Author: Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine

There’s no doubt ladders can be unwieldy things to carry around – so much so that the ladder-carrying painter has become a staple of slapstick comedy. Unfortunately carrying a ladder around in real life is generally much less hilarious, although often just as chaotic. A young Israeli design student, Itay Laniado, has come up with a collapsible design that makes getting a ladder from point A to point B so you can get to point C a whole lot easier…

Tags: Collapsible,
Design

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Increasing numbers of countries turning to desalination plants to bolster dwindling water supplies with most new facilities making use of reverse osmosis technology. Unfortunately these systems are susceptible to clogging and membrane damage, which places higher energy demands on the pumping system and necessitates costly cleanup and membrane replacement. Now researchers have unveiled a new class of reverse-osmosis membrane that resists the clogging that typically occurs when seawater, brackish water and waste-water are purified. ..

Tags: Desalination,
Osmosis,
UCLA

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Honda’s U3-X personal mobility device which so impressed us at the Tokyo Motor show last year has made its first appearance on U.S. shores. The unique multi-directional, self-balancing one-wheeler is currently taking part in a three day demonstration New York Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square with a second event scheduled for April 13-15, at the 2010 Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) World Congress in Detroit, Michigan…

Tags: Honda,
self-balancing,
Tokyo Motor Show,
U3-X

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Renault is making getting in and out of its New Clio easier for Europeans with the introduction of Europe’s first original equipment swivel seat. Comprising a swivel base located beneath the original front passenger seat the optional swivel seat turns through 75 degrees at the pull of a lever situated underneath it. The seat locks automatically into place to ensure the passenger isn’t doing the twist as the vehicle is being driven…

Tags: Europe,
Renault,
Seat

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Wayward drivers could soon be getting a nudge in the right direction thanks to a computer program created by researchers from North Carolina State University. The program allows a computer to understand what a camera is looking at and makes decisions based on what it sees. If a car strays from its lane the program will detect the lane change and set the car back on course without human control…

Tags: Autonomous,
Driver,
Safety

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Let’s start by saying Gizmag doesn’t condone any form of smoking – they’re all bad for you. But we recognize that millions of people do, and it’s not just the extra cost on the community for smoking-related illnesses that irks most non-smokers, it’s also the trillions of cigarette butts that end up littering our sidewalks, roadways, parks, etc., many of which end up in our waterways. Greenbutts wants to tackle the problem with a 100 percent biodegradable cigarette filter… with extra benefits. The manufacturers say when a green butt is placed under a thin layer of soil it sprouts into green grass shoots or even blooming flowers…

Tags: Environmental,
Smoking

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Toshiba is heading for the U.S. compact digital camcorder market with the introduction of the full-HD Camelio range. Due to hit stores on April 19, the new line is made up of the pocket-sized, 3.5 ounce S20 and two compact touch-screen models – the H30 and X100. All units include HDMI output, 3-inch LCD monitor, Internet upload hotkey and support for SD/SDHC memory cards…

Tags: camcorder,
Toshiba

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Just the other day we brought you the story of SUNLIGHT, an art project featuring a giant solar-powered projection of the sun. It was designed and is being installed by Brooklyn artist Adam Frank. Upon looking over Mr Frank’s website we found an interesting little projector-type thingy-ma-jig that you can set up right in your own home. It’s called REVEAL, and it simulates the sun-cast shadows of a window frame and swaying tree branches on your inside walls. Just the thing for that dingy basement office…

Tags: Art,
Light,
Projector,
Sunlight,
Windows

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For some programs, the arrival of multi-core processing power has made little difference to how they operate. Some applications, such as word processors and web browsers, are unable to split process operation over a number of cores and instead pile everything onto just one. Researchers from North Carolina’s State University have come up with a way to break up such programs into different threads, resulting in a 20 percent increase in run speed…

Tags: Efficiency,
Memory,
Processing,
Research,
Software

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Yuji Fujimura has taken the bicycle design manual and thrown it to the wind with his concept Electric Bike Version 2. Ditching the popular and familiar diamond frame design, Fujimura has opted for a flat solid box on wheels where the handlebars, seat and pedals fold away flat to help squeeze the bike into tiny parking spaces…

Tags: Bike,
Concept,
Electric

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What’s plastic, sings songs, and sits in boiling water? No, it’s not Britney Spears at a cannibal colony, it’s the BeepEgg! This little gizmo lives in the fridge, with your eggs, then rides along into the saucepan when you’re boiling them. Its internal thermostat continuously measures the water temperature, calculates the inner temperature of the eggs, then lets you know what level of hardness they’re at by playing one of three different tunes…

Tags: egg timer,
Thermostat

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Hyundai has announced that its all-new 2011 Sonata will be the first vehicle to offer gasoline direct-injection (GDI), twin-scroll turbochargers and full-hybrid powertrains. Unveiled at the New York auto show, the Sonata Hybrid is Hyundai’s first hybrid in the US market. Its Hybrid Blue Drive can operate on an electric motor, gasoline internal combustion engine or a combination of the two depending on driving conditions and driver demands. It’s also the only hybrid using lithium polymer battery technology…

Tags: Fuel efficiency,
Hybrid,
Hyundai,
Lithium-ion

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According to the US Fire Administration more than 40 clothes dryers catch fire in the U.S. every day. Annually between 2002 and 2004 clothes dryers were involved in an estimated 15,600 structure fires, fifteen deaths, 400 injuries, and US$99 million in direct property damage. One of the main culprits in dryer-related fires is lint. As it builds up it restricts airflow, not only creating a fire hazard, but also wasting energy. The LintAlert combats this needless destruction and waste of electricity by alerting homeowners to any blockage or restriction in the vent system of the dryer…

Tags: Alarm,
Fire,
Safety

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THINK has chosen New York as the first port of call in its push to capture a slice of the electric-vehicle market in the United States. The 100 mile range THINK City Electric Car will be rolled-out in New York and “other select cities” later this year with plans to begin manufacturing the THINK City in Elkhart, Indiana from early 2011…

Tags: Electric vehicle,
THINK

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With the TV heavyweights unleashing a torrent of 3D LCD and plasma TVs on us this year it would be easy to assume that those are the only technologies capable of providing 3D viewing in the home. A small Los Gatos, California-based startup called HDI is out blow such assumptions out of the water with what it says is a superior 3D alternative. By all reports the company’s laser-driven 100-inch 2D/3D Switchable Dynamic Video Projection Television delivers a stunning 3D picture, thanks in part to its boasting the highest refresh rate of any mass-produced television or projector.
..

Tags: 3D TV,
High Definition,
Laser

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It will be like going from black-and-white television to high definition color TV – that’s how researchers at America’s Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have envisioned an upcoming leap forward in undersea acoustic imaging. Tim Stanton and Andone Lavery have developed and tested two broadband acoustic systems that leave conventional single-frequency systems eating their dust… or water droplets, or whatever. Developed over 20 years, the new technology could revolutionize oceanography, and also has huge commercial and military potential…

Tags: Acoustic,
Broadband,
Fish,
Ocean,
Underwater,
Water

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Lithium-air battery technology looks to have a big future. With the potential of providing energy densities up to three times that of the conventional lithium-ion batteries found in just about every portable consumer electronics device going around (not to mention the incoming wave of electric vehicles), many companies, including IBM and General Motors are pursuing work on lithium-air batteries. Now researchers at MIT have made a breakthrough that could help make the commercial development of lightweight rechargeable batteries a reality…

Tags: Battery,
Lithium-ion,
MIT,
rechargeable batteries

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From Hanwha Japan Co., Ltd. comes a video camera specifically designed to be used as a black box video recording system for your car. The UMAZONe X-Vue K3 is a compact camera that can hold up to 2 hours of video footage if you use the 2 gigabyte SD memory card that comes included. When the memory card is full, the camera will continue on a continuous loop by deleting the old files and starting anew…

Tags: Car,
Loop,
Memory card,
SD,
Video,
Video Camera

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The hype surrounding the launch of the iPad has translated into some serious sales figures with Apple reporting that it sold over 300,000 iPads in the US as of midnight Saturday, April 3. The company also says that over one million apps and over 250,000 ebooks were downloaded on the first day…

Tags: Apple,
iPad,
iPhone Dev Team,
Jailbreak

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Leaf has just announced a new professional-level 56 megapixel digital camera back with the world’s widest medium format internal rotating sensor, touchscreen display, 16-bit color and 12-stop dynamic range. The Aptus-II 10R is compatible with most of the Hasselblad V series as well as other camera systems from the likes of Mamiya and Fuji via an adapter…

Tags: Digital Cameras,
Leaf Cameras,
Medium Format

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