Tech Universe: Wednesday 27 April

The Recon Scout is a durable, small robot for use by military and police. Photo / ReconRobotics

THROW IN THE BOT: The Recon Scout is a durable, small robot for use by military and police. It's a 20 cm long cylinder that weighs half a kilo and moves by means of wheels at each end. A video camera send pictures back to a controller who can guide its movements. An important feature is that it can be thrown into location, as it's able to survive a drop of 10 metres. If you're up to no good watch out for small cylinders. More at ArsTechnica and video on YouTube.

BOSSY FRIDGE: A new fridge from LG Electronics can be connected to a home Wi-Fi network and controlled by a smart phone. A food management system tells users what's in the fridge, where and when it expires. LG say the fridge can even suggest healthy recipes depending on what's inside. Uh oh expect a new flood of tweets about breakfast any time now. More at DiscoveryNews.

AUTHENTICATION IN YOUR VEINS: Really, fingerprints are so last
century. No, vein recognition is the in thing. Fujitsu's latest
contact-free vein authentication sensor is small and slim enough to
fit into a laptop or other device. A high speed camera captures images
when you briefly place your hand over the sensor and the software
picks the best image for authentication. More at Fujitsu.

FUEL ECONOMY AT ALL COSTS: It's a rather specialised race car, but the entrant from Université Laval that won the 2011 Shell Eco-marathon managed a whopping 2,564.8 mpg. That's almost 1,100 Km per litre. Small, slow and uncomfortable it may be, but in this race it's the mpg that count. Details at Wired.

ON BOARD IN BORDEAUX: Bordeaux, France is going all out to get the whole community online. It's using QR codes around town that let
smartphones quickly access all kinds of information. They've created a database of thousands of wines. Photograph a label with your iPhone and moments later information comes up about the wine, vintage, vintner and more. One scheme is recording oral and written histories from all citizens as a way to include and engage everyone in the community. That's a role model we could all follow. More at the BBC.

- Miraz Jordan knowit.co.nz