Toyota considers building hover cars

hover car

Hover cars will improve efficiency.

Toyota is looking into the possibility of developing vehicles that are capable of hovering just above the road, technology designed to improve efficiency. At Bloomberg’s Next Big Thing Summit in San Francisco, Hiroyoshi Yoshiki, the managing officer with Toyota’s technical administration group, said in an interview that the company had been studying a similar idea of flying cars at one of its “most advanced” research and development areas, but cautioned that the concept was not like actually flying around in three-dimensional space. Instead, he said, the plan is to get the car “a little bit away” from the road to reduce friction, similar to a hovercraft.

 

 

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Winners of the world’s first ‘3D Printed Car Design Challenge’

local motors

Strati by Michele Anoé

An entire car will be printed in September at the International Manufacturing Technology Show. Local Motors, the company behind the project, recently held what was the world’s first 3D Printed Car Design Challenge to choose its final design. Over 200 groups entered the competition, but when the dust settled and the votes were tallied, two designs stood atop the heap. (Pics)

 

 

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Ostendo Technologies chip to bring holograms to smartphones

ostendo chip

Ostendo chip that can produce a hologram

Virtual reality won’t require strapping a bulky contraption to your head in the future. Instead, you may just step into an empty room and then suddenly seeing life-size, 3-D images of people and furniture. Or look down at a smartwatch and see virtual objects float and bounce above the wrist, like the holographic Princess Leia beamed by R2-D2 in the movie “Star Wars.”

 

 

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Smart rifle uses Google Glass to let you shoot around corners

trackingpoint

Google Glass-equipped smart rifle.

Trackingpoint is the company behind the U.S. Army’s new smart rifle. They are already famous for developing a gun that does all the hard work of aiming for you. Armed with one of their precision guided firearms, you simply tag your targets as if you were piloting an Air Force jet and then aim your weapon where it tells you to. You’re almost guaranteed to hit your target every time. (Video)

 

 

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14 freaky technologies that are just around the corner

WadhwaVivek

Vivek Wadhwa, Singularity University’s vice president of academics and innovation.

Vivek Wadhwa, a Stanford University fellow, and vice president of academics and innovation at Singularity University, stands at the crossroads of the future of nearly every industry business and arts and science has to offer.  At the World of Business Innovation event he painted a vivid portrait of 14 freaky technologies just around the corner.

 

 

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11 ways technology may soon grant you superhuman powers

human flight

Human flight

As a child, everyone had a favorite superhuman power – flying, invisibility, comic book character strength and agility. Some of us secretly hoped to cultivate psychic powers like telekinesis, precognition, mind reading, etc., even as teens and young adults.

 

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Researchers discover 3D material that behaves like graphene

graphene

This illustration depicts fast-moving, massless electrons inside cadmium arsenide.

Researchers from Oxford, SLAC, and Berkeley Lab have found that cadmium arsenide could yield practical devices with the same extraordinary electronic properties as 2D graphene. The researchers also found that the new “semimetal” material exists in a sturdy 3D form that should be much easier to shape into electronic devices such as very fast transistors, sensors and transparent electrodes.

 

 

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