Australia

There’s probably a lot of people out there who would ride their bike to work, but... there’s nowhere to park it outside, they’re not allowed to bring it inside, their workplace doesn’t have a shower, and/or there’s nowhere to leave their riding clothes during the day. Any of that sound familiar? Penny Farthing, an Australian company that specializes in bicycle parking solutions, is attempting to address all of those problems with something they call the Green Pod.  Read More

If you spent last weekend camping at the beach or in the desert dunes, chances are you'll be spending a good chunk of next weekend removing sand from tents, sleeping bags and pretty much every bit of gear you own. Take it from someone who did go camping last weekend - you just can't seem to get rid of the stuff. One solution would be to avoid bringing so much sand back in the first place, and the CGear Multimat provides a clever way to help you do just that. Its dual-layer design creates a one-way-street for sand, dirt and dust, so particles fall through from above, but don't come back-up through the mat. The result - a clean area to plonk your chair on or spread in front of your tent to help keep sand at bay.  Read More

Swimwear fashion has progressed steadily over the past 100 or so years (if you discount Borat’s mankini). Design has moved from neck-to-knees woolen garments that women were encouraged to bathe in at the beach, to men’s Speedos, to skimpy Brazilian thongs, to Daniel Craig’s James Bond swimmer boxer trunks, to full body racing ‘buoyancy’ suits for Olympians. Who could forget screen sirens Esther Williams, Jane Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe posing in their swimsuits? To celebrate Australia’s contribution to the swimwear industry – in design and materials – a comprehensive exhibition titled "Exposed! The story of swimwear" is traversing that country, appearing at State museums.  Read More

If one rotor is good, four must be better. That’s the general idea behind the CyberQuad, a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from Cyber Technology. The CyberQuad is an electric, remote-controlled reconnaissance platform that features four ducted rotors to provide lift and maneuverability, allowing the remote-control UAV to be used in urban and enclosed environments. The four rotors give the CyberQuad the payload capacity and stability of a helicopter-type UAV, while the ducted design avoids the dangers associated with exposed propellers.  Read More

"Two-in-one" products generally mean there's a compromise. A desktop replacement laptop is great until you've lugged its weighty frame through five airports in two weeks, a road-trail motorcycle is fine until you hit a really snarly stretch of dirt, and a keyboard that becomes a mouse when you turn it upside down, well, lets not even go there. So when Toyota introduced its new Prado Landcruiser mid-size 4WD as a "best of both worlds" solution for both the highway and the rough stuff I was a little skeptical. But after taking on all types of terrain - including, open roads, tight forest trails and a formidable purpose built 4x4 track - I may just have been convinced otherwise. The vehicle's versatile performance owes particular thanks to a sophisticated new suspension system and electronics suite, and although there's no point pretending that it can be a sports coupe one minute and a monster truck the next, as a two-in-one auto solution the fourth-gen Prado comes very, very close.  Read More

Scientists at the University of Adelaide, Australia, have put the squeeze on light. By discovering that light within optical fibers can be squeezed into much tighter spaces than was previously believed possible, the researchers at the University's Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS) have claimed a breakthrough that could change the world's thinking on light’s capabilities, especially when it comes to its use in telecommunications, such as fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), computing and other light sources.  Read More

In a world first, an international research team based in Melbourne, Australia, has developed a way to boost the output of the next generation of solar cells by creating a more efficient dye that makes dye-sensitive solar cells (DSSC) perform better than previous versions.  Read More

It's almost as good as going to school in a treehouse. The recently opened Elleray Preparatory School in the Lake District National Park has three class pods standing on stilts connected by a center platform made from recycled materials, such as plastic milk bottles and wood shavings. Nestled amongst the trees, the complex is built to have a low environmental impact and therefore makes excellent use of solar power, rainwater collection, and has an energy-efficient heat pump.  Read More

A futuristic adaptable living building called “Fluid – Amphibian Pavilion” has been proposed by architects Peddle Thorp as an exhibition center for the World Expo 2012 to be held in Yeosu, Korea. Apart from its unique design, the building has a low impact on the environment because, when the Expo finishes, this floating exhibition space can be “unhooked” and sailed away to its next location.  Read More