Tune in next week as we conduct our next West Coast road test with the Honda Fit, Kia Rio, Nissan Versa and Toyota Yaris. These are all recently introduced new models and collectively referred to in the auto biz as B-segment cars. That means they’re not the most lusted-after in terms of luxury and panache, but their sub-$15K price tags make them the rides that normal working folk–particularly first-time buyers–can actually afford....
Media Platforms Design TeamIf you’re parked somewhere with your lights and radio on, it’s a good idea to restart the engine before you run down the battery. But if your vehicle is an armored tank, and you’re sitting in “silent watch” mode in hostile territory, you really don’t want to give away your position in order to power communications and monitoring equipment.The solution may be a new, whisper-silent fuel-cell power supply that runs on the standard-issue military logistic fuel, JP-8—a kerosene-based propellant used to operate everything from field stoves to tanks and jets....
Media Platforms Design TeamIn robotics, it seems that cockroaches are all the rage. You can inject nanobots into a cockroach. Real cockroaches have been turned into remotely controlled cyborgs. They’ve even been emulated as robots and then turned into tiny aircraft carriers. Here’s the newest creepy crawler: a robot cockroach that scurries through obstacles, using only its shape—instead of a wide range of sensors—to move. As it scurries along, the roach-bot uses an oval-shaped shell to move through a variety of lab-built obstacles....
Update: 3:15pm: Miss it the first time around? Want to relive Apple’s new debuts? Watch the full March event again here.Update, March 9, 2:45pm: For more on today’s event, dig into our big roundup post on all the news and announcements.Update, March 9: The big event today, at which Apple will reportedly reveal the official Apple Watch and probably a new small laptop, starts at 1 PM Eastern / 10 AM Pacific....
Media Platforms Design TeamPrice: $190Forty years ago, the folks at Timberland crafted a sturdy, waterproof, comfortable yellow boot and burned their tree logo into its side. Detractors warned them against the logo, saying it might damage the leather, and that no one would want to buy it. Four decades later, it’s safe to say those detractors were wrong. The classic yellow boot has, over the years, gained an international following, a set of famous fans, and become the kind of shoe you can wear on site or just to be seen—a rare combination....
Media Platforms Design TeamThe Talimena Scenic Drive runs for 54 miles across the highest peaks in the Ouachita National Forest, passing through two states, Arkansas and Oklahoma, and a series of mountain vistas, historic sites and recreational areas. Fall is the perfect time to tour this scenic byway as trees shed their summer green for the reds, oranges, and yellows of fall. It takes about two hours to drive straight through with a few stops....
Media Platforms Design TeamDirector Jonathan Mostow with a surrogate used in the film to show buyers the mechanics of their potential proxies.When robot stand-ins populate the world in a movie—as they do in Touchstone Picture’s Surrogates, out Sept. 25—every character in the frame has to look perfect. And that turned into a headache for director Jonathan Mostow. “Usually you hire background actors off the street,” he says. “We were flying in models....
Media Platforms Design TeamTrail maintainers have an intimate relationship with the earth–they know which brush could cause a fire, how a rain will wash over a path, where erosion will form and the differences in dormant and diseased trees. It’s a given, then, that trail bosses know their leaves. For the most part, they want leaves to cover and rot–they’re good for the soil and for next year’s growth. But everyone has spouses, neighbors and guests who like neat yards....
Swedish researchers have made a fully functional artificial neuron, one that can communicate with flesh-and-blood neurons seamlessly. The neuron, built by a team at the Karolinska Institutet, picks up chemical signals from organic neurons, converts them into electrical signals, and retransmits them as chemical at the other end. It could lead the way to new brain therapies to help people with neurological damage regain brain function. There’s one big problem the device must overcome before it can propel us further into cybernetic frontiers, and that is size....
Media Platforms Design TeamYou’ve probably wanted to ride along with SpaceX for a while, but the crew-carrying version of the Dragon spacecraft isn’t quite here yet. Well here’s the next best thing. Sort of. It’s a video shot during the Dragon’s Pad Abort Test by a camera attached to the ship.The test, which SpaceX performed back on May 6, is designed to prove that the human occupants of a spacecraft could escape in the event of a disaster during launch....
This furniture is no work of high-tech design. Nor is it witchcraft, though your eyes might tell you otherwise. Instead, this is simply the work of an amazingly skilled carpenter.Using dovetails and other old-fashioned woodcuts, Sebastian Errazuriz makes furniture that seems fresh, new, and even a bit on this side of living and breathing. In short, the work is amazingly modern but is made with old techniques. The Wave Cabinet utilizes precisely cu and jointed birch pieces to create a functional, transforming piece of furniture that unfolds in uncanny ways....
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/v/bmwB8uR4Bc4?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0[/youtube]When we last left the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers, its members had just devised and demonstrated the world’s most complicated Rube Goldberg machine, which retold history since the big bang over the course of 244 steps. This weekend, at the 2012 Rube Goldberg Machine Contest, the Boilermakers broke their own record with a 300-step contraption, seen here.St. Olaf College from Minnesota actually won this weekend’s competition with the 191-step Rube Goldberg machine that its team built, because the Purdue machine needed a human intervention or two to get through its 300 steps....
This is my 1985 Pontiac Firebird. It orginally had a V6 engine, but I replaced it with a self-built, high-performance 1974 Chevy 350 V8 that cranks out 320 hp. I designed this engine for the street, using a Competition Cams camshaft with 218 duration at .05 inch lift, 110 lobe separation and .484-inch valve lift using 1.6:1 ratio roller rockers. The engine also has an Edelbrock aluminum dual plane intake manifold, Holley 4010 600-cfm carburetor with vacuum secondaries, 1-5/8-inch headers, Mallory electronic distributor, double-roller timing chain, aluminum gear reduction pulley and much more....
Media Platforms Design TeamGeorge Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984 is no stranger to the screen, big or small. And it may be coming back: The latest buzz is that The Bourne Supremacy and Captain Phillips director Paul Greengrass is plotting his own take on Big Brother.In the original novel, a man named Winston Smith plugs away, working for a future totalitarian government. Smith rewrites history as part of his job, but longs to rebel against the powers-that-be; he winds up falling in love with a woman and running afoul of the government....
Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design TeamFINAL REPORT - August 2010Media Platforms Design Team(Photograph by Brad Dececco)Our Audi wagon departs for an unnamed Audi exec who personally asked for this car. It’s easy to see why. The A4 Avant was the hottest vehicle around here and was typically booked two months in advance. It traveled more than 25,000 miles in a year. Logbook entries from appreciative drivers mentioned the car’s long legs on extended freeway trips (it ventured as far as Miami and Boston), as well as its capacious interior storage and oh-so-comfortable seats....
Media Platforms Design TeamSmall-scale, hand-cranked generators that power lights and radios are practical in places where there’s no electricity. But they’re not a whole lot of fun. Four undergraduate students at Harvard University decided to harvest the kinetic energy of soccer, the world’s most popular sport, instead. After just 15 minutes of play, their sOccket ball could provide families in sub-Saharan Africa—where less than 25 percent of the population has access to reliable electricity—with 3 hours of LED light, a clean, efficient alternative to kerosene lamps....
LOS ANGELES — Ford unveiled a completely restyled Escape model for 2008 here at the L.A. Auto Show, nearly a month after we spied on it for PopularMechanics.com. The exterior panels are all new, and the passenger cabin has several new features as well. Ford’s goal in designing the new model was “to make Escape look even tougher and stronger,” according to chief designer Doyle Letson. “We raised the beltline to give a strong, modern proportion of sheetmetal to glass....
Media Platforms Design TeamWhat is Child of Lights origin story and can you describe some of the early days of its development?In July 2012, I earned the chance to make a pitch. I was interested in the games they were making at [Ubisoft] Montpellier for example, like From Dust and Rayman and I was really inspired by the indie movementgames like Journey and Limbo. After six or seven triple-As its like, Ok, I know how to make this type of game....
MORE FIREFIGHTING SCIENCE NEWS* EXPERTS: Inside the Physics of Combustible Dust ExplosionsGreg Long has seen his share of disasters. The chief of the Port Wentworth, Ga., fire department is a U.S. Army veteran, former police officer, certified arson investigator and emergency medic. But nothing in his professional background prepared him for the inferno he faced at the Imperial Sugar refinery. “I’ve seen plane crashes, auto accidents, pileups, violent crime,” he says....
The best way to test a robot’s balance is to taunt it like you’re a schoolyard bully. At least, that’s what scientists do in this video of the ATRIAS robot, built by Oregon State University.The bipedal bot was designed to study locomotion, and a big part of the research involves teaching machines how to balance. There’s no better way to test robot balance than by throwing dodgeballs at it repeatedly to see whether it will fall over....
