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Media Platforms Design Team2009 DETROIT AUTO SHOW PREVIEW:• VOLVO: Volvo S60 Concept• KIA: 2010 Kia Soul Concept• BMW: 2009 BMW Z4 RoadsterThe next advancement in fuel-injection systems is called direct injection and GM recently announced it would expand its use of the feature in 2009. Unlike conventional fuel-injection systems that squirt fuel into the intake tract just upstream of the intake valve, direct injection sprays the fuel into the combustion chamber....

How awesome would it be if you could just swap out every part of your phone at will? Replace a broken screen, add a bigger battery, get a better camera. Google’s Project Ara promises just that, but it’s hit a snag. Originally announced in 2015 and shown off as functional at this year’s Google I/O developer conference, Google’s modular smartphones were supposed to hit the streets of Puerto Rico as part of a pilot test this year....

Media Platforms Design TeamPeter Berg has heard your criticism of his concept for out May 18. “There was a certain inherent skepticism when people heard that had aliens in it,” Berg says. “I was happy to say that my inspiration was Stephen Hawking. You can check my math.“Battleship,BattleshipIt all started with Hawking’s television show Into The Universe and its episode on Goldilocks planets, which are just the right distance from a star to potentially support life....

Media Platforms Design TeamI feel bad for my neighbor. Brian’s the earth-biscuit type, with a flop of blond hair and a kayak rack on his Jeep that he actually uses. He’s a community-garden aficionado and a yard farmer who could talk compost for hours—mostly because there’s a massive heap of it in his backyard. Brian’s compost pile is the Everest of our neighborhood. It is robust of scent and full of twigs, old pineapple rinds, his Australian shepherd’s buried rawhide chews, and gigantic mounds of last year’s oak leaves....

Clean caulking comes down to three things: the position of the caulk gun, the speed that you move the gun and the opening that you cut in the end of the tube. Sure, gadgets may improve the process, but caulking is a simple DIY skill. Once you learn how to do it, it’s easy and predictable without the use of additional devices. (If you’re re-caulking your tub, you need to be diligent about removing all the old material before you start again....

Media Platforms Design TeamTarget just confirmed a credit and debit hack that could potentially affect up to 40 million customers who shopped in its brick-and-mortar stores any time from the week of Black Friday (Nov. 27) to Dec. 15, the busiest shopping period of the year. According to security industry blog , which first reported the story, investigators believe that the data stored in the cards’ magnetic strips were likely hacked at Target’s cash registers....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe exoplanet named HD 189733 b sits about 63 light yearsmillion miles from Earth. And though scientists can’t see this distant planet, they know a lot about it. It’s a gas giant close in composition to Jupiter, but its 2.2-day orbital period around its star means the planet is scorching, with surface temperatures reaching near 2000 degrees. Its marble blue color doesn’t come from a boiling sea, but rather from an atmosphere of raining molten glass....

Media Platforms Design Team"No question, [the] world is going HTML5better.," said Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer at Gartner Symposium last week. He’s not alone. Google CEO Eric Schmidt calls it “the next step in browsers,” while Apple’s Steve Jobs says, bluntly, that it “will win” against browser plug-ins like Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. HTML5, according to people who would know, is the inevitable future of the Internet—we’re told it will make our favorite web pages richer, faster or just vaguely But what is it, exactly?...

Media Platforms Design TeamI know desktop computers, game consoles, and cable boxes can inflate your power bill, but what about the little gadgets? I charge my phone every night.Modern smartphones’ daily charging cycle and ever-nagging battery indicators imply heavy power use. Fortunately, the numbers tell a different story. A typical smartphone uses about 5 watts of electricity while charging; when the device is plugged in but fully charged, that number drops close to zero....

Media Platforms Design TeamAt the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show, that laser-based lights will make it into production cars. And Audi’s 2014 R18 race car, which will compete at the 24 Hours of LeMans, will use 6 laser diodes in addition to its banks of LED lights. Audi announcedHow do you turn a laser beam into something resembling a headlight? We cornered Stephan Berlitz, Audi’s Head of Lighting Innovations, at the 2014 North American International Auto Show in Detroit for an explanation....

In 1927, London opened the Post Office Railway, a subterranean railway that carried millions of letters from post office to post office before they were delivered above ground. Hidden from public view for decades, the “Mail Rail” dutifully shuttled snail mail until 2003, when its cost simply became too much.Now, it’s coming back: Soon, parts of the defunct railway will be opened for tours, but not before they can be meticulously preserved with lasers....

Media Platforms Design TeamFour years after Nintendo blew us away with the motion-sensing Wii, Microsoft and Sony have finally caught up. By the end of 2010, all three consoles will have some motion-capturing capabilities—either natively (as with the Wii), or with add-on accessories (as with Sony and Microsoft).This tech editor has had the opportunity to play with all three: Microsoft’s Project Natal, the Sony Move and the Nintendo Wii. Here’s how they compare....

OFFICIAL RULES NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNINGHOW TO ENTER: POPULAR MECHANICS HOME WORKSHOP CHALLENGE CONTEST (the “Contest”): Beginning November 11, 2014, at 12:01 AM (ET) through January 13, 2015, at 11:59 PM (ET) (the “Entry Period”) submit your entry online or via mail: All entrants must construct something using a single 8x4-foot sheet of plywood pursuant to the following Project Guidelines: (a) Your item(s) must be made out of a single 4 x 8 sheet of plywood; (b) The plywood can be any type, and you can cut it as many times as you like; (c) You’re free to use any type of fastener: glue, screws, nails, bolts, clips, hinges, and brackets; (d) You can augment your project with wheels, handles, metal tubing or any other sort of hardware, but no other lumber is permitted....

Eyeing the Unfriendly SkiesBY SETH FLETCHERThe nightmare scenario of an ICBM launched from the Korean peninsula, bound for California, may never become a reality. But the Missile Defense Agency is deploying the enormous, $900 million Sea-Based X-Band Radar, or SBX, just in case. The 2000-ton, 103-ft.-high radar system sits atop a repurposed, self-propelled oil rig that will operate out of Adak, Alaska. In the event of a launch, the SBX would differentiate between the incoming nuke and the gaggle of decoy projectiles flying alongside it, employing the same X-band frequency range that some police radars use....

Media Platforms Design TeamBREAKTHROUGH WHO Local Motors, Phoenix FIELD Automotive ManufacturingACHIEVEMENT Designing the first 3D-printed car.Jay Rogers has the keys to a 3D-printed car—in fact, the first-ever 3D- printed car. It’s a humble machine, an overgrown go-kart built around a 3D- printed tub. The 48-volt electric drivetrain is bolted to an aluminum subframe in back, and the seats are printed into the tub and covered with scraps of padding. The contraption looks like a misbegotten extraterrestrial rover, but Rogers, cofounder and CEO of small-batch car company Local Motors, thinks the prototype represents a revolutionary kind of transportation: simple, light, inexpensive, and highly personalized....

While Arx Pax is busy making a hoverboard that works with magnets, and everyone else is busy making “hoverboards” that work with wheels, a company called ArcaSpace is working off an idea that you probably had when you were knee-high to a grasshopper. “What if we just pointed a whole bunch of fans at the ground and flew that way?” Well now you can. Building on the ingenuity of pre-pre-pre-teens everywhere, ArcaSpace’s hoverboard fires out 430 pounds of thrust using 36 battery-powered electric fans that offer some six minutes of flight between charges....

Media Platforms Design TeamSouth Korean nuns march with family members of the Sewol ferry victims march on July 24, 2014 in Seoul, South Korea. Credit: Getty Images.In the South Korea ferry disaster aftermath, things have taken a turn for the weird.In April, the Sewol ferry sank at least killing 304 people (though not every body has been recovered). Yoo Byung-eun, a 73-year-old billionaire and one of the founders of the Evangelical Baptist Church, was thought to own the ferry and became a target of investigation....

Devon Jarvis(Photos by Devon Jarvis)The Mini MagPrinter could become the coolest tool to hit maker spaces since 3D printing. It churns out custom magnets using technology that won its creator, Correlated Magnetics Research, a 2010 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award. The new Mini is half the size of the original MagPrinter, and it helps product designers prototype their inventions using magnets that have novel behaviors. While most magnets have only one north pole and one south pole, the Mini encodes multiple poles across a magnet’s surface using a focused electromagnetic field....

SEVILLE, Spain — With prices starting at $11,590 for the basic Pure model, the Smart Fortwo is one of the most economical rides in the States—even if it’s a long way from being the cheapest. The tiny, 70-hp Smart car was introduced in the United States this January and has sold like wildfire through Penske Automotive Group dealers. It’s good for 90 mph and 0-60 mph times around 12.8 seconds. No, it’s not going to embarrass your neighbor’s AMG—unless you’re competing for fuel economy, that is....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe deadliest Ebola outbreak in recorded history is happening right now in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and most recently, Nigeria. The World Health Organization estimates that as of August 1, Ebola has infected 1603 people and killed 887, or roughly 55 percent of those known to be infected. It’s the deadliest outbreak to occur since Ebola’s first appearance in 1976, when simultaneous outbreaks in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo killed 431 people....