Author: Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine

The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol, which depicts a serpent or dragon curled in a circle, swallowing its own tail. Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in California have now created a nano-tool, that they named after the curious beasty. Their ouroborand molecular switch looks kind of like the Ouroboros, in that its tail coils up and around into its cup-like head. Unlike the reptile, however, the molecule could be used to detect metals, toxins, and other pollutants in our environment…
Continue Reading New nano-tool mimics mythical reptile

Tags: Environment,
Nano-tool,
Nanotechnology

Related Articles:

• RoboReptile – new advanced reptile robot
• New sensors protect priceless paintings in transit
• Researchers develop health-screening nanodevice
• Vento releases 400cc triple quadbike
• Sqish: the camouflaged satellite dish
• Cell batteries could power nano devices

Mercedes is to show an interesting four-door coupe concept car at the world’s most important motor show, Auto China 2010. Dubbed the “Shooting Break Concept”, it’s part Estate Car and part sports car with extra luggage. It has a sloping tail end, highly practical interior layout and 306 bhp direct injection V6 petrol engine. For all the innovation, it’s the machine’s dynamic full LED headlamps, due for series production this year, which are the stars. The Intelligent Light System has five functions – country lights, motorway lights, enhanced fog lights, active curve lights and cornering lights – and combines LED technology with Adaptive Highbeam Assist for the first time, leading to a completely new level of safety at night…
Continue Reading Mercedes’ refined and practical Shooting Break Concept

Tags: Concept Cars,
Mercedes-benz

Related Articles:

• Mercedes premiere Vision CLS coupe study at Frankfurt
• Mercedes (concept) Flying Car
• Mercedes-Benz fully-automatic pushbike
• Mercedes-Benz ConceptFASCINATION design study
• Protoscar builds the Porsche 911 Estate Car
• Mercedes-Benz Concept Ocean Drive design study

After first leaving terra firma in December 2009, Austal’s next-gen 102-meter trimaran is now nearing completion. The company says the vessel has impressed during sea trials this year, achieving a speed of 39 knots at 90% MCR (maximum continuous rating) with 340 tonnes deadweight…
Continue Reading Austal 102 Trimaran nears completion

Tags: Austal,
Australia,
Trimaran

Related Articles:

• US Navy orders Trimaran Littoral Combat Ship
• Is this the world’s best ship design? The Austal 102 trimaran
• U.S. Navy orders a second Trimaran Littoral Combat Ship
• Gizcast #10: The world’s best boat design?
• SeaCoaster high speed military catamaran launched
• Installing a 45 tonne, 20 cylinder engine

Recently, we’ve seen a modern take on the umbrella, and one made especially for dogs. Now there’s the Dualbrella – a clever twist on the traditional umbrella that provides ample cover for two and can be held with one hand. It’s also an ideal way to befriend that cute person at the bus stop when there’s an unexpected downpour – without having to think of a catchy (and possibly ineffective) pick-up line…
Continue Reading The Dualbrella doubles-up on your wet-weather protection

Tags: Umbrella

Related Articles:

• Pet Umbrella is a dog’s best friend
• Blunt Umbrellas boast non-eye-catching design
• Beach Pockets secures your sun umbrella
• The Bumpbrella
• Sandgrabber solves age old problem of the runaway beach umbrella
• The Girlfriend Lap Pillow

Garmin has announced slick new additions to its nüvi line of personal navigation devices with its 3700 series. Available in three models – the nüvi 3760T, nüvi 3750 and flagship nüvi 3790T, the slender units are just 9mm thick and feature a 800 x 480 pixel, 4.3” WVGA glass display with capacitive multi-touch functionality that lets users zoom in and out of maps by double-tapping or pinching…
Continue Reading Garmin announces nüvi 3700 series personal navigators

Tags: Garmin,
GPS

Related Articles:

• Garmin GPSMAP 600 series: one for the road… and the sea
• Garmin’s waterproof nuvi 500 / 550 GPS for the explorer
• Volvo cleans-up in car portable satellite navigation
• Smartphones become smarter with GPS Navigation and Bluetooth hands-free calling
• Garmin Adds iQue 3200 Palm-powered GPS Unit
• Garmin’s new Oregon 550 and Oregon 550t GPS for in-car or outdoors

Not unlike the Mini-digi which we covered a few weeks back, the Chobi Cam from Japan Trust Technologies gives you the power to shoot photos and videos using a device no bigger than an eraser. Even smaller than the Mini-Digi (2.5 x 1.8 x 1.2 inches), the Chobi Cam measures a miniscule 1.7 x 1.1 x 0.5 inches and weighs only half an ounce…
Continue Reading Chobi Cam is the new king of miniature cameras

Tags: Cameras,
Japan,
Miniature,
Voice Recorder

Related Articles:

• Mini Digi takes compact cameras to a new level
• Preschooler’s digital camera: sophisticated features in a kid-sized package
• Sanyo launches world’s smallest, thinnest and lightest Full HD dual camera
• World’s smallest hi-def camera head from Toshiba
• Polaroid releases digital descendant of the instant camera
• KDDI mobile pico projector

Apple’s notoriously tight secrecy ahead of product launches seems to have been undermined with a stray prototype of what appears to be the next iPhone falling into the eager hands of Gizmodo. It’s been carefully pulled-apart, pored-over and examined from every angle, and the folks over at Gizmodo are convinced that it’s the real thing. So what can we expect?..
Continue Reading Next iPhone revealed?

Related Articles:

• 3G iPhone to be available June 9
• Wi-Fi printing app for iPhone
• SnaptureFlash adds a Xenon flash to the iPhone
• Send free SMS from your iPhone
• Obama ’08 gets a (useful!) iPhone application
• iPhone app helps you find your parked car

Researchers at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas are developing new miniature camera technology and an iris recognition application built on a high-resolution, light and compact platform known as Panoptes. The technology is designed to help the military and border patrol to track combatants in dark caves or alleys and airport security personnel to quickly and unobtrusively identify a subject from an iris scan. ..
Continue Reading Tiny Panoptes technology holds promise for military surveillance and iris recognition

Tags: Biometrics,
MEMS,
Military,
Northrop Grumman,
Pico projector,
Security

Related Articles:

• Automated Fire Detection system at CeBIT 2003
• Meridian iRIS Universal iPod Dock – high-quality video on HD screens
• Lockheed Martin receives contract to develop FBI’s Next Generation Identification System
• Snowflake Technologies releases prototype vein recognition security system
• Night Hawk CCTV cameras capture images in total darkness
• Innovative 32X Optical Zoom Lens Camera

Not so long ago the notion of an eco-friendly vehicle meant small, boxy and decidedly uncool. But the push towards hybrid and electric vehicles in recent times has changed all that – if supercars can be hybrids, why not limousines? Citroën’s international design team has created the Metropolis plug-in hybrid-limousine concept for the Shanghai World Fair. The imposing 5.3m long by 2m wide by 1.4m high vehicle produces impressively low CO2 emissions of just 70g/km via a 2-liter, V6 petrol engine and an electric motor developing 70kW at its peak…
Continue Reading Citroën Metropolis plug-in hybrid limousine concept

Tags: Citroen,
Concept Cars,
Hybrid,
Shanghai World Fair

Related Articles:

• Citroen to reveal diesel hybrid C4
• Paris debut for Kia Soul Hybrid concept
• CITROËN C3 debuts Stop-start engine system
• Hyundai prepares eco-friendly showcars for Frankfurt
• UK team Develops plug-in hybrid retrofit kit for ICE vehicle
• PSA Peugeot Citroen unveils Peugeot 307 and the Citroen C4 Hybride HDi cars offering 3.4 l/100 km (83 mpg)

High-speed photography specialist Vision Research has unleashed its next-gen video camera – the Phantom Flex. The unit is billed as the world’s most flexible digital cinema camera and it’s no idle boast – the specs speak for themselves. Packing a four mega-pixel color CMOS sensor, the Phantom Flex captures a maximum resolution of 2560×1600 shooting at 1,560 frames-per-second (fps) which can be increased to 2,800 when you step the resolution down to full-HD (1920×1080). At 720p HD resolution the maximum recording speed hits 6,100 fps, at 640×480 it’s a whopping 13,000 fps and if you really want to trade in resolution for speed, try 330,000 fps at 256 x 8. Clearly this is a serious a weapon for capturing slow motion footage. ..
Continue Reading Slow motion weapon: Phantom Flex camera shoots full HD at 2,800 frames per second

Tags: Photography,
Video Camera

Related Articles:

• The Miro 3 High-Speed Digital Camera – making the invisible visible
• Sony’s feature packed HX-1 Cyber-shot camera includes sweep panorama mode
• Casio shows prototype of the world’s fastest digital camera
• Casio brings high speed video to a compact format
• Samsung TL350 10MP compact camera sports analog capacity gauges
• AstroScope gives your DSLR night vision

American manufacturer ZEV has issued a fairly blunt challenge to other electric motorcycle manufacturers such as Vectrix, Zero Motorcycles and Brammo, by claiming to have the fastest and most powerful production electric scooter on the market in its US$7237 ZEV7000. “We tell them to bring their street legal production bike and to bring their betting money. There can be only one “fastest” street legal production electric motor scooter or bike in the world.”..
Continue Reading ZEV comes out swinging: lays claim to world’s fastest electric scooter

Tags: Electric,
Electric Motorcycle,
Scooter,
World’s Fastest,
ZEV

Related Articles:

• Vectrix Electric Superbike unveiled at Milan
• Vectrix Electric Maxi-Scooter three-wheeler prototype
• Zero S – affordable, street-legal electric supermoto hits the freeways
• EV-X7: the electric future-cruiser
• DK City’s folding electric bicycle by Robrady
• US$8000 electric motorcycle hits the streets in California

If you’re still a little strapped for cash and can’t afford a powerboat and a submarine, then you might want to consider this cross between the two – the Hyper-Sub. On top of the water it boasts speeds of 40 knots with a range of 500 surface miles thanks to twin 440 horsepower inboard Yanmar diesel engines and a 525-gallon fuel tank, while underwater it can dive to depths of 250 feet using an electric over hydraulic self-recharging dive system. ..
Continue Reading Hyper-Sub: powerboat meets submarine

Tags: Boat,
Marine,
Prototype,
Submarine,
Underwater

Related Articles:

• Tyger-Ray underwater scooter
• Recreational three-person sub
• Scubacraft convertible speedboat/submarine: at home over OR under the waves
• The world’s first affordable recreational submarine
• US$70,000 pedal-powered submarine for two
• Exploring the ocean depths in the lap of luxury

Bang & Olufsen has added some serious bottom-end to its speaker line-up with the BeoLab 11 subwoofer. Sporting a small footprint and typically slick design, the tulip-shaped BeoLab 11 unit uses two opposing drivers to take advantage of the “Acoustic Balance Principle” – a first for B&O in subwoofer design…
Continue Reading Bang & Olufsen’s innovative BeoLab-11 sub-woofer

Tags: Amplifier,
Audio,
Bang Olufsen,
Subwoofer

Related Articles:

• BeoLab 9 loudspeaker combines superior sound with freedom of placement
• Desktop speakers that can fit on the wall, ceiling, on a floor stand …
• New Audio Benchmark: 2500W speakers from Bang & Olufsen
• Bang & Olufsen announces the BeoVision 7-40 with Blu-ray
• Bang & Olufsen launches a whale of a TV for a whale of a time
• Bang & Olufsen Beovision 7 LCD TV

We certainly like our chicken. According to USDA statistics, Americans ate around 84 pounds of chicken each during 2008, triple the amount eaten in 1960. Poultry production is clearly a huge industry, and one that’s set to benefit from a new technology being developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) which detects minute traces of chemical compounds that indicate spoilage. The goal is to give industry a fast, cost effective method of identifying foul fowl without damaging the product itself… and ultimately keeping consumers safe…
Continue Reading New tech sniffs out foul chicken

Tags: Food technology,
NIST

Related Articles:

• Biodiesel goes to the birds
• Academic Paper Says Edible Meat Can be Grown in a Lab on Industrial Scale
• Pet with a purpose
• Cell batteries could power nano devices
• Ytterbium times its run for next-gen atomic clocks
• New fingerprinting technique could reveal more than just identity

The same team responsible for the development of a flexible silicon device that wraps around a heart to record its electrical activity has now developed a brain implant that essentially melts into place, snugly fitting to the brain’s surface. Such ultrathin flexible implants, made partly from silk, can record brain activity more faithfully than thicker implants embedded with similar electronics and could pave the way for better devices to monitor and control seizures, and to transmit signals from the brain past damaged parts of the spinal cord…
Continue Reading ‘Shrink Wrap’ implant melts onto surface of the brain

Tags: Brain,
Electronics,
Implant,
Medical

Related Articles:

• What’s on your mind – microelectrodes offer poke free brain control
• Implantable Silicon-Silk electronics could mean LED tattoos
• Brain-to-brain communication over the Internet
• 4D technique promises new insights into brain function
• Maryland researchers offer hope of non-invasive portable brain-computer interface
• MindBall: an arcade game played with brainwave power

While the idea of using photovoltaic technology in windows to harvest sunlight for conversion to energy is not new, Smart Energy Glass (SEG) is taking a slightly different approach with a solar window that can be darkened or lightened for comfort and convenience…
Continue Reading Smart Energy Glass controls light on demand

Tags: Architecture,
Energy,
Photovoltaic,
Solar

Related Articles:

• RSi unveils semi-transparent solar window
• Solar glazing chases sun from dawn until dusk
• Solar reflective film boosts home heating efficiency
• Variable tint “Smart Windows” on show in Tokyo
• New software analyzes window film energy savings
• CubeTube indoor photovoltaic electrical generator collects energy from light fixtures

If you find yourself in an expensive hotel without the funds to cover that three-course seafood buffet you’ve just demolished, you may not be led to the back of the kitchen to scrub pots and pans after all… you could be off to the gym instead. Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers has installed two electricity-producing bicycles which are connected to the hotel’s main electricity supply. Guests who pedal hard enough not only get a dose of environmental feel-goodness, but can also score a complimentary meal. ..
Continue Reading Hotel guests pedal for their supper

Tags: Alternative Energy,
Environmentally-friendly,
Hotel,
Kinetic energy

Related Articles:

• Everyone gets a water view in Europe’s first rotating hotel
• Self-powered eco-switch for hotel rooms
• The world’s first floating, rotating (floatating?) hotel building
• The Pedal-A-Watt Stationary Bike Power Generator: create energy and get fit
• Thirty-eight people make reservations for space hotel
• Abu Dhabi’s five-star hotel to feature GROW wind and solar technology

With the trend for digital SLRs to include additional video capture it was only a matter of time before dedicated prime and zoom cine lenses were offered to hybrid photographers and videographers. At the NAB Show in Las Vegas this week, Carl Zeiss introduced an entire new range of cine lenses, set for launch in June. As well as being designed especially for DSLRs, all forthcoming lens models will be available with interchangeable Canon EF, Nikon F and Arri PL mounts…
Continue Reading Carl Zeiss introduces dedicated cine lenses for Canon and Nikon DSLRs

Tags: ARRI,
Cameras,
Canon,
Carl Zeiss,
DSLR,
Lenses,
Photo,
Photographers,
Video

Related Articles:

• Nikon D70 Digital SLR
• Totally new digital SLR system from Olympus
• ZEISS Victory binoculars integrate laser rangefinder
• Liquid zoom lenses to be available in camera phones before the end of 2005
• Canon to release new telephoto lenses for EOS range
• World’s smallest 4mpx camera?

A team of MIT researchers has managed to mimic the photosynthetic process in plants by engineering M13, a simple and harmless virus, to help splitting water into its two atomic components, hydrogen and oxygen, using sunlight. The researchers hope this is the first step toward using sunlight to create hydrogen reserves that could then be used to generate electricity or even produce liquid fuels for transportation…
Continue Reading Breakthrough in using sunlight to split water

Tags: Hydrogen,
MIT,
Photosynthesis,
Sunlight,
Water

Related Articles:

• Artificial Photosynthesis provides clean, cheap Hydrogen
• Generating hydrogen fuel from waste energy
• Breakthrough in quest for solar hydrogen production
• Tropical frog inspires new way to convert solar energy to biofuel
• Drawing inspiration from Mother Nature in designing an ‘artifical leaf’
• First step towards carbon-free ‘power-plant’

It’s easy to think of the Internet as something that’s just “out there” in cyberspace, that doesn’t effect the physical world in any tangible way. In 2009, however, it was estimated that Internet data centers worldwide consumed about 2% of global electricity production. Not only did most of that electricity undoubtedly come from non-green sources, but it also cost the global economy approximately 30 billion US dollars. Much of the electricity was needed to power the data centers’ forced air cooling systems, that keep the servers from overheating. Now, researchers from IBM Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) have devised a much more efficient method for cooling the steamy Internet – they use hot water…
Continue Reading Internet could lower its cooling bills by using hot water

Tags: Computer,
Cooling,
Servers,
Supercomputer

Related Articles:

• COOLINE personal evaporative cooling vest
• New machine provides power, water and refrigeration
• Refrigeration efficiency breakthrough
• Electric Cooled and Heated Seat Cushion
• An ionic wind to cool laptops may blow fans away
• The Chillow – a Non-Electric, Self-Cooling Cushion