Tag: design

MIT’s Dynamic Shape Display is Like a Sandbox in California that You Can Manipulate from New York

Those of you who’ve seen The Wolverine , remember that crazy self-adjusting gurney thing that Master Yashida was lying on? That might not be as far off a piece of technology as you’d think. A team of researchers at MIT Media Lab’s Tangible Media Group have created this mind-blowing Dynamic Shape Display with a similar vertical-pixel-grid set-up: Called inFORM , the system provides a fascinating way for one party to physically manipulate objects at the other’s location. It has to be seen in action to be believed: (more…)

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MIT’s Dynamic Shape Display is Like a Sandbox in California that You Can Manipulate from New York

New, Massive Solar Power Plant Goes Online in Japan

Japan was once colloquially known as the Land of the Rising Sun, and it can’t be only environmentalists hoping that a country with such a moniker would take solar power to heart. Following the Fukushima disaster of 2011, safe and renewable sources of energy have been under study, and at least one corporate giant has done something about it–rather swiftly, by Japanese standards. This month Japanese electronics manufacturer Kyocera pulled the wraps off of the Kagoshima Nanatsujima Mega Solar Power Plant, a project constructed at a backbreaking pace from September 2012 to October 2013. Some 290, 000 solar panels are arrayed on 1.27 million square meters on the coast of Kagoshima Prefecture, making it the largest solar power plant in Japan. The juice started flowing on November 1st, and the KNMSPP is expected to generate 70 megawatts of power, enough to power 22, 000 homes in the region. As promising as that sounds, the stark math is actually a bit dismal compared to Fukushima: The latter facility generated 4.7 gigawatts, or enough to power nearly 1.5 million homes. (more…)

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New, Massive Solar Power Plant Goes Online in Japan

$1 Billion Iraqi Parliament Will Rise Over Saddam’s Half-Built Mosque

The Architect’s Journal reports that Zaha Hadid will be the architect of Iraq’s future parliament building, confirming rumors that have swirled for months. The supremely expensive building is the London-based architect’s third planned project in the country where she was born. Read more…        

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$1 Billion Iraqi Parliament Will Rise Over Saddam’s Half-Built Mosque

Student Finds Way to Boost Conductivity 400x Totally by Accident

Like a modern Henri Becquerel , Washington State University doctoral student Marianne Tarun’s discovery came quite by accident. Her simple lab error has uncovered a new way to boost electrical conductivity of a crystal by 40, 000 percent, simply by exposing it to light. Read more…        

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Student Finds Way to Boost Conductivity 400x Totally by Accident

This Is What a 2,000-Pound Satellite Falling to Earth Looks Like

At the start of this week, the European Space Agency’s Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer satellite (GOCE) fell to Earth . This is what it looked like as it happened. Read more…        

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This Is What a 2,000-Pound Satellite Falling to Earth Looks Like

The Smithsonian Is Uploading Its Lost Treasures to the Internet

With over 137 million artifacts, works of art, and specimens in its collections, the Smithsonian can’t display even one percent of that at any given time. Many historically significant pieces won’t go on display in our lifetimes and other likely won’t ever see the light of day again. But their replicants will. Read more…        

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The Smithsonian Is Uploading Its Lost Treasures to the Internet

UK to Get Driverless Taxis. Heathrow Already Has Them. Man, NYC/JFK Sucks

[Image via Podcars ] Milton Keynes sounds like the name of someone your cousin married for his money, but in fact it’s a large town in Buckinghamshire, 50 miles northwest of London. With a population of over 200, 000, it can be considered urban, and the area is about to become more well-known, perhaps even famous. Because in 2015 it will start deploying driverless taxis, also called PRTs, for Personal Rapid Transit. In actuality the electricity-operated PRTs are less like taxis and more like surface-going, two-person subway cars that travel directly from point A to point B, without making undesired stops. Routes, it seems, will be fixed, with the town’s central train station serving as a hub, and areas of service expected to include the local shopping mall and particular office buildings. PRTs are not without precedent in the UK; London Heathrow has been running them since 2011 to ferry passengers between terminals, and the things recharge themselves. Check out how they operate, and don’t be put off by this video’s silly beginning, as the entire thing is pretty informative: (more…)

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UK to Get Driverless Taxis. Heathrow Already Has Them. Man, NYC/JFK Sucks

How the Paris World’s Fair brought Art Nouveau to the Masses in 1900

The Paris World’s Fair of 1900 (also known as The Exposition Universelle) was held in Paris between 15 April and 12 November. On display were many new inventions: matryoshka dolls, Diesel engines, talking film, and the telegraphone. But more importantly, the architecture and design of this World’s Fair brought the wonderful Art Nouveau style into popular culture. These photos and illustrations of the Fair show why the world fell in love with Art Nouveau. Read more…        

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How the Paris World’s Fair brought Art Nouveau to the Masses in 1900

Abu Dhabi’s Massive New Airport Terminal Rises In the Desert

A new airport complex is taking shape in Abu Dhabi, where roughly 12, 000 construction workers are on-site daily to finish the massive structure, whose floor area is larger than that of the Pentagon. According to UAE paper The National , it will take 84, 000 tons of steel to build the structure’s dramatic arches, designed by New York-based KPF . Read more…        

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Abu Dhabi’s Massive New Airport Terminal Rises In the Desert