DJ Hero Review
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Zhong Lin Wang holds a prototype three-dimensional solar cell that could allow PV systems ... 3-D photovoltaic systems go where the sun don’t shine
Oasis of the Seas - world’s largest cruise liner Oasis of the Seas – world’s largest cruise liner sets sail this month
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Loz Blain


Top Articles by Loz Blain

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MUSIC

Austrian composer simulates speech using... A piano?

By Loz Blain

23:54 October 7, 2009 PDT

The talking piano at work.

Remember back in the 80s when Steve Vai used to make his guitar "talk" to David Lee Roth? That video clip is here, but be warned, Roth's bare butt peeking through the holes in his leather chaps is one of the LEAST offensive things in the clip. It seems things have become more refined in the last 20-odd years. This fascinating clip shows how Austrian composer Peter Ablinger has programmed a mechanically-actuated piano to reproduce recorded human speech. And yes, you can somehow understand it. Read More

HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS

The world's oldest hotel - open nearly 1300 years

By Loz Blain

02:19 October 2, 2009 PDT

The Hoshi Ryoku hotel and hot spa - the oldest hotel and longest running business in the w...

It's said that less than one in five businesses started today will be around in five years' time - which puts this story into perspective. Hōshi Ryokan is a hotel and spa in Komatsu, Japan. It has been owned and run by the same family for 46 generations so far, and its famous hot springs have been refreshing and revitalizing its patrons for no less than 1291 years. Founded by a Buddhist disciple whose master had the springs' location delivered to him in a dream, Hōshi is the world's oldest hotel and also the world's oldest continuously-operating business. Read More

MOTORCYCLES

The GG Quadster - a four-wheeled, 167-horsepower quad bike for the road

By Loz Blain

21:34 October 1, 2009 PDT

The GG Quadster

Since the emergence of non-tilting 3-wheelers like the bizarre snowmobile-for-the-road Can-Am Spyder, and the abundance of attention they've received, this new class of novelty multi-wheelers seems to be gathering steam. The latest we've run across, thanks to a Gizmag reader suggestion, is the GG Quadster. This Swiss creation takes the 167-horsepower motor and electrics from a BMW K1200 sportsbike and puts it in a 4-wheeled chassis with sticky sports tyres and more machined billet aluminum than comes out of OCC in a whole week. At US$65,000, or around US$40k more than the Can-Am Spyder, you'll rarely see one on the road. But if you do, and there's a really tall black guy riding it, you might want to catch him for an autograph. Read More

ROBOTICS

Video: the state of the art in robot perception and dexterity

By Loz Blain

21:02 September 29, 2009 PDT

Pray that this robot hand isn't out to get you.

Don't watch the video after the jump if you've recently seen a Terminator movie - because it's becoming clear that if the robots come after us, there'll be no stopping them. The video shows an incredible array of three-fingered robot hand/eye co-ordination exercises, including throwing and catching, spinning pens, tying knots and dribbling a ping-pong ball. The Ishikawa Komuro laboratory at the University of Tokyo put these videos together to demonstrate the incredibly quick parallel processing they are achieving with a mix of visual and tactile sensory inputs. Astounding stuff. Sarah Connor, you're in deep trouble. Read More

MOTORCYCLES

Diapermotard? Ducati dips under US$10 grand to deliver its baby Hypermotard 796

By Loz Blain

22:58 September 28, 2009 PDT

Official images: Ducati's Hypermotard 796

Ducati's supermotard-on-steroids, the 1100 Hypermotard, has been terrorizing the streets for a couple of years now, a concept bike that became reality after it made a sensational splash at the 2005 EICMA show in Milan. Aimed at marrying some of the soft-suspension, short-wheelbase, low-weight feel of a motard with the grunt of a 100-horsepower L-twin motor and unmistakeable Ducati streetbike style, the Hypermotard is an absolute giggle machine. It's also fairly pricey though, which is why Ducati have just given it a much more affordable little brother. The Hypermotard 796 will sneak in under US$10,000, using a torqued-up version of the 696 Monster engine and boasting both less weight and a lighter clutch than the 1100. Read More

MUSIC

iNudge - try out this free, online music sequencing widget

By Loz Blain

08:22 September 24, 2009 PDT

Cook up a quick music sequence with iNudge.

More than a little reminiscent of Yamaha's bizarre Tenori-On, iNudge is a free online composition and sequencing tool that takes all the pesky music training out of making music. Playing with its neat grid interface, anyone can come up with funky little beats and make quirky electro tunes. It's a product of an age where musical talent can be completely divorced from the ability to manipulate strings, wind or membranes to get a desired sound - and it's a lot of fun. Have a try right here in your browser window, just click through. Read More

MUSIC

Video: Laser/smoke microphone promises the world's most accurate sound capture

By Loz Blain

06:41 September 23, 2009 PDT

The hand-made prototype for David Schwartz's laser/smoke microphone.

The quest for ever more realistic sound reproduction seems set to move to a whole new level. Traditional microphones convert sound to electrical signals by measuring the deflections that sound vibrations cause in a diaphragm. But each diaphragm has its own weight, inertia and resistance, which colors the sound that gets recorded. So American digital audio pioneer David Schwartz, who invented the MP3 sound format, has come up with a novel new type of microphone that virtually eliminates the microphone's mechanical interference with the sound. The laser/smoke microphone uses a laser to measure the deflections that sound makes in a steady stream of smoke - which is virtually weightless. Prepare for a new wave of high-fidelity microphone technology. Read More

ON THE WATER

Anti-paparazzi lasers being fitted to the world's biggest private yacht

By Loz Blain

05:34 September 22, 2009 PDT

The Eclipse - the biggest and most expensive private yacht ever built.

Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich rose from obscurity and successfully navigated the shady world of early Russian privatization to become one of the world's wealthiest self-made billionaires. His 40-man private army of security personnel make him one of the best-protected businessmen in the world, and when his private gigayacht the Eclipse is handed over in time for Christmas this year, it will be the largest (at a staggering 560ft) and most expensive (at US$1.2 billion) private yacht the world has ever seen. Security will be as tight as you'd expect, with missile defence and intruder detection systems - but the Eclipse's most notable feature is a privacy system that can detect the digital cameras of snooping paparazzi and blind them with laser bursts, ruining spy photos. Read More

HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS

The world's first floating, rotating (floatating?) hotel building

By Loz Blain

05:47 September 18, 2009 PDT

Hotel Marmara, Antalya, featuring the world's only floating, rotating hotel building

Antalya is a city of around 800,000 people on the Southern Mediterranean coast of Turkey. Like most cities in that region, it has played host to a revolving cast of empires over the centuries, from the Romans, to the Byzantines to the Ottomans and Turks. Nestled between a stunning coastline and majestic mountain ranges, it's known as one of the most beautiful cities in Turkey, and it's also the site of one of the world's most unusual hotels. The Hotel Marmara Antalya features the only fully rotating hotel building in the world - and the way they've done it is fascinating. Read More

PODCASTS

Gizcast #11: bone conduction hearing implants, targeted chemotherapy and the electric car stampede that's storming Frankfurt

By Loz Blain

08:11 September 17, 2009 PDT

Subscribe to the Gizcast through iTunes.

In this week's Gizcast, Geoffrey Baird speaks with audiologist Anthea Arkcoll about a new type of hearing aid that bypasses the ear altogether and uses bone conduction technology to send a direct signal to the auditory nerve. Then Loz Blain wraps up with some of the most interesting electric and green car concepts the Giz team are drooling over in Frankfurt, and a quick look at a medical device that could give doctors a new way to fight stubborn cancer tumours. Read More

MOTORCYCLES

Mission One sets electric land-speed record with production prototype motorcycle

By Loz Blain

05:20 September 15, 2009 PDT

An electrifying wheelie on the Mission One electric superbike. Electrifying, get it?

Electric motorcycles, while economical, technologically fascinating and environmentally friendly, are unlikely to light a fire under the average petrolhead until they start tickling our inner hooligans... Which is why we're hanging out to throw a leg over the Mission One electric superbike. Fresh from its first run at the Isle of Man TTXGP, this battery-powered beast pulls power wheelies from faster than freeway speeds, handles like a dream and can top 150 miles on a battery charge. And the latest feather in the Mission One team's cap is a national AMA land-speed record for electric motorcycles. Product Manager and test rider Jeremy Cleland pushed a production prototype - with the same powertrain that customers will get off the shelf in late 2010 - to a top speed of 161mph (259kph) and a two-way land speed record of 150.059mph (241.5kph) in poor conditions and high winds at Utah's Bonneville salt flats. Excellent. Read More

HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Targeted chemotherapy - fighting cancer without the side effects

By Loz Blain

02:28 September 14, 2009 PDT

The IsoFlow Isolation Catheter in action.

A Silicon Valley entrepreneur, after watching helplessly through his sister's painful and terminal battle with cancer, has spent the last 9 years working on a system that lets doctors cut off blood flow to tumors, isolating them from the rest of the body and allowing the injection of a targeted dose of high intensity chemotherapy. Since the chemo drugs aren't let loose around the rest of the body, the usual devastating side-effects aren't an issue - and the drug dosage at the tumor site can be safely administered at a much higher concentration than usual. The IsoFlow Isolation Catheter has just received FDA marketing approval in the USA. Read More

MOTORCYCLES

First ride: Honda's outrageous(?) DN-01 automatic sports-cruiser motorcycle

By Loz Blain

23:55 September 9, 2009 PDT

Honda's bizarre DN-01

At a recent Honda test-ride day, I finally had the chance to throw a leg over what must be one of the oddest motorcycles on the market - the bizarre DN-01 "sports cruiser." The Dino's way-out looks don't particularly float my boat, but it's bristling with fascinating new technology, like Honda's 'Human-Friendly' automatic transmission (HFT), which operates as a CVT in Drive or Sports modes, but is also able to mimic a 6-speed manual box when you want to get some gumboot up it. Then there's the Combined Braking System (CBS) with ABS, which isn't quite as techno as the computer controlled Combined ABS system going into Honda's new sportsbikes, but it's still right at the pointy end of motorcycle brake technology. So how did it ride? Read More

PODCASTS

Gizcast #10: The world's best boat design?

By Loz Blain

02:52 September 9, 2009 PDT

Gizcast #10: Austal's trimaran - the world's best boat design?

As the Gizcast breaks double figures, Michael Mulcahy speaks to Tony Armstrong of Austal, a West Australian shipbuilding company that's leading the world in the construction of fast ferries. Austal has just signed some huge contracts with the U.S. Navy thanks to its revolutionary trimaran ship design that delivers an almost miraculous set of benefits over traditional single hull and catamaran designs. Geoffrey Baird's also got a roundup of top stories from the Gizmag.com homepage. Presented by Loz Blain. Read More

HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Mind-reading brain probe could unlock motor control for quadriplegics

By Loz Blain

15:16 September 4, 2009 PDT

I'm glad I'm not the one poking needles into this.

While Honda is taking a benign and non-invasive approach to the coveted brain-machine interface, British researchers are experimenting with a sensor array that is actually implanted in the brain. Dr. Jon Spratley's "multi-contact brain probe" is designed to be injected into the tissue of the brain with a fine needle, where it will sit, monitoring electrical impulses across the brain's motor cortex and relaying them wirelessly to an external device. Spratley believes the technology could unlock a range of bionic possibilities for quadriplegics, who could, for example, learn to control a wheelchair or computer mouse using the same brain commands that used to operate their arms and legs. Read More

MOTORCYCLES

Confederate's all-aluminium P120 Fighter Combat motorcycle

By Loz Blain

17:54 September 1, 2009 PDT

Confederate's P120 Fighter Combat

Harley-Davidson might have set the mold for the archetypical American motorcycle, but it's boutique brand Confederate that has taken it to the extreme. Confederate's Hellcat and Wraith are glaringly unique machines - all metal and carbon, nasty skeletal designs dripping with confrontational attitude. Now they're joined by the limited-edition Fighter Combat - a celebration of machined metal that looks like it's been chiseled from one hunk of polished aluminum for the next Terminator movie. But beyond its arresting looks, there's some interesting ideas on board. Read More

HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Possible cure for peanut allergy discovered: peanuts

By Loz Blain

01:22 August 31, 2009 PDT

Peanuts: no longer a death sentence for allergy sufferers?

Peanut allergies are very common - something like one in every 200 children will suffer from some sort of reaction, and while roughly 100 people per year die as a result, peanuts are still thought to be the most prevalent food-related cause of death. Certainly, for those afflicted, it's a huge annoyance to be constantly checking labels and asking at restaurants just to make sure. So it's good to hear that Duke University researchers are making progress on a cure - or at least a therapy for reducing the effects of peanut exposure. Read More

ELECTRONICS

Video: Eric Giler demonstrates wireless electricity at TEDGlobal 2009

By Loz Blain

23:21 August 30, 2009 PDT

Eric Giler demonstrates wireless power at TEDGlobal 2009

It's fascinating to think that while Edison and Tesla battled over the ascendancy of AC versus DC, most of the world didn't think this electricity thing was going to take off - I mean, who was going to spend trillions of dollars rolling out great coils of copper wire to bring this thing to the masses? Nikola Tesla was thinking along the same lines, and the Serbian genius's mysterious Wardenclyffe Tower was to be an experiment in beaming electricity wirelessly across the world, eliminating the need for a wired power grid altogether. But wireless electricity has been enjoying a cautious revival in the past decade - mainly at short distance and for reasonably trivial applications like charging cell phones and other battery-powered equipment. And as Eric Giler's great ten-minute demonstration at this year's TEDGlobal shows, wireless power seems very close to breaking through into the mainstream market. Read More

ECOGIZMO

Four crucial resources that may run out in your lifetime

By Loz Blain

06:14 August 27, 2009 PDT

Can the Earth sustain 9 billion people? We'll find out in the next 50 years.

We're living in lucky times. Living standards - in the Western world, at least - are the highest in history. It's an era of relative peace and plenty that would amaze our ancestors. But it's not going to continue forever; we're already stretching many of our natural resources to their limits, and the world's population will jump from 6.5 billion to around 9 billion over the next 50 years. Get ready for a painful correction - here are four interconnected resources that are headed for a catastrophic squeeze within our lifetime. Read More

PERSONAL COMPUTING

UK government: crack down on file sharing, cut off suspected pirates' Internet connections

By Loz Blain

17:22 August 26, 2009 PDT

The Digital Britain report recommends technical measures to cut off suspected pirates at t...

Illegal peer-to-peer sharing of movies, music and software is currently estimated to comprise more than half the world's Internet traffic - and copyright holders are up in arms, saying that CD, movie and software sales are taking a devastating hit from the quick, convenient and anonymous piracy options the broadband age has opened up. Now, the UK is considering legislation that would see suspected illegal file sharers cut off altogether by their ISPs - despite the fact that the European Parliament recently rejected a similar plan from France, on the grounds that it contravened the modern citizen's fundamental right to access the Internet. Read More

MOBILE TECHNOLOGY

Sakhr's Blackberry app puts spoken word Arabic/English translator in your pocket

By Loz Blain

00:07 August 20, 2009 PDT

Sahkr's Spoken Arabic Translator

Mobile device convergence is accelerating like crazy, with a new breed of smartphones packing enough power to run an impressive range of software. And some of these mobile applications are getting pretty freakin' amazing - take Ray Kurzweil's kReader for Symbian, which allows blind or illiterate folk to point their phone camera at printed words and have them spoken aloud. Sakhr has gone a step further with an Arabic Spoken Translator for Blackberry devices. You speak English or Arabic into your handset, it transcribes, translates and speaks your phrase back in the other language, breaking down the language barrier in one fell swoop. Read More

HOME ENTERTAINMENT

Cabasse La Sphere: US$176,000 speaker system is a giant feat of audio engineering

By Loz Blain

21:45 August 17, 2009 PDT

Cabasse La Sphere speaker system

French company Cabasse has redefined the notion of high-end loudspeakers with the creation of a speaker system that costs almost as much as a base model 2009 Ferrari F430. But for your UK£108,000 (US$176,000), you're buying a monumental engineering achievement - the world's only four-way, point source speaker system (more about that after the jump). This audio perfectionist's dream required a spherical enclosure - which means you also have to accept the fact that two giant, ugly eyeballs on sticks will be watching you enjoy some of the best audio reproduction, sound staging and stereo imaging the world has ever experienced. Read More

MOTORCYCLES

The quietest Orange County Chopper yet: the electric Siemens Smart Chopper

By Loz Blain

03:13 August 14, 2009 PDT

Paul Teutul Snr. cruises on the the Siemens Smart Chopper

The beefy gents at Orange County Choppers have surprised us a few times before, going out of their normal raked-out design brief to customize a Ducati Monster 1100, for example - but they really turned heads this week when Paul Teutul, Snr, presented the company's - and perhaps the world's - first all-electric chopper. Commissioned by Siemens and built using recycled steel, LED lighting and environmentally-friendly water-based paints, the Siemens Smart Chopper features a 27hp brushless motor good for a top speed in excess of 100mph, and enough battery life for a 60-mile range. And it's going up for auction. Read More

HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Spinal Cord Stimulators - the 'pacemaker' for chronic pain

By Loz Blain

02:20 August 12, 2009 PDT

The Eon Mini Spinal Cord Stimulator

While nobody's exactly sure how it works, it's been clinically proven over the past 30-40 years that low levels of electrical energy, delivered straight to the nerve fibers in the spinal cord, can disrupt the signals that certain chronic pain conditions send to the brain, and replace them with a much more pleasant tingling sensation. Now, St Jude Medical has received FDA and CE mark approvals for the world's smallest and longest-lasting rechargeable neurostimulator. The Eon Mini is the size of a silver dollar, about 1cm thick (1/2 inch), and weighs only 29g (1oz). It sits under the skin of the buttock or abdomen, and its rechargeable battery should last nearly 10 years. It can be programmed by remote control to treat as many as eight different chronic pain areas and, in doing so, it can get many patients with chronic pain off morphine and back into a semblance of normal life. Read More

HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Blue M&M food dye reduces paralysis from spinal injuries - but turns you blue

By Loz Blain

00:20 August 11, 2009 PDT

One of the experimental rats, before and after injection with the blue food dye.

Spinal injuries are both common and devastating, leaving many victims paralyzed and relegated to wheelchairs for the rest of their lives. But in most cases, the worst spinal cord damage doesn't happen at the scene of the injury - it's the swelling around the spinal cord and the crazy firing and burning out of otherwise healthy neurons in the hours and days following the incident that turns a bad situation permanently worse. Now, scientists in Rochester, New York, have discovered a simple way to stop a lot of this secondary damage in its tracks - using the same, familiar blue food dye that gives M&Ms and blue icy poles their color. Patients with spinal injuries could escape with vastly reduced loss of function - but they'll turn bright blue in the process. Read More

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