Star Wars Speederbike, in Real Life: Aerofex Hover Bike Flies the Mojave

As young boys, how often did we dream of speeding through our neighborhood like Luke Skywalker did in the forests of Endor on a speederbike? Probably way too often, at least in my case.

READ MORE: DeLorean Hovercraft Makes its Debut at Giants Game (Video)

But now that dream may be one step closer to reality, thanks to the “Tandem-Duct Aerial Vehicle” fromAerofex.

The company isn’t going into mass production just yet, so put your checkbook away, but they envision these hoverbikes as a development platform for robotic drones for lifting and carrying cargo. Currently, the Aerofex machine is being tested at a top speed of 30 mph and a max height of 15 feet above the ground.

READ MORE: The Closest Thing to a Real-life Lightsaber (Video)

Follow along with their progress at the Aerofex Flight Log.

A Personal Weather Station for Your iPhone: Netatmo

Imagine having a mini personal weather station at your own house, one that allows you to monitor and track the outside temperature, humidity, air quality, and atmospheric pressure, right from your iPhone or iPad. Now imagine being able to also monitor and track the inside temperature, humidy, CO2 levels, and indoor air quality.

Well, you’re in luck, because if you’re weather-obsessed, meteorologically-inclined, or your daily activities depend on knowing the current conditions outside, the Netatmo Urban Weather Station is for you.

With two sleek aluminum sensor bodies – one for inside and one for outside – measuring the data, an iPhone/iPad app for viewing and sharing it, realtime air quality and weather alerts, and cloud data storage backing it all up, the Netatmo system can help you decide the best (and worst) times for watering the garden, going for a run, riding your bike to work, or making your kids go outside to play. The app also features a 7-day weather forecast, and for those who live in areas with plenty of noise pollution, the sensors also measure and track the sound levels (from 35 dB to 120 dB).

In addition, those who use Netatmo weather stations can also choose to help contribute to a wider community-based network of weather monitoring, so that scientists and meteorologists can further their understanding of the climate and weather in urban environments.

“The Netatmo Urban Weather Program aims to create the largest community based weather and Air Quality monitoring network ever established, offering a wealth of info to scientists and people living in urban environments…”

Jackets with Built-In Heating Let You Extend Your Cold Weather Golfing, Tailgating and Spectating

These jackets have a built-in heater with four temp settings (Photos: Mobile Warming Gear)

Just because it’s gotten colder outside it doesn’t mean you have to cut your golfing or tailgating short, or freeze your butt off supporting your team in the Frozen Tundra. Mobile Warming Gear has jackets and vests featuring built-in heating elements using technology originally pioneered by NASA during the early days of the space program, so you can crank up the heat when the temperature drops.

A system of unobtrusive micro-alloy heating elements built into the back and chest area are powered by a small, rechargeable lithium ion battery. A push-button switch lets you dial in the heat to your choice of four settings, depending on the conditions outside: 100%, that’ll bring the heat at 135 degrees, 75% for 120 degrees, 50% delivers 105 degrees and 25% will warm you to 90 degrees. Forget layering, you’d have to pile on a half dozen bulky layers to get you close to 135 degrees of chill-busting warmth.

But all that warmth comes at a price. A time price. The battery lasts about 2.5 hours at 100%, but when you dial it down to 25% you’ll get up to 10 hours of heat. So pace yourself.

For golfers who want to squeeze in a few late month rounds around the holidays, Mobile Warming Gear’s new waterproof collection of heated golf jackets are designed with performance and movement in mind. The jackets and vests are seam-sealed, USGA conforming and cut from ultra-lightweight and breathable technical polyester that’s waterproof to keep the rain and snow from shorting out the heaters, and your game. Featuring four-way stretch and golf-specific construction, the jackets provide exceptional freedom of movement without restricting layers.

Offered in both men’s and women’s styles the golf jackets are also windproof and feature waterproof pocket zippers, Velcro cuffs and a hem cinch cord for easy adjustment, and to keep the frost from blowing up your back. Because it’s hard to sink that 30-foot putt when you’re shivering.
$159.99-$219.99

Wireless Speaker Bar Attaches to Your Gear, Goes Where You Go

Photos: Carbon Audio

There are an endless number of good wireless Bluetooth speaker options out there to choose from these days, and most are meant to sit on your desk behind your laptop or ride a shelf. And that’s fine, unless you want your laptop or tablet to do what it was designed to do, and go portable. Then you’re stuck juggling your device and a speaker (or two).

That’s why I like the new Zooka wireless speaker from Carbon Audio. A sound emitting tube made from medical grade silicone with 30mm drivers positioned on each end, the Zooka was conceived to also be a grip—a way to hold your music player while you listen.

Watch how the Zooka was created

The slit down the middle (or top or bottom, depending on what you’re attaching it to), lets the Zooka clamp onto your iPad or ride atop your laptop. A strategically placed notch keeps it from blocking your computer’s built-in video camera. Used with your iPad, it becomes a handle when taking your tablet with you, or use the pull-out “kickstand” hidden in the end to prop your screen up to the optimal viewing angle for watching movies and videos.

The placement of the speakers at the ends means you get a wide, room-filling sound field, and you won’t muffle the music with your mitts when using it as a portable grip. Which is good, since Zooka claims to play your music at 5 times the sound level your player is capable of. I tested one on my laptop, and the sound was deeper, richer and most definitely “louderer” (that’s how Zooka describes its sound), than the anemic stock speakers.

I did learn pretty quickly, that screen angle is essential to keeping the Zooka from tipping my laptop backwards. I’m tall and keep my screen angled back when I’m working. Not ideal for topping it with a speaker, even one weighing less than a dozen or so ounces. But standing the screen at a more upright angle isn’t a big deal when I’m getting this kind of sound. And sliding my iPad into it and watching movies is a whole different experience. I love that it can go anywhere, and not take up any more space than the iPad itself. And you style mavens will dig the choice of six colors.

Looks like the Zooka has a grip on what we’re looking for in a wireless speaker.
$99

EPEAT Defends Decision to Certify Ultrathin Notebooks

Earlier this week, there was quite a bit of controversy over EPEAT's decision to certify five ultrathin notebooks, including the hard-to-repair MacBook Pro with Retina Display. It seemed that the organization was bowing to industry pressure instead of upholding green standards, particularly because it went against remarks its own CEO had made about the difficulty of recycling those products. EPEAT sent out a response yesterday defending their decision and giving some specifics on why those products made the grade.

From EPEAT's response:

As we have since the launch of the EPEAT registry six years ago, EPEAT continues to impartially apply and verify the standard. A few observations on the recent Verification investigation (Round 2012-05) of multiple ultralight products:

Regarding upgrade capability, the criteria specifically state that products may be upgraded or extended “by a high performance serial bus (IEEE Std 1394TM [B4]) or Universal Serial Bus (USB)”. Regardless of opinions about whether or not that is appropriate or acceptable language, the hard fact is that EPEAT has no authority to ‘flunk’ products if they meet the explicit terms of the standard.

Regarding disassembly: The criteria under discussion are located in the section of the standard that addresses Design for End of Life – that is, design for effective recycling. The criteria investigated are not aimed at refurbishment or repair. Again, people may think that there should be more in the standard about disassembly for repair and refurbishment – and we welcome their views – but these criteria do not apply to that topic.

The standard also doesn’t forbid specific construction methods such as fasteners versus adhesives – it just requires products to be easy to disassemble for recycling. The test lab went through the disassembly process and reported that the products were all easy to disassemble with commonly available tools.

The response goes on to say that all the heat over this recent crop of verifications is taking away from all the good that EPEAT has done by establishing a set of standards that companies can conform to -- those standards have led to industry-wide changes for the better, such as easier recyclability and fewer toxic materials being used. The registry has also given consumers a way to easily find products that are meeting those standards. I wholeheartedly agree with that and, as the response says, without a set of standards and a program to certify them, companies often have little incentive to make changes if they feel they will go unnoticed.

But there's also a responsibility to keep standards up-to-date and stringent as technologies change and EPEAT concedes in its response that its standards need to be revised with consideration to these new lighter, thinner computer products.

"The computer standard was written in 2005 (and slightly revised in 2009) - before slates and ultralight products were anywhere near as significant as they are now. Frankly the standard does not yet address the environmental issues with these products as effectively as it might, and the upcoming revision process will very likely make changes to do so more effectively.

EPEAT is bound to the current standard with all its strengths and imperfections until it is changed in a formal process. Such a process has begun – we encourage interested parties to participate and improve the criteria."

This is a great opportunity to create a better verification process. Lets make sure EPEAT knows what we want from our products, including better repairability. 

Holy Grail of Fuel? Scientists Make Synthetic Gas from Air and Water

Air Fuel 

Engineers and scientists at a small company in the U.K. claim to be able to produce gasoline and other liquid hydrocarbon fuels from carbon dioxide and water vapor, which could be a huge boost in the production of renewable fuels.

The team at Air Fuel Synthesis (AFS) has created a system for using renewable energy to power the capture of CO2 and water, which is then transformed into liquid hydrocarbon fuels that can be used directly in gasoline engines. The water is first electrolyzed to produce hydrogen, and then the CO2 and hydrogen are combined in a fuel reactor to produce gas using the company's process.

© AFS
As of now, AFS is using a demonstrator built out of ‘off the shelf’ components requiring a minimal amount of modification, and the device is currently powered by the grid, although the intended use is to draw power from renewable energy sources, such as wind power. The demonstrator unit isproducing 5 to 10 liters of liquid fuel per day, and the company is aiming to scale that up to a commercial-scale project by 2015.

According to AFS, the process for producing gas out of thin air looks like this:

I: Air is blown up into a tower and meets a mist of a sodium hydroxide solution. The carbon dioxide in the air is absorbed by reaction with some of the sodium hydroxide to form sodium carbonate. Whilst there are advances in CO2 capture technology, sodium hydroxide has been chosen as it is proven and market ready.

II: The sodium hydroxide/carbonate solution that results from Step 1 is pumped into an electrolysis cell through which an electric current is passed. The electricity results in the release of the carbon dioxide which is collected and stored for subsequent reaction.

III: Optionally, a dehumidifier condenses the water out of the air that is being passed into the sodium hydroxide spray tower. The condensed water is passed into an electrolyser where an electric current splits the water into hydrogen and oxygen. Water might be obtained from any source so long as it is or can be made pure enough to be placed in the electrolyser.

IV: The carbon dioxide and hydrogen are reacted together to make a hydrocarbon mixture, the reaction conditions being varied depending on the type of fuel that is required.

V: There are a number of reaction paths already in existence and well known in industrial chemistry that may be used to make the fuels.

(1) Thus a reverse-water-gas shift reaction may be used to convert a carbon dioxide/water mixture to a carbon monoxide/hydrogen mixture called Syn Gas. The Syn Gas mixture can then be further reacted to form the desired fuels using the Fisher-Tropsch (FT) reaction.

(2) Alternatively, the Syn Gas may be reacted to form methanol and the methanol used to make fuels via the Mobil methanol-to gasoline reaction (MTG).

(3) For the future, it is highly likely that reactions can be developed whereby carbon dioxide and hydrogen can be directly reacted to fuels.

VI: The AFD product will require the addition of the same additives used in current fuels to ease starting, burn cleanly and avoid corrosion problems, to turn the raw fuel into a full marketable product. However as a product it can be blended directly with gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel.

If the development of this air-to-fuel process plays out on a commercial scale, it could be used to both capture excess CO2 from the environment (or used at carbon capture points), as well as produce 'guilt-free' gasoline. There is no word on the estimated costs for this process yet, but that could be the sticking point for moving this forward on a large scale.

water leak detection

Advances in the way we deal with water network control mean that nowadays water leak detection is far more developed. Recently perfected detection and emission hardware give employees who are running water systems the chance to strategically target the work carried out in improving networks and keeping them up to standard, because they allow the use of complex water flow data, so that it can be checked whether water is circulating in the ideal way or not.

Bringing together wireless data loggers and DMAs

SOFREL LS is the leader in its field when it comes to generating new technology. The long-distance reader, the development of which bore in mind the difficulties that those organising water systems have to overcome as well as the importance of putting the very latest models in the sector into use, and is specially designed for deployment in water circulation systems categorised into District Metering Areas (DMAs). Its GSM/GPRS reception is an important part of its ingenious construction, which allows it to gather data from the water network, as is the re-emission of these statistics to a single analytical terminal, the option of establishing the lowest possible figure when it comes to the speed of water movement and less risky and tricky upkeep thanks to LED diagnostics and data transfer via Bluetooth to an employee’s laptop. Concerns about failing to capture readings because of subterranean locations become irrelevant thanks to a key element of its structure, its antenna, which has the second advantage of giving the best results possible when it comes to capturing GSM signals. What is more, this technology demands little attention. This is largely down to the remarkably lengthy duration that the battery can run for, which grants users a decade of easy water pressure readings.

Cutting down NRW through the use of technological developments

There are other advances which are a key component of leak detection and ideal water circulation, which aid those dealing with water to manage water loss control, thereby reducing Non Revenue Water (NRW). No apparently obvious new plan can be discounted – for those working on the upkeep of the SOFREL LS data logger, the simplicity of the opening mechanism, which has no need for screws, makes it completely different from other designs which have not had the same intensive development.

Wireless data loggers’ top-functioning elements

The inclusion of assiduously engineered technological advances in SOFREL LS means that the remote water data logger provides a whole range of uses. Both its reception equipment and the duration of usability for its battery, alongside its remarkable GPS/GRSM capacities and specially created internet access port for gathering statistics, all give it its status as top reader. A combination of pinpointed readings, cautiously chosen to give users optimal water leak detection, and their guaranteed re-emission through a top-of-the-range emitter, all with the longest battery duration available.

Debunk: Xbox720.com, Playstation4.com aren't owned by Microsoft, Sony

We'll wait while you click these links -- Xbox720.com and PlayStation4.com -- to see that they do indeed redirect to random technology-news pages. We'll even wait a little longer as you open a new tab, type both of those addresses in and see that we weren't lying, and they really do redirect to unofficial sites. Now we'll take a few seconds to get over the fact that you didn't trust us. Without trust there is no love; remember that.

Yesterday Xbox720.com redirected to the US PlayStation website, but it appears the domain owner has used the attention gained from that to open his own blog, Fusible reports. Xbox720.com now redirects to a tech-news aggregation site and was previously monetized via Google's Adsense program; before that it hosted random sites dating back to 2006 at least. In November 2011, the site was registered to Jeremiah Germany, but that information is now protected through Whois Privacy.

PlayStation4.com redirects to a PlayStation news and cheat site.

It appears the redirections aren't as vindictive as the ModernWarfare3.com debacle, in which a Battlefield fan used the domain to convert Call of Duty players to his shooter of choice. We don't even know what the next Xbox will be called -- considering the first Xbox wasn't called "180," it's not set in stone that the third iteration will follow in the 360's footsteps. However, Microsoft's Xbox360.com redirects to the main Xbox site, and Sony'sPlayStation3.com heads to the US PlayStation page, so it follows that they would want similar sites to do the same.

What Comes After the Touch Screen?

Gesture control, devices that recognize different people, and tricks to make a screen feel as if it has physical buttons could be coming to your gadgets.

Finger moves: A Microsoft research project, called Digits, makes gestural commands mobile.
Credit: Microsoft Research

In a few short years, the technologies found in today's mobile devices—touch screens, gyroscopes, and voice-control software, to name a few—have radically transformed how we access computers. To glimpse what new ideas might have a similar impact in the next few years, you need only to have walked into the Marriott Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this week. There, researchers from around the world demonstrated new ideas for computer interaction at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. Many were focused on taking mobile devices in directions that today feel strange and new but could before long be as normal as swiping the screen of an iPhone or Android device.

"We see new hardware, like devices activated by tongue movement or muscle-flexing, or prototypes that build on technology we already have in our hands, like Kinect, Wii, or the sensors built into existing phones," said Rob Miller, a professor at MIT's Computer Scienceand Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) and the chair of the conference.

One of the most eye-catching, and potentially promising, ideas that was on show makes it possible to perform complex tasks with a flick of the wrist or a snap of the fingers.

The interface, called Digits, created by David Kim, a U.K. researcher at both Microsoft Research and Newcastle University, is worn around the wrist and consists of a motion sensor and an infrared light source and camera. Like a portable version of Microsoft's motion-sensing device for the Xbox Kinect, Digits can follow arm and finger movements with enough accuracy to replicate them on screen or allow control of a complex computer game. "We envision a smaller device that could be worn like a watch that allows users to communicate with their surroundings and personal computing devices with simple hand gestures," said Kim (watch a video of Digits in action).

Projects like Kim's could be a glimpse into the future of mobile computing. After all, prior to the iPhone's launch, multi-touch interfaces were found only at this kind of event. Researchers believe that mobile computers are still being held back by the limitations of existing control methods, without which they could become even more powerful.

"We have an increasing desire and need to access and work with our computing devices anywhere and everywhere we are," Kim said. "Productive input and interaction on mobile devices is, however, still challenging due to the trade-offs we have to make regarding a device's form factor and input capacity."

The advance of mobile technology has also given researchers easy ways to experiment. Several groups at the conference showed off modifications of existing mobile interfaces designed to give them new capabilities.

Hong Tan, a professor at Purdue University currently working at Microsoft Research Asia, demonstrated a way to add the feel of buttons and other physical controls to a touch screen: vibrating piezoelectric actuators installed on the side of a normal screen generate friction at the point of contact with a finger. The design, dubbed SlickFeel, can make an ordinary sheet of glass feel as if it has physical buttons or even a physical slider with varying levels of resistance. Such haptic feedback could help users find the right control on compact devices like smartphones, or enable the use of a touch screen without looking at it, for example while driving.

Who's that? A touch screen that recognizes different people's fingers, developed by Chris Harrison and colleagues at Disney Research.
Credit: Chris Harrison

In another effort to make more of the touch screen, Chris Harrison of Disney Research presented a way for devices to recognize the swipes and presses of particular people. His interface, a capacitive touch screen with a resistance sensor attached, identifies the unique "impedance profile" of a person's body through his or her fingers. Users need to hold a finger to the device for few seconds the first time they use it, after which subsequent presses are attributed to them. That could allow apps to do things like track modifications to a document made by different people as a tablet is handed around a table (see a video of the screen). "It's similar to the technology that is already in smartphones," said Harrison. "There are lots of implications for gaming—no more split screens—and for collaborative applications."

The motion and touch sensors in current phones were another target for experimentation.Mayank Goel, a PhD student the University of Washington, and colleagues, modified the software on an Android phone to automatically determine in which hand a person is holding it. The software figures this out by monitoring the angle at which the device is tilted, as revealed by its motion sensor, and the precise shape of pressure on its touch screen. Goel says this can allow a keyboard to automatically adjust to whether a person is using the left or right hand, an adjustment that cut typos by 30 percent in his experiments.

Touchy feely: A malleable interface made by Sean Follmer and colleagues at MIT's Media Lab.
Credit: Sean Follmer

Other prototypes on display were less obviously connected with the gadgets in your pocket today. One was a malleable interface that can be shaped somewhat the way clay can, developed by a team at MIT's Media Lab. Sean Follmer, a PhD student in the lab of Professor Hiroshi Ishii, demonstrated several versions, including a translucent bendable touch screen laid flat on a table. This was made from a plastic material containing glass beads and oil, with a projector and a 3-D sensor positioned below. Pinches and twists made to the pliable screen changed the colors displayed on it, which were also shown on a 3-D model of the material on a computer screen nearby.

It's hard to imagine such an interface in your pocket. However, Desney Tan, a who manages Microsoft's Computational User Experiences group in Redmond, Washington, and the company's Human-Computer Interaction group in Beijing, China, believes that being able to choose from multiple modes of interaction will be an important part of the future of computing. "We will stop thinking about mobile devices, and instead focus on mobile computing," said Tan, who was winner of Technology Review's 35 Innovators under 35 Award in 2011. "As I see it, no one input or output modality will dominate quite in the same way as visual display and mouse and keyboard has so far."

Nokia Concept Phone Runs on Coke

As a general rule, cell phone batteries are costly, resource-intensive, and difficult to dispose of properly. So why not ditch them and run our cell phones on soda? That’s the thinking behind designer Daizi Zheng’s concept phone for Nokia. Instead of running on traditional batteries, the conceptphone uses a bio battery that generates electricity from carbohydrates.

Fuel cells powered by sugar are nothing new — they’ve been in use for years — but Zheng’s point seems to be that we shouldn’t overlook innovative uses for the products we consume everyday. And of course, maybe Coke does belong in a battery more than it belongs in our bodies. It doesn’t hurt that the bio battery can operate for three to four times longer than a lithium-ion battery on a single charge, either.

We jut have one question: what about all the energy used to produce Coke? In the end, it probably makes more sense to use plain sugar water as a fuel source — unless it’s your New Year’s resolution to give up on your stockpile of soda.
Future technology devices concept
Future inventions

New technologies : Portable scanner doxie

As they say, words of songs do not throw it away, that is, to describe have nothing to add. Look, it is very necessary and useful device. The cordless ‘doxie go’ scanner offers portable scanning functionality, including the creation of searchable PDF documents, without being connected to a computer. The device scans a range of sizes and types of paper, from receipts to photographs to documents. its internal memory stores up to 600 pages, or files can be saved to flash drives or SD cards. all information can be uploaded tocomputers, phones, or iPads, or to cloud-based services like evernote, google docs, and dropbox; and the ‘doxie go’ makes use of ABBYY optical character recognition software to create searchable PDF files from scanned documents.