THE TECH-LICIOUS

this-is-not-a-3d-model-just-a-real-remote-controlled-airbus-a380

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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Syma-Channel-2-4G-Quad-Copter/dp/B00906PKQ4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&tag=tec02e-20" rel="nofollow" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 153) !important; outline: none;" target="_blank">Remote-controlled drones</a> are one thing, this Airbus A380 is another. Swiss RC aircraft enthusiast Peter Michel unveiled a giant scale model Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 that's powered by four JetCat P120 jet turbines, delivering around 30 pounds of thrust each. It weighs in at a hefty 155-pounds and has almost the same power to weight ratio as its 1.2 million pound counterpart. Continue reading for a <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; left: auto; line-height: normal; 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;">video</span></a> and more information.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>According to Dvice, "It took Michel 5,000 hours over eight months to build his 1:15 scale A380, using lots of styrofoam and lightweight balsa wood to keep the weight down. That's a lot of work for something you can't even ride in, but you've got to admit that his plane looks and sounds incredibly realistic as it rolls down the runway and lifts into the air."</b></span></div>
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this-is-not-a-3d-model-just-a-real-remote-controlled-airbus-a380

Remote-controlled drones are one thing, this Airbus A380 is another. Swiss RC aircraft enthusiast Peter Michel unveiled a giant scale model Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 that's powered by four JetCa…

02 May 2014

Man Creates A Spider-man Web-Shooter

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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">if you’ve watched any of the Spider-Man movies released in the last decade and thought it would be awesome to actually <i>be </i>Spider-Man,
 you’re definitely not alone in the universe. I’d say it’s probably a 
fair bet that most all of us have wanted to be the web-slinger at some 
point in our lives. Who wouldn’t want to be able to use webbing to swing
 from building to building and be able to climb up whatever wall stood 
in front of us? And of course there’s the whole crime-fighting thing too
 somewhere in the mix. And did I mention Mary Jane Watson? (Or, Gwen 
Stacie if she’s more your type). I don’t think many of us would turn 
down an opportunity to get to be Spider-Man.</span></b>
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">While a large number of kids want to be Spider-Man, some adults even 
endeavor to be the wall-crawler. Take Patrick Priebe for example – <a href="http://gizmodo.com/guy-builds-spider-mans-webslinger-using-an-electromagne-1564188978" target="_blank">when
 he couldn’t find a radioactive spider to bite him, he just decided to 
forego superpowers and created his own web-shooting device.</a> Except 
that it doesn’t really shoot “webs” per se. And you can’t swing around 
town with it. But, apart from that, it’s the next best thing to actually
 being Spidey.</span></b><br />
<img alt="Man Creates A Spider-man Web-Shooter" class="lazy alignnone size-full wp-image-14583 data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://news.filehippo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/webshooter.jpg" data-lazy-type="image" height="361" src="http://news.filehippo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/webshooter.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="708" /><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As you can see from the image above, that glove looks awfully similar
 to Spider-Man’s glove. Here’s the difference: while Spidey can shoot 
actual webs from his wrist, Patrick’s invention uses a laser targeting 
system to launch an electromagnetic harpoon. And, once the harpoon hits 
its target it can be called back to the wrist, bringing back whatever 
has been grappled.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Like I said – while you won’t be swinging through Manhattan, it’s 
about the closest you’ll get to shooting webs from your wrist without 
the use of silly string.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What do you think? Let me know in the comments section below!</span></b></div>

Man Creates A Spider-man Web-Shooter

if you’ve watched any of the Spider-Man movies released in the last decade and thought it would be awesome to actually be Spider-Man, you’re definitely not alone in the universe. I’d say it’s probab…

29 Apr 2014

Flying Car Bows at Florida Boat Show

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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>This week Parajet International Ltd. is using the Ft. Lauderdale 
International Boat Show to debut an all-terrain single-seater that can 
fly at speeds of 50 mph.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>The SkyRunner, grounded</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>
</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Resembling a dune buggy, the British company’s SkyRunner can scoot 
from zero to 62 mph in 4.3 seconds, hit a top speed of 115 mph on the 
ground and convert from road to air mode in three minutes.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>
</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>The $119,000 vehicle’s 1.0-liter turbocharged gasoline engine 
produces 123 hp that powers the rear wheels or a large rear-facing 
carbon-fiber propeller. The SkyRunner becomes airborne with the help of a
 reflex paraglider wing.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>
</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Parajet says the SkyRunner can reach a maximum altitude of 15,000 ft 
and travel 200 nautical miles in the air. The 926-lb vehicle can cover 
about 500 miles on the ground.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>
</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>The company says a runway isn’t necessary, because the vehicle can 
land in just about any open space. Licensing requires 12 hours of flight
 training.</b></span><br />
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<a href="http://autobeatinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/SkyRunner.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The SkyRunner, grounded" class="size-full wp-image-9098" height="292" src="http://autobeatinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/SkyRunner.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Flying Car Bows at Florida Boat Show

This week Parajet International Ltd. is using the Ft. Lauderdale International Boat Show to debut an all-terrain single-seater that can fly at speeds of 50 mph. The SkyRunner, grounded Resembling a…

27 Apr 2014

Electric scooter design that makes a hole lot of sense

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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyQVw9g_4MXzuoGUgzZqpA3ekkEZGd3ut9xxyDe3Y1AxK6VcRKJ3APzUmi54oelUkaVYrFFwcvhsoKpKY5IbX4f2hyphenhyphenvhX782w_wdxtBLS5wQ0wWEcTAf9GB3JemVg6mCgmXSvsyIRli06c/s1600/p01cn248.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyQVw9g_4MXzuoGUgzZqpA3ekkEZGd3ut9xxyDe3Y1AxK6VcRKJ3APzUmi54oelUkaVYrFFwcvhsoKpKY5IbX4f2hyphenhyphenvhX782w_wdxtBLS5wQ0wWEcTAf9GB3JemVg6mCgmXSvsyIRli06c/s1600/p01cn248.jpg" width="400" /></a><u>Scooters are a firm favourite in the developing world – but they are 
noisy and polluting, and can be dangerously overloaded. One company has 
come up with a cleaner, safer option. </u></h3>
<br />
<b>n many parts of the world, the scooter is one of the most popular 
ways to get around. City streets are crowded with the small two-wheeled 
vehicles, sometimes carrying one passenger, but often carrying two or 
more people, their children – and their cargo. Small motorcycles can be a
 vital form of transport for farmers to get their produce to market, or 
parents to get their children to school or medical care. So, drivers and
 their families, pets, livestock and boxes and bags often have to 
balance precariously on two wheels.</b><br />
<b>More and more scooters are taking to the streets of South American cities – <a href="http://blogs.worldbank.org/transport/concerns-over-the-growth-of-motorcycles-in-cities">faster than new cars, in some cases</a>.
 In many Asian cities they’re the dominant form of transport. They can 
be cheap to own and operate, and they can be faster than the car in 
congested cities. But scooters are also a source of urban pollution, in 
terms of both emissions and noise. Their small engines burn a 
combination of oil and gasoline relatively inefficiently compared to an 
average modern car, and <a href="http://world.honda.com/history/challenge/1975cg125/text/01.html">routine maintenance isn’t always carried out</a>.</b><br />
<b>They
 are also dangerous – even deadly. A scooter is designed for one, maybe 
two people. If it is loaded beyond that the centre of gravity is shifted
 higher and balance becomes much more difficult when weaving in and out 
of traffic.</b><br />
<b>Lit Motors, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130630-super-shrinking-the-city-car">a small company based in San Francisco, California</a>
 I profiled in my last article, believes it might have a solution. By 
going back to the drawing board and designing an electric scooter for 
carrying cargo, it has come up with a design that it says should be 
safer, more efficient, more useful, but no more expensive. These are big
 goals for a small machine.</b><br />
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<b>The first thing you notice when you 
look at the new cargo scooter is actually an absence, or a gap, in the 
middle of the machine. Right in the centre, approximately where the 
engine would sit underneath the driver, there is a square hole which can
 accommodate boxes up to 50x50x50cm (20x20x20 inches). The driver sits 
on a saddle right at the back. The total cargo capacity is estimated to 
be up to 90kg (198lbs), not including the weight of the rider </b><br />
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<u><b>All in the lean</b></u></h3>
<b>A key factor in the redesign was making the scooter electrically 
powered. The motor is placed inside the rear wheel, says Ryan James, Lit
 Motors’ chief marketing officer.</b><br />
<b>“That frees up the vehicle 
architecture to make it whatever we want it to be, and it also greatly 
simplifies the drivetrain making it cheaper to produce, cheaper to sell,
 and cheaper to the consumer,” he says.</b><br />
<b>Rechargeable batteries run
 along the base of the scooter, keeping the centre of gravity low, which
 is key to a stable, and therefore safer, ride. The batteries hold 
enough charge for around 50 miles, or 80km, and top speed will be around
 50mph (80kph).</b><br />
<b>The other standout part of the design is two handlebars, which seem to sprout out of the top of the bike. </b><br />
<br />
<b>“We have a unique, tank-style steering,” James explains. There is one
 handlebar on either side, which instead of twisting around a central 
pivot, are pushed or pulled in tandem to move the front wheel. “Like any
 other two wheeled vehicle, when you’re moving you’re actually turning 
the front wheel very little. The turn is all in the lean.”</b><br />
<b>For the
 cargo scooter to have an impact, it will have to be cheap enough for 
people to afford it. So is it possible to get the price of an innovative
 electric bike that low?</b><br />
<b>“We think we can,” says James. “We went 
over to India a couple of years ago and conducted market research, met 
with three of the largest scooter and motorcycle manufacturers, and we 
were able to determine how much we could produce this for. We should be 
able to get this comparable with similar price-point scooters.” In 
reality that means a target price of around $5,000.</b><br />
<b>Early 
production will be determined by demand, according to the company. It 
says it is prepared to produce anywhere from 10 to a few hundred at its facility in San Francisco at first, and then increase 
the numbers. Longer term, the company may license the design to 
manufacturers around the world.</b><b>The cargo scooter is still very 
much in development stage, and I was shown an early prototype (see 
video). The company already has ambitious plans though. Their next goal 
is to make the scooter fold in half, so you end up with the two wheels 
much closer together, and the bike’s footprint halved.</b><br />
<b>“That will 
be really big in places like China, where the norm is not to leave your 
scooter locked down in the street, but to bring it up into your 
apartment with you,” says James.</b><br />
<b>Lit plans to release the machine later on this year – using a Kickstarter campaign, of course.</b><br />
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<b>       </b> </h3>
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Electric scooter design that makes a hole lot of sense

Scooters are a firm favourite in the developing world – but they are noisy and polluting, and can be dangerously overloaded. One company has come up with a cleaner, safer option. n many parts of t…

26 Apr 2014

WHEN INOVATION MEETS MOTHER LOVE

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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Most parents would do anything to help their children succeed, 
whether it comes in the form of sacrificing financially so they can get a
 good education, or just being present with them in the small moments as
 well as the big ones. No parent likes to be told their children can’t 
(or shouldn’t) do something other children sometimes take for granted, 
like walking down the road or riding a bike. But, sometimes when parents
 are told their children won’t ever be able to do something, such as 
walk normally, it becomes a catalyst for them to prove the doctors 
wrong.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>
</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Debbie Elnatan, from Jerusalem, is the mother of a little boy named 
Rotem who lives with cerebral palsy. At some point when he was younger, 
certain doctors told Debbie that Rotem shouldn’t ever walk or even 
crawl. Like any parent, she didn’t like hearing that kind of medical 
advice, and she eventually came up with an idea that would help her son 
to walk. <a href="https://shine.yahoo.com/author-blog-posts/her-son-couldn-t-walk-inventive-mom-lent-184800791.html" target="_blank">That idea is now fully revealed to the world in the form of the UpSee Harness</a>.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>
</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><img alt="Mom Creates UpSee Harness To Help Her Son Walk" class="lazy alignnone size-full wp-image-14454 data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://news.filehippo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/13.jpg" data-lazy-type="image" height="454" src="http://news.filehippo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/13.jpg" style="display: inline;" title="Mom Creates UpSee Harness To Help Her Son Walk" width="708" /></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>
</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Every Child Deserves To Walk</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>
</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>At first, she would just bend over and manually help Rotem to walk, 
but that just left her reeling with back pain of her own. Over time, she
 developed a special harness, now known as the Upsee Harness, that 
allows special-needs children to walk in tandem with one of their 
parents. Using a pair of “double sandals” along with a harness, children
 get to learn how to walk with Mom and/or Dad and they gain muscle 
memory which they otherwise wouldn’t.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>
</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><img alt="" class="lazy alignnone size-full wp-image-14455 data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://news.filehippo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Screen-Shot-2014-04-07-at-12.09.29-PM.png" data-lazy-type="image" height="483" src="http://news.filehippo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Screen-Shot-2014-04-07-at-12.09.29-PM.png" style="display: inline;" title="Mom Creates UpSee Harness To Help Her Son Walk" width="708" /></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>
</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>After a long process, Debbie was finally able to get her UpSee 
Harness released to the public – she stated that because investors 
thought it was such a small market they were wary of investing in her 
product. But that’s all changed now, and kids who have never walked 
before are getting to experience it for the first time.</b></span></div>

WHEN INOVATION MEETS MOTHER LOVE

Most parents would do anything to help their children succeed, whether it comes in the form of sacrificing financially so they can get a good education, or just being present with them in the small…

25 Apr 2014

MICROSCALE-3D PRINTING

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inks made from different types of materials, precisely applied, are greatly expanding the kinds of things that can be printed.</h2>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>To show off its ability to do multimaterial 3-D printing, Lewis’s lab has printed a complex lattice using different inks.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Despite the excitement that 3-D printing has 
generated, its capabilities remain rather limited. It can be used to 
make complex shapes, but most commonly only out of plastics. Even 
manufacturers using an advanced version of the technology known as 
additive manufacturing typically have expanded the material palette only
 to a few types of metal alloys. But what if 3-D printers could use a 
wide assortment of different materials, from living cells to 
semiconductors, mixing and matching the “inks” with precision?</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>
</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Jennifer Lewis, a materials scientist at Harvard University, is 
developing the chemistry and machines to make that possible. She prints 
intricately shaped objects from “the ground up,” precisely adding 
materials that are useful for their mechanical properties, electrical 
conductivity, or optical traits. This means 3-D printing technology 
could make objects that sense and respond to their environment. 
“Integrating form and function,” she says, “is the next big thing that 
needs to happen in 3-D printing.”</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Left: For the demonstration, the group formulated four polymer inks, each dyed a different color. <br /><br />Right: The different inks are placed in standard print heads</b>. </span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Bottom:
 By sequentially and precisely depositing the inks in a process guided 
by the group’s software, the printer quickly produces the colorful 
lattice.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>A group at Princeton University has printed a bionic ear, combining 
biological tissue and electronics (see “Cyborg Parts,” September/October
 2013), while a team of researchers at the University of Cambridge has 
printed retinal cells to form complex eye tissue. But even among these 
impressive efforts to extend the possibilities of 3-D printing, Lewis’s 
lab stands out for the range of materials and types of objects it can 
print.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>
</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Last year, Lewis and her students showed they could print the 
microscopic electrodes and other components needed for tiny lithium-ion 
batteries (see “Printing Batteries,” January/February). Other projects 
include printed sensors fabricated on plastic patches that athletes 
could one day wear to detect concussions and measure violent impacts. 
Most recently, her group printed biological tissue interwoven with a 
complex network of blood vessels. To do this, the researchers had to 
make inks out of various types of cells and the materials that form the 
matrix supporting them. The work addresses one of the lingering 
challenges in creating artificial organs for drug testing or, someday, 
for use as replacement parts: how to create a vascular system to keep 
the cells alive.</b></span><br />
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              <aside class="box-right text-left" style="height: 841px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><u><b>Top: Inks made of silver nanoparticles are used to print electrodes as small as a few micrometers.  </b></u></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><u><b>Bottom: As in the other 3-D printing processes, the operati</b></u>o<u><b>n is controlled and monitored by computers.</b></u></span></span></div>
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<u><b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Left: Jennifer Lewis’s goal is to print complex architectures that integrate form and function.<br /><br />Right: A glove with strain sensors is made by printing electronics into a stretchable elastomer.</span></span></b></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>In a basement lab a few hundred yards from Lewis’s office, her group 
has jury-rigged a 3-D printer, equipped with a microscope, that can 
precisely print structures with features as small as one micrometer (a 
human red blood cell is around 10 micrometers in diameter). Another, 
larger 3-D printer, using printing nozzles with multiple outlets to 
print multiple inks simultaneously, can fabricate a meter-sized sample 
with a desired microstructure in minutes.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>The secret to Lewis’s creations lies in inks with properties that 
allow them to be printed during the same fabrication process. Each ink 
is a different material, but they all can be printed at room 
temperature. The various types of materials present different 
challenges; cells, for example, are delicate and easily destroyed as 
they are forced through the printing nozzle. In all cases, though, the 
inks must be formulated to flow out of the nozzle under pressure but 
retain their form once in place—think of toothpaste, Lewis says.</b></span><br />
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<aside class="box-right text-left" style="height: 841px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><u>  </u></span></b></span><br /><img alt="" height="616" src="http://www.technologyreview.com/sites/default/files/images/tr10.3d.printing.6x948.jpg" width="948" /><u><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Left: The largest printer in Lewis’s lab makes objects up to a meter by a meter. <br /><br />Top: For such jobs, the printer uses a 64- or 128-nozzle array to speed up the process.<br /><br />Bottom: A test sample with a layered microstructure was printed in minutes using wax ink.</span></b></u><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Before coming to Harvard from the University of Illinois at 
Urbana-Champaign last year, Lewis had spent more than a decade 
developing 3-D printing techniques using ceramics, metal nanoparticles, 
polymers, and other nonbiological materials. When she set up her new lab
 at Harvard and began working with biological cells and tissues for the 
first time, she hoped to treat them the same way as materials composed 
of synthetic particles. That idea might have been a bit naïve, she now 
acknowledges. Printing blood vessels was an encouraging step toward 
artificial tissues capable of the complex biological functions found in 
organs. But working with the cells turns out to be “really complex,” she
 says. “And there’s a lot more that we need to do before we can print a 
fully functional liver or kidney. But we’ve taken the first step.</span></b>”</aside></div>
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MICROSCALE-3D PRINTING

inks made from different types of materials, precisely applied, are greatly expanding the kinds of things that can be printed. To show off its ability to do multimaterial 3-D …

24 Apr 2014

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