Have you ever imagined how the world of sport would look like in 100 years?
I heard they prepare some androids with football skills, basketball shoes that give all sorts of boosters to players and the genetically-improved athletes will break record after record. How about tennis? What will become of the white sport? Lacoste, the famous French brand, presents its vision in the following clip:
<-120x240 Vertical Banner - left->This vision was presented with the occasion of Lacoste founder’s 75th anniversary. The famous crocodile brand proposes its worldwide internet users to contribute to the reinvention of the white sport. 75 years ago, Lacoste started out providing tennis gear to the most renowned players back then. Lacoste now wants its fans to envision how tennis gear would look in 75 years from now, in 2083.
The clip depicts one of the best ideas provided by Lacoste’s fans. Supposedly, the game will get more dynamic and therefore players have to be equipped with armors to protect themselves from the speeding balls. The tennis racket will no longer feature strings; these will be replaced by some sort of resistant energy field. Moreover, the player will use special visors which are supposed to provide detailed info on possible ball trajectories.
Can’t wait to see how football will be played by 2083. Will there be super-intelligent android goalies? That would definitely make things difficult and force human players to find new ways of scoring.
If you think your condominium is the best thing that ever happened to your family and friends, check this home design right here. It’s almost like a big gadget… a gadget home.
<-120x240 Vertical Banner - right->Patri Friedman and Wayne Gramlich’s are responsible for the Seasteading project, which was originally conceived as a way to experiment with “diverse social, political, and legal systems.†Can’t really figure out what all those aspects have to do with floating spars topped with habitats, communications relays and solar panels, gathered into huge suspended gadget homes. They say these structures can result into self-governing enclaves. The home design is actually based on the same ballasting system that some older oil rigs used.
Each Seastead construction consists of a concrete-reinforced main pillar and tethered ballast weights. Adjusting the water in the ballast raises or lowers the spar in the water, while the small cross-section makes it resistant to strong waves, if you ever decide to place one in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Around 300 square feet of space on the upper platform can be used for residential purposes and the provided image even shows an Aeolian turbine that is able to provide the needed energy. Presumably there is enough room for many out-doors home appliances. Predicted costs are a few hundred million dollars to build a Seastead for a few thousand people, and the designers have already received a $500,000 donation from PayPal founder Peter Thiel.
We don’t really know much about the EXO-Wing jetpack, but it seems this design is not that unique anymore (OK, it could be the lightest). I can’t say which of these two came first, but Yves Rossy is now presenting his own jet-propelled wings that are flying pretty well, as he claims.
Yves has been working for quite some time on this jetpack, and just recently decided to show it off to the public. The wings span over 8 feet with four jet engines. In order to test the jetpack, Rossy dropped out of an airplane at roughly 7,500 feet and skydived and glided for a mile or so. Then, he managed to start the engines which allowed him to soar around in the sky performing various maneuvers like figure-8s and 360 loops. Check out this clip :
For the inventor, the device feels like a second skin, responding flawlessly to any command and making it pretty easy to control. Rossy has spent nearly $200,000 on this project, but he didn’t actually mention anything about a commercial replica of his jetpack. Presumably, the commercial version would cost about as much as the prototype and that alone means we won’t be getting our hands on one of these any time soon.
Want to know more about this project? Visit the official page.
Microsoft’s multitouch Surface table looked like an improved iPhone display last year. The latest smartphones all come with something similar, but Microsoft took the design and further developed it, inspiring a bit from some existent technologies that don’t seem to get implemented anywhere.
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MS has recently announced and demoed another multitouch platform, apparently much cheaper than the original $10k Surface. Dubbed TouchWall, the interactive screen is integrating three infrared lasers that scan the surface of a plexiglass board, and an infrared camera to account for anything that touches it. The MS demo you’re about to see shows a rear-projector, 4 x 6 foot plexiglass screen, and a basic Vista PC running the software application called Plex.
Although it’s considerably bigger than the Surface table, the TouchWall lacks the ability to recognize objects. However, it still allows you to scroll, zoom in and out, control different functions and draw on the display as if it were a whiteboard. MS estimates a total hardware cost coming in at just “hundreds of dollarsâ€.
Strange enough, MS seem to have miscalculated something, and decided that the TouchWall is not to be turned into a commercial product in the near future. Considering this could end up way cheaper than current touch-sensitive technologies, it looks like a missed opportunity.
You decided to buy a new computer, but you don’t want yet another blocky black PC case that you’d hide under the desk. This time you really want to impress everyone with a cool case and some powerful specs. Suissa Computers has exactly what you need.
<-120x240 Vertical Banner - left->Suissa claims that the form of Enlighten, their unconventional-looking PC case, relates to our changing uses and understanding the proceeds of our personal technology. Enlighten features a visually dynamic form which explores the modular aspect of present day technology, “reflecting the movement through time that our mem6ories occupy and provides a tangible home for them.â€
Because of its unique form factor, Enlighten comes with a technology package slightly different than the rest of the Suissa collection. In this sense, the Enlighten is more of a small factor HTPC, which, nonetheless, integrates some quality components such as: integrates a micro ATX motherboard, Intel Quad core CPU or AMD X2 6400+, single NVIDIA 8800GTX video card or ATI Radeon HD2900XT, 4GB PC6400 RAM, 1TB hard drive space, DVD burner and a 620W power supply.
The Enlighten casing is able to dissipate heat through the use of the aluminum around the power supply and DVD drive and through careful venting of air into, around and out of the main housing. Suiisa also managed to separate the power supply and DVD out of the main case, in order to avoid a cascading heat effect found in many computer designs.
Details on how to purchase the Enlighten PC can be found on the official Suissa site.
