We all like stereos, or that great iPod dock that has been a trusty friend for many years. Some might even have sound systems capable of serious decibel levels but we can assure you that nothing we (or you) will ever have is as powerful, or as cool, as the system the European Space Agency has built. The agency created a 32 meter wide, 50 meter high behemoth sound system called the Large European Acoustic Facility, or LEAF, that is capable of simulating the noise level that you will or would hear during a rocket launch. To be more exact,…
Author: Nic Boerma
Rejoice ye 80’s kids! 2014 definitely seems to be turning out as the year of the Lego block in the best of ways. Some of the first unveilings and adaptations announced for 2014 have made us pretty excited, and the latest Lego project, greenlit by the Lego VIPs themselves is a fan-designed Ghostusters set. It started with Brent Waller, a Lego aficionado, who put together a model of a Ghostbusters set in honour of the iconic movie series’ 30th anniversary, and put the project to a vote on Lego’s fan site CUUSOO. The resulting 10 000 supporters helped Lego decide to…
Chips with graphene in their insides are supposed to be quicker than plain old silicon-stuffed chips. Unfortunately there is usually a vast difference between theory and practice, which is exactly the case with graphene. So far graphene chips are much slower in practice because the manufacturing process damages the graphene, which in turn strips away any speed it would have had. Which, if we take IBM’s word for it, is all in the past. The company has reportedly created a prototype radio receiver with graphene resistors embedded in a silicon design which does not damage the graphene, keeping the speed…
Lakemaid Beer company tried to do something beautiful this week. They posted a video where a drone delivered a case of delicious beer to some winter anglers on a frozen lake. A magical idea indeed. Sadly for the company, the The Federal Aviation Administration of the US quickly put a stop to the drone activity, as using drones for commercial activity in the US is still illegal. But, at least we can check out the video and dare to dream. And also plan a fishing trip or two. Source: CNET
It’s no surprise that things at Nintendo aren’t going well. Sales of the Wii U have been anything but stellar, with only 2.8 million units sold worldwide in 2013. This is in stark contrast to the 3.06 million units sold in just a couple of months to early adopters in 2012. Amidst the poor market performance, Nintendo announced that the company president, Satoru Iwata, will take a 50 percent price cut to his salary for five consecutive months, starting in February. But he’s not the only one. Two top directors, one of whom is the creator of Mario, Shigeru Miyamoto, will…
3D printers are promising to be big news this year, with Hershey’s chocolate-based attempts and a new multi-colour, multi-material printer from Stratasys all announced in the space of a couple of weeks. Another 3D printer, this one from Mark Forged and named the Mark One, has been in secret development for a year, and now that it’s finished, it can 3D print carbon fibre. That last statement is a touch inaccurate. The Mark One doesn’t work only with carbon fibre, the desktop printer is also capable of printing in fibreglass, nylon and PLA, or if you want, a composite of…
Getting into space is really difficult, and probably doubly so when you try to launch something from one rock and have it land on another piece of rock very far away. We are told many things can go wrong, and unfortunately this seems to be the fate of China’s moon rover. Nicknamed the Jade Rabbit, the rover is, according to China’s official press agency, suffering from a “mechanical control abnormality” caused by the “complicated lunar surface environment” which has put its mission on hold while scientists are exploring options for repairing the rover. The rover landed successfully in December last…
Samsung already makes pretty much everything. You can have a fridge, television, fridge, oven and cellphone in your house and there’s a chance that they all sport the Samsung logo, and that’s not even the complete list of appliances and tech that the company manufactures. So it almost seems logical that the folks at Samsung might be trying their hand at augmented reality glasses, which almost seems like the next logical step when look at the Galaxy Gear smartwatch, and the overall flocking of tech companies to wearable tech. The smart eyewear, according to a rumour reported by the Korea…
LEGOs are timeless, no matter what your girlfriend says, and this fact has been proven yet again by Google, who have made it possible for anyone to play with the popular building blocks in the Chrome browser. The project has been in the works since 2012, and yesterday Google opened the project to the public. So far the range of bricks available isn’t spectacular, but will still allow you to create a whole bunch of fairly creative items. Once built, you can share your creations on, big surprise here, Google+ and also see what others in your circles have built.…
It reads like a sci-fi short: Google, giant of the computer world, who also just recently acquired an AI start-up, and Samsung, giant of just about everything else electronic, has joined forces. Well, to be fair, the two companies have announced that they will only be sharing their patents for the next 10 years. But we’re not taking off our tinfoil hats just yet. The announcement obviously has major repercussions for consumers and other technology companies the world over, not only for the hitting power that the Google/Samsung front will now have against any other technology company in the big…