THE TECH-LICIOUS

Alcohol-powered micro fuel cell could one day power your smartphone

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Engineers have been struggling for years to develop some new breakthrough idea that will push battery technology to the next level. Instead, we’ve been stuck with iterative improvements that limit the power and usefulness of our mobile devices. Perhaps batteries aren’t the right way to go at all, though. A doctoral researcher at Aalto University in Finland has developed a prototype of a highly efficient micro fuel cell that runs on alcohol. Maybe in the future when you swing by the bar for a drink, you’ll also be able to top off your phone.</div>
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We’re used to hearing about fuel cell technology <a href="http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/171299-hyundai-will-sell-a-hydrogen-fuel-cell-suv-in-2014-300-mile-range-expected" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;">in motor vehicles</a>, but at the most basic level, fuel cells are simply a way to generate electricity. There’s no reason a fuel cell<i>cant </i>work in a mobile device, and the high energy density would make it potentially far superior to a lithium-ion battery. It’s just a matter of making the cell small and durable enough to ride around in a smartphone in your pocket all day.</div>
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The Aalto University fuel cell was designed by Gianmario Scotti for his <a href="https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/12857" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;">doctoral dissertation</a>. Like larger <a href="http://www.extremetech.com/tag/fuel-cells" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;">fuel cells</a>, the micro cell consumes alcohol and oxygen, outputting water, carbon dioxide, and of course, electricity. It’s able to run on either methanol or ethanol, but the latter is preferable. Not only is ethanol easier to produce with our current energy infrastructure, it comes with minimal health hazards (this is the alcohol we can consume safely in moderation). Methanol, by contrast, is highly toxic when ingested, and is also a skin irritant.</div>
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<a href="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/2014-05-06-14_14_17-https___aaltodoc.aalto_.fi_bitstream_handle_123456789_12857_publication3.pdf_sequ.png" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Fuel cells" class="size-large wp-image-181968" height="369" src="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/2014-05-06-14_14_17-https___aaltodoc.aalto_.fi_bitstream_handle_123456789_12857_publication3.pdf_sequ-640x369.png" style="border-style: none;" width="640" /></a></div>
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The cell designed by Scotti is a tiny aluminum wafer just 14 mm<sup>2</sup> and less than a millimeter thick. Using a picosecond <a href="http://www.extremetech.com/tag/lasers" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;">laser</a> allowed Scotti to fabricate the cell using aluminum rather than the more common silicon, which helped to reduce the cost and weight. Despite its small size, supplying it with alcohol outputs 0.5 volts — hydrogen can produce a full volt, but is <a href="http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/170846-portable-hydrogen-fuel-cell-can-recharge-your-phone-but-its-still-too-expensive-for-mass-adoption" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;">far less practical</a>. A few of these cells wired up in series would provide enough juice to keep your phone running. Then it’s just matter of keeping the reservoir supplied with reactants.</div>
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<a href="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/2014-05-06-14_11_03-isbn9789526055947.pdf.png" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Fuel cell" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-181967" height="211" src="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/2014-05-06-14_11_03-isbn9789526055947.pdf-300x211.png" style="border-style: none; float: right; padding-left: 10px;" width="300" /></a>Scotti discusses in his dissertation the best way to refill a micro fuel cell like the one he’s designed. The system would need to be kept clean, so you wouldn’t just pop it open and pour some ethanol in. A pump or capillary action could be used to recharge the cell, but either method would be much faster than plugging a battery into the wall. Air (oxygen) is required for the reaction, so air quality might be more troublesome than the alcohol component. In regions with high particulate levels in the atmosphere, the fuel cell could become clogged and fail to function. So taking your micro fuel cell phone to Beijing might leave you without power, and no amount of booze is going to fix it.</div>
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Powering smartphones is really just the most consumer-facing use for micro fuel cells. Scotti suggests that these same devices could be of use with micro-satellites, which need to keep weight down for launch and only remain in orbit for a limited time. As for when these power sources might find their way into mobile devices, Scotti says it could be<a href="http://www.aalto.fi/en/current/news/2014-05-05/" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;">anywhere from 1-10 years</a>. Until then, you’ll just have to fill yourself with alcohol instead of your phone.</div>
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Alcohol-powered micro fuel cell could one day power your smartphone

Engineers have been struggling for years to develop some new breakthrough idea that will push battery technology to the next level. Instead, we’ve been stuck with iterative improvements that limit th…

08 May 2014

App-Enabled Smart Egg Tray Keeps Good Eggs from Becoming Bad Eggs

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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are good eggs and there are bad eggs. But did you know that there are also <em>smart</em>eggs? It’s true. And smart eggs know that having shelter against the ravages of entropy is tantamount to happiness during an already limited lifespan. The <em>really</em> smart eggs use technology in tandem with this knowledge to maximize results; that’s why there’s the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00GN92KQ4/lgrs-20" rel="nofollow" style="color: #d4402a;" target="blank_">Egg Minder Wink App-Enabled Smart Egg Tray</a>, after all!</span></b></div>
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<span class="embed-youtube" style="display: block; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">Smart eggs usually start out as good eggs, but the passage of time turns them</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><em style="text-align: left;">all</em><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;">bad in the end. This Egg Minder Smart Egg Tray holds 14 eggs and its companion app keeps track of their quantity as well as age so that you can use them before this happens (and shop for more if you’re running low). A blinking LED will even let you know which egg is the oldest so you can use it first!</span></span></b></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00GN92KQ4/lgrs-20" rel="nofollow" style="color: #d4402a;" target="blank_"><img align="middle" alt="App-Enabled Smart Egg Tray Keeps Good Eggs from Becoming Bad Eggs" border="0" hspace="3" src="http://www.lockergnome.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/app-enabled-smart-egg-tray.jpg" style="border: none; height: auto; max-width: 100%;" vspace="3" width="600" /></a></div>
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App-Enabled Smart Egg Tray Keeps Good Eggs from Becoming Bad Eggs

There are good eggs and there are bad eggs. But did you know that there are also smarteggs? It’s true. And smart eggs know that having shelter against the ravages of entropy is tantamount to happines…

07 May 2014

Future Tech: Predictions answered definitively

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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>WE were promised a variety of future tech, most of which have failed to hit the shelves. So, what ever happened to flying cars and teleportation? Answers please...</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Science fiction writers and Hollywood have long promised a brave new world where all the huge possibilities of tech are manifest. Problem is, the bureaucracy and cashflow problems of real life never seem to keep pace with the mind.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>We've investigated the ten most important inventions yet to take flight to find out what happened to the future we were promised. Now, where the hell are our flying cars?</b></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>When will we see flying cars?</u></span></strong></h3>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What's the big idea?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Where the automobile is going, we don't need roads - at least not all the time. Designs for flying cars have been trying (and failing) to take off for decades, but from next year, you'll be able to buy your own for around £160,000.</b></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What's happening?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>The current frontrunner in the race for the skies is US firm Terrafugia. It describes its vehicle, the Transition, more as a 'roadable aircraft' than a flying car. Looking a bit like a winged Reliant Robin, the Transition cruises at 93kts (105mph) and upon landing, its 8m wings fold up to be stowed at the side of the vehicle.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Classed as a light sports aircraft across the pond, the idea is that you drive it home straight from the airport. To do that from Stansted or any other UK airport, the vehicle will first need a Certificate of Airworthiness. “All new aircraft designs have to be approved by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) for operation within the EU,” says Richard Taylor, a spokesman for the UK's Civil Aviation Authority.</b></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What's the hold up?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Assuming the Transition or any other flying car meets all of the technical requirements for flight, we'd still need a monumental shake-up of the way the skies are policed before we could all travel to work in one. “The Rules of the Air, essentially the highway code for aviation, states that aircraft are not allowed to fly within 1,000ft of the highest fixed point in an urban settlement or within 500ft of a person, vehicle or structure in open countryside. The ability of a flying car to safely ‘see and avoid’ other aircraft and abide by the Rules of the Air have to be seriously questioned.”</b></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When could it happen?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>The technology is ready to go, but it's going to be stuck in a holding pattern until at least mid-century before anyone lands a flying car at home.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Timeline:</span> 2050</b></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>Transatlantic tunnel travel</u></span></strong></h3>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What's the big idea?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Breakfast in Waterloo followed by lunch in Times Square, thanks to bullet train that crosses the length of the Atlantic Ocean in a gigantic undersea tunnel. The concept dates back to Jules Verne's day, but now engineers say there are no technological barriers left to prevent it from being built.</b></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What's happening right now?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>For now, the project remains a (3000-mile-long) pipe dream. Even so, some engineers have proposed a flexible 'floating' tunnel submerged 50m under the sea and anchored to the sea floor. This would avoid the ships and storms on the surface and the immense pressure found on the bottom. To build it, we'd need time and money says Bob Idell, chair of the British Tunneling Society. “With today’s technology and costs, a fair guesstimate would be that we could probably tunnel a distance of 100m per week on average, at an approximate cost of £50m per km.”</b></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What's the hold up?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>“The distances involved make everything very complicated - from machinery servicing to getting power and ventilation to the site - and currently we don’t have financially practical solutions for these problems.” Aside from placing a construction site thousands of miles from land, Idell thinks the greatest obstacle is demand. Aircraft don't do a bad job of crossing the Atlantic and proposed scramjet technology could cut the journey to 2-3 hours.</b></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When could we see it?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Given unprecedented financial and political backing, a tunnel could be started this decade. But hypersonic passenger planes in the future are likely to sink the idea to the ocean floor.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Timeline</span>: 2020</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>Teleportation</u></span></h3>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What's the big idea?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Travel, Jim, but not as we know it. Teleportation would involve technology that grabs hold of every atom in your body, transports them through space and reassembles them exactly as they were in a new location. Like lightspeed and Princess Leia's gold bikini, it's one of science fiction's most tantalizing promises. But incredibly, researchers have already achieved it in the lab ...sort of.</b></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What's happening right now?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Scientists have yet to beam themselves (or any other atoms) from one place to another. What they have done is beam information. It's called quantum teleportation, and exploits the freaky world of quantum mechanics. “A particle does not disappear in one place and reappear in another, as on Star Trek,” explains Professor Benjamin Schumacher. A physicist at Kenyon College in Ohio, he reviewed a Chinese research paper last year in which information was teleported 10 miles from one photon of light to another. “The properties of one particle are wiped out and transferred to another particle some distance away.”</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>This is where things get weird. There is no 'signal' between the two particles, no cosmic Wi-Fi - at least none that we know about. Instead, the two particles are 'entangled' and when you manipulate one, the same effect instantly occurs on the second even though it's in another lab 10 miles down the road. “All of the work has been done via this weird pre-existing connection,” Schumacher says.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Teleportation of a few photons is not, by itself, very useful. But it is closely linked to real technologies, like quantum cryptography and quantum computing. “Information that is teleported from place to place cannot be intercepted by any eavesdropper. It's a way to create perfectly secret communication.” Quantum computing, meanwhile, will revolutionise the speed at which computers work, allowing them to make calculations in minutes that would take years with today's technology.</b></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What's the hold-up?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>“Right now we can do quantum teleportation over distances of 10-20km in free space. I expect this distance to increase by a couple of orders of magnitude in the next decade or two,” says Schumacher. The bigger hold-up may be economic. Quantum cryptology is significantly more expensive than a briefcase handcuffed to a big man with a gun.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>But what about the tantalizing idea that quantum teleportation could one day be scaled up to work with an object made of a billion billion billion atoms ...such as you? It wouldn't transport the atoms themselves but all the information stored inside them – an atomic blueprint of 'you' - and transport it into a reservoir of entangled matter roughly your size in another location. “The transmitter would acquire a gigantic amount of information in the process - a quadrillion gigabytes is a low estimate,” Schumacher says. He adds that the entanglement process would also “kill you very thoroughly.”</b></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When could we see it?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Companies selling quantum cryptology already exist, while quantum computers are four or five decades away. Trekkie-style teleportation doesn't strictly break the laws of the Universe but, short of a monumental discovery in physics, you won't be beaming anywhere in the forseeable future.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Timeline</span>: 2060</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>Invisibility cloaks</u></span></h3>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What's the big idea?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>In a world where everyone has something to hide, the ability to make something disappear completely is too good to pass up. Scientists are playing with ways of bending rays of light around an object using materials that change the speed and direction that light travels when it hits them. Watching closely are, of course, the military, who could use the materials in high-tech camouflage for soldiers or armoured vehicles.</b></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What's happening right now?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Cloaking devices already exist. It's just that up until recently, they have only worked with objects about a tenth of the width of a human hair – something nobody could see anyway. But this year, research led by scientists at the University of Birmingham, made a paperclip vanish using a prism made from a naturally-occurring crystal called calcite. “The cloak is designed in such a way that it bends light around a bump on the surface without being scattered by it. So anything hidden underneath it cannot be seen,” explains lead researcher Dr Shuang Zhang.</b></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What's in the way of the future?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>The crystal cloak is currently about 20 times larger than the object it's concealing, although calcite crystals do exist that are big enough to hide a human body. “Metamaterials offer a much larger parameter range than crystals, which means they could be used to design a much more compact invisibility cloak relative to the size of the object being concealed,” Zhang says. Currently, however, most of the technology demonstrated has been with wavelengths of light outside the spectrum visible to humans.</b></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When could we see it?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Metamaterials that work with visible light should appear within five years. Scaling it up for a high-tech game of hide-and-seek beneath haute Potteur will take decades.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Timeline</span>: 2016</b></span></div>
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Future Tech: Predictions answered definitively

WE were promised a variety of future tech, most of which have failed to hit the shelves. So, what ever happened to flying cars and teleportation? Answers please... Science fiction writers and Hollywo…

06 May 2014

NASA’s Tron-like Z-2 spacesuit wins the public vote, will be built later this year (updated)

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<img alt="NASA's Z-2 design prototypes: Biomimcry, Technology, and Trends in Society" src="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/nasa-z-2-three-spacesuits-640x353.jpg" /></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ProximaNovaRgBold, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px;">Updated @ 08:29 May 1:</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: ProximaNovaRgRegular, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px;"> NASA has announced that the Tron-like “Technology” design won the popular vote. A prototype of the Z-2 suit will now be built and begin testing by November 2014. The original story from March is below.</span></h3>
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NASA has revealed its newest range of next-generation spacesuits, the Z-2. The Z series of spacesuits is a series of prototypes that NASA is working its way through, with the eventual goal of creating a suit that will be used during future space walks, deep space missions, and planetary EVAs (i.e. walking on Mars). In 2012 it was the Z-1, which bore more than a passing resemblance to <i>Toy Story</i>‘s Buzz Lightyear (pictured below) — and now we have three Z-2 designs that are, in a word, <i>otherworldly</i>.</div>
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<a href="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/nasa-z-1-suit-buzz-lightyear.jpg" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="NASA's Z-1 spacesuit prototype" class="size-medium wp-image-179173" height="283" src="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/nasa-z-1-suit-buzz-lightyear-300x283.jpg" style="border-style: none;" width="300" /></a><br />
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NASA’s Z-1 spacesuit prototype. All it needs is some pop-out wings…</div>
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Working with ILC Dover (famous for working with NASA on many projects, including the spacesuits used by the Apollo program) and Philadelphia University, NASA is presenting three Z-2 designs for consideration. The idea is that we (you and I) will take a look at these suits, decide which design we like the most, and then vote on which one will be turned into an actual prototype. You have until April 15 to vote, and the spacesuit will be fully built by November 2014. The completed Z-2 suit will then be used to perform lots of testing here on Earth, to inform the creation of yet another prototype (the Z-3, presumably). It isn’t clear how many prototypes NASA intends to produce, but there is a plan to test out a Z-series suit on the International Space Station in 2017 — which, given the turnaround time of these things, would probably be the Z-3.</div>
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The three Z-2 designs are called Biomimcry, Technology, and Trends in Society (really). The Biomimicry suit draws on the fact that Earth’s oceans are quite similar to outer space: “Mirroring the bioluminescent qualities of aquatic creatures found at incredible depths, and the scaly skin of fish and reptiles found across the globe, this design reflects the qualities that protect some of Earth’s toughest creatures,” says the NASA Z-2 website. The electroluminescent wire makes the astronaut visible in low-light. The Technology suit is basically the same deal, but with a sci-fi design aesthetic instead. The oddly named Trends in Society suit uses “a bright color scheme to mimic the appearance of sportswear and the emerging world of wearable technologies.”</div>
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<a href="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/bio_spaceCenter_scaled.jpg" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Z-2 spacesuit, Biomimcry design" class="size-large wp-image-179179" height="640" src="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/bio_spaceCenter_scaled-640x640.jpg" style="border-style: none;" width="640" /></a><br />
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Z-2 spacesuit, Biomimcry design</div>
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<a href="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/tech_nbl_scaled.jpg" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Z-2 spacesuit, Technology design" class="size-large wp-image-179180" height="640" src="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/tech_nbl_scaled-640x640.jpg" style="border-style: none;" width="640" /></a><br />
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Z-2 spacesuit, Technology design</div>
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<a href="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/trend_rocks_scaled.jpg" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Z-2 spacesuit, Trends in Society design" class="size-large wp-image-179181" height="640" src="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/trend_rocks_scaled-640x640.jpg" style="border-style: none;" width="640" /></a><br />
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Z-2 spacesuit, Trends in Society design</div>
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<a href="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/suitport-nasa-rover-diagram.jpg" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="A diagram of how the suitport might work, on a pressurized rover" class="size-medium wp-image-179182" height="195" src="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/suitport-nasa-rover-diagram-300x195.jpg" style="border-style: none;" width="300" /></a><br />
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A diagram of how the suitport might work, on a pressurized rover</div>
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Despite their outwardly different designs, the suits appear to all have the same exciting set of features. NASA will use 3D laser scanning and 3D printing to customize parts of the Z-2 for each astronaut. Each Z-2 will also have a different covering layer — so each suit could have a unique electroluminiscent pattern on the front, for easy identification. The suits will also support the new suitport/suitdock concept — a new spin on airlocks, where the suit itself is the airlock (the diagram on the right explains it much better than my own words). If we ever send humans to Mars or Titan or some other extraplanetary body, suitports will likely be used.</div>
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Personally, I’m voting for the Biomimcry design. If we do ever carry out a deep space mission to another planet or star system, the Trends in Society design would be woefully out of fashion by the time we got there. Plus, everyone knows that looking like some kind of terrifying deep-ocean-dwelling Leviathan is the key to making friends with our galactic neighbors.</div>
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Remember, you have until April 15 to <a href="http://jscfeatures.jsc.nasa.gov/z2/" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;">cast your vote</a> on which design should be made into a fully working prototype.</div>
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NASA’s Tron-like Z-2 spacesuit wins the public vote, will be built later this year (updated)

Updated @ 08:29 May 1: NASA has announced that the Tron-like “Technology” design won the popular vote. A prototype of the Z-2 suit will now be built and begin testing by November 2014. The original s…

05 May 2014

This Shape-Shifting Smartphone Transforms Into Laptop and Tablet,has 3 screens

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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px;">A team of researchers have unveiled PaperFold, a shape-shifting device that changes from a </span><a class="itxtrst itxtrsta itxthook" href="http://www.techeblog.com/#" id="itxthook0" rel="nofollow" style="background-image: none; border: 0px none transparent; bottom: auto; color: rgb(0, 51, 153) !important; cursor: pointer; display: inline; float: none !important; font-size: 12px; left: auto; margin: 0px !important; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: static !important; right: auto; text-decoration: none; top: auto;"><span class="itxtrst itxtrstspan itxtnowrap" id="itxthook0w" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(40, 137, 233); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 0.075em; bottom: auto; color: #2889e9; display: inline; float: none; height: auto; left: auto; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; position: static; right: auto; text-decoration: underline; top: auto;">phone</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px;"> to a tablet and a notebook, using a set of screens and hinges. The foldable gadget is versatile to say the least, as it can be made smaller for texting, or larger for reading maps, and can even create a makeshift laptop with a keyboard. Continue reading for a video and more information.</span></span></b><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="266" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GJiy7sb6SKw?feature=player_embedded" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" width="320"></iframe></div>
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px;">Queen's professor Roel Vertegaal says: "In PaperFold, each display tile can act independently or as part of a single system. It allows multiple </span><a class="itxtrst itxtrsta itxthook" href="http://www.techeblog.com/#" id="itxthook1" rel="nofollow" style="background-image: none; border: 0px none transparent; bottom: auto; color: rgb(0, 51, 153) !important; cursor: pointer; display: inline; float: none !important; font-size: 12px; left: auto; margin: 0px !important; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: static !important; right: auto; text-decoration: none; top: auto;"><span class="itxtrst itxtrstspan itxtnowrap" id="itxthook1w" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(40, 137, 233); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 0.075em; bottom: auto; color: #2889e9; display: inline; float: none; height: auto; left: auto; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; position: static; right: auto; text-decoration: underline; top: auto;">device</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px;"> form factors, providing support for mobile tasks that require large screen real-estate or keyboards-on-demand, while retaining an ultra-compact, ultra-thin and lightweight form factor. PaperFold automatically recognises its shape and changes its graphics to provide different functionality upon these shape changes."</span><br style="font-size: 12px; height: 0px; line-height: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></span></b></div>

This Shape-Shifting Smartphone Transforms Into Laptop and Tablet,has 3 screens

A team of researchers have unveiled PaperFold, a shape-shifting device that changes from a phone to a tablet and a notebook, using a set of screens and hinges. The foldable gadget is versatile to say…

04 May 2014

Lamps That Spy On People & Tweet Their Conversations

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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Be careful what you say in public. No, really – be careful what you say in public because you just never know who or <em>what</em> may be listening to your words. It could be the person sitting at the table beside you. It could be the waitress who overhears part of your conversation as she’s coming to take your order. It could be the person standing behind you as you’re waiting in line. Or, it could be one of the lamps residing on top of your table. Especially if you’re in New York City. I wish I was kidding, but I’m totally serious.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It has recently come to light that 2 people who wanted to try their hand at hidden surveillance did just that in the Big Apple. They went to Washington Square Park and put hidden wi-fi enabled listening devices inside of lamps at a bank, a library, McDonalds, and of all places, someone’s bedroom. But that’s not the end of the story. After the conversations are recorded by the lamps, they’re sent to Mechanical Turk, where they are transcribed and then tweeted out on Twitter. This has been going on for about 7 months under the Twitter handle<a href="https://twitter.com/conversnitch" style="color: #0092dd;" target="_blank"> @Conversnitch.</a> Kyle McDonald and Brian House, who are behind the spying, state that they want people to be extra cautious about being watched.</span></b></div>
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<a href="http://technews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/conversnitch1.jpg" style="color: #0092dd;"><img alt="Lamps That Spy On People & Tweet Their Conversations" class="lazy alignnone size-large wp-image-14913 data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://technews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/conversnitch1.jpg" data-lazy-type="image" height="1" src="http://technews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/conversnitch1.jpg" style="background-color: #ecf0f4; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; display: inline; float: none; max-width: 708px; padding: 10px;" width="1" /></a><img alt="Lamps That Spy On People & Tweet Their Conversations" class="lazy alignnone wp-image-14913 data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://technews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/conversnitch1-1024x576.jpg" data-lazy-type="image" height="461" src="http://technews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/conversnitch1-1024x576.jpg" style="background-color: #ecf0f4; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; display: inline; float: none; max-width: 708px; padding: 10px;" width="819" /></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That Lamp Does More Than Just Light Up The Room</span></strong></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While this may seem (and probably is) slightly unethical, the pair seem to want to teach us all a lesson, that if they’re able to do this, just imagine what the government is able to do without our knowledge. It’s scary when you actually stop and think about it.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So, that old adage “be careful what you say” is never more true than in today’s world, because you never know who – or, what – is listening to your conversations.</span></b></div>
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<img alt="http://motherboard.vice.com/tag/conversnitch" class="lazy size-full wp-image-14731  data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://technews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/conversnitch-eavesdropping-lamp-designboom03.jpg" data-lazy-type="image" height="320" src="http://technews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/conversnitch-eavesdropping-lamp-designboom03.jpg" style="display: inline; max-width: 708px; padding: 10px;" width="708" /></div>
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Lamps That Spy On People & Tweet Their Conversations

Be careful what you say in public. No, really – be careful what you say in public because you just never know who or what may be listening to your words. It could be the person sitting at the table b…

04 May 2014

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