As fun as they may be, personal watercraft like jet skis and powerboats drink fuel like there’s no tomorrow. They’re fun toys for those with plenty of disposal income, but British designer Ross Kemp wants to make them more universal with his ASAP. It’s a cheap electric alternative to jet skis and powered surfboards that charges via the sun so you won’t need to keep filling a gas tank every weekend.
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3D printing is more popular and accessible than ever, and printers are on course to get even cheaper soon. But printing is only one side of the equation; what about taking 3D pictures? There’s a convenient, handheld gadget in the works that could do just that, and way cheaper than anything else has before.
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We’ve heard a lot about how OLEDs are poised to change everything from televisions to smartphones. But a group of researchers at MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces Group are applying OLEDs too more mundane objects, too—like plain old rulers. And the results are surprisingly cool.
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The 2013 Goodwood Festival of Speed was jam-packed with all sorts of racing events, including the infamous hill climb that saw two cars crash. However, those weren’t the only accidents to happen over the week. Lamborghini’s latest concept, called the Parcour, was demoed on the track and actually ended up crashing, damaging the rear end of the car.
The Parcour is an off-road vehicle of sorts that sports the supercar styling you see on many exotic cars, combined with larger wheels and higher road clearance that you see on SUVs. The car looks a little weird at first, but it seems to work for the most part, except for when the car loses control and slams into some hay bales, causing damage to a multi-million dollar prototype.
The Parcour seen in the video below is just one of the two models that have been built, and while the company is downplaying the severity of the damage (saying that it would just need minor repairs and would be back on the road in no time), the car needed to be put on flatbed truck and towed away.
The Parcour was originally unveiled at the Geneva Auto Show earlier this year, and it sports a 550-horsepower, mid-mounted V10 engine that can get the car off-roading pretty easily. The tires don’t look to be anything off-road worthy, but it probably doesn’t take long to switch the wheels and tires out for something a bit more rigid and rugged.
Of course, the crowd’s reaction is pretty priceless. You hear them cringing knowing that an expensive prototype is about to run right into a stack of hay bales, but then they start clapping immediately, either for a genuine sigh of relief that the crash wasn’t worse, or a sarcastic applause of “good job, driver!”.
Lamborghini Parcour off-road concept demoed (and crashed) is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Though wearing Google Glass makes you look like a futuristic cross-eyed cyborg to the entire world, controlling Glass is a lot more natural and conversational than you’d expect. A few swipes and a couple of "OK Glass" to get started. But do you know what Google was thinking about making you say before it settled on OK Glass? Boy, it would’ve been ridiculous. Like pew pew pew ridiculous.
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During the development of the PlayStation 4’s DualShock 4 controller, Sony tested a version of a controller that included biofeedback sensors to detect how stressed the player was, based on how much his or her hand was sweating. That’s right; the same technology that’s used in polygraphs could have been an integral part of the PS4.
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A modern assembly line can churn out a new vehicle every few minutes, but when carmakers want to build and test a prototype, it takes weeks to produce the dies and moulds needed to stamp out a custom one-off part. So Ford has developed a fantastic new prototyping machine that functions kind of like a 3D printer in that it can produce a custom part in mere hours. Except that instead of plastic, it works its magic on sheet metal.
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Fans of the odd and the unique at auto shows and conceptual deliveries galore will be glad to hear Ford will be unveiling a new bit of advanced technology that’s said to “revolutionize” such deliverables. With a new process for prototyping, personalization, and low-volume production, Ford suggests that they’ll be able to create concept vehicles as never before.
The Ford engineering team has created a new patented technology the brings on the rapid formation of sheet metal parts for low-volume production projects. Using Ford Freeform Fabrication Technology, the brand will now be able to bring lower costs and “ultrafast” delivery in prototypes of all kinds (take the Ford Atlas Concept, for example – knock a few of these out a month and you’ve got a real innovation process on your hands!)
This F3T technology is said by Ford to be able to knock prototype creation times down by a rather astounding amount. Where before this technology appears, conventional methods take between two to six months to make a prototype vehicle, here Ford says they can do it in three business days.
Testing of this technology can be seen in the presentation video sent out by Ford this week – and take note: F3T may be used in many industries in the future: aerospace, defense, transportation, and appliances notwithstanding.
With this process as its goal, researchers working for Ford with a $7.04 million U.S. Department of Energy grant have been hard at work for several years. Collaborators include The Boeing Company, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, and Penn State Erie, and a total of five manufacturing projects such as this were given awards in the same vein.
It was five projects and $23.5 million sent by the Department of Energy in March (of this year) that got this all started. The DOE’s prizes were aimed at advancing the clean manufacturing of parts and helping U.S. companies specifically increase competitiveness with the rest of the world.
Using this method, Ford will aim to improve the research and development process of vehicles across the board – knocking out the current prototype die phase entirely. No longer will 6-to-8 weeks be the minimum – F3T is said to be able to produce sheet metal parts ready for prototype applications “in just days for essentially no cost.”
Ford F3T technology cuts prototype process to three business days is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Most of us will never build our own car from scratch. Hell, most of us can’t even hack together Ikea furniture. Understanding that, Toyota has built a prototype for the Camatte57s, a car you assemble yourself very easily, apparently.
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OK, so none of us probably have any use for a flying bike, but it’s alright to want one. It’s perfectly natural. So just let the wild envy wash over you as this Frankenstein machine takes flight.
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