Data revenues at US mobile service providers surged to $23 billion in 2007 and now account for 17% of all mobile service revenues, according to the CTIA. The total represented a 53% increase over 2006.
Much of that revenue is due to the enormous popularity of text messaging. Nearly 50 billion messages were sent in […]

 
Have you been out on the streets? Have you seen what the hell is going on? It’s like the 1950’s all over again. Damn kids with their souped up Hot Rods. But now the kids with their Hot Rods are like a year old! And with their moms! More pics after the jump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-1xm8415UQ

Yes, it’s a bit goofy looking. But for those people who are limited in their mobility and still want to exercise, or joggers who want to seriously increase the distance they are traveling, this might be the solution. For guys, the seat arrangement might be a bit tough on Guss and the twins.
 

 
Top Australian netball and basketball players are using CSIRO-developed interactive textiles to get ‘in the groove’ when shooting goals. CSIRO Textile and Fibre Technology scientist, Dr Richard Helmer, is working with the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) to develop new interactive textiles – ‘wearable body-mapping garments’ – designed to help athletes improve their skills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qHlH2yhZpE

This video describes the thinking that went into the Penguin House in Tokyo. People in the US have a hard time relating to this, but the architect is brilliant in how he approaches this. (w/pics)
 

Offshore wind-farm developers would love to build in deep water more than 32 kilometers from shore, where stronger and steadier winds prevail and complaints about marred scenery are less likely. But building foundations to support wind turbines in water deeper than 20 meters is prohibitively expensive. Now, technology developers are stepping up work in floating […]

 Leonardo Da Vinci’s life and work is well known — but his own face is not. Illustrator and activist Siegfried Woldhek used some thoughtful image-analysis techniques to find what he believes is the true face of Leonardo. Here, he walks viewers through exactly how he did it.
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lIJtFMp2Bo

Yes, this is all in Japanese, but very cool anyway.  Simroid is a 28 year-old powered female robot designed to train dental students and help improve their communication skills. With senors embedded in her, Simroid is able to simulate real life reactions from dental patients, such as raising of hand while the dentist is cleaning […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q54VKT_mZfI

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge is a pedestrian and cyclist tilt bridge spanning the River Tyne in England between Gateshead on the south bank, and Newcastle upon Tyne on the north bank. The award-winning structure was conceived and designed by architects Wilkinson Eyre and structural engineers Gifford. Second video after the jump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0_mLumx-6Y

Dean Kamen’s “Luke arm”—a prosthesis named for the remarkably lifelike prosthetic worn by Luke Skywalker in Star […]

The U.S. atomic bomb was such a secret, scientists and engineers sometimes talked in code. It was the Manhattan Project, not “The Atomic Bomb Project.” Plutonium was referred to as “copper,” and the bomb itself as “the gadget.”
But at the same time, scientists and engineers were furiously filing secret patent applications that described many […]

Researchers say they have found a recording of a human voice that predates Thomas Edison’s first recording by almost twenty years!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmVaLp8icoU

Boston Dynamics has released a prototype of an all-terrain robot, BigDog. The quadruped robot is equipped with a computer featuring sensors that aid its movements over harsh terrain. The robot is powered by a gasoline engine that drives the hydraulic system.

Light (here from a red laser) hits the Light-Capturing Ribbon,
then reflects back off the surface of the glass and illuminates the silicon matrix.
An MIT researcher has found a way to significantly improve the efficiently of an important type of silicon solar cells while keeping costs about the same. The technology is being commercialized by a […]

It looks like something out of a James Bond movie but it could very well be the most cool personal sub yet. The Hypersub is the world’s first autonomous, small submarine capable of high speed surface travel over long distances. Cool videos after the jump.
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5FKtvxU7c0

Shown for the first time on video, Segway inventor Dean Kamen presented his Vapor Compression Distiller on last night’s Colbert Report. The distiller is a chemical-, membrane-, and filter-free water purifier. Kamen claims the box draws pure drinkable water from oceans, poisons—even a 50-gallon drum of urine.
 

 
The AirCar is not just a plane that can drive around. Quite the opposite: it’s a lightweight fully-featured car that can compact to be about the size of a Hummer and fit in a garage. Soon it will transform into a flying car. The photographs below are of a prototype that can drive but can’t […]

 
Arthur C. Clark, science fiction author and most famously known for his work on “2001: A Space Odyssey” and his early forecast of communication satellites, died Wednesday in Colombo, Sri Lanka at the age of 90.
Clark wrote nearly 100 books in his lifetime dealing mostly with the future of science and the idea that the […]

 
The English cabinetmaker Thomas Saint received the first patent for a sewing machine in 1790.  Elias Howe, credited as the inventor of the sewing machine, designed and patented his creation in 1846. Howe was employed at a machine shop in Boston and was trying to support his family. A friend helped him financially while he […]

When Joseph Faber invented his “amazing talking machine” he had envisioned somehow connecting it to a telegraph to, converting the dots and dashes into a real human voice. It was a great idea, but only 150 year ahead of his time.
Innovators today look at Faber’s artificial tongue technology, where air from billows cross a passageway […]

Daisuke Inoue, the man who invented karaoke in 1971, never bothered to patent his tiny invention, thus missing his chance to become one of Japan’s richest men. Some put his losses at more than $150 million.