Good Thinking
Reptile friendly tunnel improves road safety for the cold blooded
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A new tunnel designed by multi-disciplinary consultancy firm Scott Wilson will allow reptiles to pass under the road at a UK airport to ensure their safety. The tunnel was created with the reptiles’ biology in mind, providing a warm and inviting space to enter using LED lighting and heating coils. Read More
Live Luggage power assisted suitcase
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One of humanity's great technological achievements, the wheel has been with us since before recorded history began. For some reason though, it wasn't until the 1980's that the very, very sensible idea of attaching them to a suitcase took-off and the era of "wheelie luggage" began. Technology doesn't rest though, and after just a few decades another pioneering travel innovation has emerged - the power assisted suitcase. Billed as a world first and five years in the making, Live Luggage is set to premiere its power assisted luggage range which uses in-wheel "pancake" electric motors, tilt sensors and an intelligent torque control system to power the wheels when the handle is tilted and pressure is applied - good news for the weary traveler!
New technique lifts fingerprints off cleaned guns
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Wiping the gun clean has long been considered best practice for villains but may soon become a quaint custom that will ultimately prove fruitless. Researchers have developed a method to ‘visualize fingerprints’ even after the print itself has been removed by measuring the corrosion of the surface by deposits from the fingerprints. The technique can enhance – after firing– a fingerprint that has been deposited on a small caliber metal cartridge case before it is fired. The technique promises the ability to reopen many cases and solve cold cases around the world because the “underlying print never disappears” according to the scientists.
Cirque du Soleil 3-D online ticketing system
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Known most notably for on-stage spectaculars, Cirque du Soleil is now offering an innovative and time-saving off-stage experience for customers buying tickets. The company’s new online ticketing system offers audience members the chance to select their seat(s) from 3-D images of the venue set up. Read More
AltusLumen TRI-L LED flashlight
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Working with a portable light source like a flashlight can quickly become a headache when both hands are required for the job you are doing. Head-mounted torches are a great solution, but they don't always solve the issue if the light beam needs to come from another direction. Short of growing another arm, this practical and versatile LED light design from AltusLumen is one of the best answers we've seen. Targeted primarily at the engineering market, the TRI-L Magnesium Rechargeable LED Light uses two light sources and a 360 degree hinge to deliver distinctive foldable tripod shapes that should cater for almost any situation. Read More
ProActive smart safety helmet
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A young industrial designer has created a new type of safety helmet for the construction industry that is a little smarter than most. The “ProActive” helmet features a flexible inner layer that remains soft and comfortable during normal use, but immediately becomes hard and shock-absorbent when subjected to impact. Read More
Safemanuals - 880,000 online user manuals
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May 6, 2008 There are a million reasons why your user manual gets separated from your gizmo, but the universal law of gadgetry stipulates that it does, and most importantly, it isn’t available when you most need it. Accordingly, Paris-based SafeManuals is certainly worth putting in your bookmarks. It’s a free service, has 880,000 user manuals online already and grows by around 500 user manuals daily. Indeed, given that the growth is based on user-contributed manuals, perhaps you could scan your manuals and send them in so you can happily clear out the cupboards. Read More
Arpro packaging turns into a TV stand
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Concerned about the high volume of non degradable waste which makes up most consumer packaging, UK designer Tom Ballhatchet has developed an innovative idea for re-using the box your television comes in as a durable stand. Read More
Smart Lid a winner at packaging awards
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In 2005 Gizmag reported on an innovative way to warn caffeine-addicts when their coffee too hot to drink, by changing the color of the takeaway cup lid. The Smart Lid has now been awarded ‘Best of Show’ at the AmeriStar Award hosted by the Institute of Packaging Professionals. Read More
RoboBraille online text translation service
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May 13, 2008 Vision impaired users can now access books, news articles and web pages using an email-based service that translates text into Braille and audio recordings. RoboBraille is a free service offering a simple way of converting text without the need for users to operate complicated software and has completed more than 250,000 translations since its launch in January. Read More
Periscope book light
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Avid readers know the trials of keeping a book light attached to your book whilst also maintaining a comfy reading position. The new Periscope Book Light Bookcover offers a solution for both hardcover and paperback books by integrating a retractable LED into the spine. Read More
Two-mile high termite nest proposed to counter the population challenge
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May 5, 2008 Forward-thinking architects are looking upwards in an effort to control a global population that is growing by around 2.2 per cent every year and becoming ever more concentrated in crowded cities. Eugene Tsui is taking nature as the inspiration for his 2-mile high, one-mile wide Ultima Tower, capable of housing up to a million people. Designed to be virtually impervious to wind, water and earthquakes, the massive tower is conceived less as an architecture project but as a series of mini-ecosystems within which other architectural projects can be developed. And it offers some ingenious ideas on energy production, water use and intra-colony transport. At US$150 billion a pop, you wouldn't expect to see the Ultima being built any time soon, but as population pressure increases, it's pioneering ideas like these that will form the inspiration for real-world solutions. Read More
The world's largest portable TV... and a new advertising medium
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May 1, 2008 Media sells its audience. Regardless of how the media assembles the audience, the profile, size and engagement of the audience is the value the media offers advertisers, which effectively means Big Moving Pictures’ fleet of rolling mobile Light-Emitting-Diode screen displays constitutes a new advertising medium. The company is mounting massive (40 x 22 ft) HDTV LED displays on trucks so it can engage audiences of 100,000+ at major outdoor events (such as air shows and auto racing) in a new way. To be built using the brightest technology available, MEGASCREENS are the biggest and most powerful LED-based display solution yet devised.
28 km bridge to link Africa and Middle East
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May 1, 2008 A 28 kilometer-long bridge is being planned to link the Middle East and Africa. The US$20 billion bridge will become the longest suspension bridge in the world and tower some 400 meters above the water, with at least three spans of around 2700m each. Undoubtedly set to become one of the wonders of the modern world, the project includes plans to build entire cities at each end, linked by a six-lane motorway and a four-track railway. Adding complexity to the enormous task, which is expected to take some 12 years to complete, the bridge it is to be built in an area of intense seismic activity. Read More
The new and improved postcard advertising medium
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April 16, 2008 Free postcard advertising has many strengths, most notably great cost-efficiency and excellent targeting, so we were very interested recently when we spied a new and vastly improved variation on the theme. Unlike the traditional postcard size which has no logical destination (and hey, get real, how many people post adverts to their friends), the Minicard is the size of a business card, meaning there’s a place for it in a purse or wallet. Equally as importantly, the smaller size makes for a more orderly and space efficient visual display unit and the standardised layout ensures the cards are informational and useful to the audience they reach. Read More
The walk-in coffee machine
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The coffee bean is not only the world’s most valuable crop, it is the world’s second largest traded commodity, behind only oil. When the working day starts, most of us turn to coffee when concentration and mental performance is required – fuel for the think tank. More than 1.5 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day.
The Javabot is the coffee machine of the 21st century. We have written about every major coffee innovation of recent times and apart from the portable $30 Aeropress, which delivers replicable quality in 30 seconds, the Javabot blows them all away. It delivers a coffee with your favorite blend of seven beans, plus how they are roasted, ground and the temperature at which the coffee is brewed, all inside 30 seconds. It’s the only walk-in coffee machine in the world right now, but we suspect the number will grow rapidly once people understand what it delivers. Read More
Smart suits keeps chopper crews warm in freezing water, cool in hot working conditions
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April 11, 2008 Safety clothing might be imperative for some jobs, but when it becomes a hindrance and makes work uncomfortable and annoying, it needs to be reassessed. Take the orange safety suits worn by helicopter crews working on oil platforms off the coast of Norway - they're designed to stop the wearer from drowning or freezing to death if their choppers crash-land into the freezing ocean - but the properties that make them effective insulators also make them incredibly hot and sweaty to work in. Enter Helly Hansen's smart suit, impregnated with micro-particles of paraffin wax. The wax slowly melts as body temperatures increase, gradually sucking heat away from the body to cool the wearer through the day, making it much more comfortable. And if the wearer is plunged into icy water, the wax releases stored heat as it solidifies, allowing the suit to be even more effective at the safety component of its job. Read More
Pedal power delivers clean water to the developing world
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April 9, 2008 A staggering 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to clean drinking water, with an estimated 5,000 children per day dying from water-related diseases. In response to this global crisis, a group of inventors from the US developed the innovative and highly commendable Aquaduct Mobile Filtration Vehicle - a tricycle which uses pedal power to both transport and filter clean drinking water. Read More
The DIY haircut made simple: Remington's ShortCut Clipper
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April 9, 2008 What could be simpler than a buzz cut - it's low maintenance, low-cost and you even save on shampoo. But as anyone who has ever attempted to clip their own hair can attest, doing the job yourself ain't as simple as it looks, with elusive strands of longer hair almost always escaping the blades and leaving you with that less than attractive "not quite finished" look. Remington's solution is the ShortCut Clipper, a product billed as the first-ever clipper system designed to allow men to cut their own hair which uses a curved cutting system and unique brush shape to deliver fast, error-free DIY results. Read More
Unconventional approach produces ultra-pure water
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April 2, 2008 Traditional water-purification techniques such as filtration or distillation attempt to remove the contaminants from water by fluid flow. Reversing this thinking, a new Scandinavian spin-off company is researching a new method of purification that takes the clean water molecules out of the contaminated matter using carbon dioxide gas. Read More
Intelligent brake system could reduce rear-end collisions
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March 28, 2007 Brake lights on automobiles are limited in the information they can convey - you're either stopping or you're not. Having some indication of just how hard the driver in front is pressing the pedal would undoubtedly add to road safety, and that's the thinking behind this intelligent brake light system developed by researchers at Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering. Read More
CIRT provides more punch for urban search and rescue
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Designed for urban search and rescue operations, Raytheon's Controlled Impact Rescue Tool (CIRT) uses concentrated shockwaves to penetrate concrete and rubble far more quickly than drilling, sawing or chipping. In a recent demonstration it penetrated a concrete barrier in 13 minutes, while competing methods achieved a similar result only after 29 minutes.
Adhesive Gift Wrap for a busy lifestyle
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March 24, 2008 Self-adhesive Gift Wrap was announced today by Hallmark , a first-of-its-kind product coated on one side with a low-tack adhesive formulated by Hallmark, which sticks firmly to packages, creating a beautifully-wrapped gift with a cleaner presentation, and apparently, a lot less fuss. Essentially, if you can operate a sticky note, you can wrap like a pro with Adhesive Gift Wrap. Apart from the saving of time, we’re told that ribbons aren’t required. We know it all sounds a bit devoid of the joy-of-giving ethos, so scoff if you must, but the exclusive Hallmark Adhesive Gift Wrap is the result of requests from consumers who want the act of gift wrapping to be more convenient for their busy lifestyles. Read More
Sink or swim: floating Hybrid XPliers
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March 6, 2008 Robrady is a name most of our readers will associate with bleeding-edge electric motorcycle designs, but the company’s portfolio has several facets including a partnership with marine tool specialists XTools. The latest product to emerge from this collaboration is a pair of rugged hybrid pliers, which like all tools in the range, float when they hit the water. Read More
Kiddo proximity alarm system offers parents peace of mind
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February 19, 2008 Smart Target has developed a wireless proximity alarm system designed to boost child safety by helping parents quickly locate wayward young ones and keep them within a pre-set "virtual fence". Read More
Georgia Tech proposes carbon capture concept for automobiles
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February 18, 2008 Carbon capture and storage has been touted as a method for slashing carbon emissions in power plants – now researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology say it can be used to combat one of the most widespread greenhouse gas offenders: the automobile. Georgia Tech has outlined a concept system where carbon is isolated from fossil fuels, disposed of at a refueling station, and eventually recycled into new fuel. Not only is the closed-loop cycle carbon emission free, it is also renewable and efficient.
Electrolux launches 2008 Design Lab competition
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February 12, 2008, Electrolux have announced the opening of their annual design competition for 2008. Aimed at industrial design students from all over the world, this year's theme is “Designs for the Internet Generation” and the brief is to design an innovative, cutting-edge product that addresses food storage, cooking, and/or washing with a view 2 to 3 years into the future. Read More
eKo Pro Series wireless crop monitoring system
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February 12, 2008 Wireless sensor specialist Crossbow Technology has announced the forthcoming release of a new precision agricultural monitoring system that uses a network of solar-powered sensors to deliver critical real-time data on crop health via an Internet browser. Read More
Nemorelax targets personal tranquility amid airport mayhem
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February 5, 2008 Finding a quiet space to de-stress, phone home, check emails or catch a quick, comfortable nap in the middle of a busy airport is a challenge that's nigh-on impossible at the best of times. While airport lounges offer some comfort to the weary traveler, the Nemorelaxer aims to take this to a whole new level by providing a fully-connected personal oasis where users can watch films, access wi-fi Internet, make calls, listen to music or just recline for a well earned nap without fear of interruption. The staffed service, to be sold in 30 minute time-blocks, also incorporates wake–up calls, a luggage lock-up facility and the free loan of a laptop. Read More
Datamatic demonstrate Remote Shutoff Valve system for water utilities
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January 24, 2008 Water utility companies waste significant labor resources each year as staff try to overcome irate customers, vicious canines and difficult to access properties in an effort to disconnect or reconnect water services. Datamatic Ltd. has developed a solution to this problem in the form of its radio-frequency operated RSV™ Remote Shutoff Valve - a system that by-passes the need for physical access to properties, thereby reducing field service costs and preventing theft from inactive services. Read More
Loc8tor ‘Lite’ makes losing your keys a thing of the past
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January 23, 2008 Loc8tor Ltd has released a new addition to its personal homing device range. Significantly smaller and lighter than previous models, the credit card sized Loc8tor Lite helps to find any lost or mislaid possessions and fits easily into a wallet or purse. Dubbed the Loc8tor Lite, the 6mm thick device, uses active RFID technology to guide users to within an inch of any tagged item using audio and visual cues to point users in the right direction. The unit can help locate lost possessions that are within 400ft (122 meters). Read More
Communications “Gizmo” to aid emergency response
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December 19, 2007 It may look like just another remote-controlled toy truck, but this "Gizmo" has the potential to save lives in disaster response situations. Javier Rodriguez Molina, a 24 year old electrical engineering graduate student and programmer analyst at the UC San Diego's California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), is designing an advanced mobile, wireless communications machine that can venture into environments too dangerous for humans and collect and transmit critical information to emergency personnel. It is hoped that the design platform - which is will not be limited to its current toy-truck guise - can provide real-time assistance in emergency situations such as terrorist attacks, building collapses or hurricanes. Read More
The Top 10 things you CAN have for Christmas
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December 17, 2007 Earlier this month we brought you a list of the most desirable items that will almost certainly not appear under the tree this year. Now with the final rush towards the holiday season upon us, here's our pick of
standout products that are more likely to be within reach of the average consumer and - if you're lucky - just might show up in your stocking. So, chosen by virtue of their technological prowess, style , sheer inventiveness or simply because they promise heaps of fun, here's Gizmag's selection of the top 10 things you CAN have for Christmas in 2008. Read More
Pedal-powered supercomputer: MIT Cycling team sets new record
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December 15, 2007 Cyclists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have set a new world record in Human Powered Computation (HPC). The team of 10 used bicycles to power a SiCortex SC648 supercomputer drawing 1.2 kilowatts of electricity, riding non-stop for 20 minutes to achieve the feat of the largest HPC in history. Read More
The Top 10 things you CAN'T have for Christmas
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The holiday season is fast approaching, meaning it's time to start racking your brain for the ideal gift for that someone special. If this sounds like you, we're afraid the following selection will be of no help whatsoever, unless of course you have remarkably deep-pockets... and in some instances, even that wont help. The team at Gizmag has scoured the archives to assemble a list of the ten most desirable luxury items that you wont find under the tree... from million dollar laptops to ultra-exclusive supercars and outlandish personal aircraft. So forget the Christmas list for a moment and check out our pick of the ultimate in what high-end technology has to offer. Read More
