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Media Platforms Design TeamGlasses-free 3D, it’s a concept that TV-makers have demoed at previous years’ Consumer Electronics Shows, but a full-size, market-ready device has never been unveiled or announced. At a press conference here at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Philadelphia-based Stream TV showed off what might be remarkable: a glasses-free 3D panel that the company says could show up this year, with compatible content from one of a number of partner providers....

Forget Kato—the Green Hornet’s coolest sidekick is his car. The masked crime-fighting vigilante used a weapons-laden Chrysler Imperial Crown, nicknamed Black Beauty, in the 1966 television show. But script co-writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg thought that for the film, due out Jan. 14, they would be forced to use a new car. “None of the versions that companies pitched were as cool as the original,” says Rogen, who stars as Britt Reid/Green Hornet....

Media Platforms Design TeamPopular Mechanics: When you come up with coaster ideas, I’m sure you have these pie-in-the-sky ideas that often need to be scaled down as you get real and have to deal with economic and physical realities. What are some examples of really crazy features you guys have wanted but were unfeasible?Louis Alfieri: I think we would like to figure out a way to do it without the track....

The Canadian toy company Calimacil, known or making foam weapons for live action role play, has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the first glowing foam lightsaber. A toy lightsaber is really put to best use in one way: smacking your friends with it. Previous foam models didn’t light up to give you a true lightsaber experience. Plastic ones can easily crack or hurt someone if you take them into battle. Now Calimacil has created the ultimate toy lightsaber for function and aesthetics....

Everyone’s Talking ‘Bout BiofuelsThese days, corn stalks are pretty much only making their way into custom gas tanks like the one in Jay Leno’s new supercar. But if the numbers keep rising like they have this year, biodiesel filling stations may be up and running across the country sooner than you think. The Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced that the U.S. fuel industry expects 20 percent growth in ethanol in 2006But since E85 and biodiesel still represent less than 1 percent of gas and diesel sales, the DOE continues to put money into biofuel research and development....

The announcement was handed out today: We’ve found a planet like Earth around a sunlike star. This particular planet, Kepler-452b, is likely rocky and has a year slightly longer than our own. While earth-like planets have been found, this is the first that seems to be an Earth twin in a few important respects.Over the past several years, as NASA’s Kepler space mission has released troves of new exoplanets and candidate exoplanets, we’ve heard headlines similar to today’s a number of times....

Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design TeamMORE BRAND-NEW ROBOTICS REPORTING FROM PM• VIDEO GALLERY: 5 Homemade Bots That Offer Hope for DIY Geeks• HANDS-ON FIRST LOOK: MIT’s Underwater Sub Most Automated Yet CHICAGO — Menacing, mechanical snakes slithered their way all around the robotics exhibits this weekend here at Wired NextFest. Some did barrel rolls around cinder blocks, while others wormed their way up their owners’ pant legs, squeezing and relaxing like living, breathing reptiles....

Media Platforms Design TeamPopular Mechanics: How did you get involved with Countdown to Zero?Lucy Walker: I kept joking that you and I were going to talk about how to make an atomic bomb. I got a phone call asking if I was interested in nuclear weapons. I had wanted to work with Participant Media and so when this project came up as a possibility, I guess they thought of me. As we started talking about it, I connected with the issue....

Media Platforms Design TeamAngels & Demons’s science was a main concern to director Ron Howard, says Dr. Rolf Landua, a CERN scientist who worked closely with Howard. “We had a long discussion, almost the whole day,” Landua says, “about how the science in the movie could be made as authentic as possible.“In Angels & Demons, scientists at CERN use the Large Hadron Collider to create one gram of a highly volatile substance called antimatter, which they store in electromagnetic traps....

In the future, a pig could save your life. No, This isn’t about bacon. Instead, that pig – with some genetic tinkering – could provide a much-needed heart, kidney, or liver.The first steps have already been taken. Scientists from the University of Pittsburgh and research institutions around the world have transplanted a pig kidney into a baboon, with the swap lasting for 136 days healthily. A heart transplant from pig to baboon kept a baboon alive for 936 days....

Media Platforms Design TeamHow It WorksBefore you start tinkering with the system, it’s important to understand the basics of how it works. Central air consists of three main parts: the condenser, the blower unit, and the ductwork. The condenser is the large outdoor unit that is probably tucked behind your garage. Its role is to manage the temperature of the refrigerant, usually Freon, which travels back and forth from the house....

Media Platforms Design TeamPhoto Credit: Amy Stuart, UF/IFAS Communications Human waste doesn’t need to be wasted, thanks to some University of Florida researchers. They’re working on a way to power rockets with poop. The technique could be used to cut mission costs for future return missions from the Moon—since astronauts will be making some of the fuel once they arrive.Essentially, the researchers are working on an efficient way to convert feces, food scraps, paper, and other organic waste into methane, which could then be used to fuel rockets....

Media Platforms Design TeamStep 1CYCLOTRONThe magnet-packed particle accelerator weighs 220 tons but is only 18 feet wide and 8 feet high. Step 2BEAM LINEProtons moving at almost the speed of light are deflected and focused by magnets along the line. The beam lines are kept in a vacuum so that the particles don’t slow down. The line branches to up to five separate treatment rooms. Step 3GANTRIESThese 90-ton machines aim the proton beam at the patient’s body; the relatively heavy particles slow down when they encounter body tissue....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Mini Beachcomber Concept is based on Mini’s upcoming crossover SUV platform. With AWD, lots of ground clearance and suspension travel, and a flexible interior, it caters to active outdoors activities. Yes, there are both cloth and hard plastic detachable side panels and roof panels, so you won’t get wet.Mini is planning to launch a crossover SUV late next spring. For now, Mini is showing off a concept based on the upcoming SUVs chassis and suspension at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show....

The stock images of a hurricane’s destructive force – decapitated cabanas, scattered palm fronds, flattened orange groves – contrast sharply with the quaint old-world manors, bustling streets and gracious red maples of New England. But on Sept. 21, 1938, as northeasterners buttoned their jackets from the chill of early fall, a hurricane brought the driving rain, battering salt spray and lethal winds of the tropics to landfall on Long Island, N....

Pioneer XMP3 /// $250, plus $13 monthly subscriptionThe Promise The smallest, most feature-packed portable satellite receiver ever. In Practice Before they merged into a single harmonious corporate entity, satellite radio providers Sirius and XM battled furiously for top-shelf talent (Martha! Howard!), sports programming rights (NFL! Nascar! MLB!) and technological supremacy. Since in-car satellite radio receivers are all fairly similar, this third campaign was waged mostly with competing portable receivers, the best of which were XM’s nearly identical Pioneer Inno and Samsung Helix....

Cyborg cockroaches (yes, totally a real thing) have received an upgrade: Scientists can now tap directly into their central nervous system and control their bodily functions, which is in no way unsettling. It’s something you could (almost) make at home.Using a cheap microcontroller, a Texas A&M group tapped into the pro-ganglion area of the roach’s nervous system, which gave them access to motor function. While previous research to take control of the bug threw off the roach’s senses to make it “remote controlled” by creating fake obstacles, this system leaves the user nearly entirely in control of the cockroach....

BBC Four Goes Slow is a video series of “deliberately unhurried programmes.” For a sample, try “Wood: Handmade,” which is thirty minutes long and captures the careful, painstaking work of a man named Jim Steele as he assembles a chair. It was filmed over the course of five days.Stationary cameras around the workshop show Steele steaming wood, cutting it to size, and drilling chair legs in place. At one point, the camera lingers on a butterfly crawling along a window pane....

Update, 12:15 PM ET, Monday: SpaceX tweeted some amazing shots of the satellites being deployed in space:View full post on TwitterView full post on TwitterUpdate, 10:51 PM: Liftoff!At 10:50 PM ET tonight, SpaceX plans to launch two satellites into orbit with a Falcon 9 rocket that will take off from Cape Canaveral. The launch window extends for 43 minutes, and weather forecasters estimate a 70% chance of favorable conditions.The payload includes a satellite by Asia Broadcast Satellite, or ABS, and one by Paris-based Eutelsat, both of which will provide broadcast and telecommunications services....

So where are we now?One day soon, we’ve been told over the last decade or so, we’ll all have 3D printers in our living rooms! You can make whatever you want!! But we don’t, and you can’t. “With every technology, you have the hype cycle, and right now we’re sort of at the bottom, because the hype is over,” says Joris Laarman, a Dutch designer who has engineered new types of digital-fabrication materials and whose work is the subject of an exhibition at the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York through January....