Along the rocky Atlantic shoreline of Nova Scotia, Canadian studio Omar Gandhi Architects has completed a home that looks like it’s floating above the landscape. The East River Residence, which is suspended on thin columns, stretches across the valley like a bridge between two embankments, letting the terrain flow underneath it like water.
Category: Architecture, Engineering
Tags: Home, House, Building and Construction, Canada
The all-new Mohab Altus is a vehicle rooftop shelter series like nothing we've covered before. Using an electric-lift system, it rises into a boxy cabin that lives atop your vehicle. With four hard walls of solid weather protection and available heating and air conditioning, the Altus blurs the line between tent and RV, turning any pickup truck or 4x4 into a comfy camping rig with rock-solid all-season protection.
Category: Tents, Gear, Outdoors
Tags: RV, Pickup, Truck, SUV, roof-top tent, Tent, Cabins, Off-road, Camping, Outdoors and Camping, Overland Expo
"Ancient Japanese Art Brings Spineless Robot To Life!" Sounds very much like a movie plot summary. In reality, it perfectly describes the work of Princeton University engineers who have created a robot that moves without a single motor or gear, using heat and the principles of origami instead. Their soft robotic system relies on a combination of heat-sensitive advanced materials, flexible embedded electronics, and carefully designed folding structures to produce motion, ditching traditional mechanical components.
Category: Robotics, Engineering
Tags: Soft Robotics, Princeton University, Origami
The community of bacteria living in the intestines could be one of the drivers of memory loss in old age, at least in mice. As rodents age, shifts in their gut microbes weaken the signaling pathway connecting the gut to the brain, a study published in the journal Nature finds.
Tags: Gut Bacteria, Gut health, Gut-brain axis, Stanford University, Memory, Cognitive functioning
People often muse over catching lightning in a bottle, and what an amazing feat it would be. But have you ever wondered what comes next if we do it? Well, researchers at Northwestern University have bottled lightning and are using it for something just as remarkable: clean fuel. Their technology uses plasma in glass tubes to produce methanol from methane gas, a process that typically requires enormous amounts of energy.
Category: Energy, Engineering
Tags: Northwestern University, Lightning, Plasma, Methanol, Methane
I remember the various iterations of the family TV pretty much always being the focal point of our living room, but it never dominated the space like big flat panels can today. Some of the time the huge flat panel is hypnotizing watchers with the latest blockbuster movie, current viral sensation or – if you're lucky – an in-depth documentary or two. But much of its life it's just an unattractive dark presence looming large.
Category: Home Entertainment, Consumer Tech, Technology
Tags: Projectors, Laser TV, Google TV, 4K UHD, Reviews
This high-end park model tiny house isn't intended for frequent travel. Instead, it uses its increased width to create a roomy apartment-style home on wheels that includes a spacious living area and even a porch.
Category: Tiny Houses, Outdoors
Tags: Building and Construction, Tiny Footprint, Micro-House, House, Home
Northrop Grumman is teasing us again with another glimpse of its candidate for the US Navy's F/A-XX fighter program. The company posted a brief video on X (formerly Twitter) that gives the most complete look yet of the 6th-Gen aircraft.
Category: Military, Engineering
Tags: Northrop Grumman, Aircraft, Fighter
With the sheer preponderance of flappy, fabric-walled pop-up truck campers, hard-sided pop-up pickup camping systems feel cutting edge, even today. But they actually have a long, proud history dating back to the mid-20th century. And no manufacturer then or now has been as integral to that history as Alaskan Campers, a true pioneer that's been building telescopic-roofed pickup campers for over 60 years. Now the company takes a detour and turns its attention to a different style of camper, launching a fixed high-roof composite camper meant to save weight and expand availability to more truck platforms. The all-new HS640 kickstarts a new era in Alaskan truck camping.
Category: Pickup Campers, Adventure Vehicles, Outdoors
Tags: Pickup, Truck, RV, Camping, Outdoors and Camping, Off-road, Lightweight
You don’t just turn up at Nürburgring Nordschleife with an eye on Corvette ZR1X’s record. And who better to do it than the manufacturer who lost that record to Corvette itself? Well, Ford did exactly that with the new Ford Mustang GTD.
Category: Automotive, Transport
Tags: Ford, Mustang, Ford Mustang, Nurburgring, Record, World's Fastest, Mercedes-Benz, Chevrolet, Corvette
Earbuds are small, which is great for comfort, but their tininess is a serious limitation for actually doing things other than letting you hear and talk. You can’t use them to fly, fry, pry, or purify. Compare them with a smartphone and they’re one-hit (two, actually) wonders, right? They’ll never even compete with a Swiss Army Knife. Pathetic.
Category: Wearables, Consumer Tech, Technology
Tags: University of Washington, Smart Glasses, Earbuds, Artificial Intelligence
The latest small electric vehicle (EV) to join the crowded battle for European family car buyers has arrived. It’s important, firstly because the Ioniq 3 is from Hyundai, the world’s third biggest auto manufacturer, and secondly, because it looks pretty darn cool.
Category: Automotive, Transport
Tags: Hyundai, Hot hatch, Electric Vehicles
Let's be honest … tools that are made to be gun-like are generally pretty childish. They can also be practical at the same time, however, which is where the rifle-inspired Dream Knight ratcheting screwdriver comes in.
Category: Around The Home, Consumer Tech, Technology
Tags: Tools, Kickstarter, xxKickbooster
An ambitious new supertall skyscraper is planned for New York City – and this one's a real head-turner. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the building will be defined by an external steel lattice that forms part of its structural system.
Category: Architecture, Engineering
Tags: Building and Construction, Skyscrapers, New York, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Parrot feathers found at a thousand-year-old burial tomb in Peru provide new evidence for an expansive live bird trade network across the Andes Mountains that pre-dates the Inca Empire, a new study suggests.
Category: Archaeology, Science
Tags: Parrot, Birds, Inca, Archaeology, Australian National University
Bridging the gap between portability and precision, the Spesyn Tool 3 is a smart cordless drill that's more like a workshop on-the-go. However, you only have a day left to grab it at US$179, 36% off its expected retail price, before its hugely successful launch campaign ends.
Category: Knives and Multitools, Gear, Outdoors
Tags: Kickstarter, Construction, Tools, Smart technology, Portable, Home-built
Bigme’s HiBreak Dual pairs a 6.13-inch E Ink display with a secondary LCD screen, aiming to create a distraction-free reading device which also offers the functionality of an everyday smartphone.
Category: Mobile Technology, Consumer Tech, Technology
Tags: E-Ink, smartphones, LCD
For over a decade, Saildrone has been building extreme long-endurance sail/hybrid autonomous sea vessels for ocean data collection and mapping. Now, the company is adapting the tech to create a super-quiet, long-range sub-hunter craft.
Category: Military, Engineering
Tags: Autonomous Vehicles, Submarine
It’s been 12 years since KTM first introduced the Freeride E as a proper off-road electric. Come to think of it, KTM can actually be considered one of the pioneers in the electric revolution.
Category: Motorcycles, Transport
Tags: KTM, Electric Motorcycles, Off-road, Dirt Bikes, Enduro, stark
For decades, scientists believed that associative learning – understanding that two events are linked to each other, like a stimulus and a response – required at least some form of neural machinery. But now, a tiny unicellular creature without a trace of gray matter and living at the bottom of ponds may upend this long-held assumption.
