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While electric sedans and hatchbacks are proliferating, nobody has tried to build a serious electric SUV or pickup truck. Bollinger Motors, based in Michigan, intends to remedy that deficit in 2020. We already knew about the company’s B1 SUV. Now, here comes the newly announced B2 pickup. Last July, when Bollinger was still headquartered in upstate New York, I visited the company and took a ride in the B1 prototype. The B1 was the big news then, but founder Robert Bollinger was already thinking about pickups, too....

Plastic has taken its first, snail-pace steps using light stimuli instead of coded programming.Researchers hope to continue destigmatizing plastic for use in robotics and environmentally friendly products, including teaching consumers about better recycling.The walking plastic is more like activated computer circuitry, using changing stimuli to conduct actions.Scientists have trained plastic to walk on its own using a combination of photosensitive bio-inspiration and light-reactive coatings. Look at it go! The scientists use an analogy to Pavlov’s dog, but the truth is more like how a plant bends toward the sun and away from darkness....

The Goodwood Revival that wrapped up this weekend is an annual superb outlet to vicariously fulfill your vintage race car fantasies. You can have a lot of fun there on two wheels, too. For instance, sit back and watch in awe at Troy Corser’s skills as he flogs a pre-war German motorbike around the Goodwood circuit.View full post on YoutubeDespite the drizzle this weekend, a handful of nutjobs who were willing to take these old motorbikes to their limit got in some good laps....

An Air Niugini 737-800 landed in a lagoon off the coast of the Micronesian Chuuk Island after landing short of the island airport’s runway due to poor visibility and inclement weather. There were 36 passengers and 11 crew aboard Flight 73, but no fatalities as rescuers in more than 20 boats, including nearby U.S. Navy sailors, managed to rescue the victims as the plane’s cabin filled with water. “I thought we landed hard until I looked over and saw a hole in the side of the plane and water was coming in....

Media Platforms Design TeamUpdate, Jan. 20: It’s alive! Scientists successfully awakened Rosetta this afternoon, at which point the spacecraft “Hello, World” in about two dozen languages. tweetedMore than 300 million miles from Earth, a billion-dollar aluminum box is tumbling through space. Launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2004, the Rosetta spacecraft has spent the last 31 months in deep space hibernation, drifting along a lazy arc toward the comet 67-P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko....

A robot arm can fly an airliner.You may remember DARPA’s Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) from such flights as the time it piloted a Cessna. Now the robotic arm is moving up to bigger and better planes. DARPA just announced that ALIAS has flown and landed a simulated Boeing 737.In brief: ALIAS sits in the copilot’s seat and uses cameras to monitor all the dials and gauges and switches in a cockpit, feeding that information to a processor....

A failure of the management system that directs air traffic in Europe has disrupted some 15,000 flights, half of all flights in Europe. Eurocontrol, the international organization charged with managing air traffic over 41 countries in Europe, reported on Tuesday that its ‘Enhanced Tactical Flow Management System’ had failed, leading to the complications. View full post on TwitterThe failure affected flights with plans filed prior to 10:26 UTC, requiring aircraft operators to refile the plans, delaying thousands of flights....

According to new research, AI can track your eye movements to tell your personality. Researchers from the University of South Australia in partnership with the University of Stuttgart, Flinders University and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Germany,Researchers tracked the eye movements of 42 participants as they did everyday tasks around a university campus, then assessed their personality traits using a questionnaire. Since the research was conducted in an open, real world setting instead of a laboratory setting, it also provided more natural responses....

The U.S. Air Force is trying out a new sidekick. Along with contractor Kratos Defense, the service test-flew the XQ-58A Valkyrie on March 5 at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. The prototype drone, meant to test the viability of unmanned “sidekick” drones for manned combat planes, got its test flight in just a week after Boeing Australia unveiled its own “Loyal Wingman” unmanned aircraft.Announced in July 2016, the Valkyrie was designed by Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems, a manufacturer of target drones for the U....

Could you design a box that could trap light inside of it?Of course you can. In fact, you likely have a device in your home right now that not only traps light and stores it—it keeps it cold, too! That’s right, your humble refrigerator: Open the door and violà, light. It’s always there, ready to illuminate your carefully curated array of fine comestibles. We’re not sure how those photons get in there in the first place....

The Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) is no more. On Monday night, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unexpectedly announced a name change for his company’s future rocket system: Starship. As is his wont, he took to Twitter to spread the news: View full post on TwitterView full post on TwitterIt’s hard to say what, if anything, prompted the change. Per Musk’s brief Twitter rundown, Starship will be comprised of two parts: The spaceship and upper stage will be known as Starship, and the rocket booster stage called Super Heavy....

Webcams"Webcams are only as secure as the computer they’re connected to," says computer security expert John Pironti of Getronics, “and many computers aren’t very secure.” Plenty of software exists in the hacker community and even on the open market that can allow stalkers and other miscreants to remotely control your computer. According to the Internet-security watchdog group Shadowserver, more than 15 million computers are currently hijacked without the knowledge of their owners....

Media Platforms Design TeamA greenskeeper tends to Mountain House Golf Course as turbines tend to the desert habitat of the Altamont Pass Wind Farm, one of the world’s oldest—and deadliest.LIVERMORE, Calif.It’s only 9 a.m., but the air already hangs hot and still. The sun has broken through the smoky haze created by two wildfires that have been burning since Labor Day, the Lick fire to the south and the Moonlight fire to the northeast....

Media Platforms Design TeamLately I’ve noticed these repeating animated GIF files showing up on all of my favorite sites–they’re annoying yet strangely compelling. Can I make these myself?An animated GIF is an easy way to relive a single moment over and over ad nauseum. The GIFgraphics interchange format, and pronounced jif (see Glossary, below)was invented by CompuServe in 1987 as a way to compress color images without degrading their visual information....

Navigating a massive cargo ship is quite the undertaking. One Russian captain—the one guiding the Seagrand, headed for Vladivostok, Russia—wasn’t up for the job on this day. At around 4:20 p.m. local time, the huge vessel carrying 1,415 tons of steel coils plowed into the side of the Gwangan Bridge in Busan, South Korea, damaging both the bow of the Seagrand and the lower section of the bridge. No injuries were reported....

Members of the Israeli Defense Forces have repeatedly posted photos online of secret hardware or military facilities. The pictures involved secret tanks, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and an underground military base. The incidents involved Israel’s ground, air, and sea forces and the pictures were immediately taken down.The rise of the camera-equipped smartphone sometimes collides with the need for government secrecy, and nowhere does that seem more apparent than in the Israeli Defense Forces....

Malaysia’s government said Saturday that it has approved a new attempt by a private company to find the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, nearly four years after its disappearance sparked one of aviation’s biggest mysteries.The Houston, Texas-based company Ocean Infinitydispatched a search vessel this past week to look in the southern Indian Ocean for debris from the plane, which disappeared March 8, 2014, on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew members....

Media Platforms Design TeamCredit: Getty ImagesSame sh*t, different state. Today, it’s New Jersey that wants to ban auto manufacturers from selling cars directly to consumers, a move that appears aimed at Tesla and its no-dealership model.The last time we reported from the Tesla wars, it was Ohio that was considering the same type of ban, with the statehouse under pressure from influential local dealerships to quash Tesla’s way of doing business....

Media Platforms Design TeamBecause of pneumonia, the patient’s lungs were filling with blood. There was only one option to save the little girl, and so the team including cardiologist John Kheir—who was in training at the time, in 2006—raced to get her hooked up to a heart–lung machine, an external device that oxygenates and pumps blood around the body. But connecting a patient to the machine takes time, and the girl’s blood oxygen levels were dropping fast....

Senator Calls for Chinese Tire Investigation After yesterday’s recall of 450,000 defective Chinese tires and a denial of wrongdoing by their manufacturer, Sen. Chuck Schumer is calling on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to look into the country’s manufacturing process.DETROIT REPORT: New Tire Tech for Better HandlingANALYSIS: Why China’s Auto Industry is on Hold For Sale: World’s Oldest Car A steam-powered French buggy built in 1884 will go to the highest bidder this August when it hits the auction block in California....