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At 5:28 PM EST on Jan. 11, 2007, a satellite arced over southern China. It was small—just 6 ft. long—a tiny object in the heavens, steadily bleeping its location to ground stations below, just as it had every day for the past seven years. And then it was gone, transformed into a cloud of debris hurtling at nearly 16,000 mph along the main thoroughfare used by orbiting spacecraft.It was not the start of the world’s first war in space, but it could have been....

Media Platforms Design TeamAn aluminum suspension bridge had been carrying people over the Ohio River between Point Pleasant, W.V., and Gallipolis, Ohio, for 40 years. On December 15, 1967,, killing 46 people during rush hour. A tiny crack, caused by stress and corrosion, in one link of the suspension chain was to blame. the Silver Bridge collapsedHow do you know when a bridge has a dangerous crack? By tapping on the structure and listening closely, it turns out....

Forget “games.” The most powerful thing that virtual reality can do is simply put you in a place—real or fictional—and let you explore. The Chernobyl VR Project by Polish studio Farm 51 does just that. Can you guess where it puts you? This isn’t just some rough approximation. In preparing this project, the developers actually visited Chernobyl and the nearby abandoned town of Pripyat and used 360-degree cameras and other scanning tech to digitize the actual Exclusion Zone as it is today....

Miraculous. That’s the descriptor that popped up in the days after the successful landing of US Air Flight 1549 in the Hudson River on January 15, 2009. But then, as now, aviation experts saw the events of the “Miracle on the Hudson” a little differently. What happened to Captain Chesley Sullenberger III and his crew was a piece of tremendous bad luck, mitigated by a few turns of equally stunning good fortune and a sequence of smart decisions by the captain and his crew....

Media Platforms Design TeamMaserati unwrapped the stunning Alfieri two-seat concept car at the Geneva show, and the might hit the market sooner than you think, based on Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne’s statement that pre-existing platforms and powerplants could see a production start in “24 to 28 months.“When asked whether or not that timeframe was realistic, Maserati head Harald Wester joked that Marchionne “… usually never gives us so much time....

Whether you know it or not, designer Susan Kare has probably touched your digital life in one way or another. Maybe through the original Mac OS fonts and icons, or maybe through Solitaire on Windows 3.0. If you’re a fan of number two, you’re in for a treat: a deck of playing cards that bring it to life.The cards—for sale but currently out of stock at Areaware—were also painstakingly designed by Kare, we recounts the design process to Co....

LAS VEGAS — As we raced around the Hardware Show on opening day looking for the best of what’s new and innovative, we collected a lot more products than the dozen or so engraved glass awards we had ready to hand out. So, before we divulge the winners of this year’s Editor’s Choice awards (and before breakfast on day two), here are a few of the products that didn’t quite make the cut this year, but are worthy of special note....

Media Platforms Design TeamLennon and McCartney’s songs, Pound and Eliot’s poems, Hanna and Barbera’s cartoons—many of the world’s greatest works of art are the result of collaborations. But if the collaborators aren’t in the same room, working together on a project can be a hassle. If you’re sending material back and forth through the mail or email you can end up with multiple versions of the same file, and plenty of confusion about who is doing what....

Media Platforms Design TeamThese days, we ask a lot of our gadgets. They, in turn, ask a lot of their batteries. And while the lithium-ion batteries that power most of today’s mobile devices are an improvement on the ones electronics used to rely on (they last longer and don’t have a “battery memory” effect to worry about), having a laptop expire midflight is still frustrating. Short of any chemistry breakthroughs, our batteries won’t be getting much better anytime soon....

Australian researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) made history last week—while preserving it. The team created the first 3D map of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, mapping the interior of the famed Italian site in just 20 minutes using a new handheld infrared laser scanner called the Zebedee.It’s a great leap forward for cultural heritage preservation efforts, which can often be a laborious affair. But that’s not all the Zebedee can do....

Media Platforms Design TeamNissan Motor president and CEO Carlos Ghosn displays the Leaf at the press preview of the Tokyo Motor Show. (Photograph by Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images)Nissan is investing more than $4 billion in the program to design the car and to develop the lithium-ion battery pack with parent company NEC. This is an ambitious and some say risky plan, because it’s still unclear if there are enough EV customers to justify the costly program....

Media Platforms Design TeamParade duty is mighty tough on cars. Low-speed running means there is no air moving through the radiator or the engine compartment, and that can easily cause overheating or vapor lock. Here’s how to keep it cool.Avoiding Overheating:*Start with a tune-up, because an engine with poor ignition timing will run hot. *While you’re under the hood, scraping off any caked-on layers of grease will remove some unwanted insulation from the engine block....

Getting to the airport sucks, whether you take a taxi, cajole a friend into giving you a ride, or drive yourself and pay exorbitant fees for parking. But planes are loud and dangerous and need to be at the edge of town, so that’s just the way it has to be. Maybe.This concept by Bartlett School of Architecture graduate Alex Sutton imagines Stockholm, Sweden as the home to an airport in the middle of the city, where planes take off and land near office buildings and terminals are intermixed with other urban architecture....

Media Platforms Design TeamA ship captain arrested after fleeing a sinking vessel. Scores of passengers trapped in their rooms after being told to stay put, with many now feared dead. A clueless crew hampered by lack of safety drills and emergency preparation.No, this not the Costa Concordia, the giant cruise ship that sank off the Italian coast in 2012 after hitting a reef. But some of the things that went wrong there have appeared again in the disaster that just happened with the Sewol....

In 1989, game designer Will Wright made history by allowing kids (and adults) everywhere to build virtual cities from the ground up. SimCity proved that sometimes, gamers don’t just want to play around in somebody else’s virtual worlds–they want to create (and possibly even destroy) their own. But some of the virtual cities that come prepackaged with games are great in their own right. We were always fans of some of SimCity’s prebuilt scenario cities, which gave us a Godzilla-infested Tokyo and a crime-ridden Detroit....

Media Platforms Design TeamWith new releases like the dual-clutch and ABS-equipped NC700X, Honda can hardly be accused of fearing the future… which makes it all the more endearing when they play up the past.Just announced for the U.S. market is a retro treatment of the old school Honda CB naked bike, which defined the “Universal Japananese Motorcycle” aesthetic with their visible engine components and spare construction. The new ride doesn’t stray far from the paradigm, with an 1,140cc air and oil-cooled inline-4 cylinder engine routing exhaust into a single chromed pipe....

Gulfstream was not kidding when it named its new private jet variant the G650ER, with the ER standing for “extended range.” The plane just set world records during a circumnavigation of the globe that required just a single fuel stop.The jet flew from New York to Beijing in just 13 hours and 20 minutes, achieving an average speed of mach 0.87. For its second leg it zipped from Beijing to Savannah, GA, in just 12 hours and at an average of mach 0....

Media Platforms Design TeamA new building material could one day eliminate the need for air conditioning by absorbing heat and radiating it back into the air. Built by layering hafnium oxide and glass, the material could drive down energy costs and lead to greener buildings.Stanford University engineer Shanhui Fan developed the material and has tested it on campus buildings. The material reflects sunlight, as many “cool roofs” do, while also radiating out any excess heat, causing it to be cooler than its surroundings....

Google may be winning the race to self-driving cars, but Uber isn’t giving up. The University of Arizona has announced that it will be partnering with the ride-sharing behemoth to help with the development of optical systems for its self-driving car.Thanks to the deal, the University of Arizona will be the new test-bed for Uber’s prototype mapping vehicles and Uber will donate $25,000 to the university’s College of Optical Sciences. On top of all that, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has signed an executive order “supporting the testing and operation of self-driving vehicles in Arizona,” according to a release from the Arizona Governors Office....

LAS VEGAS — We expected bizarre robots at CES, and so far, we haven’t been disappointed. The floor-cleaning Ubot is Korea’s answer to both the Roomba and the Scooba. The Ubot is much larger than either model, but that’s because it vacuums, mops, and even sweeps. And instead of bouncing off walls and furniture at random, it uses a UV sensor to follow an invisible barcode track along your floor. So during a given cleaning run it won’t double back on itself, making it faster and more efficient than iRobot’s cleaners....