Trekkie of the world, rejoice! Transparent aluminum is moving ever closer to real, viable products. Under heat and pressure, aluminum oxynitride powder is fused into a clear (after polishing) material that proves more bullet resistant than laminate glass (a 1.6″ thick panel performed better than a 3.7″ piece of laminate glass). And impresses your friends. Current applications are high-priced bullet-resistant windows, battlefield optics, etc.
(via ohgizmo)
With all the hype about hybrid vehicles these days, people tend to forget about efficient gas and especially diesel cars. VW is the leader in this with their TDI diesel, and just recently John and Helen Taylor set a new record for the longest distance driven on one tank of diesel – 1626 miles! That averages to 84.1mpg in a STOCK 2012 VW Passat (the official EPA rating for this car is 43mpg…so much of this gain was due to driving technique no doubt). No modifications, zilch. They even included 120lbs of luggage to make it a realistic road trip. With this sort of gas mileage in a mid-size German sedan, hybrids don’t look nearly as impressive.
Full press release after the break.
(via Autoblog)
The Disney research lab in Pittsburgh released a cool demo video showing how any surface can be converted into a touch sensor. One of the coolest applications would be to use your skin to control an iPhone. Your body becomes the buttons…touch your palm with one finger for one action, two fingers for something different, touch the wrist for another action, you get the idea. Exciting possibilities here, check out the video:
If you’re more the DIY type, check out the video below that shows someone making their own version of this touch sensor. You can find instructions and details here.
(via Hack a Day)
Here’s a quick TED video that shows how you can effectively dry your hands using only a single paper towel. Remember, every little bit counts! If enough people did this, we could save literally hundreds of millions of pounds of paper each year (plus all the energy that goes into producing and transporting that paper).
I have mixed feelings about this one. PlanetSolar is less than one day from completing a circumnavigation using a boat powered only by the sun; it’s taken them about 600 days to do this. I’m not quite sure what they’re trying to prove here. If you want to go ‘green’ on your trip around the world, solar just can’t compete with wind. Sailboats are a proven ‘green’ technology that are faster and can go more places in the world’s oceans (PlanetSolar is limited more to the equatorial regions where the sun’s more direct rays result in more powered gathered by the solar panels). Likewise, storms pose little challenge for sailboats but the cloud cover hurts the performance of PlanetSolar. Yes, solar is useful even on sailboats for powering shipboard electronics, but when it comes to propulsion, the abundant wind on the oceans is a fantastic, proven resource.
A solar boat? I don’t get it. Hoist the mainsail, matey.
I came across a great new project management tool in this article over at Fast Company. It’s called Asana, and has some really cool features to provide task management and email functionality for teams collaborating on projects. Or rather, it’s not email based, but allows for conversations on tasks in much the way that people use email for, but with a lot more functionality regarding the task itself. It works well and is a great way to collaborate both with local and remote project teams. Check it out!
Lots of cool tech ideas first make their appearance in sci-fi movies, but really…sharks with freakin laser beams attached to their heads? Ridiculous idea, but yeah, it’s still cool. Even if it was a bit of a publicity stunt for Wicked Lasers.
Read all about it over at Wired.
Technology doesn’t so much change our lives, as much as our lives change as technology changes. In many countries, it’s an integral part of what we are today. This graphic from frugaldad.com does a nice job of showing some of the areas where new technologies are replacing the old (‘disruptive’ technology). For example, smartphones and tablets are making the traditional desktop PC obsolete.
It’s worth noting though, that while this technological evolution continues, the majority of the world is left out of much of it, though at the same time, the rapid evolution of technology allows others to leapfrog the first-world countries. Cell phones are a good example, where third-world telephone infrastructure is so sparsely deployed and unreliable that more people own cell phones than traditional land lines. Or in India, where solar is favored over coal. People in first-world countries can ride the wave of technological progress, while much of the world ends up on a different path, skipping ahead once technologies have reached certain price/performance points.
The infographic is pretty big, so check it out after the ‘more’ link.
I’ve always loved this video…it explains how automotive differentials work (and why they’re needed). It’s a seldom appreciated, little understood, but extremely critical part that you’ll find in any modern car or truck. Good video for kids too!
This is a pretty clever cable management solution for desks and entertainment centers, called Cablox.
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