Posts

Media Platforms Design TeamPanama patriarch: Al Meigs, grandfather of PM editor Jim Meigs, stands beside an electric crane of his own design, at Miraflores Locks, in 1933.In 1913, a young sailor disembarked in Panama City, Panama. He had recently mustered out of the U.S. Navy in the Philippines and was headed home to Florida. But first he decided to tour what was then the world’s most famous construction project. He watched concrete being poured to create mammoth lock chambers and saw dredges chewing away at the remains of the mountains in Culebra Cut....

Media Platforms Design TeamApple fans love to prognosticate about what launches are in store for MacWorld each January, while each year Apple officially stays silent. So what should iFans make of Apple’s cryptic, out-of-the-blue announcement late yesterday (just after Wall Street’s closing bell, by the way) that this coming MacWorld would be its last? More surprising is that Steve Jobs will not be delivering the keynote, and Phillip Schiller would be taking his place....

PopularMechanics.com is looking for a detail-oriented editorial intern for its NYC office. The intern will be exposed to the digital world of writing, researching, and reaching the PopularMechanics.com audience. Candidates should have exposure to blogging, intern experience at a website or magazine and/or on a college publication, and should be comfortable using all major social media platforms. Ideally we are seeking someone who has a strong interest in science, technology, gear, cars, or tools....

CARLSBAD, Calif.—On Wednesday, Aptera’s vice president and chief engineer Tom Reichenbach unveiled a design-intent prototype of the Aptera 2E. The all-electric vehicle—which was hours away from being shipped to Detroit to compete for the Automotive X Prize—wears a number of outwardly visible alterations from the earlier Typ-1 e prototype that will make it more suitable for daily use. Though the body is visibly paunchier than the predecessor we test drove two years ago, the 2E retains its striking, head-turning silhouette, not to mention a coefficient of drag that’s below 0....

Supply Chains Are Hopelessly Tangled Space and defense contractors have long relied on networks of subcontractors to make critical parts. But in recent years, they have offloaded more work to their suppliers–forcing those smaller companies to develop sophisticated technology. That has advantages, but more links in the chain can also mean more delays or mistakes–and an error from a single supplier can derail an entire project. 2. Big Contractors Lowball Time and CostLarge aerospace firms often promise overly optimistic timelines, sincere or feigned, to win a contract bid....

By the time the new Whitney Museum of American Art opens in New York City on May 1, having moved from the 1966 building that housed it for forty-eight years, its galleries will have been sitting, complete but empty, for almost four months. The issue: contaminants such as sulfur dioxide, ozone, acetic acid, and chlorides, which are all by-products of standard construction materials—and which can all cause fine art to deteriorate....

Last week, the Navy’s X47-B drone made history by being the first remotely-piloted aircraft to get a new batch of fuel while still in the sky. It’s a huge accomplishment, but the tanker dishing out that fuel had a human on board. What if drones could refuel other drones instead? David Wilson, a researcher at the University of Sydney, developed a method to let two drones dock with each other, no skyfaring human required....

Media Platforms Design TeamEuroHawk is a symbol that Europe is finally equipping its military with modern equipment, which might help bridge a chasm within NATO. European countries watched as the United States poured money into a host of new systems for use in Afghanistan and Iraq. These included new sensors, intelligence-gathering equipment and devices used by ground troops and commanders that could get real-time video imagery on demand. UAVs were, and remain, at the heart of the effort....

Media Platforms Design TeamAfter pulling up to the New York Stock Exchange this morning with two (relatively spotless) versions of its new sports-car model at the end of a 20,000-mile test drive from Brazil through the U.S., Ferrari officially unveiled its tip-top-of-the-line 599 GTB Fiorano this afternoon.Massimo Fumarola, director of product portfolio management at Ferrari’s headquarters in Maranello, tried to describe the 12-cylinder berlinetta and its high-tech transmission and suspension system as a Formula One racer for the fans, calling the 599 “a car which can be driven everyday by everybody....

Media Platforms Design TeamDETROIT–At a press conference here at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show, the jurors announced the winners of the North America Car and Truck of the year–Ford took both awards. The Ford Fusion Hybrid was named North American Car of the Year and the Ford Transit Connect was named North American Truck of the year. It was only the third time in 17 years that one automaker has won both awards....

Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s one of the perennial homeowner complaints. Everything else is neatly painted and looks great, but the garage floor is a greasy, spotted and disgusting mess. Many homeowners try to solve the problem by cleaning the floor as best they can and then rolling on a nice shiny, gray coat of oil-based paint. The floor looks great until a car with hot tires literally peels the paint off, or moisture vapor released from the ground passes through the concrete floor and lifts the paint off....

Media Platforms Design TeamOkay, okay—you’re probably tired of hearing about Apple’s iPad by now, but I’m a technology journalist, so I’m obligated to review it. In the interest of not being overly redundant with all the other coverage you may have seen—as well as the articles that I’ve already written about it after attending the event where it was introduced back in January—I’ll assume you know the basic technological premise: It’s a thin, 9....

Media Platforms Design TeamSanta Barbara—Honda might have knocked a little hoopla off the debut of the world’s first double-clutch-transmission-equipped motorcycle by bringing out a conventional version of the same model first. But it definitely heightened the anticipation for those of us who already rode the manual six-speed-equipped VFR, because that machine turned out to be pretty remarkable.Honda threw a lot of resources at the new model, building on a modest but passionate following for the Interceptors, VFRs and RC-series V4s of the past....

Media Platforms Design TeamInglourious Basterds Two-Disc Special Edition (2009)Media Platforms Design TeamA new Quentin Tarantino flick is always cause for celebration, but Inglourious Basterds is sure to be a classic. Drawing inspiration from Italy’s popular Spaghetti Westerns and the lesser known Macaroni Combat pictures of the ’60s and ’70s, Tarantino has crafted an ambitious, audacious American war film in the vein of The Dirty Dozen, but with his signature post-modern bent....

Media Platforms Design TeamWire-feed welders are great, but there’s a lot to be said for stick welders, which use a rod-shaped electrode held in a clamp. Here’s how it works: A ground lead runs from the welding machine to the workpiece. When you touch the stick electrode to the metal, you make a welding circuit and create a high-­temperature arc that melts the rod. As the electrode melts, the flux coating on it is gasified, shielding the molten metal from the air....

Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design TeamNEW YORK — This morning, the E-Fuel Corporation, a Silicon Valley startup, introduced the first ethanol refinery system designed for home use. The Micro Fueler, a backyard fueling station, can create pure E100 ethanol from sugar feed stock. “It’s third-grade science,” says Thomas Quinn, founder and CEO of E-Fuel. “You just mix together water, sugar and yeast, and in a few hours, you start getting ethanol....

Media Platforms Design TeamHow many planets in the Milky Way might harbor complex life? A group of researchers now suggest the number may be as high as 100 million. However, other scientists pointed out potential flaws in this estimate and warned this exercise may be too speculative to be useful.Astronomers have so far confirmed the existence of more than 1700 exoplanets and may soon confirm thousands more. And even before that, scientists have attempted several different measures of how likely life might be on other planets....

May 3, 12:00 am—When NASA requested designs for a Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), two major teams—one headed by Lockheed Martin and one by Northrop Grumman and Boeing—took on the challenge. The winning concept will be chosen in 2008, and the manned vehicle flown in 2014.The agency’s primary requirement is to “ensure crew safety through all mission phases.” The Lockheed team—consisting of six companies—came up with a CEV in three parts. The titanium crew module holds four to six astronauts and launches separately from the mission module and the propulsion stage....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Vexbox is the ultimate tool to get teenagers to do their homework.Created by Sean O’Riordan and currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, the device works by allowing parents to slow their kids’ Internet down to a crawl, making their web browsing and procrastinating move at mid-1990s speeds.Vexbox serves as a secondary router to which your kid’s devices are connected. While you’re on the main router, they are on the Vexbox, which can be switched to run at 56k speeds....

[youtube ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1&v=3mW4w0Y1OXE[/youtube]Irving MacArthur High freshman Ahmed Mohamed is a tinkerer. His latest project was a homemade clock. And when he brought it into school on Monday to show his friends and teachers, he was promptly arrested. According toThe Dallas Morning News, Ahmed had been keeping the device in a pencil case in his backpack until it beeped during his English class. When he showed it to his teacher, explaining it was a clock, she said she thought it looked like a bomb....