquitous for traffic law enforcement around the world, but there are times when you and I would quite like to know how fast something is travelling too. PocketRadar is a hand-held personal speed measurement device about the size of a mobile phone that can get you a speed reading on a car half a mile away (or a baseball 120 feet away) in less than a second from being fully shut down. It's initially targeted at sports fans and athletes, but the company has flagged the possibility of a law enforcement version as well. Read More
Your expensive running shoes could be destroying your knees, ankles and hips
By Loz Blain
01:12 January 6, 2010 PST
It's early January - you're probably looking to work off some of your Christmas kilos and shed that festive spare tyre. For millions of people around the world, that means making a New Year's resolution, buying a new pair of runners and hitting the road for a jog. But a new musculoskeletal study has concluded that the average modern running shoe is significantly more damaging to your knees, hips and ankles than running barefoot - or even walking in high heels. With osteoarthritis of the knee representing the biggest cause of disability in the elderly, this is a serious finding that's worth taking into account if you want to protect your joints. Read More
Japanese whalers smash the Ady Gil stealth trimaran in half on their first meeting
By Loz Blain
22:42 January 5, 2010 PST
Enviro-warrior stealth boat the Ady Gil has reportedly been rammed by a security vessel employed to protect a Japanese whaling ship. The crew of the Ady Gil had been launching projectiles at the Nisshin Maru whaling vessel and attempting to entangle its propeller with rope, when the 1.5 million dollar craft was suddenly approached and rammed by the Shonan Maru, one of the Japanese security vessels. The attack smashed the sleek biodiesel-powered trimaran in half, and it sank, although the crew of six has been rescued uninjured. Read More
The Gibson Dusk Tiger: Robot guitar technology moves to v2.0
By Loz Blain
21:11 January 4, 2010 PST
Gibson is pushing forward in its quest to build the most technologically advanced guitars on the planet, undeterred by many guitarists' disdain for its Robot Guitar technology and recent design choices. The New Dusk Tiger is an evolution of the Dark Fire, and it maintains and expands upon the Dark Fire's ability to tune itself in seconds and produce a huge range of tones. While it's a fully analogue instrument, the Dusk Tiger can be plugged into a PC to change tone, EQ and tuning settings to provide a range of customisation and gig setup options that simply dwarf the capabilities of any guitar that's come before it. Pity, then, that behind that glowing Master Control Knob it's packing a face only a mother could love! Read More
HD Video road test: Victory's Vision megatourer
By Loz Blain
12:40 January 4, 2010 PST
For millions of commuters around the world, motorcycles are a compact and cheap way of getting around town in congested traffic. The Victory Vision is the absolute opposite - there's only been a handful of production bikes ever made that are bigger and heavier than this 400-kilogram, 1740cc American behemoth. It's built to eat up thousands of open-road miles with Harley-beating performance and buttock-coddling luxury - but in a surprise twist, this retro-futuristic mammoth can actually handle surprisingly well to boot. Loz Blain discovers how 10 days on one of the top five heaviest production bikes ever built can change your perspective on motorcycling in our video road test. Read More
James Cameron's Avatar in IMAX 3D: a mind-blowing glimpse into tomorrow's cinema
By Loz Blain
22:57 December 17, 2009 PST
Gizmag is hardly a movie review site, but when a film comes along that advances the art form in such a revolutionary way as James Cameron's Avatar, it becomes entirely relevant to fans of emerging technology. I saw it last night in IMAX 3D - and despite ten years' worth of building expectations and a frenzied hype campaign in recent months, I was still unprepared for the enormity of the technical and artistic achievement this film represents. If you haven't seen it yet, read on, we've kept spoilers to a minimum. Read More
dariusvons
- February 10, 2010 @ 00:56 UTC
