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Media Platforms Design TeamNo one working under deadline wants a power failure to blow the air conditioning, providing yet one more reason to break into a sweat. That’s why engineers funded by the California Energy Commission have developed a method of “precooling” small office buildings to reduce energy consumption at peak hours.The method works by running air conditioning at cooler-than-normal settings in the morning and then raising the thermostat to warmer-than-normal settings in the afternoon, when energy consumption escalates during hot summer months....

Media Platforms Design TeamHow did you prepare for this?We’ve been working with Brendan for a few years. As we waited for a donor, we kept planning his surgery. Every time we would come up with a plan, all the surgeons would get together and practice on cadavers. Brendan’s operation was probably the fifth version of the original plan we had.How do you practice for an arm transplanthaving two cadavers and moving the arms from one to the other?...

The web browser war between Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 (released last week) and Mozilla’s Firefox 2.0 (officially released yesterday) shouldn’t really be much of a fight as far as their users are concerned. The two programs are free, you can use one or the other—or both—and you can get them whenever you want. There’s no need to draw a line in the virtual sand and choose. I downloaded both and ran through some of the new and improved features on a Windows-based computer....

DETROIT – The last automotive press conference of the second day of the Detroit show was one of the most heavily attended. The subject: Changfeng Group Co., Ltd. Yes, another Chinese automaker making a major announcement in Detroit—the second in as many years. Only this one wasn’t held in the hallway near the exit onto Jefferson Avenue. This was held on the same stage that held the opening ceremony, the North American Car and Truck of the Year Awards and Porsche’s press conference....

Media Platforms Design Team(Illustration by Brown Bird Design)The bench grinder is the undergraduate philosophy major of the workshop: a machine that’s obvious, abrasive, and designed to grind every item it encounters to an attenuated shell of its former self.Depending on which wheel you add, a bench grinder can shape, sharpen, buff, polish, or clean just about any metal object. To use one, attach the coarsest wheel that works for your job—36-grit can sharpen most gardening tools; 60-grit is better for chisels and plane irons....

View full post on YoutubeA slew of new cars and concepts have been unveiled at this year’s North American International Auto Show (including the undisputed Belle of the Ball, the 2014 Corvette Stingray), but one sheetmetal-free press conference offered a different angle on the automotive biz.The One Club, a non-profit group, says it “exists to champion and promote excellence in advertising and design in all its forms,” unveiling a list of what they call the Top 10 Automotive Commercials of the Past 25 Years....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe air brake protects against a runaway train like the one that barreled through the small town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, on Saturday and derailed, its cargo of crude oil from North Dakota bursting into flames and engulfing the community’s downtown in an inferno that killed at least 15 people. In the immediate aftermath many are asking how the train’s air brakes could have failed so disastrously. But how do they work, anyway?...

These robots grow up so fast. It was just two years ago that personnel at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. escorted PopMech through the lab, describing how they were making the X-47B jet fighter-sized drone ready to take off and land from a carrier. Today, the unmanned naval demonstration aircraft launched from the deck of George H.W. Bush, zipped around the carrier a few times, and flew itself back to Pax River....

As the six-week build portionof the 2010 FIRST Robotics competition comes to an end, teams hope they’ve constructed just the right sort of robot to withstand an intense soccer-playing showdown. After last year’s Lunacy game, in which robots threw “moon rocks” into trailers, this year’s Breakaway game offers new hurdles for students (and their bots). PM spoke with teams from schools across the country to learn what strategies will be key at regionals, and at the FIRST championship in mid-April....

Media Platforms Design TeamMontreal—This European-flavored North American city made an appropriate setting for our first drive of the Mazda Mazda2, a car aimed at small-car buyers in densely populated urban centers. In other words, people concerned with fuel economy. With gasoline prices roughly twice those in the U.S., the province of Quebec is a hotbed of efficient small cars. And its populace embraces Mazda’s “zoom-zoom” credo with a passion—while the company’s U....

Disposable products increase your carbon footprint. Why is that? It takes energy to make any material. If it’s plastic it takes energy to pull oil out of the ground; if it’s aluminum it takes energy to mine bauxite. Then those materials require processing, and as products they have to be shipped. It’s that embodied energy that should motivate us to make things more beautiful and keep them longer.How will that affect the way we go about making things?...

The Air Force’s launch of a hypersonic glider, the heart of a global strike missile that could hit any target within an hour or two, was lost just minutes into its test flight. A Minotaur 4 rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base last Thursday. The plan was to have the hypersonic glider carried to the upper atmosphere, separate from its booster and glide across the Pacific at 13,000 mph. But all transmissions were lost 9 minutes into the flight....

Media Platforms Design TeamFrom the department of really bad ideas: Apple’s iPhone app store approved and posted for sale “Baby Shaker,” a 99-cent app from Sikalosoft that encourages users to silence a screaming on-screen infant by shaking the phone and, thus, the infant, whereupon red Xs appear over the child’s eyes. The ensuing uproar from children’s advocacy groups, including the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome, was swift, hardly surprising and totally justifiable....

Net neutrality worries got you thinking about your home internet? The bad news is that adjusting a router is brutal. Navigating the drop-down menus is like trying to build a website in the early 2000s. But powering through and correctly tweaking a few settings can make your Wi-Fi work much better — or at least get the speed closer to the number for which you’re paying. Here’s how to get the most out of your router—and how to deal with signal interference from other residents and businesses that can gum up your connection....

Media Platforms Design TeamThat was quick. Sure, Toshiba was fighting what seemed like an uphill battle from the start, outmanned and out-muscled by Sony’s Blu-ray team, which always had more studio and manufacturer support. But just about everybody expected this war to drag out longer.Today, not two years after the first HD DVD product went on sale, this format joins the Betamaxes, MiniDiscs, and UMDs of years’ past in format heaven....

Media Platforms Design TeamCABOT, Vt.— Cloudy, windy and warm: Normally, that’s not a good recipe for our systems—the solar-photovoltaic and hot-water panels need sun, the electricity-free cold box needs cold—but at least with our Whisper 100 turbine, we’re making power. In fact, we awoke to fully charged batteries. As an energy obsessive, one of my favorite websites is The Oil Drum. It’s an open-forum website; anyone can post, though it tends to geeky engineer types (I mean that to be a compliment)....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe first week with a new car is usually accompanied by a break-in period. The dealer will tell you to vary the engine rpm and, of course, never take that freshly built motor all the way up to redline. Rental cars, on the other hand, don’t get the same respect. No matter the mileage, you drive a weekend loner hard. After all, it’ll be off your hands in a couple of days, so why worry?...

We have libraries because the Ancient Greeks believed that making the collected wisdom of mankind available to all was good for society. Know what else is good for society? Building stuff. So consider the West Philly Tool Library a key to humankind’s shared history of know-how: a warehouse of 4,200 tools—hammers, screwdrivers, lawn mowers, rakes, drywall lifts, miniature concrete mixers—that visitors can take home without buying.Located in an economically diverse neighborhood known for its affordable stock of Victorian-era row homes that seem to be in constant need of repair, the library has attracted borrowers of all socioeconomic statuses since opening in 2007....

At Microsoft’s big Windows 10 event in January, the Hololens stole the show. But lurking in the background the whole time was a giant touchscreen device, the kind Microsoft has long had a fondness for but hasn’t highlighted in years. It was the Surface Hub.The Hub is equal parts impressive and mundane. On the one hand, it’s enormous—84 inches is a lot of screen at a distance, and even more when you’re standing right in front of it....

View full post on YoutubeMIT’s Game Lab released the prototype for A Slower Speed of Light, where the player can fiddle with Einstein’s groundbreaking theories and see what happens to the world.You play a little girl in a red riding hood cloak—recently deceased, poor thing. You’re in a purgatory land of ghostly figures and huge mushrooms. To escape purgatory you must become “one with the light.” Of course, the speed of light is just too fast for you—to catch up with it you’ll need to collect 100 orbs, and as you collect each orb, the speed of light gets slower and slower until it’s almost equal to walking speed....