Posts

Alice may be a boring machine that just dug a tunnel under Auckland, but it’s far from boring. In fact, it’s quite an impressive bit of machinery. Alice spent two years drilling under the Auckland Harbor, boring two separate tunnels wide enough to support three lanes of traffic each. The $1.5 billion (NZD) project (coming out to a startling $1 billion in U.S. dollars) lays the groundwork for the Waterview Connection project, which connects two highways on opposite sides of the harbor through a 1....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn a mismatched tango, a tug prepares to escort the Methane Princess down the Savannah River and out to sea.The Methane Princess is inbound, and she’s not to be trifled with. She’s 909 feet long and 142 feet wide, draws 33 feet and is loaded with liquefied natural gas (LNG). The 94,000-ton vessel is perceived as a giant floating bomb, and at slow speeds, within the confines of crowded shipping channels and ports, there’s simply not enough water passing over her rudder to maintain steerage....

The first time we tested our underwater robot prototype, it sank. My teammate, Eric Stackpole, and I had made big strides in the garage and were feeling hopeful. Now we were set up by my aunt’s backyard swimming pool in the suburbs of San Francisco. Eric dove in with his underwater camera to capture footage while I stayed on the deck to drive. I tested the motors on land; they ran perfectly....

Welcome to PM/AM, Popular Mechanics’ morning briefing on the top science and tech stories for today. Media Platforms Design Team Lots of people think it would be great to depend solely on renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. But invariably, someone brings up the economic and technological feasibility of making the switch. It’s just not possible, right?Not so, says a newly published Stanford study in Energy. The research outlines a plan to completely switch to renewables by 2050, and includes rooftop solar cells, geothermal plants, and turbines that draw energy from ocean waves, tides, and of course, wind....

Welcome to PM/AM, Popular Mechanics’ morning briefing on the top science and tech stories for today. Media Platforms Design TeamThe Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation are placing bets on three of the biggest existing projects to find dark matter. According to Symmetry Magazine, funding from these two agencies will help make these experiments at least 10 times more sensitive than they have been. These upgrades may be just what we need to finally identify these mysterious dark matter particles… or to rule out a couple more candidates....

Media Platforms Design TeamPopular Mechanics: What made you want to direct The Road?John Hillcoat: Well, I had been a fan of Cormac McCarthy’s work for a long time, and I was lucky enough to get a copy of the book before it was published. I was worried when I heard that it was an apocalyptic book, because I had all the clichés in my mind–the CGI spectacle of the big event....

Media Platforms Design Team NEW YORK — Niche automaker Saleen may be moving into the mainstream after showing off this concept supercar here today. Packing 650 hp and 630 lb.-ft. of torque, the S5 Raptor “is a glimpse of things to come,” says chief technical officer Chris Theodore. And Theodore knows supercars; before coming to Saleen, he was the top guy in charge of the Ford GT program. The Raptor runs on E85 and is a showcase for Saleen’s next-gen supercharged 5....

The votes are in, and the biggest automotive awards of the year have been handed out at the Detroit auto show: The Saturn Aura is the 2007 North American Car of the Year, and the Chevrolet Silverado is the Truck of the Year. Each year, an impartial panel of 49 of North America’s most important automotive journalists, including PM’s Auto Editor, vote for the North American Car and Truck of the Year....

Peter Granata has little use for cocktail napkins, other than wiping traces of Grey Poupon from the corners of his mouth. Sure, napkins have served as makeshift sketchbooks for some of the world’s great designs and inventions, but Granata, of Granata Design, working under the auspices of the Marine Design Resource Alliance, prefers to steer the direction of boating by way of more traditional tools like drafting tables and computers. Besides, he doesn’t eat out much....

There’s the thruway exit, but you’re stuck in the left lane. Hey–a break in the traffic. You flip up the turn signal, floor the gas pedal and try to edge into the right lane. Whoops! Your V8 is embarrassed by a 4-cylinder econobox with the same objective. It was behind you, but it apparently has better acceleration. You hit the brakes, crank the wheel to get back into the left lane, cruise to the next exit miles and miles ahead, and make the time-wasting U-turn....

Media Platforms Design TeamTwitter was launched here at South by Southwest in 2007, and since then, the conference has regularly obsessed over the societal value of social networking. So it’s hardly surprising that this year’s conference has dedicated a sizeable chunk of conversation-time to the role social networking and social media has played in the protests and uprisings of the past year. Social media gurus have long insisted that the technology is world-changing stuff, but this past year has shown a remarkable maturation for services that previously did a lot more to advance the career of Justin Bieber than the spread of democracy....

Media Platforms Design TeamMad Men: Season Two 4 DVD Box Set (2008)Media Platforms Design TeamThough it took years to get made Matthew Weiner owes much of his early success to the pilot script for Mad Men. Originally written on spec in 2000, the script caught the eye of David Chase who brought Weiner on as a writer/producer for the last three seasons of HBO’s award-winning, The Sopranos. The second season of Mad Men picks up in 1962, more than a year after the end of the first season....

View full post on YoutubeChris Hadfield’s Bowie cover came down from the International Space Station to inspire space-lovers everywhere. Now it must come down from YouTube.Around this time last year, Canadian astronaut Hadfield was already becoming an off-world pop culture phenomenon thanks to his poetic tweets about the void and the instructive videos he made while commander of the ISS. Then Hadfield released a clip of himself performing the David Bowie classic “Space Oddity” and his popularity exploded....

The hurricane churning east of New Jersey seems destined for the mid-Atlantic. Then a cold front descending out of Canada nudges the Category 2 storm northwest instead—setting it on a worst-case course for New York City. New York Harbor has often sheltered the city, dissipating energy from violent gales that start at sea. But now it plays an opposite role: It turns an otherwise moderate hurricane into a disaster. As the eye of the storm passes over Staten Island, the 100-mph counterclockwise winds shove 500 million tons of seawater directly into the harbor....

A team of 30 battle-ready robots is patrolling the World Cup stadiums in Brazil this month. Known as PackBots, these roving, remote-controlled bots are on hand to investigate any suspicious packages spotted in the stadiums. The concept is that rather than putting a security officer in harms way in order to investigate a suspicious package, the robot can be the first responder.Weighing about 65 pounds and able to travel at speeds of up to 5....

Media Platforms Design TeamGoogle Street View EvolvesSince 2006, Google Street View has shown us the world as it is—or, at least, as it recently was, since new pictures by Google’s fleet of cars keep the street-level images up to date. But Google’s doggedness about updating also created something else: A trove of geo-tagged and time-stamped images that can reveal the evolution of any given location across the years.Google is introducing a feature that allows users to look back over Street View images dating back eight years, showing the rise and fall of buildings or how the same location appears on a clear summer day versus the middle of a storm....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhen General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz announced in February that he would be retiring this May—at age 78—speculation mounted that the legendary product chief wasn’t getting along with Ed Whitacre, Jr., GM’s new chairman and CEO. “It’s quite the opposite,” Lutz said. “But the restructuring of the company didn’t leave me with a clear or logical role, and I’m not one of the company’s young up-and-comers either....

Media Platforms Design TeamLAS VEGAS—Seiki has just come out with a haul of announcements at CES 2014. The previously little-known Chinese OEM made waves last year when it introduced a stunning 50-inch, ultra-high-definition (3840 x 2160) 4K TV into the market for less than $1500. This year, the television company is aiming to make similar headlines by revealing its pricing for two 65-inch 4K TV models, a new line of 4K upscaling HDMI products, and otherwise showing off its 2014 product line at the show....

Kan JamMedia Platforms Design Team(Photo courtesy of Kanjam)This game is a combination of beanbag toss and horseshoes played with a Frisbee by teams of two. Teammates stand at opposite ends of the field and take turns throwing the Frisbee toward the basket-shaped goal. But unlike most other throwing games, both teammates can be involved in every toss. One point is awarded when a teammate redirects the disc to hit the goal before falling to the ground, resulting in a “dinger....

Media Platforms Design TeamNEW YORK— The scene at the Jacob Javits Center here today was equal parts BattleBots, NASCAR and high-school homecoming rally. Surrounding a 27 x 54-ft. caged-in warzone were a Jumbotron, a handful of cheerleaders, a half-dozen mascots and a whole lot of hand-built robots. It was the eliminating round of the New York City/New Jersey regional FIRST competition, where the next generation of engineers is going head-to-head for a spot in the national FIRST championship in Atlanta later this month....