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Gizmag is hiring - apply here
By Mike Hanlon
19:57 April 30, 2009 PDT
Gizmag is seeking writers with a serious passion for new technology to join our editorial team. Specifically, at this moment, we're looking for those who can offer expertise in one or more of the following areas: electronics and consumer electronics of all kinds, telecommunications, mobile telephony and lifestyle, home entertainment, home automation, digital photography and video, and personal computing. If you have expertise in other areas, and want to be considered for a position when they become available, fill the application form out anyway. Read More
Lip-reading computers can recognize different languages
By Karen Sprey
00:51 April 28, 2009 PDT
Computerized lip-reading technology for deaf people - and surveillance cameras - has taken a step forward with scientists from the University of East Anglia successfully teaching computers to recognize different languages from the shapes and movements of people’s mouths. Read More
Tree harvesting design that is forest-friendly
By David Greig
18:19 April 27, 2009 PDT
A German mechanical engineer has designed a tree harvester that weighs just over a tenth of conventional vehicles used to fell trees, which causes less damage to forest floor. Industrial tree harvesting vehicles can weigh up to 55 tons. In comparison, the “Striding Harvester” weighs only 7.5 tons. The concept harvester by mechanical engineer and industrial designer Christian Knobloch works by using a small footprint selectively pushing down on the soil as it moves. Through this approach the soil is allowed to recover much faster than if conventional heavy forest equipment was employed. Read More
Space sail to take out the trash
By Darren Quick
12:47 April 26, 2009 PDT
We’ve recently examined the danger posed to future space missions by the ever increasing collection of space junk orbiting the Earth. Now a plan by a pair of space engineers to use a sail to take out the trash – or rather, bring it back to Earth – may help to stop future space missions adding to the problem of space junk. Read More
Motorola's pocket-sized personal shopping assistant honored
16:01 April 16, 2009 PDT
Motorola's MC17 "shopping assistant" computer has impressed international design judges, picking up three prestigious product design gongs. Gizmag was also impressed by the company's pocket-sized computer, which can scan items, check pricing, locate complimentary items, access personal promotions and create gift and wish lists, when we wrote about it back in 2007. The company won the International Design Excellence award (IDEA), iF Product Design award and Good Design award. Read More
Architect-designed Ramp House is a skaters dream pad
By Jamilah Le
23:46 April 1, 2009 PDT
For skating lovers who heard the phrase ‘don’t you dare skate in the house’ one too many times as a kid, this might just be the dream home you’ve always wanted. The unique dwelling is described as having a ‘curved form interior’ (otherwise known as a ramp), but it's not just 'a house with a ramp in it'. Archivirus Architecture and Design's creation sets out to deliver a completely 'skatable habitat' for the client (which is not actually Tony Hawk -he has his half-pipe built in the backyard) with smooth concrete and curved spaces to enhance the idea of motion. Read More
Green-thumbed robots: the future of sustainable precision agriculture?
19:10 March 26, 2009 PDT
March 26, 2009 When consuming your five a day of fruit and vegetables, have you ever stopped to consider the back breaking labor and significant resources involved in their production? According to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratories (CSAIL), the robotic, computerized answer to minimizing these factors could be just around the corner. Students at the laboratory have undertaken a project that utilizes robots to take the thinking and manual labor out of producing specialty crops such as fruit and vegetables. Read More
Vertical farming with seawater
By Darren Quick
04:03 March 24, 2009 PDT
The saying used to go, ‘only in America’, but in recent years it might be truer to say, ‘only in Dubai’, especially when it comes to architectural wonders. Buildings that would be unfeasible just about anywhere else seem to regularly spring from the ground in the oil rich emirate. The next eye-popping construction to grace the skyline could be a seawater vertical farm that uses seawater to cool and humidify greenhouses and to convert sufficient humidity back in to fresh water to irrigate the crops. Read More
Whisky - Demon drink becomes sound financial investment
By Matt Kennedy
20:19 March 22, 2009 PDT
If you could resist drinking it, you may just find that hanging on to a few bottles of fine single malt could not only make a sound investment but one which is more interesting than boring old stocks and far more reliable than wine. At Bonhams in Edinburgh, their second ever dedicated whisky auction has not only shown that there's a strong market for rare whisky, (with 95% of all lots sold) but that the big boys of the auction world are taking it seriously. Read More
Milli-Grip - a new take on the shifting spanner
By David Greig
00:06 March 20, 2009 PDT
March 20, 2009 When you think you have come across all the tools that could possibly add any value, along comes a new one to the ranks. The Milli-grip spanner, from HTM Products of Sussex, is a "must have" for the home handyman. It is an adjustable spanner that fits metric nuts and bolts from 2mm through to 32mm, in 1mm increments. Through its ratchet system, it eliminates the slippage problems (and associated skinned knuckles) inherent in the traditional shifting spanner/wrench, with its worm-gear operation. Suitable for use by both left and right handed people, the Milli-grip can be adjusted to a precise fit with just one hand in a fraction of the time required with the old shifting spanner. Once locked onto the nut or bolt, it will not alter its setting during use. Read More
The new Space toilet is a high-tech diaper
By Darren Quick
20:40 March 10, 2009 PDT
While the thought of rocketing into space might make some people want to soil themselves, going to the toilet in zero gravity is a very real problem for space faring astronauts. Until now the solution has been to strap themselves onto a toilet that is similar to traditional western style but employs a vacuum cleaner-like machine to suck the wastes away – doesn’t sound too pleasant does it. Now it seems the Japanese are approaching the problem from a different tack with Pink Tentacle reporting that the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has teamed up with engineers from the private sector to develop a next-generation space toilet that is designed to be worn like a diaper. Read More
Six weird and wonderful things people have built with Twitter
By Tim Hanlon
19:32 March 9, 2009 PDT
For the uninitiated, Twitter is a "microblogging" service that invites you to share what you're doing with the world in 140 characters or less - and it's currently taking the world by storm, with everyone from Scoble to Shaq on board. Its charm is that its usefulness is entirely open to interpretation - while many just don't get it (including Google's CEO), some use it purely for self-promotion, others to connect with their peers, others to tap breaking news long before mainstream media covers it, and then there's the subset of users that like to build or hack devices to use its API. Read on to meet six devices (of varying usefulness) that use Twitter to communicate with their human overlords. Read More
Internet Communities organize to take on Global Economic Crisis
By Mike Hanlon
02:58 March 7, 2009 PST
March 7, 2009 Suppose the internet existed in 1929. How might the Great Depression have been different? The Internet is a tool of global communication. If it had been available in the 1930s, the downturn and subsequent restructuring that became the Great Depression could have occurred faster and more efficiently, yielding less suffering. Eighty years later, we are on the brink of such an economic turning point… how can we utilize the Internet to help prevent the suffering and hardships experienced in the 1930s? This is the question being asked on communities all over the internet, and it is the inspiration for a new website. Read More
The Smart phone - Maxwell Smart that is
By David Greig
17:16 March 5, 2009 PST
The vision of Agent 86 mumbling into his shoe is one of the most endearing images from the slapstick 60s spy series Get Smart, but an Australian scientist who has built a working version of the shoe phone using 21st century technology sees serious applications for this kind of device in the medical field. Read More
The coffee cup for a zero g situation
By Karen Sprey
21:24 March 3, 2009 PST
Astronauts may have the very cool job of floating around in space, but when it comes to grabbing a caffeine fix, they are faced with the decidedly uncool prospect of drinking out of aluminum bags with straws. Donald Pettit was on Space Shuttle mission STS-126 when he decided enough was enough and came up with the idea of an "On-Orbit Coffee Cup" designed to hold liquid in zero gravity situations. Read More
The anti-mirror... and more
By Darren Quick
22:24 March 2, 2009 PST
You could be forgiven for thinking Andrew Hicks is obsessed with his own reflection, but it’s the mirror itself which attracts the interest of this mathematician from Drexel University, Philadelphia. Hicks has used computer algorithms to generate a mirror that produces a mirror image that isn’t a mirror image, making it possible to read reflected text normally. Read More
Sliding House plays Hide-and-Seek
By David Greig
20:56 February 26, 2009 PST
Known as the Sliding House, this unique piece of architectural lateral thinking was designed by London-based practice de Rijke Marsh Morgan. The brief was for a self-build house where the client could grow food, entertain, enjoy the landscape and basically retire in peace. The outcome was three buildings arranged along a longitudinal axis, with a garage set perpendicularly, off to the side to create a small patio... and one hell of a surprise. Read More
IBM Innov8 v.2: serious gaming helps tomorrow’s business leaders
By Karen Sprey
04:14 February 26, 2009 PST
Pilots, the military and emergency services have been using simulations for years to teach skills in a risk-free environment where otherwise lives might be lost. Video gaming isn’t new either - the CEOs of many of today’s big names such as Yahoo and Google grew up on a diet of avatars and role-playing. But it’s only recently that business simulators and advanced video gaming have merged to form ‘serious games’ like IBM's Innov8. IBM has announced v.2, a new version that helps students and professionals hone their business and technology skills in a compelling, familiar video game format. Read More
GlobalTag combines GPS, RFID and SatComs for worldwide supply chain visibility
By Mike Hanlon
16:47 February 19, 2009 PST
UPDATED IMAGES Numerex and Savi have announced a technology partnership to co-develop what would be the first asset and shipment monitoring device that combines Global Satellite Positioning, active Radio Frequency Identification and Satellite Communications. The hybrid ST-694 GlobalTag is being developed to provide continuous seamless monitoring and precise location information of assets regardless of their physical location. Read More
Smart Lite CFL replaces the bulbs not the ballast
By Karen Sprey
21:42 February 17, 2009 PST
Compact fluorescent lights (CFL) are a smaller version of their long established big brothers which, despite some drawbacks such as a small amount of mercury content, have gained serious ground in recent years as an energy-efficient alternative to conventional incandescent globes. CFLs reduce carbon emissions because they convert electricity into light more efficiently and also last up to ten times longer, but the globe still reaches its used by date long before the base (ballast) section that connects it to the power socket. 3E Technologies has identified this as another wasteful aspect of the process that could be eliminated and its solution is the Smart Lite - a two-piece CFL which allows the bulb to be removed from the ballast and replaced with a simple ‘insert and twist’ operation. Read More
Solving the global food crisis: vertical aeroponic farm grows food out of thin air
By Loz Blain
01:14 February 17, 2009 PST
More than 50% of our planet's massive human population is concentrated into urban centres - and on current estimates, that's likely to be as high as 80% by the year 2050, a year many of us will be around to see. So the challenge facing today's forward-thinking architects is how to create positive outcomes out of a crushing space constraint. Going upwards, in projects like Eugene Tsui's Ultima Tower and the London Vertical Village concept, seems to offer some practical solutions to the living space conundrum - but what about feeding all those people? Vertical Aeroponic Farming seems to be an idea whose time has come - it will let us use land, nutrients, power and water much more efficiently than ever before, while delivering a quality-controllable, year-round and emissions-positive food source for urban communities. Eric Vergne's Dystopian Farm is a design study that examines how a vertical farm might use the latest in agricultural and architectural technology to feed the cities of the future. Read More
No more arguments: the self-closing toilet seat
23:18 February 5, 2009 PST
Archeological evidence suggests that flush toilets complete with wooden seats for that extra bit of comfort have been with us for almost five thousand years, so it's likely that domestic arguments over who left the seat up began sometime soon after. That's a long time to argue, but this age old question might soon become redundant if this self-closing toilet seat reaches the market. Designed by a group of students from the Skjern Technical College in Denmark, the Intelli-Toilet automatically shuts the seat after it's flushed without the need for any extra energy sources. Read More
UNIX time set to hit 1234567890
By Tim Hanlon
23:41 February 2, 2009 PST
While some of you might remember the Chinese Olympic Games kicking off at 08:08:08pm on 08/08/08, here's one for the developers (or just plain geeky) in our audience. At 11:31:30pm UTC on Friday, February the 13th, "UNIX time", that is, the number of seconds since midnight UTC on January 1, 1970, will reach 1234567890. Read More
Comment on Gizmag with your Facebook account
By Tim Hanlon
00:38 January 31, 2009 PST
In our ongoing quest to make commenting on Gizmag as easy as possible, we've implemented Facebook Connect, so now you can comment on our articles using your Facebook account. Just click the "Connect with Facebook" button in the "Post a Comment" area beneath an article, and regale us with your savvy commentary, safe with the knowledge that no one will be able to impersonate you, or accuse you of not being who you say you are. Read on for a list of the articles that have generated the most discussion on Gizmag. Read More
The Playpump – innovation and inspiration conspire to solve myriad problems
By Mike Hanlon
23:30 January 27, 2009 PST
The Playpump is a playground merry-go-round that uses the boundless energy of children to pump water out of the ground. More than 1000 such pumps have been installed in schools in South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia and apart from bringing joy to children, and providing easy access to clean drinking water for the local community, the simple installation of the playpump has catalyzed improvements in health, education, economic development and even gender equality. The PlayPump system also provides one of the only ways to reach rural and peri-urban communities with potentially life saving public health messages. Read More
windykites1
- November 24, 2009 @ 19:38 UTC
