Category: Engineering

Engineering Environmental

A German Company Is Printing Food For The Elderly

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As reported on TechCrunch. by John Biggs A German company, Biozoon, is working on a 3D-printed food extruder that creates food that literally melts in your mouth, allowing elderly patients with dysphagia – the inability to swallow – to eat without choking. Biozoon uses molecular gastronomy to create food that can be “printed” using a standard extruder-based printer. The food solidifies and is completely edible but when it’s eaten it quickly dissolves in the mouth. Over 60% of older…

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Engineering Microsoft

Microsoft teaches robots how to deal with groups and draw from memory

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As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS Us humans are good at predicting how people will behave, particularly in groups, but artificial intelligence routines still have trouble dealing with much more than controlled, one-on-one discussions. They’ll be far more flexible if Microsoft’s Situated Interaction project pays off, though. The research initiative has produced sensor-equipped robots that can not only recognize multiple people, but infer their objectives and roles. Office assistants can tell who’s speaking and respond in kind,…

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Engineering

The Top-Secret Aircraft That Roamed the Skies Over Area 51

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As reported on Wired. BY ALEXANDER GEORGE Image: Boeing   In 1992, Boeing’s Phantom Works program began development on the Bird of Prey, a project managed by the U.S. Air Force, funded by Boeing, and borrowing the name from the Klingon starship in 1984’s Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. It pioneered dozens of new technologies that we use in airplanes today, but the Bird of Prey was never meant for production. Phantom Works is Boeing’s secret(ish) in-house…

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Engineering

Samsung’s new chip could put 4GB of memory in your next smartphone

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As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS Think the 3GB of RAM in the Galaxy Note 3 was a lot? Samsung was only getting started. The company has just unveiled the first 8-gigabit (1GB) low-power DDR4 memory chip, which could lead to 4GB of RAM in a multi-layered, mobile-sized package. Moving to the higher-bandwidth (3.1Gbps) DDR standard should also provide a hefty 50 percent speed boost over existing DDR3-based chips, even though the new silicon uses 40 percent less power than…

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Engineering

World’s thinnest mechanical watch will cost over $20,000

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As reported on The Verge. By Rich McCormick Piaget’s Altiplano 900P is 3.65mm thick A reported price of between $20,000 and $30,000 will buy you the world’s thinnest mechanical watch when it goes on sale. The Piaget Altiplano 900P is 3.65mm thick, a crucial 0.4mm thinner than the previous record holder, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra-Thin Jubilee. As befitting a watch fancier than something called the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra-Thin Jubilee, Piaget’s new Altiplano 900P will be available in 18-karat white…

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Engineering Mobile

ASUS CEO: The PadFone is coming to America in Q2 2014

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As reported on Engadget. BY RICHARD LAI   ASUS has big ambitions with its PadFones, a unique phone-to-tablet convertible concept that was first introduced back at Computex 2011. While these devices are barely nibbling on the global mobile market (let alone entering the US), the company still stands by its “N+1” philosophy: “to add on a simple change which allows the product to evolve beyond its current capability.” This is evidenced by its five iterations of transformable phones, including the new…

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Engineering Military

Christening the USS Gerald Ford: inside the most advanced, most expensive warship ever built

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As reported on The Verge. By Matt Stroud Is the $13 billion price tag worth it? This weekend, the United States Navy christened what many claim is its greatest engineering achievement: the USS Gerald Ford supercarrier, the first in a completely new line of warships called the Ford class. The ship, seated in a huge dock on the James River near the southern district of Newport News, Virginia, is the most technologically advanced, the most expensive,…

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Culture Design Engineering Entertainment

Software physics: how Digital Domain created the world of ‘Ender’s Game’

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As reported on The Verge. By Bryan Bishop A conversation with visual effects supervisor Matthew Butler Translating the sci-fi classic Ender’s Game to the big screen required tackling iconic locations and sequences in a way that honored fan expectations while still playing to audiences that were new to the material. To accomplish that goal, writer-director Gavin Hood joined forces with Digital Domain, the visual-effects powerhouse originally founded by James Cameron and Stan Winston.     In the years…

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Engineering Space Tech

NASA’s tiny glowing plane shows the future of flight in fluorescent oil

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As reported on The Verge. By Rich McCormick NASA built a toy-sized model of a hybrid wing plane, coated it in fluorescent oil, and put it in an ultra-fast wind tunnel. Why? Because it’s a federally funded center housing some of the world’s brightest minds, and that’s the kind of thing it gets to do. This image shows a 5.8 percent scale model of one of NASA’s plane prototypes coated with a glow-in-the-dark liquid before being blasted…

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Business Engineering

ZBoard launches crowdfunding campaign for its San Francisco Special, pre-orders start at $1,199

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As reported on Engadget. By Sean Buckley Remember that snazzy special edition electric skateboard we saw roll out at Expand? It’s almost ready for launch: ZBoard has launched a Dragon Innovation crowdfunding campaign for its San Francisco Special. Although the limited edition ZBoard’s specs haven’t changed since earlier this year (20-mile range at 19 MPH) its facade has been given a few tweaks. In addition to wearing a brighter shade of orange, the San Francisco Special now features LED headlights,…

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