From unstaffed self-service book-borrowing kiosks open 24-7, to a grand building that has robots fetching paperbacks from its multimillion collection of titles across nine floors, there's a reason that Shenzhen is known as China's "city of libraries." Sure, this may sound kind of boring, but the city in the southern Guangdong province has also just been named as the country's leader in wealthy entrepreneurs and is the beating heart of China's AI and tech industry.

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Category: History, Technology

Tags: Shenzhen, China, Library, Reading, Digital Media, Social media, Smartphones

If you have standard human vision (even if assisted by glasses), chances are you’re adept at finding things, people, and paths to them. But if you have impaired vision, or none at all, countless tasks that are simple for fully sighted people become difficult, dangerous, or even impossible. Fortunately, plenty of new high-tech tools offer assistance, including robot guide dogs, a cane-bot (looking a bit like a small R2D2 with giant wheels), multiple types of smart glasses with descriptive audio, and even a haptic vest for blind dogs.

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Category: Good Thinking, Technology

Tags: Harvard, Blindness, Navigation, Apps

Hardly a year since Kawasaki revived the KLE nameplate with the KLE500, the Japanese bikemaker has introduced a brand-new model to its lineup: the KLE650. It’s a proper flagship middleweight that is meant for long-distance touring comfort as opposed to brute off-road prowess.

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Category: Motorcycles, Transport

Tags: Kawasaki, Adventure Bikes, Touring

Big rigs have a visibility problem, a stopping-distance problem, a blind-spot problem, and more. I went to Daimler North America’s proving grounds in Oregon to see their solutions.

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Category: Automotive, Transport

Tags: Daimler, Truck, Road Safety, Driver Assistance

Ah, Super 8 movie cameras … they were limited to 3-minute cassettes that had to be sent off for processing, which cost about $20 each. So hey, why not make a video camera inspired by those Super 8's? That's what the Aura6 is, and it does actually have an interesting selling point.

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Category: Photography, Consumer Tech, Technology

Tags: Kickstarter, Video Cameras, Retro

The small intestine has several functions, including chemical digestion, nutrient and water absorption, hormone secretion, immune defense, and now, apparently, inspiring better battery designs.

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Category: Energy, Engineering

Tags: Binghamton University, Microbial Fuel Cells, Gut Bacteria

Screens have become indispensable in most of our daily lives. We have them on phones, billboards, tiny wearables, coffee makers, toilets, and everywhere else. Scientists have now figured out a way to integrate them into the very fabric of clothes.

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Category: Wearables, Consumer Tech, Technology

Tags: National University of Singapore, wearable screen, Touchscreen, Smart Fabric

Think Ducati, and you’d almost instantly imagine a sexy red sports bike with elaborate fairings, winglets, and the sort of aggressive styling that makes it look fast even when it’s standing still. But Vietnamese custom motorcycle outfit Bandit9 has a rather different interpretation of the Italian marque’s sporting DNA.

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Category: Motorcycles, Transport

Tags: Ducati, Sportsbikes, Custom Bikes, Charity, RED, Aluminum

Robotic lawn mowers have reached an interesting point in their evolution. For years they were clever gadgets that worked well enough if you were willing to bury a perimeter wire, fiddle with an RTK antenna, and occasionally rescue them from flower beds after they became hopelessly confused. The newest generation is aiming much higher. The Sunseeker Elite X5 Gen 2 wants to be less "robot vacuum for your lawn" and more "autonomous groundskeeper."

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Category: Consumer Tech, Technology

Tags: Lawnmowers, Reviews

It must be the unofficial week of slimmed-down flagship multitools. Exactly one day after Nextool came out with its all-new Goldilocks-sized Flagship F20 tool, fellow Chinese versa-tool innovator Roxon pushed forward with a slimmed-down tool of its own. The all-new Flex Go delivers the brand's ever-popular modular multitool ecosystem to a slimmer chassis designed to carry comfortably in a pocket, not on a belt or in a toolbox. Because when you can essentially build your own multitool from single implements up, you don't need a big, bulky frame stuffed with dozens of implements to get the job done.

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Category: Knives and Multitools, Gear, Outdoors

Tags: Multitools, roxon, Modular, Tools

Winter is coming in much of the world, and millions of households are getting ready to fire up their wood stoves to keep warm. Every year, unattended stoves and fireplaces contribute to house fires, so keeping an eye on them is extremely important. A new Kickstarter project called Oru is designed to monitor the fire and offer some peace of mind to those who are constantly worried.

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Category: Around The Home, Consumer Tech, Technology

Tags: Fire, Kickstarter, Monitoring, Lamp, Stoves

Toyota has revealed a rugged series of spectacular conversions for five of its trucks and SUVs – swapping the wheels for snow tracks. Its Michigan-based CALTY research arm has created the fleet of Snowhunter concepts for the SEMA Show in Las Vegas this week.

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Category: Automotive, Transport

Tags: Toyota, Snow, Tracked Vehicles, Winter, expedition vehicles, Concept Cars, SUV, Truck, SEMA Show 2026

Looking at first glance like a set of futuristic renders, these two skyscrapers are very much real and in use in China. They have just been named the Best Tall Building Worldwide for their extraordinary exoskeleton exteriors, which cleverly respond to high winds and earthquakes.

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Category: Architecture, Engineering

Tags: Building and Construction, Skyscrapers, CTBUH, China, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

A traditional house designed for the heat of the American South might seem an unlikely starting point for a retreat in Canada. However, Toronto studio Williamson Williamson has taken the distinctive open-air layout of the 19th-century dogtrot and reworked it for Ontario cottage country, combining prefabricated construction with a highly insulated envelope and a layout that can shrink during the colder months.

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Category: Architecture, Engineering

Tags: Cabins, Passive House, sustainable design, Tiny Footprint

The veil of secrecy surrounding an orbital mystery has been lifted after the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released the clearest public view yet of China's secretive spaceplane. The photograph was taken on May 28, 2024, by a commercial Earth-imaging satellite from a distance of less than 56 miles (90 km).

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Category: Military, Engineering

Tags: Spaceplane, China, Orbit

The hitch-mounted tent is a concept we've seen show up a number of times over the past decade, most notably and recently in a version developed by global car accessories giant Thule. Australian startup MyGlamper aims to grow the concept to all-out group camping size. In fact, it considers its hitchable shelter more of a wheel-less tent trailer than a basic tent. It's hard to disagree after learning its hitched-up hard trunk unfolds and inflates into a full-blown 6- to 12-person wilderness lodge complete with raised master bed, bathroom, hot recirculating shower, lighting and electrical hardware, indoor kitchen and more.

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Category: Tents, Gear, Outdoors

Tags: Inflatable, Tent, roof-top tent, Camping, Trailer, RV, Outdoors and Camping, Off-grid

While sand is an important component in many construction materials, it’s not suitable for most building purposes all on its own. But if its grains could stick together, it could become a solid building material, offering an alternative to conventional cement. This is exactly what researchers at ETH Zurich have been working on.

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Category: Materials, Engineering

Tags: ETH Zurich, Sand, Concrete, Building and Construction, Bacteria

Virgin Galactic hasn't flown anyone to space since June 2024. On Wednesday it finally showed off the spaceship it hopes will change that. Called Apeiron, it is designed to carry six passengers to the edge of space twice a week, for more than 500 missions.

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Category: Aircraft, Transport

Tags: Virgin Galactic, Space Launch System, Space Tourism

From egg-shaped designs to elegant rings, the computer mouse has been the subject of numerous experiments in recent years. Now, computer tech company Arctic Fox is introducing its Super Mouse that has a built-in touchscreen, that is promised to help users improve and speed up their workflow.

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Category: Computing, Consumer Tech, Technology

Tags: xxKickbooster, Kickstarter, Mouse, Input Device, Touchscreen

The maiden voyage of a giant ferry has marked a major step forward for large-scale maritime electrification.

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Category: Marine, Transport

Tags: Electric Boats, Ships, Batteries, Shipping, World's Largest, Transport, Climate Solutions: Shipping