Joshua Tree National Park, located in southeastern California, east of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, near Palm Springs, is named for its Joshua trees native to the Mojave Desert. What better place to stay in a UFO than in a desert? Airbnb is offering the chance to do just that in the Area 55 Futuro House, which is just one of 85 in the world, restored to its former glory. Since this is a completely off-grid glamping experience, you’ll be able to disconnect from the digital world. The coolest feature is the drop-down staircase that looks to be straight from a science fiction movie. Read more for a video tour, additional pictures and information.
Remember those animated paintings you saw on the walls in Harry Potter’s school? Well, MyHertiage’s DeepNostalgia tool does something similar to the faces in just about any old photo. The technology behind this tool was developed by Israeli firm D-ID, powered by artificial intelligence algorithms trained on pre-recorded videos of living people moving their faces and gesturing. This means you can bring historical figures, like Queen Victoria, Florence Nightingale, and more, to life. Read more for two videos and additional information.
Although it might sound like something from a science fiction movie, a team of scientists have successfully managed to capture footage of a micrometer-sized space-time crystal made of magnons. This is stable at room temperature, and using an ultra-precise X-ray microscope, the team recorded recurring periodic magnetization structure. Magnons are basically quasiparticles associated with the spin wave of electrons within a magnetic material. Read more for a video and additional information.
H/T: Gizmodo
Created by the Jetpack Cognition Lab, the Flatcat just might be the strangest robot you’ll see in 2021. Simply put, it’s a pet-like robot that reacts to touch, and not too much else. The company says that you can cuddle, play around with it, or just observe Flatcat doing weird things on its own accord. It basically consists of a flexible core that just contracts for locomotion that slowly inches its way across the floor. Read more for a video and additional information.
H/T: Gizmodo
When you’re a successful iOS app developer, there’s lots of time for side projects, and sometimes, things can get a bit weird. In this case, developer Justin Patel wanted more rumble than a game controller could offer. So, he built this strange invention that consists of a large induction motor that can nearly spin at 3,000 rpm hooked up to a DualShock. Let’s just say that it takes feeling the game to a whole new level, and not a delightful one either. Read more for the video of it in-action.
Let’s face it, standard bike wheels just aren’t made to ride on ice. So, how does one get around this issue? By replacing the wheels with giant circular saw blades of course, and that’s exactly what an engineer, who goes by “The Q” online, did. First, the tires and spokes from the bike wheels needed to be removed before re-engineering the chassis to handle the massive blades. Like most things you see online, we don’t recommend trying this at home. Read more to see what happened when it made it onto the ice.
Unnecessary Inventions specializes in things you probably don’t need, but are fun to look at. Their latest creation is the MagSanetizePro, which dispenses hand-sanitizer on demand at the push of a button. How does it attach to your device? Using MagSafe of course, which on the iPhone itself adds a magnetometer and a single-coil NFC reader, but in this case, the magnets are used to properly align the MagSanitizePro for a not so portable look. Read more for the video.
Photo credit: Worldwide Vintage Autos via Car Scoops
The Ferrari F40 (Type F120) was the company’s fastest, most powerful, and most expensive car for sale between 1987-1992. This mid-engine, rear-wheel drive supercar was engineered by Nicola Materazzi with styling by Pininfarina and the successor to the 288 GTO. It celebrated Ferrari’s 40th anniversary and was the last Ferrari automobile personally approved by Enzo Ferrari. Worldwide Vintage Autos is offering a Pontiac Fiero-based Ferrari F40 replica that won’t be fooling anyone. Read more for additional pictures and information.
Expanscape’s Aurora 7 is a laptop designed for those who prefer a multi-monitor setup, even while on-the-go. This ultra rugged 17.3-inch laptop comes equipped with a total of seven displays in varying sizes that either fold or swivel out from the base panel. Breaking it down, there are three additional 17.3-inch 4K UHD screens, along with three smaller 7-inch panels, each with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 pixels, in addition to the main display. Read more for another picture and additional information.
Photo credit: Unilad
This isn’t a joke, MIT engineers managed to develop a method to transform living spinach plants into self-powered pre-concentrators / autosamplers of analytes in ambient groundwater and as infrared communication platforms that can send information to a smartphone. In other words, the team used nanotechnology to create spinach plants capable of sending emails when they detect explosives, and in the future, warnings about pollution or climate change. Read more for a news report and additional information.