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ZeroWing

Wii Fit

By Posted on 11.9.2008 Comments
First the Wii got us off the couch with its motion-sensing remote; now the Wii Fit takes it to a whole new level with a suite of games exclusively designed to work up a sweat. A wireless balance board incorporates four strain gauges to precisely measure your position. The game’s 40 exercises range from yoga and weightlifting to wiggling virtual hula-hoops and slaloming down a mountain. A virtual personal trainer tracks your body-mass index and eggs you on, far from the judging eyes of buff gym rats. $90; nintendo.com

12.18.2008 at 04:58am - Comment by ZeroWing

1. At 15, I weighed 210 lbs, little of it muscle. Now, at 24, I weigh 205, little of it fat. The Wii would see a loss of 5 pounds, when I really lost 30 lbs of fat, but gained 25 lbs of muscle. How would the Wii know that? 2. Virtually every Wii game can be played whilst sitting or lying down, moving only the arms. While it's still better than moving only thumbs, it's hardly a difference-maker, in any way.
Amazon Kindle

By Posted on 11.9.2008 Comments
With the paper-like legibility of electronic ink, long battery life, and the ability to hold thousands of pages, e-book readers were already quite handy. But Amazon made them even more convenient by adding a free cellular connection for plucking newspapers, magazines—even entire books—out of the air in seconds. $360; downloads from $1; amazon.com

12.18.2008 at 04:45am - Comment by ZeroWing

Nice, but i'd rather have a compact rollable e-reader. Like this one: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=448
Pipistrel Taurus Electro

By Posted on 11.11.2008 Comments
The first two-seat battery-powered airplane, the Taurus Electro gives pilots the quiet-as-a-bird flight of a glider coupled with the practicality of a powered aircraft. Two lithium-polymer battery packs drive a top-mounted propeller, so the Electro can take off from a runway like a typical plane. Once airborne, the Electro switches into glider mode and rides thermal currents back to earth. A 31-pound electric motor makes it all possible by providing 30 kilowatts of power.

12.18.2008 at 04:12am - Comment by ZeroWing

The only practicality this provides is better glide time without using a tow-plane to get airborn. Until we have toaster-sized nuclear reactors, electric power simply isn't feasible for anything but a glider. It does that very well, but for most aviation, it's not a help. Also, much of the noise comes from the prop, not the engine, so it won't be whisper-quiet.
Martin Aircraft Company Martin Jetpack

By Posted on 11.11.2008 Comments
Powered by a pair of screaming-loud ducted fans, the Martin Jetpack broke a long-standing record by hovering for 46 seconds this past July. Inventor Glenn Martin spent nearly three decades cutting down the machine’s weight—including designing a partially carbon-fiber engine from scratch—and tweaking the fans’ aerodynamics to produce enough lift. The first packs go on sale next year. $100,000; martinjetpack.com

12.18.2008 at 04:01am - Comment by ZeroWing

Plinkfloyd Why spend that much time and effort berating somebody whose opinion is different than yours? Can't you at least attempt to see things from another person's point of view? Were the hydrogen peroxide jetpacks "simpler and safer"? I don't know. Do you? You gave no indication that you did. Mike also asked exactly what function this would serve (other than maybe showing off). You failed to mention anything about that, either. In fact, all you did was insult somebody else for having a different opinion. Next time, explain things, and leave the personal attacks at home.
NASA Mars Lander

By Posted on 11.11.2008 Comments
Aside from actual living things, the ultimate find for planetary science is the stuff that makes life possible: water. That’s exactly what NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander found in July, when its scooping device uncovered clumps of ice buried just beneath the surface of the Martian arctic plain. Guided by a team of scientists at the University of Arizona, the Lockheed Martin–built spacecraft has been up there since May, gathering soil samples using its robotic arm and capturing the highest-resolution images of another planet ever taken.

12.18.2008 at 03:51am - Comment by ZeroWing

Okay, a robot landed on Mars. If that could do it, so can we. And we can study the dirt when we get there. Spend the money of the equipment, fuel, and engineers on something more useful, like a way of getting a crew there alive.
Ford Capless Fuel Filler

By Posted on 11.11.2008 Comments
Concerns about fuel theft and spillage have made the gas cap a standard feature. Ford replaces it with a spring-loaded interior lid that closes off if anyone tries to put a nonstandard fuel-pump nozzle in the hole. The system, which rolled out this year, seals tighter than a typical fuel cap, too, reducing evaporative emissions. ford.com

12.18.2008 at 03:48am - Comment by ZeroWing

A check valve? Nobody thought of that before? Or could they just not figure out how to make a staple of hydraulic and pneumatic systems work? Also, what happens if i try to put in gas from my gas can? Am I frozen out? If so, it's the type of stupid "feature" that could encourage many people to buy something else.
Mercedes Speedshift Transmission

By Posted on 11.11.2008 Comments
Conventional automatic transmissions shift too lazily for true car nerds, but most paddle-shifted automated manuals tend to feel herky-jerky around town. Mercedes’s AMG Speedshift combines the best of both worlds in a lightweight, compact package. It replaces a standard automatic’s torque converter with a series of interlocking clutch plates, which allow faster shifting than even a professional racecar driver can pull off.

12.18.2008 at 03:44am - Comment by ZeroWing

For most of my driving, the speed of the shift isn't important, and nothing can replace the feel a good, solid manual shifter. If this replaces automatics, that's fine. Even desirable. But manuals are fun, simple, and cheap. Leave 'em alone.
Honda FCX Clarity

By Posted on 11.11.2008 Comments
Highways filled with hydrogen cars are still decades away, but that doesn’t diminish the achievement of rolling the first fuel-cell car off a mass-production line. To open up interior space, Honda developed its own fuel cell, a 100-kilowatt stack that packs substantially more energy into a 65 percent smaller space than other designs and squeezes neatly into the tunnel between the front seats.

12.18.2008 at 03:40am - Comment by ZeroWing

I completely agree with billdale (and others). Hydrogen cars like this are dangerous, have a short range, and hydrogen is far too energy-intensive to be practical. I disagree about an increase if the number of stations needed, though. Honda claims the Clarity will get 280 miles on a charge. That's more than enough for most drivers if every gas station supplied hydrogen. On the other hand, if a practical, small, cheap, low-energy, high-output hydrogen generator becomes available (which is not likely to happen anytime soon), than many of these problems disappear. Any source of clean water can serve as a filling point, eliminating servicing location problems and possibly range issues. It would also solve the problem of producing the gas, and eliminate the need to store small bombs in the trunk. Then again, parts of the country are suffering from water shortages, and using it to power your car won't help that problem. All in all, electric cars are way too go, powered by nuclear plants (at least in the short term). As for the problem of nuclear waste, send it to the moon. Can't hurt anybody there.
Ford Ecoboost Engines

By Posted on 11.11.2008 Comments
Fuel-saving technology does nothing for an overheated planet if only a handful of drivers use it. So Ford is aiming for up to 20 percent cuts in CO2 emissions by putting EcoBoost engines in 90 percent of its models by 2013. EcoBoost uses direct-injection and turbocharging to squeeze more power out of smaller, more efficient engines, replacing V8s with V6s and V6s with four-cylinders. A twin-turbocharged V6 EcoBoost arrives in the 2009 Lincoln MKS luxury sedan; a four-cylinder comes to other models in 2010. ford.com

12.18.2008 at 03:28am - Comment by ZeroWing

Ford is just one of the companies that has doing this with diesel engines for years in Europe. It shouldn't have taken anybody this long to do it to a gasoline engine. Aircraft engines manufacturers have been doing it for decades. Why couldn't auto makers see it?
BMW Speed Limit Display

By Posted on 11.11.2008 Comments
Combining images of signs taken by a camera on the rearview mirror with navigation-system data about your route, the latest European BMW 7 Series figures out your current speed limit and displays it on the instrument cluster and projects it on the windshield. The technology, developed with Siemens VDO, could arrive in the U.S. in the next year or two. bmw.com

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12.18.2008 at 03:15am - Comment by ZeroWing

Mercedes-Benz can also determine the speed limit where you happen to be driving, in some models, at least. I don't believe they display it anywhere, but I do know the sat-nav will call the police if you're exceeding it. Methinks BMW may soon follow suit. I hate the NannyState.