With the trend towards exotic metals and composites in our consumer electronics products, JVC made an interesting move this week when it released its new HP-DX1000 wooden headphones onto the Japanese market. Priced at JPY 105,000 yen (US$1000 to you), the headphones reportedly produce exquisite rich sound thanks to their natural wooden housings and a special driver unit that is directly mounted onto the wood using the company’s proprietary "Direct Mount Construction." To complete the package, you can purchase a matching wooden stand for your headphones at JPY 26,000 yen (US$250). It’s all frightfully expensive we agree, but the headphones offer a frequency response from 4Hz to 30kHz which is probably better than your ears.  Read More

On this day sixty years ago, the world entered the nuclear age with the first nuclear explosion in the famous top secret test named “Trinity” by Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer had an avid interest in Sanskrit literature and the reference was to the divine Hindu trinity of Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Preserver), and Shiva (the Destroyer). The detonation took place at 5:29:45 local time on July 16, 1945, when “the Gadget" (code-named as such during its development) exploded (pictured). Upon witnessing the explosion, which proved the theoretical predictions and calamitous effects of the new weapon, Oppenheimer recited the following passage from the Bhagavad-Gita: “If the radiance of a thousand suns, Were to burst at once into the sky, That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One ... I am become Death, The shatterer of Worlds.” The US$2 billion Manhattan project began six years earlier when Albert Einstein wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt telling him of Nazi Germany’s efforts to build an atomic bomb. The project culminated within a month of this test after the only two uses of nuclear weapons in history. Three weeks later (August 6) a uranium bomb was dropped on Hiroshima instantaneously killing 66,000 people. On August 9, 1945, a Plutonium bomb fell on Nagasaki instantly killing 40,000. Japan offered to surrender on August 10, 1945.  Read More

Moscow-based design studio Art. Lebedev may be Russia’s largest design house but it didn’t quite expect the reaction it received when it posted its latest creation, the Optimus keyboard. The keyboard uses OLED technology so that every key is a stand-alone display showing exactly what it is controlling at that moment. Accordingly, you can switch from language to language, or program to program and the functionality of the key will be reflected in the image it shows. If the response to the company’s web site posting is any indication, the keyboard is already a runaway hit, with 230,000 page views and an average two emails a minute from people wanting the keyboard. In brief, the keyboard is likely to become available in 2006, will be OS-independent and “will cost less than a good mobile phone.” It will be open source (a software developers kit will be available) and companies can OEM the keyboard. Indeed, there may even be an ergonomic version.  Read More

RFID is an important technology for the future and with major purchasers such as the US Department of Defense and America’s largest retailer Walmart mandating the use of RFID by its suppliers, the clock is ticking to embrace the new technology for many suppliers and indeed, for everyone in retail, logistics and supply chain management to assess the technology. This week Baltimore based Barcoding Inc. released several RFID kits that will allow companies to comply with the Wal-Mart mandates as well as investigate the technology for future use in their own supply chain. Currently there are three main reasons why companies are purchasing RFID technology: they are complying with customer mandates, they are evaluating the technology for their own use, or they are preparing for the future. Barcoding Inc. has created three kits, each addressing one of these reasons. There’s also a useful downloadable 10 page overview of RFID.  Read More

The first implantation of robotic arms into a human being is to be performed at the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In a statement issued by the hospital, an agreement was signed during June that will see a team of neuroscientists from Duke University, in the United States, led by Brazilian doctor Miguel Nicolelis, perform the implant in approximately three years time. A microchip implanted into the patient's brain will make it possible to control the prosthetics. Nicolelis has long been regarded as the most-likely to develop the technologies for such a procedure, having recently been named one of the 50 top scientists in the world by Scientific American.  Read More

Now this isn’t a gizmo, but it is a very interesting twist on using new media in a clever new way. Several of America's most talented and intriguing rock and hip hop music artists will perform in a series of free, up-close-and-personal "flash concerts" for fans across America this summer -- but there's only one catch, they're keeping the details secret. Ford Motor Company in collaboration with Sony Pictures Digital have created Fusion Flash Concerts, a series of ten free unannounced-until-the-last-minute concerts performed by hot and emerging music artists in secret locations across the USA. All 10 acts are announced to "Insiders" at the last minute and you can be an insider if you visit the promotion's web site and register all your details. Now Flash Mobbing isn’t new – but using it for commercial ends is a new spin on the anarchic beginnings of the trend. Fusion Flash Concerts is a commercial take on the underground "flash mob" phenomenon. Flash mobs are instant gatherings of large groups of people who are notified via emails or text messages just prior to the event taking place, and simultaneously converge on a set location.  Read More

Personal Video Recorders have not exactly set the world on fire at the rate everyone expected given the public’s acceptance and indeed embrace of the MP3 player. Indeed, one could be excused for wondering why PVR sales are sluggish. Is it the inability of the retailers and manufacturers to communicate the killer functionality, the high pricing of most PVRs or that the general public is having trouble wrapping its collective brain cells around the personal entertainment centre concept, time-shifting ad infinitum. Accordingly, it will be interesting to see how well Archos’ new AV700 fares with its release this week in the company’s home market of France, and availability over the coming fortnight in most foreign markets (United States, United Kingdom and Australia). The AV700’s biggest selling feature is the 18cm (7 inch) wide screen and the 100 Gigabyte drive capable of storing 400 hours of video and/or your entire MP3 collection. It isn't cheap, but you want one .... don't you!  Read More

Nissan Design America (NDA) celebrated 25 years in California this week by unveiling its latest design – a lightweight, aluminium-based trailer designed by Nissan in collaboration with specialist trailer manufacturer Airstream and called the BaseCamp. The Airstream BaseCamp is a micro-light tent-trailer hybrid that blends the convenience of RV travel with the versatility of car camping. The BaseCamp is the first of its kind offering a whole new level of versatility, durability and comfort for the adventurer.  Read More

Honda will introduce a new Honda Hybrid System in the 2006 Civic Hybrid that features a 3-stage i-VTEC engine that employs Honda’s “intelligent” VTEC (Variable Valve Timing and Lift Electronic Control) system to provide three stages of valve timing (low-rpm, high-rpm and cylinder idle mode), combined with a significantly more compact and efficient Honda IMA (Integrated Motor Assist) system. The new Honda Hybrid System will be introduced in the all-new Civic Hybrid, to be launched Q3, and will offer significantly improved performance and fuel economy over the current system. The new Honda Hybrid System employs intelligent engine functions and a more efficient IMA system to achieve an approximate 20 percent increase in system output over the current system and performance similar to a 1.8-liter engine while improving fuel economy by about 5 percent, reducing the system size by 5 percent and significantly improving emissions performance.  Read More