A Japanese tech firm is attempting to improve wheelchairs by changing how they travel and how well they can do it. Nano-Optonics Energy’s newly released Unimo electrically controlled chair uses thin, tank-like treads to traverse the ground, which the company claims allows it to travel smoothly over difficult terrain such as gravel and sand that traditional models can’t easily handle. The chair can also climb up and down 6 … Read More → "Unimo wheelchair uses tank treads to scale stairs, smoothly traverse rough terrain"

Georgia Tech researchers have taken one big step towards building a robot will be able to get that jar of mustard from the back of the refrigerator without making an ungodly mess of the place. They’ve developed a “skin” that gives tactile sensitivity to a robot’s whole arm, allowing it to snake its way through obstacles and pick up objects that in the midst of a cluttered environment& … Read More → "Sensitive “skin” gives robot feeling in whole arm, lets it reach through clutter (video)"

Last week we mentioned Mars One, the combination space mission/reality TV show project that aims to send four lucky space travelers to the Red Planet… forever. Interest in the project had been quite high, with the company’s latest press release noting that it had received “10,000 messages from prospective applicants from over 100 countries.” But that was before it started taking actual, … Read More → "More than 20,000 people apply for one-way ticket to Mars"

Virgin Galactic has completed the first rocket-powered flight of its space vehicle, SpaceShipTwo (SS2). The test, conducted by teams from Scaled Composites (Scaled) and Virgin Galactic, officially marks Virgin Galactic’s entrance into the final phase of vehicle testing prior to commercial service from Spaceport America in New Mexico.

“The first powered flight of Virgin Spaceship Enterprise was without any doubt, our single most important flight test … Read More → "SpaceShipTwo breaks sound barrier in first rocket-powered flight"

The web as we know it was famously invented by Tim Berners-Lee while working at CERN, but it wasn’t until a few years later — 1993 to be precise — that it’d truly be set free. On April 30 of that year, Berners-Lee’s then employer would make the technology behind the WWW available license free, bundling a basic browser and some key chunks of code into the deal. To commemorate the 20 … Read More → "CERN celebrates 20 years of a free, open web by restoring world’s first website"

Some of the earliest and most successful neutrino detectors were based on enormous tanks of water. For example, Japan’s Super Kamiokande held 3,000 tons of water, and researchers used the detector to watch for a sign that a neutrino had bumped up against one of the water molecules. A recently constructed detector takes a similar approach, observing about a cubic kilometer of water using over 5,000 optical sensors. It just relies on nature to provide the … Read More → "Detector in South Pole’s ice cap spots rare high-energy neutrinos"

If you’ve ever tried typing while talking to technical support with the phone crammed between ear and shoulder, then you know the meaning of frustration. Now imagine doing that upside down inside an airplane wing while juggling wires, crimps and a schematic printout. For some field engineers, that sort of thing is an everyday occurrence, so IBM in collaboration with the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) in the UK is … Read More → "IBM developing robot assistance for technicians"

Developing walking gaits for multi-legged robots can be tricky. To solve the problem, many robots use a simple neural network called a Central Pattern Generator, or CPG, to produce rhythmic leg motion. The aim is to obtain robust locomotion patterns that exhibit stable limit cycles—periodic patterns that can resist perturbations. The robustness is obtained by providing feedback to the CPG from sensors in the legs or feet of the robot to compensate for … Read More → "Cheetah-Cub quadruped robot learns to walk, trot using gait patterns from real animal (video)"

If the crashing sound of lightning striking Saturn wasn’t enough to excite your inner-meteorologist, then perhaps footage of a raging extraterrestrial hurricane will win you over. After orbiting the ringed planet for nine years, NASA’s Cassini probe has managed to snag video of a super storm on the celestial body’s north pole. Cloaked by the darkness of winter, the hurricane’s eye became … Read More → "Space hurricane! NASA’s Cassini records super cyclone on Saturn (video)"

This is the Attraktsionus Double Ferris Wheel concept developed by Art Lebedev Studios. It’s like a normal Ferris Wheel, except attached to another, smaller one.
via Geekologie

Read More → "Conceptual double wheeled Ferris wheel"