Nissan will officially pull the wraps off its new Rogue crossover next week. But we had a chance to take a sneak peek at Nissan’s latest crossover during preview evening at the Los Angeles Auto Show.What struck us most about Nissan’s Sentra-based small wagon? Well, it really isn’t that small. It’s 182.9 in. long and rides on a 105.9-in. wheelbase. That’s only an inch or two shorter in each dimension than theToyota Highlander....
In 2014, Ducati had a problem. The great Monster bike had gotten bigger, more complicated, and more expensive over the years, leaving a hole where a stylish, entry-level bike should be. So the brand introduced the Ducati Scrambler, and to roaring success: Since going on sale, the Scrambler has been Ducati’s best-selling model with more than 55,000 sold.The key to the Scrambler’s appeal is its simple, attractive, and approachable quality—the kind of factors that appeal to a new motorcyclist walking into a modern motorcycle dealership, looking at the various over-styled machines on offer, and thinking, “where are the regular bikes!...
Media Platforms Design TeamRIVERSIDE, Calif. – It’s a piping hot late-summer morning, so there’s a sense of relief when the KC-135 Stratotanker bursts off the runway to leave the heat–and the expensive jet fuel–sweltering in the distance behind. I’m strapped in the back on our way out of March Air Reserve Base here for a mission that will bridge the Air Force’s past and future: This 50-year-old tanker is a workhorse retrofitted with advanced avionics and little else, but it’s about to rendezvous with a supersonic $142 million F-22 Raptor, a multirole stealth fighter that’s just taken off from Edwards Air Force Base with a belly hungry for fuel....
Media Platforms Design TeamBluetooth headsets claim to use advanced algorithms and noise-canceling techniques to pull a speaker’s voice out from the sounds of a highway, a noisy room or a windy sidewalk. We put three to the test, and then saw how well they handled one of the most likely potential causes of headset death: being left in washing-machine-bound pockets.The Sets>The TestsSPEAKING OVER NOISEHow well could others hear us over car-, party- and wind-caused dins?...
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a speech at the United Nations concerning the future of technology.It was weird.Parts of the speech, like those concerned with balancing personal privacy, dealt with serious issues.Other parts, like warnings of Terminators and “limbless chickens,” left global representatives scratching their heads.Amidst a growing set of global crises, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave his inaugural speech to the United Nations earlier this week on a topic few were expecting: the challenges of privacy and security in modern technology....
LAS VEGAS–Google on one side, Apple on the other. The Consumer Electronics Show is bookended by two of the biggest consumer electronics announcements of this year. Ironic, isn’t it, that the show that is designed to be the showcase for all that is important in the tech world is routinely upstaged by gadget news that goes on off site? Today Google formally announced its Nexus One ($529 unlocked; $179 with T-Mobile contract), a phone with a lightning fast processor, innovative voice recognition interface and a big, beautiful touchscreen....
Cyclones bring lots of rain, and with lots of rain comes landslides. But as Cyclone Gita in New Zealand recently showed, nature is full of surprises. After the storm, a woman named Donna Field captured a terrific example of “granular flow,” when rocks start to act like liquids. The area is called Terrible Gully, and when the rocks are flowing with such speed and ferocity, it’s easy to see where the name came from....
The French government invested in building a solar road to a rural town in 2016.The project has not delivered on its goals, according to French newspaper Le Monde.Solar streets face significant infrastructure challenges if they want to succeed.It was a solar experiment that seemed ingenious in its simplicity: fill a road with photovoltaic panels and let them passively soak up the rays as cars drive harmlessly above. The idea has been tried a few times, notably in rural France in 2016 with what was christened the “Wattway....
Popular Mechanics: Why did Honda decide to do a short about robots?Barbara Ponce: We launched our “Dream the Impossible” documentary series last January. [Living With Robots] is our sixth film. Our documentary series is, we feel, an excellent opportunity for us to communicate the spirit of the power of dreams and to define this through stories within Honda. You can’t do that in a 30-second commercial. The reality is, there’s been so much interest in Asimo and our work in robotics that it was one film that we wanted to do right from the beginning....
The makers of “Top Gun: Maverick” have released a new video showing how all of the amazing flying footage was taken. What’s amazing is that in this age of computer-generated special effects, nearly all of the airplane flying in the upcoming sequel is real—except for one scene.The video, released by Paramount Pictures, shows how the U.S. Navy cooperated with filmmakers for the sequel to the iconic 1986 film. Not only did the Navy allow Tom Cruise and company to film on the aircraft carriers USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Abraham Lincoln, but they also flew F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornets for the movie....
Media Platforms Design TeamI have a dog, a big slobbery one, and although I love taking him with me on car rides, cleaning up the hair on the seats and slobber on the windows afterward almost makes me want to leave him home. How can I lessen his mess?Dogs are great company on rides around town; however, they routinely lack the manners to clean up after themselves. I have a few suggestions to reduce the mess, although I doubt anything will eliminate it completely....
Maker: Teddy Boxberger, Lucchese Bootmaker, est. 1883, supplier to LBJ, El Paso, TexasMaterials• scrap wood, roughly 16" x 5", plus more • wood glue Tools• jigsaw • coffee cupStep 1: Start with a piece of wood about 16" x 5".Step 2: From the outside edges at one end of the board, measure in ¾ inches. Draw a line from each mark to the corner at the other end. Use a jigsaw to cut down the lines, creating the tapered bottom end of the bootjack....
Media Platforms Design TeamPrice: $99 Artists face an uphill battle when using an iPad for sketching. There are plenty of drawing apps and styluses available, but one important ingredient is missing—the iPad doesn’t have built-in pressure sensitivity. The Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus is a capacitive gem that offers 2048 levels of pen pressure and gives iPad users a more natural artistic experience. Wacom’s stylus is easy to use. Pair the pen with a supported app, such as Wacom’s own Bamboo Paper or Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, and the pen works as advertised....
Salvador Dalí died in 1989, but in some ways it’s like he never left. His artwork will be with us forever, and now, thanks to an installation at the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, his personality will live on as well. The museum has created an interactive exhibit, opening May 11, that comes as close as possible to bringing the artist back to life using deepfake technology. You might be familiar with deepfakes as the technology that allows users to realistically insert celebrities into videos....
Media Platforms Design TeamHow did you get the access to Phoenix mission control?The principal investigator of Phoenix is this guy Peter Smith. He has this instincthe knew the space story was awesome and could appeal to a lot of people. One of his first big missions was Pathfinder, and he came up with this idea that if you built the camera and made the images look like normal photos [and] mounted the camera at normal human height, people would react to them....
There’s good news and bad news when it comes to the amount of ice in the Arctic. The good news, tepid as it may be, was reported a few weeks ago: The summer minimum of Arctic ice cover, about 1.74 million square miles, wasn’t quite as low as last year’s level of 1.59 million square miles, the lowest ever recorded. But a new study dampens any enthusiasm, reporting that the rate of ice melt this August was 33,000 square miles per day, the fastest that anyone has ever recorded for the month....
The destroyer USS John McCain has arrived at Changi Naval Base in Singapore after a collision with a civilian oil tanker. Pictures show a large, gaping gash in the warship’s port side, which caused extensive flooding. Ten sailors remain missing and five were medically evacuated in the second collision in two months involving a U.S. Navy destroyer and a civilian tanker,.And where there’s a pattern—there’s a conspiracy.The McCain collided with the Liberia-registered Alnic MC, a 600 foot long, 30,000 gross ton tanker, in the early morning hours of August 21st, resulting in a large gash on the destroyer’s port (left) side....
Media Platforms Design TeamRecently, Davin Coburn headed to the Pacific Northwest to learn about one company’s revolutionary new build process for their high-performance kitplane—and then to go for a test drive, to figure out what it was like 180 degrees from a midtown Manhattan office. Catch up with his journey by clicking here, then take to the skies below… Rain has settled in over Scoop Lake, making it a great morning for a soft chair and another cup of coffee....
Media Platforms Design TeamUPDATE (2:56 p.m.): “We’re going to be some pretty busy boys and girls for the next couple months,” Boynton says. And why not? Extending the Phoenix Mission through Sept. 30 costs $2 million.UPDATE (2:50 p.m.): The Phoenix mission will be extended, but team leaders aren’t sure how long the lander will last, so they’re gathering as much information and evidence on Mars as possible. “We’re learning as we go along the best way to heat the soil … and we have ways of fine tuning the instrument to look for organic molecules at the expense of other molecules,” Boynton says....
In the start of 2016, SpaceX announced an ambitious plan to create a network of satellites that would bring high-speed internet access to the entire world. According to the announcement, the company would launch a series of satellites orbiting at about three times the distance of the ISS.Then, in November, the company filed an application with the FCC. The application laid out a plan to put over 4,000 satellites in orbit, effectively quadrupling the number of active satellites....
