HOP, SKIP AND JUMP: The Mars Rovers have spent years now painstakingly dragging themselves short distances across the surface of the planet, sometimes even with broken wheels. Researchers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory have some other ideas for how to explore small, low-gravity bodies such as comets and asteroids — by bouncing. A spacecraft would drop several small robots that could then hop, bounce and use controlled tumbles to move around carrying out experiments and taking samples. I hope at the end of the mission they also jump back into the spacecraft. NASA elaborates.
LOG THE DOG: Want to know what your dog's doing — every minute of the day? An activity monitoring device from Fujitsu is designed to attach to the dog's collar and continuously record all of its activities. Sensor data is stored on the device and can be uploaded to the web via a smartphone app and a FeliCa smart card. A web app lets you analyse the data with graphs so you can see what your dog's been doing. Or you could maybe spend more time with your dog. Fujitsu explains.
BY LAND AND SEA: The Sea Lion amphibious car was built to break speed records. It can reach up to 290 Kph on land and 72 Kph on water thanks to a 174-horsepower 13B rotary engine from a 1974 Mazda RX3. Novel. Wired has more. Check the video here.
COMPACT QUAD: The Ample Eo is an electric quadricycle. It comes with 1, 2 or 3 seats and has a range of 200 km at up to 65 Kph. Instead of side mirrors the vehicle uses backward-facing cameras that send a live feed into a screen on the left side of the wraparound dashboard. The vehicle has a driver's seat in the front and side seats that can fold up. Not much wasted space there. Autoblog has more info.
DEAD AT HEART: There's a new city being built in southeastern New Mexico. It'll cost $1 Billion, but no-one's going to live there. The city will be a research centre to test intelligent traffic systems, next-generation wireless networks, automated washing machines, self-flushing toilets and all kinds of other systems. The Center for Innovation, Technology and Testing will be modeled after a real city in South Carolina. Meanwhile billions of people would be glad just to have clean water nearby or lights at night. Fox News shares more.
