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VTOL Flying-Wing: a new take on UAV design
By Gizmag Team
20:26 January 24, 2010 PST
The age of unmanned aerial vehicles UAVs has well and truly dawned but designers aren't resting on their laurels when it comes to improving the capabilities of these multi-talented aircraft. One innovation that's come to the fore recently is the use of an enclosed four rotor platform (see our recent look at the CyberQuad) which offers a number of advantages including greater stability, agility, hovering ability and a smaller footprint. This unique new design from Britain's VTOL Technologies takes this idea a step further, adding four movable rotors to a single "flying-wing" to create an aircraft that claims to deliver a higher payload capacity for its size and up to four times the endurance of current vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAV designs. Read More
Free turn-by-turn navigation coming to all Nokia smartphones
By Tim Hanlon
03:04 January 21, 2010 PST
Nokia has announced the upcoming release of a new, free version of Ovi Maps for all its smartphones, which includes turn-by-turn voice navigation for 74 countries in 46 languages, real-time traffic updates for 10 countries, and maps for over 180 countries. Read More
The age of the Misa Digital Guitar has dawned
By Paul Ridden
12:29 January 22, 2010 PST
A software engineer based in Sydney, Australia has created a digital guitar controlled by open source software which he hopes will see musicians play electronic music in a live environment. Players control the pitch, speed and volume of notes produced by the Misa Digital Guitar via a 24 'fret' neck and touchscreen interface. Read More
Valentino Rossi becomes the world's hottest property on 2 and 4 wheels
By Gizmag Team
13:09 January 23, 2010 PST
It is interesting to note that the three biggest stories in Formula One right now concern a driver who competed in 2010 but not in 2009 (the Michael Schumacher comeback), a driver who competed in 2009 but not 2010 (Raikkonen loses his drive and goes WRC) and a driver who has never competed in F1 and quite possibly never will – Valentino Rossi. Indeed, Rossi has only ever driven an F1 car six times, but his status as one of motorcycling’s all-time greats and one of the most popular and media-savvy sportspeople of all time make the possibility an incredibly enticing prospect. For Ferrari, Rossi brings a global army of fans and the possibility of a rare Italian driver-car title combination that hasn’t happened since Alberto Ascari in 1953, despite 15 drivers titles and 16 constructors titles for the marque since then. This week Rossi tested in a Ferrari F1 car again, and was so fast that the possibility might now be approaching a probability. Read More
HULC robotic exoskeleton to get fuel-cell Power Supply
By Gizmag Team
02:40 January 21, 2010 PST
HULC, the Lockheed Martin (LM) powered robotic exoskeleton is being extended in its range to support 72+ hour extended missions. LM is working with Protonex Technology Corporation to evaluate and develop fuel cell-based power solutions that can be carried by the HULC, while at the same time powering the exoskeleton and the soldier’s mission equipment during extended dismounted operations. Read More
The fourmidable MINI Countryman – four doors and 4WD
By Gizmag Team
21:04 January 20, 2010 PST
MINI is to add the MINI Countryman to the family. A genuine Crossover, the MINI Countryman bridges the gap between the classic concept of the MINI and a modern Sports Activity Vehicle. The Countryman will be the fourth MINI in the range, first MINI with four doors and a wide-opening rear lid, and it also comes with optional MINI ALL4 all-wheel drive. Fourmidable indeed! Read More
Oregon man thrashes local children in treehouse-building contest
By Loz Blain
21:06 January 20, 2010 PST
Everyone loves a treehouse - they seem to inspire a universal feeling of childlike wonder, and done right they really tickle the old 'living in harmony with nature' glands too. We've covered some beauties over the years here at Gizmag, but this one has to be the grand-daddy of them all. The work of architect Robert Harvey Oshatz, the Wilkinson Residence makes use of a steeply sloped block to put the house's main level right up in the tree canopy. Stunning from every angle, it uses curves and waves to echo the owner's love of the natural landscape with a slightly musical theme. Read More
Genius or lunacy? BMW Oracle Racing team set to wing it for the 2010 America's Cup
By Loz Blain
13:38 January 20, 2010 PST
America's team BMW Oracle Racing (BOR) has taken full advantage of a "wide open" set of design rules for this year's America's Cup to produce one of the most staggering and ambitious vessels ever seen on the water. Throwing out the cloth main sail, team BOR have fitted the BOR 90 with a gargantuan, motorized, solid carbon-fiber wing, nearly twice the size of a Boeing 747 wing at 190ft, or 57 metres tall. The engineering and logistics surrounding this incredible boat are mind-boggling - imagine trying to work out where to store the giant wing structure, how to transport it and how to fix it vertically onto a boat - let alone how to sail the thing - but the benefits of a non-deforming main sail include the potential for the multimillion-dollar trimaran to travel at up to 2.5 times wind speed. It's a crazy, massively expensive and hugely risky experiment that's never even been prototyped, and will only get a few weeks' worth of testing before it races in February. Read More
Lockheed Martin IronClad PC-on-a-Stick secures Desktop and Data for Telecommuters
By Gizmag Team
19:06 January 18, 2010 PST
For most people the name Lockheed Martin relates to missiles, rockets, simulators, robotics, satellites, aircraft and advanced military systems but look up the company’s “about us” page on the global web site, and you’ll see that the 140,000 LM employees who bring in around US$43 billion in revenues each year, see themselves as working for a security company. Which might serve as some degree of confidence that the company’s new IronClad “PC on a stick” USB drive offers military-strength security for their out-of-office computing. The IronClad shrinks a laptop’s hard drive, including the entire operating system, software applications, and files, onto a fully encrypted flash drive - a “PC on a stick” that delivers hardware-level protection against today’s most insidious malware threats, and it costs way less than a Longbow helicopter, a Cassini satellite, Titan rocket or SR-71 Blackbird. Read More
The SEED Project - from unused shipping container to sustainable emergency housing
By Mick Webb
02:20 January 19, 2010 PST
Aside from tragic loss of life and incomprehensible destruction, events like last week’s devastating earthquake in Haiti create a myriad of problems in their wake, not least of which is homelessness. With over 30 million shipping containers the world over currently lying dormant, a team of researchers at Clemson University in South Carolina are working to help solve the issue of accommodation in disaster affected areas by developing a method to convert the unused containers into sustainable emergency housing. Read More
MD80 video camera - unbelievably cheap spy/helmet cam
By Loz Blain
03:10 January 15, 2010 PST
There's not a lot that's particularly remarkable about the MD80 mini spy camera - it's pretty tiny, it records reasonable 640x480 video in AVI format at 25 frames per second, and it can be set to standby for up to 250 hours until it's activated by a sound, making it a good little spy cam unit. It's pretty similar to any number of helmet cam/mini video cam units but for one fact - it costs less than US$25 on eBay, delivered to your door. For the price it's an outstanding product and the sort of thing you could habitually carry around in your car, recording driving conditions for an instant evidence stockpile in case of an accident or incident. And more broadly it's an example of how Chinese design and manufacturing can get a competitive, quality product to market at a price point that absolutely annihilates the competition, to the point where if you're still concerned about quality, you might just as well buy five of the things in case four break. Which they're not doing nearly so much these days. Read More
The highest and lowest depreciating cars of 2009
By Gizmag Team
02:17 January 19, 2010 PST
There’s no question that picking up a new car makes for a very special day, if for no other reason that the value that disappears when you drive your pride and joy off the showroom floor makes it one of the most expensive days of your life. The latest edition of Parker's annual depreciation report surveys 300 model ranges in the UK market, and lists their value in good condition with 10,000 miles on the clock one year later. Accordingly, the depreciation cost of one year for every model can be calculated, and the most and least expensive cars are hereby presented: Read More
Revenge Verde supercar - not just green in color
By Jeff Salton
15:48 January 12, 2010 PST
Not even the recession can slow this supercar. The Revenge Verde is an American-made supercar that its designer believes has great export potential. The car is the result of Revenge's search for American-made supercar components, assembled in America, built for supercar enthusiasts – not just in America. Sourcing the “best from the best” parts helps keeps the price of this beast within reach of many muscle car owners – around US$200,000. Among the mid-engined Verde’s supercar features are three drive chain and power train options, including the Ford 605hp motor, the GM 638hp motor, or an HP2g V8 engine that runs on E-85 ethanol fuel and yet still impresses with its figures: 400hp, 0-60mph in 3.5 seconds, a top speed of 200mph+ while achieving an amazing 100mpg! Read More
Nokia's N900: Potential Unrealized
21:20 January 17, 2010 PST
From the first time we saw Nokia's N900 handheld computer we thought that it would be the ultimate communications device. With a large screen, fast processor, open OS and Firefox based browser, it seemed destined to become one of Nokia's major success stories. This was early September 2009, Nokia was showing off the device at their NokiaWorld conference, along with a new version of their N97 Symbian smartphone, and it looked like the N900 was the flagship product the the N97 SHOULD have been when it came out a few months earlier. We jumped on the bandwagon and were early supporters of the device. Read More
Video: Voice Band iPhone app - stunning multitrack rock band recordings using only your voice
By Loz Blain
22:55 January 14, 2010 PST
The iPhone's application capabilities continue to astound us. We've seen on-the-fly multitrack recording already in our a cappella review of Sonoma's 4Track app, but this one takes it to a whole new level. Voice band is a multitrack recording app that lets you build up the sound of a full band, including guitars, bass, drums, sax, synths and vocals, using only your voice as an input. The demo video after the jump shows just how simple this process is, and how astoundingly good the results are. Amazing stuff. Read More
Future Vehicle Technologies to market eVaro high-performance hybrid
By Ben Coxworth
17:06 January 14, 2010 PST
As the electric/hybrid auto revolution gathers speed, it’s becoming more and more apparent that green vehicles don’t need to be slow. First, of course, came the Tesla Roadster. Then, just this month, Revenge Design Inc unveiled their Verde. Now, or at least not long from now, you can add another green dream to your list: The Future Vehicle Technologies eVaro. The Canadian-made hybrid gets up to 275mpg, has a top speed of 135mph, and can go from 0 to 60 in a butt-clenching five seconds. Read More
World's biggest TV: Panasonic's 4K2K 3D 152-inch Plasma
By Ben Coxworth
14:59 January 11, 2010 PST
If you’re a fan of movies like Poltergeist or Videodrome, in which people get really “immersed” in their television-viewing experiences, then you’ll probably like the latest news from Panasonic - it’s developed the world’s largest full-HD 3D plasma display TV. As presented at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the one-off behemoth sports a 152-inch, 4K x 2K (8.84 million pixel) screen, plus a host of other complicated-sounding technical marvels. Read More
Next-gen video technology lets you look around - inside a movie
By Loz Blain
13:21 January 11, 2010 PST
Now that 3D is finally taking off again at the movie theatre - thanks in large part to James Cameron's evangelism in the leadup to his groundbreaking Avatar film, it's clear that immersive video technologies are big business again. And if the latest 3D stuff doesn't put you in the picture enough, how's this: Immersive Media has adapted the same 360-degree cameras used by Google's Street View cars to shoot video. That means you can actually look around as you watch the video... Which can feel absolutely bizarre, as in the case of the BASE jumping video after the jump. Extraordinary. Read More
Audi e-tron Detroit concept - smaller, lighter, but still wicked
By Jeff Salton
13:45 January 11, 2010 PST
Following on from its wow factor appeal at the Frankfurt motor show last September, the next model e-tron from Audi is aptly called the Detroit show Audi e-tron, and has been unveiled here in ... err, Detroit. Now you’d think it would logically be the same uncompromising purist all-electric sports car from Frankfurt but everything is much more compact with a much shorter wheelbase and gross weight has been cut to 1,350 kg. Two electric motors with a combined output of 150 kW (204 hp) and 2,650 Nm (1954.54 lb-ft) accelerate the coupe with ASF-design aluminum body from 0 to 100 km/h in just 5.9 seconds. Most importantly, the Detroit Audi e-tron has “torque vectoring which enables it to distribute its high torque between the wheels entirely as required for unprecedented levels of active precision and traction. Audi claims the e-tron drives like a go-kart – agile, good on bends and neutral right up to its very high handling limits. Read More
2010 Comoto blurs the boundaries between electric motorcycle and MTB
By Loz Blain
02:31 January 11, 2010 PST
Once you throw out the internal combustion engine and all the bulky bits that go with it, the definition of a motorcycle can suddenly become a lot wider. Take the Comoto from Hirsch Design - it's even smaller than the Zero S bike, and begins to blur the boundaries between motorcycle and mountainbike. Using an electric motor mounted in the rear wheel hub to eliminate the need for a chain drive, the Comoto can do more than 40mph (65kph) and do just over 30 miles (~50km) on a charge under normal riding conditions. Best of all, it weighs just 118 pounds (53kg), making it one of the lightest motorcycles we've seen. Read More
Qualcomm's mirasol display technology brings color and video to eReaders
By Alan Brandon
15:16 January 10, 2010 PST
As eReaders such as the Kindle and the Nook establish themselves with consumers, manufacturers are already looking ahead to the next generation of devices. Moving beyond e-ink, tomorrow’s eReaders will feature color displays and the ability to show video as well. To meet the needs of the most demanding users, eReaders will also need to feature long battery life and displays that are bright enough to read even in direct sunlight. Qualcomm’s Mirasol displays, which will begin shipping this year, address these needs using technology that mimics the coloration of a butterfly’s wings. Read More
Palm presents its new smartphones, the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus
By Ben Coxworth
20:56 January 9, 2010 PST
This week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Palm unveiled its two upcoming Verizon-exclusive smartphones, the Pre Plus and the Pixi Plus. Both phones boast substantial improvements over their present namesakes, and both will utilize Palm’s new webOS developer program, which will allow independent software developers to create and distribute their own apps. Read More
Sanyo Eneloop bike up close and personal at CES 2010
By Gizmag Team
11:31 January 9, 2010 PST
We met with Sanyo's David Cabanban Sanyo at CES 2010 and he was kind enough to speak to us about the recent Sanyo-Panasonic alliance as well as Sanyo's new solar panel that is translucent, allowing it to capture solar energy not only from on top of the panel, but also from light reflected off the ground. David also took us through the finer points of the eneloop bike we first spied in December 2008 and we jumped aboard for a test ride. The bike features impressive power-assisted technology that amplifies the rider's pedaling, making cycling up hills or at speeds of up to 15mph that much easier. Read More
Control your own augmented reality aerial drone? There’s an app for that
By Alan Brandon
21:50 January 6, 2010 PST
New from electronics maker Parrot comes the AR.Drone, a Wi-Fi helicopter with dual cameras and augmented-reality video streaming, that you control using your iPhone or iPod Touch. Although the RC flyer is still in the prototype stage, Parrot has been demonstrating it at the 2010 CES show in Las Vegas. The AR.Drone features four rotors and interchangeable hulls for flying both indoors and outside. Built-in flight stabilization technology keeps the drone steady while you use your iPhone’s motion sensors to steer it remotely over the craft’s Wi-Fi network. Read More
Sony BRAVIA XBR-LX900 leads the 3D charge
By Mick Webb
13:54 January 8, 2010 PST
Showing it means business in its commitment to developing 3D home entertainment, Sony has this week at CES unveiled three new 3D BRAVIA TV series, most notable of which is the behemoth XBR-60LX900. The 60” full HD 1080p Edge LED backlit unit features integrated Wi-Fi and 3D functionality, Motionflow PRO 240Hz technology along with USB and DLNA connectivity Read More
windykites1
- February 9, 2010 @ 19:22 UTC
