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future tech November 11, 2011 posted by Scott

Starting next year, officers will be able to instantly test for drug use by taking your fingerprint

It’s generally understood that driving while under the influence of many substances can greatly increase the chance of getting in an accident. As such, it’s common for police officers to use a breathalyzer to check someone’s blood alcohol content, to ensure that they aren’t impaired. Unfortunately, alcohol is one of the only substances that they can check for, and receive immediate results. But that looks to be changing soon. A company called Intelligent Fingerprinting has just unveiled a prototype hand-held…

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future tech November 8, 2011 posted by Scott

Add NFC to your smartphone

The slow rise of NFC (near field communication) has given rise to the idea that you can pay for purchases by doing little more than getting out your phone and tapping it at checkout. While the technology is growing, a surprising number of phones lack this feature. Thankfully there are companies out there who see this issue, and are working to correct it by offering accessories that will add NFC to your smartphone. The first is called SDpass. This product…

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future tech November 7, 2011 posted by Scott

First manned electric multicopter flight is a success

Usually when you think about a helicopter, you imagine a craft with a couple of large, spinning blades keeping you aloft. Of course, those machines are rather large, and extremely expensive. But what if you decided to rig a bunch of smaller blades together, and mount them on a smaller craft? As you can see in the video below, you would be able to fly. A group of three Germans has been hard at work developing what they call an…

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cool tech November 2, 2011 posted by Scott

PETMAN walks, crawls and sweats like a human to test out clothes for soldiers

There are a lot of reasons that scientists are working to create robots that look and act more like humans. I’m not talking about the sort of helpful companion robots as seen in I, Robot. Rather, this PETMAN, which has been in development for the last two and a half years, is meant to test out clothing. Now a clothing-testing robot may sound like a huge waste of money, but there’s a little more to it. The clothes being tested…

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Awesome October 18, 2011 posted by Scott

New software allows you to insert realistic interactive objects into existing photographs

Adobe’s Photoshop is one of those programs you can use for a decade, and still not master. While you can get away with just doing some of the basics without a broad knowledge of the program, trying to do things like add in extra objects to a photograph can be rather difficult. Usually, making these kinds of edits will leave you with an image that has quite obviously been ‘shopped. Some of the most obvious tells are in the lighting….

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future tech October 10, 2011 posted by Scott

New mouse can tell just how stressed you are

Do you have a stressful job? The answer to that question is usually a �yes�, as most work is stressful in some way or another. But have you ever wanted to show your boss just how stressed you really are when working on their assignments? A research group in Japan has created a mouse that can actually detect stress levels, simply by being used. The mouse contains a system which measures blood flow in the fingertips and checks for variations….

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future tech September 28, 2011 posted by Scott

Autom Personal Weight Loss Coach

It’s always hard to get started on a diet or weight loss plan. Even if you meet with a group, it’s difficult not to have someone there rooting you on everyday. You let yourself slip just that one time, and then you’re off the band wagon until you realize it’s close to summer again and you want to be able to wear a swimsuit without being embarrassed. An MIT alum named Cory Kidd knew of these kinds of problems, and…

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future tech September 27, 2011 posted by Scott

Samsung announces flexible AMOLED screens, shows that they can take a beating

Look at your cellphone. What do you think is the most fragile part of it? If you have a flip phone, it might be the hinge. However, with virtually all other phones, the screen is its Achilles heel. One good smack against a hard object, and it shatters. Thankfully this issue may be a thing of the past. As demonstrated in the video below, new AMOLED screens are vastly more durable than current displays, with the added bonus of being…

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future tech September 9, 2011 posted by Scott

Micro-Cycle looks like a cross between a motorcycle and a Segway

I’ve always had a strange fascination with unicycles. It just seems amazing that anyone could keep upright on one for any extended length of time. I even found one at a garage sale when I was a kid. After many hours and lots of scrapes, I still couldn’t find the balance to stay on it for more than a very short time. Well soon, I’ll be able to ride a unicycle at speeds up to 20mph. Ryno Motors is working…

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cool tech September 7, 2011 posted by Scott

Spyder III Krypton Laser can actually be seen in outer space

Laser pointers are ridiculously fun, as they can be used for anything from pranks to classroom lectures. Anyone who has ever wanted a laser pointer always has wanted one so bright that they can still see it from extremely far away (and set things on fire). The Spyder III Krypton Laser is likely going to be the brightest laser you’ve ever come across, seeing as it has the capability to leave our atmosphere. For a laser that can beam onto…

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cool tech June 23, 2011 posted by Nigel

Volkswagen Temporary Automatic Pilot – in Germany the car drives you…

The good folk at Volkswagen today introduced a new technology called Temporary Automatic Pilot which will apparently automatically control a car without human intervention at highway speeds. The system, which is still in testing, uses lane and vehicle sensing to keep on the straight and narrow, and the ‘semi-automatic’ bit means it can be overridden instantly by a human driver if things start to go awry. We’re not saying that robots aren’t capable of handling cars at 130 km/h on a…

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Awesome June 6, 2011 posted by Nigel

Skype Open Source – Russian hacker opens up the mega service to further exploitation

Well here’s a turn up for the books. Thirty year old Russian coder Efim Bushmanov has apparently reverse engineered some of the proprietary code behind Skype. If true, this means that there could soon be Open Source products available which give access to the Skype platform without any Skype services being involved. When you remember that Skype has 560 million registered users and dominates the internet phone market, this is a very big deal indeed. At the very least it should result…

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future tech June 3, 2011 posted by Scott

Valkee Brain Stimulation Headset

There are days when we have some brain meltdowns for no apparent reason. No matter what we try, things like anxiety, severe tiredness, and jetlag seem to take hold of us and there’s nothing that can be done. Thanks to a venture-funded, scientifically backed Finnish company, a bright light headset has been created that could drastically reduce mood swings and circadian rhythm disorders. This is a lot of newer research that’s seeing some light (no pun intended), but a 350…

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but is it art? March 28, 2011 posted by Scott

Hyper Touch Guitar concept ditches the strings

Some of us old-fashioned folk like to play on instruments that have strings that need to be tuned regularly. Seeing as how everything is advancing so rapidly, it seems only logical that strings would become obsolete one day. It turns out that day is fast approaching, as the Hyper Touch Guitar concept has no strings attached. Just like any the old guitars, this has a fret board, but in place of strings you’ll find a touchscreen. This seems like it…

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Awesome March 28, 2011 posted by Nigel

Inventables – aka inventor’s heaven

Inventables is a new web store which is heaven, absolute heaven, for anyone with an ounce of creative inventorship in their blood. The site features a huge range of unusual and downright fascinating materials, which with a little imagination could transform your humble bedroom into a multi-million dollar business. Of course it’s never that simple is it, but even so I challenge anyone not to be inspired by products such as ‘hand moldable plastic’ or ‘powerless illuminating plastic’ or even…

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