The original Onewheel was released back in 2015, and ever since then, the company behind it (a California-based upstart called Future Motion) has kept its nose to the grindstone. A couple years later it released the Onewheel Plus, a smoother, more refined version of the first generation. Roughly a year after that, it dropped the Onewheel Plus XR, an evolution […]
One Wheel Pint Is Awesome
Robot To Help In Feeding
Robots can already cook for us. But what about helping us eat? Engineers at the University of Washington have developed a robot that can feed people who struggle to feed themselves. Powered by an artificial intelligence algorithm, the system detects pieces of food on a plate, stabs them with a fork, and transports the morsels to a person’s mouth. The […]
Hotel Tonight To Accommodate Last Minute Travellers
Airbnb is broadening its accommodation business with a plan to acquire last-minute hotel booking service HotelTonight. The cost of the deal hasn’t been disclosed. The move comes ahead of Airbnb’s IPO later this year, and could help to make the company an even more attractive proposition for investors. HotelTonight, which helps travelers secure same-day accommodation via its app or website, […]
First 3D Printed Neighbourhood
In the future, building a house will take less time than buying one — and apparently, the future is now. Thanks to the nonprofit New Story and homebuilding technology company ICON, sustainable and affordable 3D-printed homes are finally becoming reality. The two organizations have teamed up to build the first 3D-printed neighborhood, scheduled to break ground in Latin America sometime this […]
How To Make Your Own Zero Waste Soap bar
Soap is kind of scary. At least, traditional soap. First of all, soap that comes in a plastic container (with a plastic pump) is not sustainable. Often, that plastic ends up in landfills; if it is recycled, plastic can only be recycled a finite amount of times whereas more sustainable materials (like glass for instance) can be infinitely recycled. But […]
Flexible Metal Cooling Prototype
A German research team has prototyped an extraordinary heating/cooling system that stresses and unloads nickel-titanium “muscle wires” to create heated and cooled air at twice the efficiency of a heat pump or three times the efficiency of an air conditioner. Crucially, the device also uses no refrigerant gases, meaning it’s a much more environmentally friendly way to heat or cool […]
Prevent Hacking Of Wearables & Implants
We’re used to the security risks posed by someone hacking into our computers, tablets, and smartphones, but what about pacemakers and other implanted medical devices? To help prevent possible murder-by-hacker, engineers at Purdue University have come up with a watch-like device that turns the human body into its own network as a way to keep personal technology private. Since it […]
Hydrogel Contacts
Caused by autoimmune diseases, chemical burns, or sometimes even as a side effect of eye surgery, corneal melting is an incurable disease that’s a major cause of blindness. It could someday be treated using a contact lens, however, which is currently in the works. The disease does indeed involve a “melting” of the cornea, and it occurs when a person’s […]
Pocket Scanner Determines Food Freshness
Every year, millions of tonnes of perfectly good food are wasted around the world because people aren’t sure it’s still fresh. To cut down on this, researchers at Fraunhofer are developing an infrared pocket scanner that will let consumers, supermarkets and other food handlers determine if a food item has gone bad and even its degree of ripeness. According to […]
Sleepytroll Automatically Rocks The Cradle
For parents who don’t wish to repeatedly get up in the night and rock their fussing infant back to sleep, there’s already at least one sensor-equipped baby bed that does the job for them. Sleepytroll, however, takes a different approach – it gets attached to existing strollers or beds, rocking them when it detects a waking baby. Created by Norwegian […]