Media Platforms Design TeamThe job of designing each new generation of Mini Hardtop must be one of the most daunting tasks for any designer. After all, you can’t really stray too far from the original. Yet you’ve got to make the car standout from the previous models. Porsche has mastered this with the 911 and it seems as through Mini has as well.The new Hardtop is 4.5 inches longer, 1.7 inches wider and ....
Want to play some Xbox games? Well you won’t have to buy an Xbox to do it anymore, at least not in the traditional sense. Microsoft is taking its Xbox Live and Netflix-like Xbox Game Pass subscription to their logical conclusions with Xbox All Access, a payment plan that includes both subscriptions and an Xbox.The promotion has been rumored for a while but was accidentally announced when the Xbox Wire posted (and then promptly removed) a post officially announcing the subscription which runs $22 a month for both subscriptions and an Xbox One S or $35 a month for both subscriptions and an Xbox One X....
While Howard Hall was shooting his latest IMAX movie, Under the Sea 3D, the filmmaker caught a moment he’d been waiting three decades to film: A green sea turtle feeding on a jellyfish. “It’s very unusual for a turtle to eat a venomous jellyfish,” Hall says. “I saw it happen 25 years ago, and I’ve been hoping to film it ever since. When we were making Under the Sea, we had an opportunity to dive in a location where there were lots of sea turtles....
For people who spend every day walking around like it’s nothing, it can be easy to forget that walking is actually incredibly hard. There are dozens of minute leg and foot movements involved in taking a single step, which makes it difficult to design artificial legs and feet for amputees. One group of engineers is designing a special type of prosthetic ankle that can perform some of these precise movements automatically, giving its wearers much better movement....
Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design TeamNikon D5000 & 18-55mm Lens Kit Review $850 ($730 Without Lens) The Promise: If you cracked open the Nikon D5000 and the company’s more expensive Nikon D90, you’d be hard-pressed to tell the two digital SLR cameras apart. They feature the same 12.3-megapixel sensor, the same ability to shoot 720p high-def video and a virtually identical spec sheet. But the D5000 costs more than $300 less, features a swiveling LCD and is significantly lighter than the D90....
Media Platforms Design TeamScott Keogh, North American president for Audi, says the automaker has tossed out the old philosophy of debuting all the hot tech on the most expensive cars, then trickling it down to the entry models. Instead, the A3, the most affordable car Audi will sell in the U.S. (expect an MSRP starting in the low $30,000s), is getting the hot tech first.The next-gen A3 will get options like MMI, Audi’s in-car, screen-based control system with the first-ever implementation of a touch-pad incorporated into its latest-edition mouse-like controller....
Have you ever wondered how your brain chooses to act on the things you see and hear? We’re exposed to a lot of sensory information every second of our lives, and somehow our brains make sense of that information and plan out actions and tasks to carry out. It’s all due to complex interactions between the sensory regions of our brains and something called the premotor cortex, and a group of scientists recently figured out how to bypass that interaction and implant thoughts into the premotor cortex directly....
The U.S. Marine Corps is expanding its use of a new automatic rifle, issuing it to all Marine infantry and other Marines at the very tip of the spear. The M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle will replace the M4 carbine in many combat-related positions. Other troops will continue to use the M4.The Marine Corps adopted the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle in 2010 to replace the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. The Marines valued the M27’s ability to fire short, accurate bursts of suppressive fire at longer distances and issued the firearm to one Marine per infantry fire team, or three per squad....
As the U.S. Navy reorients towards powers such as Russia and China with their own large air forces, the sea service wants to outfit its larger, non-combat warplanes with small interceptors meant to shoot down incoming missiles air to air missiles. The technology would be the first active defense system operating in the skies. The interceptors would be carried by the planes themselves or a robotic bodyguard.The Navy issued a Request for Information from the defense industry on May 3rd....
The U.S. Navy will spend a record $22 billion for nine new Virginia-class submarines.Most of the submarines will include the ability to carry and launch up to 40 cruise missiles.The submarines will join the fleet in the mid to late 2020s. The U.S. Navy has just signed the largest warship building deal ever. The service will pay more than 20 billion dollars for nine new Virginia-class attack submarines. The submarines will replace Cold War-era Los Angeles-class boats in America’s submarine fleet, adding new technology and greater firepower....
The automated “robot” vacuum revolution has forever changed how we think about home cleaning. No longer must we trek to every corner of our house with a broom in hand to ensure that the floors stay spotlessly clean since these friendly, automated gadgets are more than happy to do the work for us.The only problem is that the most popular automated vacuums on the market remain obnoxiously expensive—putting them out of reach for most consumers....
Over the course of a 77-year writing career (she pitched her first story when she was 11), Ursula K. Le Guin became one of the most influential American science fiction and fantasy writers. Unfortunately for the world, that long career ended on Tuesday, when Le Guin died in her Portland, Ore., home at age 88 after several months in poor health.With 20 novels, dozens of poems, and more than 100 short stories, she created worlds that inspired generations of readers—many who never saw themselves in sci-fi works before—and many future authors....
View full post on YoutubeThe first teaser for Star Wars: The Force Awakens appeared over the Thanksgiving holiday, more than a year before the movie’s scheduled release in December 2015. That’s a long time to kill in a galaxy far, far away, and plenty of fans have started to amp up their enthusiasm/alleviate their boredom by remixing the cryptic first look at J.J. Abrams’ forthcoming film. Our favorite? This Lego treatment, seen above....
Media Platforms Design Team The most significant product not announced at Apple’s iPod press conference this afternoon was the all-new $50 Flip pocket video cameras. Wait a second. That product doesn’t exist, does it? Flip video cameras start at $150. But so does Apple’s new iPod Nano, which includes a 640 x 480 video camera and has 8GB of memory to the Flip Ultra’s 4GB. Of course, the Nano is also the most popular music player in the world....
Last year, wildfires in California were incredibly widespread and devastating, destroying over 1,000 homes. It seemed, at times, that the entire West Coast was on fire, and video from people on the ground just trying to escape the blazes gave us a startling look at how scary and threatening these fires can be from close up. Photographer and videographer Jeff Frost is no stranger to these infernos and has been recording them for years, including the summer of 2015....
On a typical day in 2011, Chicago Field Museum volunteer Karen Nordquist was undertaking her usual task: sifting ancient mud through a mesh screen that captures small fossils. This particular batch of mud had been found around the excavation site of the museum’s most famous resident—Sue the T. Rex, the best preserved and most complete example of the species. As if that wasn’t cool enough, Nordquist accidentally discovered a new species of shark....
The largest gun attached to any warplane in the world belongs to the new AC-130W Stinger II flying gunship. Its M102 howitzer can fire 105mm high-explosive shells at targets on the ground at a rate of up to ten rounds per minute. Here it is in action:View full post on YoutubeThe video starts with aircrews loading 105mm howitzer shells into the aircraft for a training mission. The M102 is an older Army light field howitzer, designed to provide indirect fire support for troops on the ground....
Media Platforms Design Team(Photograph courtesy of NASA Langley Research Center)It’s an unpleasant but familiar experience: You’re cruising along at 30,000 feet when turbulence seems to yank the airplane out from under you. If you’re like some of the 26 injured passengers on Continental Airlines Flight 128 last Monday (or the two people on Delta Airlines Flight 2871 last Tuesday) and you’re not buckled in when this happens, you could meet the ceiling with unpleasant results....
West Point pre-med students are doing research that could lead to the 3D printing of “bio bandages” and small body parts.So-called “bio printers” could print things such as bone cartilage and blood vessels the same way regular 3D printers print solid objects.The research is still in the early phases but could have applications for soldiers wounded in battle.Cadets at the U.S. Army’s West Point service academy are working with bio printers to determine the feasibility of one day printing body parts....
As the number of electric vehicles around the country grows, EVs are entering categories beyond just small cars. A few places, particularly in California, have been experimenting with electric city buses, and a handful of school districts have begun purchasing electric buses to ferry students around. The problem with electric buses is the up-front cost: A typical electric bus can cost multiple times more than a conventional diesel bus. This hurts school districts looking to go green because, of course, most America school districts are always lacking for money....
