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Media Platforms Design TeamJimi Hendrix explodes onto the screen in the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. It’s an iconic, well-worn sequence of archival footage from Woodstock, the stuff of retrospective montages and ’60s music anthology infomercials. Only now, it’s in 3D. Hendrix seems to pop out from the screen, while the stage and band members are mashed flat behind him. A crowd shot reveals not so much a massed sea of fans, but sliding layers of them....

Media Platforms Design Team NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.—With the pricey convertible Lexus SC430 finally showing its age, and luxury manufacturers jumping one by one to release entry-level hardtop convertibles, Lexus has made the decision to chop the top (and two doors) from its popular IS sedan. But this is more than a simple hardtop hack job: The chassis has been optimized for topless duty, and unlike other manufacturers, the segment’s fastest folding hardtop has been designed in-house by Lexus....

Nashville, Tenn.—Ford pioneered new territory in 2006 when it introduced the Edge, a racy two-row crossover. The Edge forsook the Explorer’s pretense of bushwhacking off-road capability without surrendering to the jacked-up-station-wagon persona of the Freestyle. Customers responded by sending the Edge to the top of the crossover segment, where it has tallied some 400,000 sales.Trouble was, the Edge looked good on paper and in the metal, but its appeal faded on the road, where poor execution of details undermined the car’s potential....

Handsaws have teeth from the tip to the handle, so use as many of those teeth as you can! Long, smooth strokes will cut faster and with less effort than short, choppy strokes.2. Rub candle wax on a handsaw blade for lubrication.3. When using a handsaw, keep the “good” side of the work up—the other side will be splintered as the teeth exit. Put the good side down when using a circular saw, because most jigsaw blades cut on the upstroke....

Media Platforms Design TeamDrug companies are fleeing the field of stroke research. Over the past decade, hundreds of potential stroke medications have raised hopes and gobbled up funds, only to fail spectacularly in clinical trials. Stroke is on the rise, but scientists struggle to lure pharmaceutical giants back into the risky market for cerebrovascular drugs.The solution, strangely enough, might be a robot.Meet MIT-Manus, which, its creators hope, will bring drug investors back to the table....

Media Platforms Design TeamAt first, with our expert insiders refusing to ID this vehicle spotted near the company’s HQ in Dearborn, Mich., we figured it for a future mini from Ford. And we had some advice for the Ford folks: Tighten up those body fits before you head into production, or this one won’t even make its mark in the rental car market.But now we’ve got a fix on the mystery mini: It’s a cobbled version of the Mazda Verisa—a model sold overseas, not in the U....

TOCHIGI, Japan–Nestled among the rice paddies 125 miles north of Tokyo sit Honda Motor’s research and development departments. Among those facilities is a high-banked oval test track. And on that oval this weekend, I drove the company’s latest hydrogen fuel-cell car, the FCX Concept. I couldn’t get it past 91 mph, with three passengers. Others in the group, with only two in the car, saw 94 mph.So much for any doubt over a fuel-cell car being able to keep up with traffic in the States....

Media Platforms Design TeamUsing the Hubble space telescope, scientists have discovered that , NASA announced today. Temporarily dubbed P4, the tiny satellite is estimated to be only eight to 25 miles in diameter. Johns Hopkins University researcher Hal Weaver, part of the team doing the observations, says far-away Pluto (itself about 1400 miles wide) appears 30,000 times brighter than the tiny moon, which is how P4 escaped discovery until now. “It’s like looking for a firefly in front of a headlight,” he says....

And you thought the Air Force’s bidding war on tankers was ugly. As the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps look to increase their fleets of small, unmanned aircraft that can serve as communication relays and sensor platforms, they’re seeing contenders in the fight over which company gets to build them.Boeing, which is protesting its $35 billion loss to Airbus parent EADS on a refueling plane contract, currently has a lock on small, portable Marine and Navy UAVs used for recon missions....

Media Platforms Design TeamApple offers MacBook Pro buyers a choice of glossy or antiglare (matte) displays.Q: I’ve noticed that some flat-panel LCDs have glossy screens, while others have matte screens. Is there any advantage to one versus the other?A: Each screen has its advantages and disadvantages, which is why manufacturers waver between the two. Glossy screens produce an image that’s generally regarded as “richer.” Admittedly, that’s a nebulous term, but essentially it means there is more color depth and vibrancy....

“Magpie,” the American spy inside the German atomic-bomb project, has been discovered. The Nazis have separated his tongue from his body, shutting down any news on the Third Reich’s bomb-building efforts. This prompts a severe response at Los Alamos, but is not the only door being opened or closed this week. X-4, the security watchdog at Los Alamos, wants to respond to Magpie’s loss with even more extreme surveillance. Microphones are everywhere, in offices and in houses....

Media Platforms Design TeamMaking WavesTwenty-five Olympic swimming records were broken in Beijing in 2008, 23 of them by athletes wearing Speedo’s LZR Racer. But the supersuit, made of a woven nylon—elastane blend with water-repellent polyurethane panels, spawned a major backlash—one coach called it a form of “technological doping.” In the summer of 2009, FINA, the sport’s international governing body, announced new rules for suits: textiles only (no impermeable fabrics) and no full-body coverage for men....

One year ago, Microsoft pulled all support for the Windows XP operating system. No more updates would be forthcoming, meaning that the operating system was being left out in the cold to die, its security flaws no longer patched.Yet so many people are holding on to the old OS that users have created their own update, called Service Pack 4, to keep it going. And some people are still paying Microsoft for support for their outdated operating system....

Media Platforms Design TeamPicture a bullet punching a hole through a plate of armor, leaving damage spanning more than an inch wide. Next, picture that armor repairing that breach in less than 30 minutes. Until now, self-repairing materials could heal only tiny, microscopic cracks. But reveal that plastics can regenerate themselves to recover from catastrophic damage such as impacts from bullets, rockets, or bombs.new findings"There are many examples of biological organisms that can regenerate in response to trauma, such as a starfish that can fully regenerate limbs or flatworms that can regenerate new heads and tails when cut," says lead study author Scott White, a materials scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign....

Media Platforms Design TeamMaking your own music just got a whole lot easier with Teenage Engineering’s newest synthesizer. It’s pocket-sized, robust, and just $59.Teenage Engineering has been making great synths for years, but previous offerings cost upwards of $900. They’ve been working hard on a more affordable option, and the result is the new Pocket Operators fleet of cheap synthesizers. The simple gadgets resemble bare-bones circuit boards. Each includes a synth and a drum machine, and features a retro design with the look of the 1980s....

View full post on YoutubeThis week, IBM released the world’s smallest movie—an animation made out of individual atoms.IBM’s atomic research usually focuses on data storage—the company recently announced that it can now store a single bit of data on 12 atoms—but doing such experiments requires that they know how to position the tiny particles with accuracy. To hone their technique, IBM’s researchers set out to create an animated film using carbon monoxide molecules....

Media Platforms Design TeamLE MANS, FRANCE - The Nissan DeltaWing was an archetypal underdog: its Batmobile styling looked like nothing on the grid, it cost a fraction of the über Audis, and thanks to its compact size and modest 300 horsepower 4-cylinder powerplant, it was reputedly able to run using half the fuel and tires as a traditional LMP car. Though the bizarre, small-engined design was met with heavy criticism and even one accusation of single handedly trying to “kill motorsport,” its scrappy persona also attracted a cult following....

San Francisco— Pardon the pun, but it may come as a shock to learn that in the early 1980s, the first-generation Volkswagen Jetta was available as an electric vehicle. In the U.S., the company called it the Jetta City, and it boasted a 37.5-hp electric motor and a range of 155 miles. So it should come as no surprise that, according to Martin Winterkorn, CEO of the Volkswagen Group, the future of the automobile does not necessarily revolve around internal combustion technology....

Suddenly, cameras are everywhere. As this month’s cover story notes, the recent boom in video monitoring–by both the state and businesses–means we’re all being watched. It’s like something out of George Orwell’s 1984. Except that, unlike Orwell’s protagonist Winston Smith, we can watch back–and plenty of people are doing just that. Which makes a difference.The widespread installation of recording devices is not all bad: ATM cameras helped prove that Duke students accused of rape couldn’t have committed the crime....

Media Platforms Design Team Browse expert reviews and compare info on Touareg at the Media Platforms Design Team Volkswagen contends that the 2008 version of its Touareg SUV has been nipped, tucked and fortified so thoroughly that it qualifies as the second generation of the model. In fact, the company is so giddy that it refers to the buffed-up Touareg, which has been on sale since June, as “Touareg 2.” VW hasn’t actually added that numeral to the badges on the Touareg itself, but at least that indicates how much the German automaker wants the world to look, once again, at the Touareg as a fresh presence in the marketplace....