Miniature

Ever wanted a life-like miniature of yourself or loved ones? Now's your chance, thanks to Omote 3D, which will soon be opening what's described as the world's first 3D printing photo booth in Harajuku, Japan. There, visitors will have their bodies scanned into a computer, a process which takes about 15 minutes. Then the company prints your statuette on their 3D color printer in one of three sizes.  Read More

A hobby is what you do with the rest of your time. It tends to feed a deep-seated need of which you may not even be aware - to be your best self. Some people golf, some swim, some quilt, some travel, some climb mountains ... there's no end to the list. Then there's Szymon Klimek, who makes some of the most incredible miniature electromechanical sculptures imaginable.  Read More

It fits on the head of a pin, has no lens or moving parts, can be made for just a few cents, and yet it can take a photo of the Mona Lisa in which she’s actually sort of recognizable ... it’s called the Planar Fourier Capture Array (PFCA), and it’s a tiny camera developed at New York’s Cornell University. Although you might choose not to use it for photographing your child’s birthday party, it could come in quite handy in the fields of science and technology.  Read More

If someone had suggested 20 years ago that a fully working computer with up to 1GHz of processing power would fit on a board the size of a SODIMM memory module (2.66 x 1.44 x 0.2 inches), some lighthearted mockery may have followed. Yet embedded hardware specialist Toradex is about to do just that with its new Tegra T20, a teeny computer module based on NVIDIA's latest Cortex A9 processor that offers full high definition video support, 256MB of onboard memory and a gigabyte of Flash storage.  Read More

If you’re into R/C vehicles, there’s just the slightest chance that you might be interested in a power train that runs three to four times longer than regular battery-only systems, and that requires nothing but sunlight and water to recharge. It also educates people on what will likely be the power system of choice for future real-size automobiles... and oh yes, it looks dead sexy, in a Doc-Brown’s-Delorean-flux-capacitor kinda way. Without any further ado, please open your wallets for H-Cell 2.0, the latest miniature hydrogen fuel cell hybrid drive train from Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies.  Read More

Not unlike the Mini-digi which we covered a few weeks back, the Chobi Cam from Japan Trust Technologies gives you the power to shoot photos and videos using a device no bigger than an eraser. Even smaller than the Mini-Digi (2.5 x 1.8 x 1.2 inches), the Chobi Cam measures a miniscule 1.7 x 1.1 x 0.5 inches and weighs only half an ounce.  Read More

Have you ever wanted to create your own little planet? Do you like aquatic life, but think that aquariums are too much work? If your answer to either of those two questions is Yes, then you might quite enjoy owning a miniature closed aquatic ecosystem. All you need is a credit card, or a clear glass jar, some stuff from a pond, and an appreciation for things that exist on a small scale. The result will be a self-sustained miniature world that doesn’t need feeding, filtration, or anything other than light, from the outside world.  Read More

You’d think there’d be nothing new in the world to discover, but Mother Nature still has a few surprises up her sleeve. According to a new report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), scientists have discovered 353 new species in the eastern Himalayas over the past decade. They include a ‘flying frog’ that glides using long webbed feet, fossil evidence of a 100 million-year-old gecko, and the world’s shortest deer which, when fully grown, stands just 20 inches tall.  Read More