LAS VEGAS — Quite some time ago, I wrote about the comfy-chair revolution, but things are really escalating. And I like it. This is the Sanyo Zero-Gravity Massage Chair. If you’re familiar with the zero-gravity chair, this puts you in the same on-your-back posture, but adds massage. It has thumb-shaped rollers, a “stiffness detection sensor” that is supposed to find the tense parts of your anatomy, and it even adds a foot massage....
Media Platforms Design TeamOwners of the dirigible Lips prepare for a summer flight over the Vermont countryside. An inflated rudder juts to the left. (Photograph by Gina Levay)A heap of ripstop nylon, damp with dew, stretches 132 ft. across a farmer’s hayfield near Amherst in western Massachusetts. The predawn air is humid, still and cool–“Perfect weather for this kind of thing,” says one of the volunteers bustling around the lumpy shape....
Unprecedented spring flooding from Iowa to Illinois has forced thousands from their homes, led to millions in damage and doesn’t show signs of stopping for days–if not weeks. After storms in Missouri already sent the Mississippi River’s crest to deadly levels earlier this year, Congress and scientists alike are racing for answers. Some have compared this year’s Midwestern wipeout to the catastrophic and deadly Great Flood of 1993, a supposedly once-in-a-lifetime event....
Brilliant ideas don’t come along very often in the world of hand tools, when classic designs have stayed largely the same for decades. But when the adjustable length screwdriver crossed my desk the other day, I had to marvel at the ingenuity of its design. It’s a product of Klein Tools, a manufacturer founded in 1857 and best known for making tools for electricians and linesmen.The screwdriver has a unique locking collar....
April 20 was a triumphant evening for British Petroleum and the crew of Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon. Floating 52 miles off the coast of Louisiana in 5000 feet of water, the oil rig was close to completing a well 13,000 feet beneath the ocean floor—an operation so complex it’s often compared to flying to the moon. Now, after 74 days of drilling, BP was preparing to cap the Macondo Prospect well until a production rig was brought in to start harvesting oil and gas....
THORNEY ISLAND, England—The movie, The World’s Fastest Indian debuted on British television over Christmas. Members of the British Steam Car team probably nodded with empathy at their flat screens as they saw the challenges surmounted by Bonneville record setter Burt Munro in the early 1960s. Last year was supposed to be the year when the team’s sleek, green steam machine broke one of the longest-held speed records at Bonneville. Fred Marriott, who hit 121....
No amount of innovation will change the fact that prisons are unhappy places. But the constant threat of violence is an unintended consequence of gathering thousands of criminals in the same facility. Add an economic incentive of contraband sales and the intrusions needed to halt them, and the stage is set for explosive violence. The total inmate population of state, federal and local lockup stands at 2.3 million, and developing equipment to safely govern this incarcerated population has become a boom industry....
Media Platforms Design TeamAs I’m writing this in the Popular Mechanics offices in New York City, I’m looking out the front window of my home in Connecticut. There’s no one there right now, but only a few minutes ago, I got an alert from the security camera I’ve got suction-cupped to the inside of the glass. In fact, every day I get an alert around 4 pm; that’s generally when the mailman comes for his daily drop-off....
The key to this project is a sturdy design that’s fast and simple to build. We were disappointed by our first few attempts to fasten the footrest. A 1/16-inch heavy steel bracket bent the moment we put any weight on it. Bolts and screws were stronger, but they either gave off disturbing creaking noises or loosened as we walked on them. It wasn’t until we got to the current design, which has no through holes to drill or angled support brackets to cut, that we were satisfied with the footrests....
Media Platforms Design TeamHere’s a good one:How many lightbulbs does it take to replace a lightbulb?Media Platforms Design TeamThree: a halogen, a CFL, and an LED.(Rimshot.)Don’t get it? You will on Jan. 1, 2014. That’s when manufacturers will stop producing 60-watt and 40-watt incandescent lightbulbs to comply with a mandate signed by a bipartisan Congress and President George W. Bush in 2007. (100-watt and 75-watt bulbs have already been phased out)....
If you have an iPhone that’s slow and buggy, with a short battery life, there’s a trick to fix it. The catch: It sounds terrifying. But it’s worth it.Most phone slowness issues come from software that’s gummed up the phone like rust on a bicycle chain. Even if you update regularly, earlier versions of apps can still cause problems by leaving invisible advertisements and making changes to the operating system that cause it to run inefficiently....
Media Platforms Design TeamTry as they may with the fanboy sites and speculation, most geeks eager for a sneak peek at future iPod functionality have to wait for a Steve Jobs keynote address. But we just look to the unheralded designers over at Archos. Years before Apple developed video playback, touchscreen functionality or Wi-Fi for its iPods, Archos was feeding these features to early adopters. So as lovers of the newest on-the-go interfaces, we’re big fans of Archos’ large-screen, Wi-Fi-enabled media players....
In this impressive display of mechanical engineering, Japan’s new Type 10 main battle tank recently demonstrated its ability to change stances and even rotate the hull while balancing two glasses of wine on the tank’s gun.The Type 10’s hydro-pneumatic active suspension allows it to raise and lower the tank’s chassis. Like a low-rider car, the tank can raise its front end, rear end, or even raise the left or right sides....
Media Platforms Design Team DETROIT— If there’s one thing that Mini has proven, it’s that small premium cars can be successful in this country. While many, if not all automakers, took a beating in 2008, Mini sales were actually up. Well Lincoln obviously hasn’t missed that particular piece of news. The new Lincoln C Concept is based on the company’s C architecture (European Ford Focus, Volvo S40, Mazda3). However Lincoln says this car is nearly 2 inches wider so it provides as much interior room as a 1961 Lincoln Continental at almost half the length....
Media Platforms Design Team FRANKFURT—When Americans think of Baby Benzes, images of the C-Class usually come to mind. It’s the midsize sedan that—save the Smart Car—is the smallest Mercedes you can get in the U.S. But across the Atlantic, Benzes come in even tinier A-Class and B-Class models, in order to satisfy the population’s appetite for ultracompact, fuel-efficient vehicles. With no fewer than seven engine options, three transmission choices and two body styles to choose from, the A-Class you can’t get in the U....
Media Platforms Design TeamGesture-controlled gaming is the buzzword of E3 this year. As you might have heard in the market for feet-up, full-body gaming. What you might not know is that there’s another company also entering the fray: Softkinetic., Sony and Microsoft are now joining NintendoLike Microsoft’s forthcoming Kinect interface, the Softkinetic iisu system uses depth-perceiving cameras to free users from any sort of physical controller. An Optricam camera emits infrared light to the surrounding environment, and then re-collects the light after it is reflected back by people and objects in the playing area....
NASA has put the brakes on the Curiosity rover momentarily to investigate a short circuit, trying to assess if it was a fluke or a potentially damaging mechanical failure.The rover short-circuited on February 27 while moving a soil sample to its instruments. Engineers are now analyzing the entire system, checking to see whether it’s safe to still use the arm. A minor short circuit would make little difference to the system, but if the damage is extensive enough, the arm could be rendered unusable and the rover’s ability to take samples would be hobbled....
Media Platforms Design TeamThis week we’ll take you behind the scenes of Popular Mechanics’ 2006 Breakthrough Awards. Leadership award winner Burt Rutan will join us–along with Tesla Motors CEO Martin Eberhard and Lockheed Martin Stardust probe team leader Joe Vellinga–to discuss why adventure and risk are necessary ingredients in innovation. DIY peanut sheller inventor and BTA winner Jock Brandis will demonstrate his device, Dartmouth College’s student inventors will give us a test drive of the GyroBike and the engineers behind the BigDog quadruped robot will talk shop–all in exclusive Popular Mechanics Show appearances....
If you have a Dropcam in your house, you may inadvertently be fortifying the panopticon.Dropcam told Fusion that it’s received law-enforcement requests for video captured by its $199 cameras. When the company gets a request for access to video stored in an online account—so far, all of the requests have been for saved footage, as opposed to live streams—it sends an email to the account order, “unless compelled by a court not to do so,” says Ha Thai, a Nest spokesperson....
When we hear the words “motor” in a “car” echoing around the PopMech office we usually think of something like GM’s 240-hp 3.9 liter V6 in the ‘06 Impala. We certainly wouldn’t think of a light-activated paddle pushing a single-molecule nanocar. Then again, we’re not scientists at Rice University, where the latest creation is called a “motorized nanocar.” But even without fuel injection (or even combustion), this small powered vehicle is an astounding development....
