The Wall Street Journal Online: Last year, Alias was just a videogame character known for stabbing monsters in the back. Today the bald-headed rogue has come to life on a bookshelf near Seattle as a four-inch-tall figurine with emerald dagger in hand. Bringing such fantasy characters to life is possible thanks to the technology of 3-D printers, which turn three-dimensional […]

Inhabitat: Engineers at Innowattech in Israel recently created a new type of road that generates electricity as vehicles pass over it! The supercharged surface is embedded with piezoelectric crystals, which transform kinetic energy from passing vehicles into an electrical current. With widespread adoption, the technology could feed energy back into the nation’s burgeoning electric vehicle grid, transforming congested roadways into […]

The copycat robotic head, ‘Jules’ shows you what you look like when you make a face. Designed by roboticist David Hanson, it copies facial expressions captured by a video camera. Software translates the expressions to small electric motors under the robot’s rubber skin, which move in accordance to recreate that expression. “However, because the robot’s motors are not identical to […]

Yanko Design: This speaker concept called Brooch has no built-in soundboard. You have to bring that to the party. With its specially design suction cup, attach it to any smooth, flat surface. Different surfaces have different tones to them. The idea is to experiment. All music controls are projected onto that same surface for simulated touchscreen goodness. Bring Your Own […]

Professor Alan Snyder believes that has devised a means to create creativity on demand. The “Thinking Cap” works by zapping the left side of the brain with with carefully targeted magnetic pulses. After a duration of approximately 10 minutes, studies have shown that people begin to display in creased levels of creativity, awareness and the ability to more accurately estimate […]

Forget what you heard about the types of prints, colors and textures that will be featured next in textile and material design-just remember this word: Waterproof. The Ion-Mask enhancement is a new plasma technology devised by P2i, a company that’s part of the UK Ministry of Defense’s programme of commercialization of government technologies. P2i uses “patented plasma technology to treat […]

Inhabitat: On August 22nd, Raser Technologies and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson broke ground on New Mexico’s first geothermal power plant. Situated at Lightning Dock near Animas, the new plant will incorporate an innovative binary liquid technology that allows it to make use of the site’s low levels of geothermal energy. If more of these modular plants are built then […]

Gadgets Weblog: Automotive giant Chrysler is planning to put cellular Wi/Fi hotspots on all their new cars from August 25th and beyond, and these hotspots will work with all 2009 Chrysler models as well as earlier year models. I suppose it has come to this, because we all need to have hotspots on our cars so we can surf the […]

Inhabitat: While many green gear-heads argue whether electric vehicles are better than hybrids, Slovak designer Matúš Procháczka has brought the debate one step further. His innovative concept car foregoes these trifling 21st century technologies and fast-forwards straight to the future. Instead of an internal combustion engine, his vehicle is driven by an electric engine that generates a magnetic field capable […]