Hasta La Gadget!

Last week we introduced to you the totally awesome Exosuit , a $600,000 atmospheric diving suit, capable of taking a human 1,000 feet underwater at surface pressure. This means that the diver doesn’t have to decompress and there is no need for special breathing gas mixtures, so there is no danger of decompression sickness or nitrogen narcosis.

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Harry Potter has gillyweed, while non-magical folks like you and me have the Triton respirator. The concept device is a contraption that lets a person “breathe” underwater by functioning as gills.

If you read Harry Potter, then you’ll know how crucial gillyweed was for him during the Twi-Wizard cup tournament. If you didn’t, well, it’s basically a magical plant that gave the person who ate it temporary gills.

While Triton won’t make gills sprout out of your neck, it works in a similar fashion.

The concept design was thought up by Korean industrial designer Jeabyun Yeon and it essentially would work like the gills on a fish. Its wearer simply has to bite down on the device’s mouthpiece. It will then strip oxygen from the surrounding water and let you breathe as if you were on land and not underwater.

The Triton uses a series of filters woven together so water molecules can’t pass through. It’s also fitted with a micro-compressor that, in theory, will be able to pull dissolved oxygen out of the water and into its wearer’s breathing tank.

This concept might seem far off now, but who knows? It might turn into a reality in the future.

[via Inhabitat]

I remember that when I was a kid, it was a big deal when my dad got a Seiko analog watch that had a built-in alarm clock. It was definitely something different, and it looked better than a lot of digital watches. The Vulcain Nautical Cricket Watch was an early analog alarm watch from 1970, which is now being remade.

Dubbed the Vulcain Nautical Seventies, the reissue has a 42mm stainless steel case that’s 17.6mm thick and comes with both a black leather and orange diving strap.

The alarm is a Cricket caliber, and its face has shaded rings to calculate diving decompression times. And speaking about diving, the watch is water resistant to a whopping 300 meters.

Original watch from 1970

The Vulcain Nautical Seventies Watch will be released soon, with only 300 of the pieces to be produced. The price hasn’t yet been announced, but other Vulcain watches sell for $6,000 to $10,000.

[via Perpétuelle]

I’ve seen wingsuits used in basejumping and skydiving, but I guess it makes sense to use something akin to those suits underwater, since some animals like ray fish use their “wings” to fly underwater.

The Oceanwings neoprene suit from AquaLung Dreamlab is supposed to help humans in their subaquatic activities. The suit was created by French designer Guillaume Binard and Frédérique Gouin. It looks like the suit lets you sort of “fly” through the water without much energy expense, though it will probably take some time to get used to the way that it makes the water flow around your body.

You can see the suit in action in this underwater video directed by Jérôme Espla, featuring Pierre Frolla as he dives into the abyss.

[via designboom]

Google has been significantly expanding its Maps offerings for a long time. When the service first started one of the only things you could do was get directions to places you wanted to go. Over time, Google expanded offerings with Street View showing you exactly what the roads in the area you were looking at were like.

Google also started venturing inside businesses along the routes to give you interior views of shops and restaurants. Google has announced the launch of its first ever underwater views thanks to a partnership with The Caitlin Seaview Survey.

Google is now offering images of underwater beauty in spots including Hawaii, The Great Barrier Reef, and the Philippines.

Imagery is limited right now and rather difficult to spot. Areas where you can view underwater sights are marked with an orange circle on Google’s normal maps. That orange circle shows up when you’re almost fully zoomed in. But if you want to dive right in without looking for a needle in a haystack, head on over to maps.google.com/ocean.

I think this is a really cool update and I hope Google expands the available underwater views.

[via TechCrunch]