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Media Platforms Design TeamBy our count, BMW now offers 20 different body styles. And that variety doesn’t even include all the engine and model variants, like the M4 Convertible that debuted at this year’s New York Auto Show. The M4 is a predictable step in the product lineup. All the amazing goodies on the M4 coupe have been applied to the 4-series convertible, like the bulging fenders and the 431-hp twin-turbo inline-six engine....

Media Platforms Design TeamAs Kevin Bredenbeck, the chief test pilot at Sikorsky Aircraft, prepared to lift the revolutionary X2 helicopter off the ground, he knew he was making aviation history. “It got quiet on the radio,” Bredenbeck says. “There were probably 30 seconds where nobody talked. They knew, and I knew, that this was it. It was time to pick the aircraft up, and that was probably the only point of realization of what was about to happen, because then I went back to the procedure and the mechanics of flying....

Most of the headlines about self-driving cars are made by big companies like Tesla, Volvo or Ford. The latest effort by long-time hacker George Hotz’s, called Comma.ai, aims to make the whole endeavor simpler: instead of buying a new, expensive self-driving car, make the car your currently own self-driving.Hotz first entered the public eye in 2007 as “geohot”, the teenager who was the first person to unlock an iPhone. After that, he was the first person to hack a PlayStation 3....

Media Platforms Design TeamThis iconic image of star cluster NGC 609 depicts several bright, newborn stars wrapped in a resplendent bubble of gas and dust. But how do you communicate the beauty and wonder of these cosmic glamor shots to the blind? Easy: Print them in 3D.A team of astronomers and computer engineers from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., is trying to translate 2D images from Hubble into tactile models that can be fabricated on a 3D printer....

Media Platforms Design TeamYou’re a capable weekend car mechanic. You’ve got basic tools and skills. You’ve mastered oil changes and tire rotations. But when a big repair comes along, it’s decision time. Take it on yourself, or call in a pro?That’s the choice I faced at the end of last summer, when my 1990 Mazda Miata suffered a crankshaft failure. Expecting a quick repair, I soon discovered the car needed a whole new engine—and I discovered this just after I’d disassembled it to the point that it couldn’t be put back together....

Long May It WaveMemorial Day, May 29, is the eighth flag holiday of the year. Is your Old Glory shipshape and ready for display? It should be clean, crisp and without wrinkles. If it’s beat up and getting dirty, retire it. A variety of patriotic organizations (such as a local post of the American Legion) will accept your flag for proper disposal (i.e., burning it in a memorial ceremony).Grill ThrillJust in case you haven’t cooked out yet, get your grill ready to go....

Media Platforms Design TeamGearheads talk a lot about fast race cars, and perhaps equally as much about four-wheeled beauties. The rare instance when beauty and brawn coexist within the same body is like lightning striking twice, and in the case of the famous Alexander Calder BMW 3.0 CSL “Batmobile,” a great reason to consider a pilgrimage to the 2014 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance.BMW’s so-called Art Cars debuted to the public at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs at the Louvre museum in 1975, and have attracted artistic icons like Roy Lichtenstein (1977 320i), Andy Warhol (1979 M1), David Hockney (850 CSi), and Jeff Koons (M3 GT2)....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn July 1, 1941, the television station WNBT (later to become NBC) signed on to the airwaves with the first day of commercial television broadcasting. Programming included a news report, a few quiz shows, and a Dodgers-Phillies game that was watched on 4000 sets. Television has since become the most influential communication technology since the printing press, bringing collective experience to huge audiences like no other medium can....

Google announced today it will expand its Google Fiber coverage to all residents of public housing in selected cities in America, for zero dollars a month and with no installation fees. It’s a program Google was already running in Austin, Texas, but it will now expand the program to Atlanta, Durham, Nashville, and Kansas City, and promises to bring the same service to every city where it installs Google Fiber. It’s part of President Obama’s ConnectHome program, meant bring many more of America’s poorest children online, and close what they dub the “homework gap....

Media Platforms Design TeamChina’s J-31 Stealth Fighter (Credit: All Photos Getty Images)The world got its first look at China’s concept twin-engine stealth fighter, the Shenyang FC-31, when the plane flew this week at Airshow China 2014 in Zhuhai. Intended for export and based on the domestic J-31 development program, the FC-31 is billed as an advanced, fifth-generation fighter. But aviation experts doubt that the jet can keep pace with the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter....

Media Platforms Design TeamThirty-five years ago, middle school-age Mike Brucks realized he wanted to be a police officer. After graduating from high school he joined the army and became a military traffic cop on the million-acre Fort Bliss in western Texas and New Mexico. “It was a small-scale community, with slow speeds, and we would investigate accidents on- and off-post, in Colorado, New Mexico, and as far as Corpus Christi, anywhere a serviceman was injured or killed,” Brucks says....

Media Platforms Design TeamEveryone has a particular genre of yard-sale goods they scout out. Personally, I’m fond of gas-powered yard equipment. My greatest find was a well-used, nonrunning Toro snowblower that I bought for $10.Before I plunked down a Hamilton, however, I pulled smartly on the starter rope. There was some resistance in the tug, which led me to believe that the piston and rings might still be generating some compression....

Ad-blocking software surged into the mainstream last week with the release of Apple’s new mobile operating system, iOS 9. For the first time, it would allow owners of iPhones and iPads to download software that prevents ads from showing up on their webpages. Almost immediately, three ad-blockers jumped to the top of Apple’s worldwide app charts. This comes only weeks after radio shock-jock Howard Stern sung the praises of ad-blocking software on his show....

Media Platforms Design TeamRobert Bigelow spent decades amassing the fortune he needed to start his own space company, a dream he had since he was a boy growing up in Las Vegas in the 1950s. At the turn of the millennium, with cash from his real estate empire and hotel chain, he went shopping for the technology he needed to expand off-planet.He cast his eye on a cancelled NASA program for expandable space habitats called TransHab....

Media Platforms Design TeamView full post on YoutubeA demonstration of the wax cylinder recording process.We’ve written about the ephemeral nature of our digital storage media before. The need to protect our files from disappearing or degrading is currently hitting home for the British Library, which is working to archive thousands of unique sound recordings of extinct bird calls, World War I soldier interviews, plays starring Laurence Olivier or Peter O’Toole, and thousands of other important recordings....

Name: Bernal sphere; Stanford torus; O’Neill cylinderNamed For: Respectively, British scientist John Desmond Bernal, who proposed the idea in 1929; a summer study program held by NASA in 1975 at Stanford University; Princeton physicist Gerard K. O’Neill in a 1976 book on space colonization. Selected Science Fiction Portrayals: Stanford torus–like space stations are depicted in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2013’s Elysium. A modified O’Neill cylinder served as the basis of the Babylon 5 space station in the 1990s TV series of the same name, and in Arthur C....

Since 2011, astrophysicists studying the formation of the solar system have suspected that there might have been a fifth gas giant planet four billion years ago that was ejected by the gravitational influence of either Jupiter or Saturn. A new University of Toronto study published in The Astrophysical Journal supports this theory and identifies Jupiter as the bully of the bunch. “Our evidence points to Jupiter,” said Ryan Cloutier, lead author of a new study and a PhD candidate in the University of Toronto’s department of astronomy and astrophysics....

#10: It’s Made From Recycled Water BottlesIn fact, 60 percent of the plastic on the Leaf’s interior is already recycled material—much of it comes from used water bottles—and at the end of the Leaf’s lifespan, 99 percent of the 3375-pound vehicle weight is recyclable and can be transformed back into water bottles or other Leafs.#9: The Batteries Have a 100,000-Mile WarrantyOf course, all batteries degrade over time, but the Leaf’s lithium-ion pack comes with an eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty....

Media Platforms Design TeamNissan is recalling 23 of its 2014 Infiniti Q50 luxury sedans because the steer-by-wire system could fail if the temperature in the engine compartment drops below freezing, according to a recall report filed with NHTSA. (This is a preventative measure by Nissan—the failure has not happened in the real world.) The system, which uses software and electronics to steer the car’s front wheels rather than a traditional mechanical link between the steering wheel and steering rack, can reengage the mechanical connection if a failure is detected....

Media Platforms Design TeamWe got to Manhattan’s Upper East Side about 50 minutes after the plane crash today. By that time the rain and the New York Fire Department had joined forces to douse the fire in the high-rise. We counted at least 40 New York Police and Fire Department vehicles at the nearest street corner in sight of the building as officers continued to extend their investigation’s perimeter further west—even though, at the time, it looked as though the plane had run into the co-op from Manhattan’s East River....