Google is testing a way of using balloons to carry Internet signals to areas where a wired or cellphone connection isn’t financially viable. It’s part of a grand project with the stated aim of making the net available to every person in the world by the end of the decade. The company appears relaxed with […]
Now that things have settled down, and the fallout between Microsoft and Sony’s press conferences are sifting to a murky haze – let’s take a look at some other announcements from two of the industries leading developers. Ubisoft and Electronic Arts hosted their events on Monday and treated fans to an array of new titles, […]
http://youtu.be/6LWz4qa2XQA In a jaw-dropping feat of engineering, electronics turn a person’s thoughts into commands for a robot. Using a brain-computer interface technology pioneered by University of Minnesota biomedical engineering professor Bin He, several young people have learned to use their thoughts to steer a flying robot around a gym, making it turn, rise, dip, and […]
Here’s a video that will show you exactly what you see when you’re looking through a Google Glass headset. [phandroid | Via Techeblog]
Google has bought a firm that uses robotic kites to generate power using miniature wind turbines in the sky. Makani Power originally started with the assistance of ARPA-E, which isn’t the Defense Department’s gadget factory (that’s DARPA) but rather an agency of the Department of Energy exploring alternative power sources. Google had later come along […]
Transatlantic travelers took another step closer to ditching their phone chargers this week with two major wireless charging firms announcing they’ll use a common standard. The deal is between American firm Powermat and Finland-based PowerKiss, which are among the leading providers in North America and Europe respectively. Both firms use a form of inductive charging […]
A California teenager has attracted widespread media attention after creating a “supercapacitor” that could recharge a cellphone battery in under 30 seconds. But much of the coverage appears to have downplayed the word “could.” 18-year-old Esha Khare (pictured above left) won an Intel Young Scientist Award of $50,000 at the company’s International Science and Engineering Fair. […]
The makers of the blueprints for the first 3D printer-produced gun hoped to spark a debate on the first and second amendments to the US Constitution. That’s just what they’ve got thanks to a government demand to take the designs offline. The group Defense Distributed recently attracted attention with the first firing of a gun […]
What comes next after a car-plane hybrid? Why, a cross between a car and a helicopter of course. Terrafugia, the company behind a flying car due for delivery to buyers in a couple of years, is now working on a model that would take off vertically, meaning no runway would be required. As we covered […]
Staff at a government laboratory have revealed they’ve been using a quantum internet since late 2010. But it’s an extremely simple model and might not scale well. The idea of a quantum internet scales from quantum computing, which used the magnetic orientation of atomic particles as a way to encode 0s and 1s. Simply put, […]