Man has made many attempts at bringing the smooth, Mother Nature-powered flow of surfing to dry land. The ARIS Blade Runner and SurfSkate are two of the attempts that have come to our attention most recently, but there are plenty of others. The big sticking point is that you just can't magically transform hot, cracked asphalt into cool, smooth ocean breaks. But you can ride that asphalt with an actual surfboard, as the Waveskate demonstrates beyond the shadow of all doubt.  Read More

We live in an age where people in the developed world are so dependent on electricity that if it wasn't available a whole civilization would collapse in a week. It’s therefore ironic that 1.32 billion people around the world are still without what most people have come to see as a basic necessity. To mark its 100th anniversary, the Panasonic Corporation plans to distribute 100,000 solar lanterns that the company has developed that can not only provide light, but also charge mobile phones and other small devices.  Read More

Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), which lays claim to being the largest shipbuilding company in the world, says it has developed a miniature welding robot that can be easily transported by a worker and affixed to a ship using magnets. The small, portable robot is expected to increase worker productivity two to threefold.  Read More

Tastes in music are such a subjective thing that it’s practically impossible to keep everyone in a crowded environment like a pub or coffee shop happy with the tune selection. Developed by the Mobile Radicals group at the UK’s Lancaster University, the CheckinDJ digital jukebox aims to keep the majority of people happy by using near field communication (NFC) and social networking to poll everyone’s musical tastes.  Read More

In the unpleasantness stakes, dropping your smartphone in a bucket or water is right up there with bread landing butter-side down – only much more expensive. Sony has unveiled its Xperia ZR that, if it lives up to expectations, will mean you’ll not only be able to drop it in the pond, but take high-definition videos while doing so.  Read More

There have been years of controversy about whether the superconducting quantum annealing computers manufactured by D-Wave are a) quantum computers; and b) fast enough for a) to matter. Now a test of the 512-qubit Vesuvius chip establishes at least that computing based on quantum annealing is, in the words of a computer science professor at Amherst College, "in some cases, really, really fast."  Read More

California-based engineer Faizal Ali was riding his motorcycle on a San Diego freeway one day and downshifted in order to slow for an exit. Because he didn’t actually apply the brakes, however, his brake light didn’t come on. As a result, the following car almost ran into him. That experience prompted him to partner with Jesse Szynal and designer Fausin Mdisa to create Vololights – it’s a rear lighting system that activates no matter what method the rider is using to decelerate.  Read More

Controversial – that's about the nicest way we can describe Lamborghini's 50th anniversary efforts on the concept car front. Just two months after showing the Veneno – arguably the most extreme(ly ugly) concept in its history – Lamborghini pushes the boundaries even further. The surprise Egoista concept is even more out there in design.  Read More

Back in 2009, the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) set an endurance record for electric unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) when its fuel cell-powered Ion Tiger aircraft managed to stay aloft for 26 hours and 1 minute. Now, NRL has announced that the same aircraft has trounced that record, by remaining in flight for 48 hours and 1 minute.  Read More