A Beijing-based Linkerbot robot hand swoops in and grabs a loose screw, aligns it, and tightens it in less than 2 seconds. When it comes to assembly tasks like this, the L30 model is a speed demon that outperforms most humans.
Slapping the Xteink X3 onto an iPhone takes only a few seconds. This is owing in part to its built-in magnets, which exactly align with MagSafe and allow it to be easily snapped into place. You get a thin black or white slab that sits flush against the phone’s back without adding any bulk. Anyone who is continually reaching for their phone dozens of times per day would appreciate having a book right at their fingertips, all from the same move.
Bigme’s phone is refreshing from the start. The HiBreak Plus and its 6.13-inch screen make it clear that simplicity is the priority in an increasingly complex world of smartphones. Yes, you can send texts and make calls, but the main goal of this device is to make reading and writing easier on the eyes.
Inventor James Bruton has spent years creating machines that stop people in their tracks with their sheer size and complexity, but his most recent effort takes a very different approach. He’s built a robot dog that anyone can make in their own workshop with simple equipment and off-the-shelf parts.
Apple celebrates its 50th anniversary on April 1 with a series of events around the world showcasing the people who’ve used their tools to create some real game changers, all 50 years after the company was founded on that same date in 1976, when Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Ron Wayne got the first Apple computer running in a family garage. Their first goal was to create machines that the rest of us could use without requiring a Ph.D., simply to see if it was possible, you know.
Balconies in European towns now feature compact solar panels that allow residents to feed electricity directly into their apartments without any effort. People hang one or two panels from the balcony railings or place them on ledges using simple brackets. It’s all connected to a small inverter that sits between the panels and a conventional electrical socket in the house. When the sun hits the panels, it generates direct current, which the inverter converts to alternating power, which feeds directly into the mains. No roof work, no contractor visits, and no major renovations are required.
Back in the late 1980s, a group of engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) grabbed a camera and decided to document their workspace before the computing landscape changed around them. The resulting footage is a remarkable walk through Building 230, the room responsible for keeping Voyager, Galileo, and Ulysses on course through the solar system, guided by a staff member who clearly knows every piece of equipment by heart.
Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology, working alongside data storage specialists at Cerabyte, have created the world’s smallest QR code, and it is not even close to visible without specialized equipment. The entire thing measures just 1.98 square micrometers, with each individual pixel coming in at 49 nanometers across, smaller than most bacteria and roughly three times more compact than the previous record holder.
Australian researchers have pulled off something that quantum theory predicted but nobody had managed to actually observe in matter until now. Working with pairs of helium atoms, they captured the particles existing in two different locations simultaneously, their behavior frozen in a way that has no equivalent in everyday experience. It is the first direct observation of this phenomenon in matter rather than light, and it opens a new window into how the fundamental building blocks of our world actually behave.