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There are few home features that can create as much fun and excitement as an in-ground swimming pool. A pool can instantly transform any boring backyard into a sun-splashed oasis, which can be enjoyed by people of all ages. And while in-ground pools require a significant investment in time and money, their popularity isn’t waning any time soon. According to the Pool and Hot Tub Alliance, there are over 5 million existing in-ground pools in the U....

When USB Type-C showed up earlier this year, it arrived on a pair of laptops: The new MacBook and the new Chromebook Pixel. But the lovely little port is ultimately destined for your (Android) phone too, and our first glimpses of that wonderful future starting to appear on the horizon. OnePlus—the company behind the incredible, dirt cheap, and nigh impossible to find OnePlus One—has just announced that its much-anticipated follow-up phone (yes, the Two) will have a USB Type-C port....

Media Platforms Design TeamSlacklining started in the late 1970s as a rainy-day pastime for rock climbers in California’s Yosemite Valley. Unlike tightrope or high-wire walking, slacklining is done without using a pole and, as the name would imply, on a stretch of nylon webbing that has some give. Dean Potter, originally famous for soloing some of the hardest climbs in the world without the aid or the protection of a rope, learned to slackline a few decades ago from one of the sport’s founders, Chongo Tucker....

DETROIT — Violin-led rock music and tom-tom drums—unlikely fanfare—highlighted the introductions of new Cadillac and Chrysler Group models on the second press preview day at the 2007 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The violins belonged to a highly energized rock/dance pair of young men who did the warm-up preceding Cadillac’s unveiling of its completely restyled CTS for 2008. Whirling in coordinated movements, the dancing pair maintained their musical discipline, stroking their instruments in short frantic bursts in perfect rhythm with their recorded backup....

Media Platforms Design TeamAs anyone who has succumbed to lure of cheap Swedish furniture can attest, assembling stuff from IKEA can be an exercise in frustration. Many of the wooden slats connect together via small pins or dowel rods that stick in relatively small holes. You’d think robots might actually be a bit better at it than you. You’d be wrong.Francisco Suarez-Ruiz and Quang-Cuong Pham at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University decided to see if robots could assemble a chair from IKEA....

In 1958, Russian scientists climbed across the coldest place on earth, the immense Antarctic ice sheet, taking measurements of what lay under the surface. To their surprise, what they discovered was a giant, craggy mountain range totally hidden under the ice.Since their discovery, the Gamburtsevs have remained “the least understood mountains on Earth,” says Fausto Ferraccioli, lead author of a new paper about the mountains’ formation. He says that those original explorers weren’t expecting to see anything particularly exciting, since the innards of most ancient continents like Antarctica are basically flat, and scientists in the years since have wondered how the Gamburtsevs got there....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe 17in iMac on display at Macworld 2002 in New York. (Photograph by Mario Tama/Getty Images)Q: My iMac has a built-in monitor. Is there a way of using this as a second screen for another computer? A:When it comes to screen space, you can never go overboard. Large monitor and multiscreen set-ups make it easy to multitask, and have been shown by a number of studies to boost productivity....

A real-life jetpack recently carried one brave aviator on a scenic flight down the Hudson River and past the Statue of Liberty in New York. A jetpack is an unusual sight in it’s own right, but this particular flying machine is unlike any other before it.In a video released by the elusive JetPack Aviation, we see what appears to be a backpack powered by two turbine jet engines that provide sufficient thrust to lift the test pilot vertically and zoom out across the water....

In two recent studies assessing brain development, people age 25 to 40 came out on top as the most mature and aware demographic—providing a good reason to turn that early mid-life crisis into a celebration.Interested in how and when a person’s brain reaches maturity, Dartmouth scientists tracked a group of freshman students. They noticed significant changes in areas of the brain that integrate emotion and cognition—the region that informs how we navigate the world—as compared to 20-something peers....

The history of the American West was written, literally, with firearms. And although this occurred during a surprisingly brief period more than 150 years ago, many guns from this time are well-known today. In fact, thanks to Hollywood, even those with little interest in firearms recognize the Colt Single Action Army revolver and the Winchester lever-action rifle as “The Guns That Won The West.“Lesser known is the coach gun. But, in the overall scheme of things it was certainly as important as those other weapons–possibly more so–when it came to settling the West....

This year has been about SpaceX’s nearly successful attempts to land its rockets on barges. But while Elon Musk’s company pursues that ambitious goal, don’t forget that SpaceX ha pressing business. It’s under contract with NASA to build a replacement for the Space Shuttle that will once again ferry astronauts to the ISS without the help of those pesky Russians.Wednesday is the big day for the crew-carrying variant of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule....

Media Platforms Design TeamSource: flickr / comedy_noseElectrode implants that can partially restore sight to the blind already exist. These systems translate visual images into electrical activity to stimulate cells on the retina; the cells activate and send information to the brain, which compiles a rudimentary image from the input. Retinal prostheses are already available in Europe, and could receive FDA approval in the U.S. within the coming months.But a new kind of retinal implant, revealed at this week’s Biomedical Engineering Society meeting in Atlanta, could eventually take those devices to another level....

Media Platforms Design TeamAnimals as diverse as crows and chimpanzees create and use simple tools, but it’s humans who take tool use to an unprecedented level. Only humans invest significant amounts of time in designing and creating complex tools, and only humans turn them into permanent, valued possessions. According to researchers at Princeton University led by , human brains are actually hardwired to love hardware.neuroscientist Sabine KastnerKastner’s team compared human brains with monkey brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which produces an image of changing amounts of blood flow in different areas of the brain....

“Didn’t he see the line?” That’s a question you might hear from a football neophyte at a Super Bowl party as you watch a running back fall to the ground just short of a first down on Sunday.The yellow first-down line has become such a seamless part of football broadcasts like NBC’s that it’s sometimes hard to remember that it’s only there for the benefit of the fans at home. But there’s a tremendous amount of technology behind this seemingly simple innovation, and its origins can be traced back to, of all things, a failed experiment in NHL hockey....

1–TABLET PC Essentially a wireless remote for the entire system, this PC allows Cooper to walk the floor and hear the show in real time–and make adjustments accordingly.2–SPEAKER SYSTEM CONTROL This computerized equalizer controls the volume, frequency and phase response of 56 JBL 4889 line array speakers suspended above the stage. Cooper optimizes the system’s performance for each particular venue.3–DIGITAL VENUE CONSOLE This console has 96 input channels with multiple output options, for everything from the Hammond Organ to vocal mics....

View full post on YoutubeSwiss researchers have made an incredible breakthrough in repairing the severed spinal cords of rodents, and human trials could be just over the horizon. Stéphanie Lacour and Grégoire Courtine of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland demonstrated the new device on mice and rats. The implant, called an e-Dura, provides electrical and chemical stimulation to the severed area, helping it function again. This one is different from its peer technologies, however, because it’s made of a stretchy material that’s applied directly to the spinal cord or brain, distributing the electrical signals and chemicals more easily, and does so by simulating surrounding tissue....

Even decades after it came into our homes, the microwave still seems magical. Pop in a frozen Lean Cuisine and a few minutes later, out comes a steaming tray of goodness. The appliance is so ubiquitous that we give little thought to the science that makes it go.In this excellent video from the YouTube channel ChefSteps, we see that the common microwave is powered not by wizardry nor sorcery but a “rather simple network of machinery....

Thanks to increasingly sophisticated telematics systems, today’s drivers have more information at their fingertips than ever before. But as a result, they may also be more distracted behind the wheel than ever before. The tension between combating driver distraction and turning the automobile into “the ultimate mobile device” filled the Telematics Update Detroit 2011 conference held in Novi, Mich., last week. David Strickland, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), took serious issue with the newly data-intensive interiors of modern cars in a direct and sobering speech to industry insiders....

Before an autonomous car can drive, it needs to be able to see. Some cars like the ones sporting Tesla’s new autopilot feature, rely on cameras, traditional image recognition, and/or radar. But many use lasers. And something like this is what they’ll see. View full post on VimeoCreated by ScanLAB for The New York Times, what you’re looking at is LIDAR’s view of the world, London specifically. LIDAR is like radar, but instead of sending out bursts of radio waves, it shoots out a rapid-fire burst of lasers that bounce off surroundings creating a 3D-map of anything within reach....

MORE NEW ANALYSIS FROM COMIC-CON 2008* FIRST LOOK: Tron 2, Lost & Heroes Are Back!SAN DIEGO – The Dark Knight may still be king of the box office after another record-breaking weekend of superheroic proportions. But Hollywood still doesn’t trust comic books, Zack Snyder said this weekend at Comic-Con, where PopularMechanics.com caught up with the director of last year’s F/X-heavy 300 inside the Owlship, a full-scale submersible vehicle built for his upcoming adaptation of the uber-comic Watchmen....