Bike sharing systems like New York’s Citi Bike may be taking off, but it’s doubtful that many participants can find every station without checking a map. Thankfully, Adafruit has unveiled a smart helmet project that could help at least a few of those riders get to their destinations while keeping their eyes on the road. The DIY effort feeds locations to an Arduino-based Flora board and its positioning add-ons, … Read More → "Adafruit smart helmet guides bike riders with Arduino-based light shows (video)"

Italian architect Renzo Piano has gone from building Europe’s tallest building (the Shard in London) to one of its smallest. Finally completing his career-long dream of building a micro house that only measures 7.5 sq m (81 sq ft), Piano’s single-occupancy unit has been added to the gardens of the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Dubbed “Diogene,” the small structure is named in honor of the Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope, … Read More → "Diogene micro home pushes the boudaries for off-the-grid tiny living"

… Read More → "Wireless restoration of sight to the blind (rats) (video)"

EADS has once again taken to the Paris Air Show to present a vision of commercial aviation in 2050. Developed in partnership with Rolls-Royce to increase the efficiency of future airliners, its E-Thrust concept is a hybrid electric propulsion system that EADS says could cut fuel consumption, emissions and noise. EADS and Airbus have baked the E-Thrust into an aircraft design, which EADS calls the eConcept.
via Read More → "EADS unveils its vision for the future of aviation"

John McAfee—founder of the McAfee antivirus software—has created a humorous, yet bizarre video that ‘teaches’ you how to uninstall his software from your computer. 

Uploaded onto YouTube, this ‘instructional’ video features John McAfee himself, scantily dressed women, smoking, drugs, bath salts and firearms.
via Design Taxi

… Read More → "John McAfee teaches you how to uninstall his antivirus software"

HeatSync Labs’ Moheeb Zara built this full body scanner with a Kinect that raises and lowers on a gantry while a turntable rotates the subject. The resulting scans are rendered with the help of ReconstructMe software.
via Make

< … Read More → "OpenSkan: an open source full body 3D scanner"

Tesla could revolutionize the electric car industry by solving one of the main reasons why buyers don’t make the switch from gasoline – range anxiety. Tesla already announced plans to expand its Supercharger network across the US, and now the automaker is working on another fix to keep Tesla Model S owners on the road. Tomorrow Tesla will demonstrate … Read More → "Tesla to unveil quick-swap batteries for the Model S electric car this week"

The University of New South Wales, working with Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, is celebrating what it hopes will be another step towards large-scale quantum computing: a technique that can address single electron qubits separated by mere nanometres.

Quantum bits – qubits – are the quantum-physics counterpart to the binary bits that make up data stored in today’s digital computers – except that whereas your traditional binary bit is either 1 or 0, a qubit can be 1, 0 or what’s known as a superposition of both. A quantum computer should be able to use this property to process huge … Read More → "Qubit Spin Doctors Take it Down to Nanometers"

Two different accelerators have found evidence for a particle that appears to contains four quarks, according to papers published in Physical Review Letters. Although particles with two and three quarks are common, this would be the first time that something containing four quarks has been spotted. Depending on the precise nature of the interactions among the quarks, this could be … Read More → "Two accelerators find signs of a particle that nobody can explain"

At last weekend’s Brickworld 2013 in Chicago, one Lego build stood out above all else, a 3D diorama that showcased virtually every major scene from 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. The detail is incredible—and it features a tornado!

The team of 12 builders hailed from VirtuaLUG (Virtual Lego … Read More → "Huge Lego Wizard of Oz build includes a motorized tornado (video)"