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Media Platforms Design Team Las Vegas– As always, this year’s CES was filled with high-tech gadgets and gizmos that aren’t quite ready for release. Sometimes, the companies insist they are going to come to market, but leave a bit of open-endedness to this certainty by holding back on announcing a price or release date (“Sometime in 2009,” is the stock answer.) Other times, the jaw-dropping display of technological muscle is in a self-proclaimed concept form, and it’s no secret that the odds are stacked against the product hitting Best Buy shelves anytime soon....

TN Games 3rd Space HXT HelmetIf you like controllers that rumble, maybe, the theory goes, you’ll enjoy a vest that jams you in the chest (or back) when an enemy shoots you. We’ve seen the 3rd Space FPS Vest from TN Games before, essentially a modified life-vest with eight force cells–four in front, four in back–that jab you with 25 psi of pressure. At CES, TN Games unveiled a helmet, the first in its follow-up line of HXT (or head and extremities) gear....

What good is a pair of nutty holographic goggles if you don’t have anything fun to watch on them? Not very much good at all, which is why Microsoft has developed a special studio and technology for filming performers at all angles simultaneously so that real life people can be immortalized as holograms that you can view from any angle. Microsoft’s process is described in a new article in the journal ACM Transactions on Graphics, as well as a handy little video that’s slightly easier to digest....

Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design TeamFLAGPOLE HOLEMedia Platforms Design TeamClick to Enlarge1 Allen started from scratch with a new hole and fresh concrete. Pro flagpole installer Tony Clayton recommends planting the pole as Allen did: by sinking 10 percent of the pole’s height into a PVC sleeve. A 6-inch crushed-stone setting bed and an 80-pound bag of ready-to-mix concrete hold the sleeve in place. Set the pipe on gravel, add half the mixed concrete, and plumb the sleeve with a 4-foot level, reading the level flush against two points in the sleeve....

Arx Pax is moving beyond hoverboards to take its magnetic technology off the Earth entirely. The company on Tuesday announced a partnership deal to bring its magnetic field manipulation technology to NASA, with two specific purposes in mind (and many more to come): first, to retrieve small satellites, and second, to create microgravity environments here on Earth.“What we’re providing NASA is another tool in their arsenal of accomplishing what they want to accomplish,” Greg Henderson, CEO and co-founder of Arx Pax, said in an interview with Popular Mechanics....

Media Platforms Design TeamBefore there was the Juke or the Rogue or the new Pathfinder, there was the Murano. Hard to believe, but Nissan’s original crossover is now more than ten years old. With its heavy sculpting and boomerang headlights, the third-generation Murano strongly resembles Nissan’s Resonance concept introduced at the 2013 Detroit Auto Show.The car looks great, but what caught our eye at an earlier preview and again at the stand is just how many creases it features, especially where the front three-quarter panel meets the hood....

Media Platforms Design TeamWith theink on their cocktail napkin agreement with Francethis time they’re talking to NASAcritics complaining the space agency is underfundingBenjamin Chertoff hardly dry, the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) appears to be seeking some serious outside help in their ongoing quest to build a supersonic transport—. Which seems like a strange choice—NASA is busy, at least on its face, at trying to mount a manned lunar program, while at the same time fending off a growing army of many of its core programs, one of which is aeronautical research....

Plants differ from other living things in one important respect: You can improve a plant’s vigor by removing healthy parts of it. This is what pruning is all about. You carefully remove parts of the plant - even healthy parts - to make it healthier still or more attractive, or to improve other qualities, such as its fruit-bearing ability.It’s important to point out that the emphasis here is on improvement, not removal....

The big house at 955 Vista Ridge Lane has its own fully stocked fitness center, basketball court, a library whose walls are lined with volumes, 11 bathrooms, and the other opulent touches you’d expect from a garden-variety $15 million California mansion.Oh, and it has a Star Wars bedroom that draws visual cues from the Battle of Hoth.The room has a door designed to match the film’s aesthetics, with a little R2-D2 standing watch next to it....

Media Platforms Design TeamLet’s clear up a few common misunderstandings about the Model T right away. When Henry Ford’s invention entered production 100 years ago this weekend, it wasn’t the world’s first inexpensive car–others had beaten him to that slot. And the T didn’t pioneer “personal mobility,” which was already the provenance of both the horse and motorcycle.Instead, the Model T was revolutionary because it combined the then-rare attributes of reliability, ruggedness, utility and economy–all in one machine that was eminently affordable....

Everyone’s favorite-but-most-reprehensible ride-sharing app just bought a chunk of everyone’s third (fourth?) favorite search engine. Yes, the future of Uber will be powered in part by Bing. In a deal confirmed to TechCrunch, the transportation app is breaking off and absorbing the mapping part of Bing, which is to say the technology behind features like Bing Map’s “Streetside” view, 3D rendering, and the engineers who made it. All told, about 100 souls will be jumping ship....

Media Platforms Design TeamHere’s one problem with the rise of car-sharing: kids. If you own a car, then your car seat is there whenever you need it. The seats are so unwieldy and impossible to deal with that many parents wouldn’t dare remove them once they’re installed. But what about the non-car-owners raising a kid, or parents who need the occasional ride around town? Nobody wants to install a car seat in a Zipcar....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Gable Home, built by a team from the University of Illinois, doesn’t just echo historic icons of the team’s home state–it’s actually constructed of them. Century-old boards pulled from a student’s grandparents’ barn make up the siding. Wood salvaged from the wall of an old grain elevator has become the decking. Even the landscaping for the Gable Home reflects three themes found throughout Illinois: native prairie, edible crops and biofuel grasses, such as miscanthus–all of which can be found in raised beds alongside the house....

Isao Machii may be the world’s greatest (human) swordsman. A master of the ancient Japanese technique, Machii can be see performing such feats of amazing martial precision as slicing a ball flying 150 miles per hour at him. Here, though, the master has met his mechanical match.This promotional clip comes from the Yaskawa Electric Corporation of Japan, and its star is the Motoman-MH24 industrial robot. To demonstrate the bot’s awesome skill, the engineers at Yaskawa modeled Machii’s sword technique in 3D and taught the machine to move in the same manner....

Media Platforms Design TeamMTM Special Ops Silver Warrior Watch ($600)Here at PopMech we enjoy a challenge. So when MTM told us to try—by whatever means necessary—to destroy their Special Ops Warrior, we happily obliged and put it through three tests that no man or machine should ever have to endure.DropWe hurled the watch onto pavement 75 feet below: The minute hand was slightly bent but completely repairable. The rest of the watch was still in great shape....

In ‘Weekend Watch’ we bring you an oddball from the history of sci-fi, horror, or other geeky film genres that you can watch on your time off. This week: 2001’s The American Astronaut.The American Astronaut isn’t the greatest movie. Its low budget seams constantly show, it’s got some really bizarre musical numbers, and it’s filmed in pretentious black and white, recalling many hackish art films. But there’s something great about this weird 2001 work....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: Everet Elzinga/AFP/Michael Kovac/Getty Images)Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Sir Martin Rees, and other esteemed minds want us to know something very important: We need to watch out for artificial intelligence.A long list of intellectuals, scientists, engineers and others have signed on to this letter from the Future of Life Institute regarding the future of machine intelligence. The letter acknowledges the good that artificial intelligence can provide and warns us to put our resources into ensuring that it’s used for societal good (like disease and poverty eradication), and that robots must have controls installed to ensure that they continue to work to our benefit....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: Dirk Wüstenhagen Imagery)The vinyl renaissance isn’t limited to people stocking up on dollar LPs from the back of their local record shop. New vinyl sales continue to surge, and we’re now reaching a point at which the existing manufacturing industry can’t keep up with demand.As the Wall Street Journal reports today, sales of LPs are up 49 percent—but the infrastructure to make them certainly isn’t growing like that....

Media Platforms Design TeamIt may sound like an Edgar Allen Poe story, but the case of the missing brains is real: A lab at the University of Texas found itself missing 100 of them. But almost as soon as the reports hit the media, the brains turned up again—hundreds of miles away.The brains arrived at UT-Austin 28 years ago as part of to an agreement with the Austin State Hospital; the brain of University of Texas clock tower shooter Charles Whitman was included in the collection....

Many people consider Marc Maron’s podcast, WTF, to be one of the best around. In fact, Slate recently named Maron’s interview with his friend the comedian Louis CK the best podcast episode of all time.Maron’s skill is his ability to take interviews to deep, intimate places, no matter how well-trained or press-averse his celebrity guests may be. A big part of that success is his unorthodox recording approach: He tapes the show in his garage, surrounded by clutter—lamps, a bike, guitars, and a crappy Persian rug, among other things....