NASA satellite data used in first global review of Arctic marine mammals

The study focused on 11 species including the bowhead whale, pictured here by study lead author Kristin Laidre in the Disko Bay, West Greenland (Photo: Kristin Laidre/University of Washington)

NASA satellite measurements have contributed to the first ever study focusing on the current status of 11 species of Arctic marine mammals, all of which depend on sea ice to survive. The study, which revealed details on ice loss in the region, made use of more than 35 years of archived satellite data.

Arctic sea ice experiences growth in the fall and winter months, and melts during the spring and summer. In recent decades, the period of melting has grown steadily longer, leading to a general shrinking of sea ice volumes – something that affects many marine mammal species.

The study, which was funded by NASA, the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources and the Danish Ministry of the Environment, focused on the impact of that drop in sea ice on a specific group of marine mammals. The research team used microwave measurements of the ice taken by NASA and Department of Defense satellites in an uninterrupted stream since 1978.

During the study, the Arctic Ocean was divided into 12 regions, using the satellite data to calculate the beginnings and ends of the melt and growth seasons. With the calculations ranging from 1979 to 2013, it was found that the melt season has grown longer by between five and 20 weeks.

The volume and behavior of the ice is critical for survival of the species being studied, specifically beluga whales, walruses, polar bears, narwhal and bowhead whales, and six different species of seal. For example, the seals use the sea ice as platforms when giving birth during specific weeks of the spring, while walruses use it for transport and as resting points between bouts of feeding.

The ongoing loss of ice is disrupting these natural behaviors, a key example being how walruses are now hauling out on land in Russia and Alaska, sometimes resulting in the trampling of their young.

While most of the species studied were found to be negatively affected by the sea ice trend, things aren't so bad for the Arctic whale, with the loss of ice and change in melt/growth patterns opening up new habitats for the species and increasing feeding season length.

"This research would not have been possible without support form NASA," says Kristin Laidre, the lead author of the study and polar scientist with the University of Washington in Seattle. "NASA backed us on research to the biodiversity and ecology of Arctic marine mammals, as well as the development of metrics for the loss of sea ice, their habitat."

Looking forward, the research team believes that high-resolution satellite data might be useful in studying how the marine mammals interact with their changing habitat, helping us better understand certain behavior, such as why narwhals congregate in specific areas during the winter.

The results of the study were published in the journal Conservation Biology.

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Most comprehensive map of the universe yet could pinpoint dark matter

The map describes galaxy concentrations in our nearby sky, with our Milky Way marked by a cross (Image: University of Waterloo)

Astrophysicists from the University of Waterloo have compiled the most comprehensive 3D map of our cosmic surroundings to date. The map describes how ordinary matter is distributed in space up to a distance of about a billion light-years away from us. This survey will help scientists better understand the distribution of dark matter and explain why, to some extent, galaxies are moving erratically with respect to us.

The cosmological principle states that the matter is distributed homogeneously across the universe when seen on a large enough scale. This, however, doesn’t mean that the density of the universe is the same at each and every point in space: if that were the case, there would be no galaxies, stars, or planet Earth to speak of.

Rather, what we see are variations that occur with no set pattern, influenced by the gravitational pull of both ordinary and dark matter and forming clusters of galaxies in random directions relative to us. On the whole the fluctuations tend to average out, but in our cosmic neighborhood we still see significant variations.

Professor Mike Hudson and team have created the most comprehensive map of the universe yet, describing the distribution of galaxies in all directions, up to a billion light years out. This is a staggering distance: for reference, our own Milky Way is approximately 100,000 light years across.

As expected, the map reveals random concentrations of galaxies across the universe, with no particular pattern. Regions featuring high concentrations of galaxies are shown in white and red, while regions with fewer galaxies are in dark blue. The small red area is the Shapley Supercluster, 650 million light years away from us, the largest collection of galaxies in the nearby sky.

The survey also maps the so-called peculiar velocity of our surrounding galaxies, which is the component to the relative motion of galaxies that cannot be explained by the expansion of the universe alone, and which could be attributed to the varying concentrations of both ordinary and dark matter.

Hudson and team believe that, using this data, we could obtain a bird’s eye view of how dark matter is distributed across a very large portion of space. To help with that, the scientists are now working on getting even more detailed samples of peculiar velocities to enhance the map’s resolution.

The data appears in a recent issue of the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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Unmanned, tablet-controlled helicopter can rescue injured troops from warzones

A wounded fighter is evacuated in a demonstration (Photo: Lockheed Martin)

While armed drones like the Predator tend to attract most of the attention when it comes to military use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the unmanned K-MAX helicopter recently demonstrated its ability to evacuate wounded fighters from a hypothetical battlefield.

During a demonstration put on by Lockheed Martin, Kaman Aerospace and Neya Systems on March 26, an unmanned ground vehicle was dispatched to respond to a distress call and assess the area and injured party. An airlift was then requested and a K-MAX was sent to the scene. Ground personnel using a tablet set the landing area for the unmanned chopper. The injured team member was subsequently strapped into a seat on the side of the craft, which then flew to safety.

The K-MAX has been flying unmanned cargo resupply missions in-theater since 2011 when it performed the first such flight. Last August, the K-MAX also demonstrated its ability to deliver a Squad Mission Support System (SMSS) unmanned ground vehicle via a sling load. It's also been floated for possible use fighting forest fires and shown its ability to autonomously pick up and drop water loads.

"This application of the unmanned K-MAX enables day or night transport of wounded personnel to safety without endangering additional lives," says Jay McConville at Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training.

The K-MAX spent nearly three years deployed with the US Marine Corps in Afghanistan and elsewhere, conducting resupply operations that involved delivering more than 4.5 million pounds in cargo over the course of more nearly 2,000 missions.

The twin-rotor helicopter is designed to maximize lift in a variety of environments, including high altitudes and desert climates and under weather conditions where manned craft would be unable to fly.

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World-first remote air traffic control system lands in Sweden

RTS uses cameras and sensors to replace conventional towers at small airports

Small airports are often in a no-win situation. They don't have much traffic because they don't have an adequate tower system, and they don't have an adequate tower system because they don't have much traffic. That could be about to change, with the opening of the world's first remotely operated air-traffic control system in Sweden. Thanks to the Remote Tower Services (RTS) system, the first plane landed last week at Örnsköldsvik Airport, but it was controlled from the LFV Remote Tower Centre 123 km (76 mi) away in Sundsvall.

The result of ten years development by the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration (LFV) and Saab, the RTS system was approved for operation last year by the Swedish Transport Agency. It uses a system of cameras and sensors that beam data to a remote control facility in real time, where it is displayed on monitor screens and air traffic controllers operate normally – as if they were at the field in a conventional tower.

According to the developers, RTS can control several airports or supplement large ones; operate on demand, at flexible hours, or around the clock.

LFV says that by parceling out the low workload of several small airports to a single control center, RTS can save on installation and running costs, adapt to changing traffic patterns, increase safety, and improve contingency operations in emergencies.

RTS allows several airports to be monitored from a central control room

The Sundsvall-Timrå and Linköping Airports are slated to use the RTS in the near future.

"Remote Tower Services is a development programme that we are very proud of," says Olle Sundin, LFV's Director-General. "We are the first operator in the world to receive operational approval and there is a lot of interest among our customers in Sweden and around the world. RTS is an important product for us and our partners. It gives us a good position and strong competitiveness."

The video below introduces RTS.

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Hands-on with the LG G4

LG's latest flagship marks some significant improvements over its predecessor, and it feels great in the hand (Photo: Chris Wood/Gizmag.com)

LG's latest flagship handset offers an optional leather back, improved display and new camera tech, but are those changes enough to make the G4 standout among some seriously stiff competition in 2015? Read on as Gizmag takes its first look at LG's brand new flagship.

The device might not be about to win any awards for being thin or light, but it feels comfortable in the hand. Like its predecessor, the G4 manages to be a big phone, without particularly feeling like one. As with other LG handsets, there aren't any physical buttons around the edge of the phone, with three keys placed around the back of the handset instead.

LG has opted for a choice of leather and plastic backs on the G4 (they call the plastic option "metallic craft" and "ceramic craft"). While the plastic options feels similarly solid like its predecessor, the leather variant unsurprisingly offers a more premium feel. It's soft and grippy to the touch, with a stitched aesthetic that LG claims will look better with age.

The design here isn't a million miles removed from the G3, but takes a step up in most regards. Putting aside the subtly curved display, the handset, and particularly the stitched leather variant, feels more refined than its predecessor. While it doesn't manage to reach the same design heights as the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, it's closer than we were expecting.

The G4 packs an "IPS Quantum Display", which the company claims offers better contrast, color reproduction and brightness than the competition. The screen looked great during our testing, producing stunning, bright colors and deep blacks. With a resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 and 538 pixels per inch, it's also impossible to pick out individual pixels.

The screen on the G4 is also subtly curved, like a far less pronounced version of the G Flex 2. The feature doesn't add anything to the viewing experience, but does perhaps make the smartphone feel slightly more comfortable in the hand.

LG didn't opt for the Snapdragon 810 processor we've seen in the HTC One M9, instead turning to the six-core Snapdragon 808. We didn't encounter a hint of sluggishness during out hands-on time, running the device through numerous applications and switching between them, everything was just as slick and responsive as you'd expect from a flagship device in 2015.

The treatment of Android Lollipop on the G4 is very similar to what we've seen on previous handsets from LG, with the design language and color palette altered to reflect the company's brand. It's a pleasant experience that isn't far from stock Android.

We took a few snaps with both the 8 MP front-facing camera and 16 MP rear cameras, and both produced great results. LG is making a lot of big claims about the quality of the G4's optics, and while the shots we took looks vibrant and sharp, we'll need significantly more testing before passing judgement.

It's early days, but we found a lot to like in the G4. We're certainly a fan of the premium feeling stitched leather back and stunning IPS display, and it offers the buttery smooth Android experience we've come to expect from flagship handsets.

There's nothing revolutionary on show here from LG, but rather a very solid evolution of an already very good flagship. Stay tuned to Gizmag for more on the G4 as we move closer to launch (April 29 in Korea, but undisclosed later dates everywhere else).

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Facebook rolls out free video calls for its Messenger mobile app

Facebook has announced free video calls for its Messenger mobile app

The world's largest social network has today added free video calls to its Messenger mobile app. The move pits Facebook against already established video chat services, such as Apple Facetime, Microsoft's Skype and Google Hangouts, affording users yet another way to get some remote face-to-face time with the tap of a button.

Since the release of its Messenger mobile app in 2011, Facebook has looked to build more than just a mobile version of chat as we''ve come to know it on desktop. Just as WhatsApp won over disenchanted mobile phone users with a way around snowballing SMS fees, Facebook also wanted in on that free mobile messaging action.

This lead the company to buy WhatsApp early last year, but not without continuing to refashion its own instant messaging service. It first added free voice calls in January 2013. Then in 2014 it coerced users into downloading the standalone Messenger app by discontinuing chat within Facebook mobile.

This year it has started rolling out a feature allowing friends to send money to one another through Messenger. It has also announced its Businesses on Messenger service, aimed at personalizing relationships between retailers and shoppers. Facebook now claims that 600 million people are using Messenger each month and it is giving every indication it will keep hunting for different ways to keep every one of them engaged.

There's no big surprises in the introduction of video calling for Messenger. When you open a chat window, pressing the video icon at the top right of screen switches the conversation from text to video. Users can flip between the rear-facing and selfie camera and also make calls between iOS and Android devices.

The feature is available today for users in Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Laos, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, the UK, the US and Uruguay. It will become available in other regions in the next few months.

You can check out the introductory video below.

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Honda gives a look under the new NSX's skin

Honda has revealed more details on its forthcoming NSX

The original Honda NSX won the hearts of the world's motoring press by wrapping a sweet chassis and Ferrari-aping performance up in a reliable package. So when, after a long gestation period, the new NSX was unveiled at the Detroit Motor Show, it's fair to say we were a little bit excited. Honda has now given a more detailed look under the skin of its high-tech flagship.

Honda has decided that, as a modern supercar the new NSX needs to be powered by an appropriately modern hybrid setup. At the center of this new powertrain is a longitudinally-mounted 3.5-liter V6 engine, which takes advantage of a broad 75-degree "V" and dry sump for a lower center of gravity.

This petrol motor is combined with three electric motors, designed to boost the petrol motor's output and fuel efficiency. The first electric motor is mounted directly to the crankshaft and works with the car's 9-speed dual-clutch gearbox to provide instant torque to the rear wheels, boosting the engine's outputs and filling in any potential torque holes created by turbocharging.

Backing up the crankshaft-mounted motor are two front-mounted motors, which are integral to the NSX's all-wheel drive (officially called Sport Hybrid Super Handling All-Wheel Drive, if you ask Honda) system. The fast-responding, front-mounted electric motors mean the NSX is able to offer torque vectoring, allowing the car to send or cut torque to individual wheels from very low speeds. Honda also claims it has managed to design a double-lower control arm suspension system that decouples the electric motors from the steering system, allowing uncorrupted driver feedback.

If you think that sounds like a lot of hot, tricky components packed into a small body, you'd be right. It's not surprising, then, that Honda has put a lot of effort into cooling the NSX's power unit. In the NSX, 10 individual heat exchangers are responsible for cooling the car's powertrain, with three individual radiators for the V6 alone. The central radiator has been angled forward by 25 degrees to help keep the center of gravity low.

Surrounding the NSX's high-tech powertrain setup is a new multi-material body that is heavy on the aluminum for a light kerb weight. The original NSX used an all-aluminum spaceframe, an idea that has been modernized with the addition of ultra-high strength steel and a carbon fiber floor for a stiff, light structure. Also contributing to this extra-stiff body is the use of ablation casting, a process designed to combat the brittle nature of traditional castings by combining traditional casting methods with rapid cooling techniques.

Honda claims that this process allows it to use ablation cast pieces in the car's crumple zones and crash structures, as well as allowing shorter stitch welds for less heat deformation in production.

Sticking the NSX to the road is a complex aerodynamics package, which has been set up to create six vortices at the rear of the car, including one that flows from beneath the car and out through the diffuser, sucking the NSX onto the road.

The new NSX is expected to retail for between US$150,000 and $160,000.

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New heat-recovery system makes Stanford one of world’s most energy-efficient uni's

Stanford's heat-recovery system, or SESI, will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 68 percent and fossil fuel use cut by 65 percent

At Stanford University in California, it’s normally the Nobel-winning researchers who make the news. But with the commissioning of a novel renewable energy system, the campus’s humble heating and cooling system has grabbed some headlines. Using a first-of-its-kind heat recovery system, and drawing a substantial percentage of its electricity from solar, the university is greening up its operations in a move that will see greenhouse gas emissions cut by 68 percent and fossil fuel use cut by 65 percent.

For a campus that’s more akin to a small city, comprising of 8,000 acres and over 1,000 buildings totaling more than 15 million square feet (1.39 million sq m), CO2 emissions can add up to a sizeable environmental impact of about 150,000 tons annually. The new system replaces what was once a state-of-the-art natural gas-powered cogeneration plant when it was commissioned in 1987, which heated buildings through a network of underground steam pipes, while cooling buildings with chilled water pipes. Buildings often require both heat and cooling simultaneously depending on the room temp needs (computer rooms and labs versus offices and classrooms).

“Basically if you think of air conditioning or cooling not as the delivery of cold, but rather as the collection of heat, things become more clear,” said Joe Stagner, executive director at Stanford’s Sustainability and Energy Management office.

After completing its route, the steam was then returned to the plant in the form of very hot water, known as condensate, along with chilled water which collected waste heat from the buildings. Once back at the plant, that excess heat was simply vented out into the atmosphere via evaporative cooling towers.

But campus growth had pushed the old system to its limits, and intermittent failures forced the university to buy relatively expensive energy from the grid. At the same time, plant engineers noticed that heat being collected from the campus by the chilled water loop overlapped with heat being delivered to the campus by the steam loop, which occurred about 75 percent of the time. With that, the idea for the heat recovery system was born.

As part of the new system, known as SESI (Stanford Energy Systems Innovations), heat that was previously discharged is now collected from the chilled water loop by a new heat recovery chiller that then moves it to a new hot water loop. The university replaced its steam pipes with 22 miles of hot water pipes, while retrofitting 155 buildings’ steam connections to hot water.

"What SESI does is use electrically powered heat pumps to take that waste heat from the cooling system to make hot water for campus heating instead of wasting it, thereby greatly increasing efficiency," says Stagner. "And by using electricity to power this system instead of natural gas, we can use renewable power and not burn gas and create air pollution."

Operated by patented software specifically designed for the system, SESI is claimed to be 70 percent more efficient than the previous cogeneration plant, while reducing heat loss that was an issue in the previous distribution system. It was also built with an additional 25 percent capacity, to cover the inevitable campus growth through 2050. And because steam will no longer be thrown away, the new system will save about 70 percent of the water used at the central plant, which translates into a 15-18 percent saving in the total amount of water used on campus.

Another major green aspect of SESI is a 68-megawatt peak solar farm being built on 300 acres (121 hectares) in California, along with 5 megawatts of rooftop solar panels to be installed on campus, all of which will provide about 53 percent of Stanford’s electricity. The rest will be bought from California’s energy grid, of which about 25 percent is from renewable sources (and growing), meaning at least 65 percent of the university’s power will be green.

"We know of no other system like this in the world, especially at this scale, with both hot and cold thermal energy storage, powered by clean electricity and run by newly invented 'model predictive control' software that continuously directs efficient system operations," says Stagner.

The video below gives an overview of the project.

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SABRE engine concept passes US Air Force feasibilty test

The AFRL confirmation paves the way for further development of the SABRE engine

Reaction Engines' Skylon reusable spaceplane project has been given a boost, with analysis by the United States Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) confirming the feasibility of the SABRE engine cycle concept that lies at its heart.

The feasibility study conducted as part of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the AFRL’s Aerospace Systems Directorate (AFRL/RQ) looked at the thermodynamic cycle of the SABRE concept. That is, whether the engine is able to do what Reaction Engine claims it can do. According to AFRL, there's no theoretical problem with the concept if the engine is properly built and integrated.

The SABRE (Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine) is a scramjet. That is, it reduces the propellant load because it acts as a jet while in the atmosphere and a rocket in space, so it doesn't have to carry as much oxygen to burn the liquid hydrogen fuel. It does so at velocities above Mach 5 (4,500 mph, 7,200 km/h) before flying into space, when it switches to rocket mode to achieve the even faster speeds needed to reach orbit.

SABRE engine with the heat exchanger marked in blue

The limit of the engine is how hot it gets. Above a certain point, even the best metal alloys soften and melt. At hypersonic speeds, the air is coming into the engine at 25 times more force than that of a Category 5 hurricane and the heat is like something blasting out of a cutting torch.

Paradoxically, before it can be burned, the air needs to be cooled dramatically, so as it enters the SABRE it passes over a series of heat exchangers that use the cryogenic hydrogen fuel to cool it down from 1,000° C (1,832° F) to minus 150° C (minus 302° F) in 1/100th of a second. Previously, this sort of heat exchanger was the size of a factory, but the SABRE uses one that's small and light enough to be installed inside the scramjet.

Reaction Engines and AFRL are currently collaborating on vehicle concepts that can use the SABRE engine. These not only include space launch vehicles, but also hypersonic aircraft and military applications of the Reaction Engines heat exchanger technologies.

"The activities under the CRADA have allowed AFRL to understand the SABRE engine concept, its pre-cooler heat exchanger technology, and its cycle in more detail," says AFRL/RQ program manager Barry Hellman. "Our analysis has confirmed the feasibility and potential performance of the SABRE engine cycle. While development of the SABRE represents a substantial engineering challenge, the engine cycle is a very innovative approach and warrants further investigation. The question to answer next is what benefit the SABRE could bring to high speed aerospace vehicles compared to other propulsion systems. Although application of the SABRE for single stage to orbit space access remains technically very risky as a first application, the SABRE may provide some unique advantages in more manageable two stage to orbit configurations. Furthermore, the heat exchanger technology also warrants further investigation for applications across the aerospace domain."

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Senzati turns the Mercedes Sprinter into a four-wheeled luxury jet

Senzati has moved the Sprinter's door to make for smoother entry and exit

A popular theme among van converters is taking inspiration from the skies to a create a van that travels like a luxurious private jet, and the Mercedes Sprinter provides a natural base vehicle for such endeavors. The latest outfitter to throw its hat in the ring with the likes of Becker and Brabus is the UK's Senzati. Its simply but effectively named Jet Sprinter conversion includes everything from massage-equipped reclining seats, to a full multimedia system, to a bathroom with waterfall sink.

As is obvious from its nature, the Senzati Jet is a custom, built-to-order affair, lending a lot of leeway for buyer preference. Senzati offers the conversion in left- and right-drive models and standard, long and extended long wheelbases. It shows a variety of floorplans with up to eight seats, including an executive mobile office, sleeper configuration with rear bed, and hosted layout with room for a hostess, butler or bodyguard. If you're looking for something not explicitly offered, we're sure Senzati would do everything in its power to accommodate the request, assuming you're prepared to accept the bill at the end.

Personalization is always nice, but the real selling point of a luxury van like this is the standard specification and options list. The Jet Sprinter's independently heated and cooled passenger cell is furnished with seats that have the kitchen sink of features – leather upholstery, armrests, heating, cooling, 12-point massage, air lumbar support, and independent lighting and climate control. The main pedestal seats also recline, and all seats have individual power sockets, USB ports and HDMI connections for keeping powered and connected to the greater multimedia system, which includes a TV, a 1,000-watt audio system with cinema surround sound, Apple TV, PlayStation, smartphone mirroring, Blu-ray player, digital radio, and mobile broadband Internet with in-cabin Wi-Fi. Senzati offers a number of LCD TV options, and the choice ties in to the type of driver/passenger partition selected.

When it comes to keeping refreshed, twin refrigerated drawers tucked below the seats and a glass-fronted central minibar keep beverages close at hand. The glasses in the 12-piece crystal set are sized to fit perfectly in the stainless steel cupholders.

Eventually quaffing champagne is going to get your bladder tickling, especially on longer trips. Senzati offers the option of a rear bathroom with porcelain toilet and glass bowl sink with waterfall faucet.

The Senzati Jet Sprinter isn't the first luxury van to offer a bathroom, but it's an option that is surprisingly lacking on other very luxurious van conversions. Nothing threatens to turn an elegant, ultra-cozy passenger lounge into an unbearable torture chamber like the "gotta go" fidgets and slow-growing bladder or intestinal pain. A pullover at the next truck stop doesn't seem like the kind of solution that anyone traveling in the back of a chauffeured, six-figure luxury van is interested in.

Senzati creates an elegant, relaxing interior atmosphere using LED mood lighting, LCD privacy glass with integrated blinds, a 6.5-ft (2 m) glass sunroof with LCD sun blind, and Alcantara and leather trim throughout. The passenger-to-driver intercom with auto audio mute allows occupants to quickly speak to the driver, even when the partition is up.

The extensively overhauled cabin is quite impressive, but Senzati seems even prouder of an exterior solution. It moves the sliding door backward, eliminating the need to climb over passengers when entering. As you can see in the floor plan photos in gallery, the door entry is positioned so that you can enter between the seats, making the process of boarding easier and more convenient. Senzati also reconfigures the windows to align with the seats, creating clear views.

"The biggest problem was getting unobstructed access to the rear club seating – a problem faced by every converter worldwide – so our solution was simple, regardless of the complexities and cost, move the electric side door backwards," explains Senzati founder and CEO Dave Clark. "If you set out to build the best of its kind, there can be no compromises."

Other base Sprinter modifications include upgraded alternators and multi-adjustable quilted-leather driver and front passenger seats. Senzati can also beef the van up with armoring up to B4+ standard.

The Senzati Jet Sprinter launched in February after two years of development and made an appearance at last week's Top Marques Monaco show. It starts at £209,000 (approx. US$317,000) with Mercedes' 3.0-liter V6 and 7G-Tronic Plus automatic transmission.

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Avenue Trucks add suspension to existing skateboards

Avenue Trucks provide half an inch of travel

Although we've seen at least one off-road skateboard with built-in suspension, aftermarket suspension systems for more traditional boards are few and far between. The designers at California-based Avenue Trucks, however, are out to change that. They claim that their suspension trucks should improve the skateboarding experience in several key ways.

Unlike some other suspension skateboard trucks (such as those made by Seismic), Avenue Trucks don't incorporate coil-type shock absorbers. Instead, they utilize a simpler leaf spring-like design, where the magnesium main body of the truck is mounted on a folded-over metal baseplate that can flex by up to half an inch (12.7 mm).

The body is able to pivot relative to that plate and unlike traditional trucks, it features a "floating" pivot point that reportedly results in smoother turns and more control.

The designers also claim that the trucks' ability to soak up momentum-sapping vibrations allows the skateboard to travel faster, plus it reduces high-speed wobble. Additionally, by preloading the suspension, riders are subsequently better able to "pop" their boards when performing tricks.

Needless to say, that half-inch of travel also helps reduce bone-jarring impacts to the rider when making hard landings.

Avenue Trucks has turned to Kickstarter to finance production of its product, where a pledge of US$45 will currently get you a set of the trucks – assuming all goes according to plan.

You can see them in action, in the following video.

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Pan-Robots could streamline operations in factories

The Pan-Robotics project aims at using robots to improve supply warehouse operations (Photo: PAN-Robots)

No good deed goes unpunished and that goes double for robots. They may improve manufacturing efficiency, but an improvement in one place often shows up a glaring inefficiency somewhere else. In an effort to help supply logistics keep up with robotic manufacturing, the EU's Pan-Robots project is working to create warehouse robots that are faster, more efficient, and safer than both manual operations or current robotic systems.

Robots are already being used routinely in factories for manufacturing and packaging, but a factory is more than just an assembly line or a packing station. It has a logistical tail feeding from the supply warehouse to the production area, but this bit still depends on slow, costly, error-prone, manual labor to get the job done. Subsequently, it's a bit of a bottleneck as workers with forklifts try to keep up with the machine they're feeding. This problem becomes particularly acute in businesses that use a just-in-time model, where a delay anywhere along the supply route can have a cascading failure effect as each stage runs out of materials.

Many firms are trying to automate the warehouse phase of their operations with Automatic Guided Vehicles (AVG) with some success, but the Pan-Robots project sees a lot of room for improvement through the use of on-board cameras, laser scanners, 3D maps, and intelligent systems that would make them not only more efficient, but also safer.

Made up of six partners from five EU nations, Pan-Robots is an EU-funded project to the tune of €3,33 million (about US$3.6 million) to develop new technologies for the “Factory-of-the-Future” (FoF). Currently, the project is aiming at producing more advanced on-board camera systems and laser scanners to help the robots to navigate warehouses using 3D maps under the guidance of a control center.

Pan-Robots says that the key technology is a stereo camera with fisheye lenses that's installed on top of an AGV, which resembles a driverless forklift. This not only produces 3D images, but also provides the robot with 360-degree vision. This works in concert with 2D laser scanners that look out for blind spots and keeps the machine from accidentally running into people. The robots also work with scanners set at strategic points at intersections to allow them to effectively see around corners.

The project claims that the system provides considerable savings, such as economies of 90 percent on installation, which can be done in a third of the time over other robotics because the mapping system uses natural landmarks rather than specially installed reflectors as datum points. In addition, the AGVs use half the energy of forklifts, and because they are faster than existing robots, fewer are needed to do the same job.

Pan-Robots says that it's conducted tests at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Madrid and plans to expand to another in Bilbao with a final demonstration scheduled before the project's October deadline to show how the technology can be adapted for different facilities. The partners are also looking at other applications of the technology and believe that half of Europe's factories could be employing AGVs by 2030.

The video below outlines the Pan-Robots project.

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Construction finishes on two floating mega-solar plants in Japan

Aerial view of the floating power plant at Nishihira Pond (Photo: Kyocera Corporation, Century Tokyo Leasing Corporation)

Construction has been completed on two enormous floating solar power plants located in the Nishihira Pond and Higashihira Pond in Kato City, Japan. According to The Kyocera Corporation and the Century Tokyo Leasing Corporation, who partnered up to build the instillations, the combined output of the solar plants will be around 3,300 megawatt hours (MWh) per year, and provide electricity to an estimated 920 households.

The vast floating power plants represent an attractive, and more importantly safe option for electricity generation in the context of the uncertainty that has prevailed in the wake of the 2011 Fukashima incident. Furthermore, the water-located solar cells will reportedly generate more electricity than their roof-based counterparts, as they are constantly cooled by the water beneath them.

The two facilities are comprised of 11,256 255-watt Kyocera modules on a high-density polyethylene platform, and are reportedly capable of withstanding typhoon conditions. It is thought that the shade produced by the vast power plants should reduce both algae growth and water evaporation.

Another much larger facility planned in the Yamakura Dam reservoir will boast roughly 50,000 modules and have an output of around 15,635 Mwh per year.

For an aerial view of the power plants, check out the video below

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Breath test for malaria is in the air

When examining the breath of malaria-infected volunteers, the scientists observed heightened levels of a number of typically undetectable chemicals (Photo: CSIRO)

At present, diagnosing malaria can be a difficult process involving powerful microscopes and careful scanning of blood samples for tiny parasites in a technique discovered in 1880. But a more accessible method may be in the works. A team of Australian scientists has discovered that certain chemicals are present and can be detected in the breath of sufferers, raising the possibility of a cheap breath test to diagnose the deadly disease.

Researchers at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) were working with a group of subjects given controlled malaria infections who had volunteered to be part of studies to develop new treatments. When examining the breath of these infected volunteers, the scientists observed heightened levels of a number of chemicals that are normally almost undetectable.

More specifically, these chemicals were four sulphur-containing compounds that had not been associated with any disease in the past. The team found that the levels of these compounds fluctuated over time in a way that correlated with the severity of the malaria infection, before effectively disappearing once they were cured. The fact that the compounds were detected at the very beginning of the infection has the researchers hopeful the technique could result in quicker diagnoses.

"What is exciting is that the increase in these chemicals were present at very early stages of infection, when many other methods would have been unable to detect the parasite in the body of people infected with malaria," says Dr Stephen Trowell, Research Group Leader at CSIRO. "Now we are collaborating with researchers in regions where malaria is endemic, to test whether the same chemicals can be found in the breath of patients."

Although the compounds were detected using a "sophisticated analytical instrument," the researchers are working to develop sensitive, yet inexpensive "biosensors" that specifically target the compounds and could be used in clinics and in the field.

The team's study appears in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

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Google takes on US wireless behemoths with Project Fi

Google's Project Fi is the company's new MVNO, and one of the most consumer-centric approaches to wireless that we've seen

With Google Voice all but dead, it makes sense that the company was busy behind the scenes, cooking up a new angle for taking on the telecom industry. Today we have it, in the form of Project Fi: Google's long-rumored Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) service.

At this stage, it would be difficult for a company even of Google's size to starts its own US carrier from scratch. So instead it's going the MVNO route, leasing airwaves from underdogs T-Mobile and Sprint. But this is more than another MVNO that happens to have Google's name attached, with the company's typical innovative take on solving the problems attached to the industry.

The first big change is that Project Fi subscribers will automatically switch to the network that's best: whether that's Wi-Fi, T-Mobile's LTE or Sprint's LTE. Calls will work seamlessly over Wi-Fi, and switch just as seamlessly to LTE (and vice versa) when that local network signal drops or weakens.

And it isn't limited to Wi-Fi networks that you manually log onto. Google says it's verified more than a million open Wi-Fi hotspots that it will automatically and securely (it's all encrypted) log onto. This will be a much bigger deal for city-dwellers than for people in less sparsely populated areas, but it could help with both speeds and the prices Google pays to lease LTE airwaves from T-Mobile and Sprint.

The second big unique feature is that your number is now cloud-based (with a hat-tip to the beloved but failed Google Voice). Any device that runs Google Hangouts – be it on Android, iOS, Windows, OS X or Chrome OS – will be able to make and receive calls and texts using that number. No longer is your number tied to a SIM card, a big acknowledgement of the multi-device world we live in.

The last big innovation here is pricing. There's a US$20 per month base rate that covers talk, texts, Wi-Fi tethering (too often an expensive add-on with US carriers) and international calls. Data then costs an extra $10 per GB both inside and outside of the US. And you only pay for what you need: you'll get refunded for any unused portions of data (and it's rounded to each 100 MB, rather than rounding up to the nearest GB to make you pay more).

T-Mobile's US branch has been aggressive in branding itself as the "Un-Carrier," with customer-friendly pricing schemes and promotions, and now Project Fi is taking things a step further with one of the most logical and consumer-centric approaches to wireless that we've seen. Take note, Verizon and AT&T: the tide is turning, one innovation at a time.

Right now, though, that tide unfortunately only supports one phone. At launch, Project Fi will only support the Nexus 6 (above). That's one of our favorite phones you can buy today, but its enormous size does make it something of a niche offering. As the Project Fi phone selection expands, it will be interesting to see if iPhones are ultimately supported, or if this remains an Android-only affair.

You can sign up for an invite to join Project Fi today at the source link, and find out more in the video below.

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New sampling device promises to make blood tests needle-free

The HemoLink device can draw enough blood for certain routine tests without the need for needles (Photo: David Tenenbaum)

Though the pain they cause is minor and fleeting, a lot of people still find something pretty unsettling about needles. When it comes to conducting a routine blood test, US-based company Tasso Inc. believes that these unpleasant pricks can be removed from the equation completely. Its ping pong-sized HemoLink blood sampler can be operated by the patient at home, and needs only to be placed against the skin of the arm or abdomen for two minutes to do its job.

The roots of HemoLink can be traced back to the Tasso founders' research in microfluids at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was here that observations of circulating tumor cells, immune cells and visions of a medical device startup spawned the beginnings of Tasso Inc., which has just received US$3 million in funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

HemoLink is designed as a low-cost, disposable device made from as few as six injection-molded plastic parts. Inside is a vacuum, which enables a small sample of blood to be drawn from tiny open channels into a small tube through a process known as capillary action. This process is made possible by forces that dictate the flow of tiny fluid streams, even against gravity.

"At these scales, surface tension dominates over gravity, and that keeps the blood in the channel no matter how you hold the device," says Tasso Inc.'s vice president and co-founder Ben Casavant.

The device can draw around 0.15 cubic centimeters of blood, which is enough to test for things like cholesterol, infections, cancer cells and blood sugar, before being mailed off to a lab for analysis. The company says that its target market will be people who need blood samples to be taken regularly, but not constantly, with the device being so simple to use that patients can take their own blood samples.

"We see our specialty as people who need to test semi-frequently, or infrequently, to monitor cancer or chronic infectious diseases, for example," says Casavant.

The money from DARPA will go toward advancing the preservation of the blood. The agency hopes to get to the point where they can stabilize the blood so it can survive for one week at 140° F (60° C). This would remove the need for expensive cold-chain transportation.

Tasso Inc. plans on applying to the US Food and Drug Administration for approval at the end of this year, with hopes of bringing HemoLink to market in 2015. If this eventuates, its benefits could be two-fold: easing the pain for needle-phobic patients and making healthcare cheaper and more accessible by eliminating countless trips to the doctor.

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New device enables ultra-sharp turns of light without losing energy

The researchers believe that the device may well see use in future supercomputers, and might even one day make its way into consumer devices (Image: UTEP/UCF)

A team of researchers from the University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) and the University of Central Florida (UCF) has created a new device that allows for the steering of light around sharper corners than ever before. The device is tiny, constructed from an inexpensive material, and could one day become an integral part of computer hardware.

While the ongoing increase in computer processing power continues its inevitable forward march, researchers believe that a better harnessing of light beams may lead to much faster computing than current methods allow, with data transfer speeds up to 1,000 times that of conventional, electricity-carrying copper wires.

Swapping electrical data transmission for light would result in much faster computing, but for the sake of viability, the light beams need to be able to make the same sharp turns as those made by wires on a circuit board. Conventional light waveguides, such as hollow metal pipes or optical fibers, are only able to steer light around gradual turns, with the beams losing energy if the angle is too sharp.

A large-scale model of the device (Photo: UTEP/UCF)

The team's solution for the problem is a honeycomb-like plastic device with a complex geometrical "bending" lattice structure that guides light through turns. Providing that the individual unit cells of the lattice are uniform in both size and shape, light is able flow around corners twice as tight as previous methods would allow – at angles of up to 90 degrees.

The material used to create the light-controller lattice is inexpensive – a simple epoxy plastic – making it viable for widespread use.

The two universities handled different stages of the development process, with UTEP engineers theorizing and designing the invention, while the UCF researchers were responsible for its construction via a nanoscale 3D printer, and the subsequent measuring of its performance.

"The name of the game is being able to control these light waves," said researcher Javier Pazos, PhD. "We were able to do just that, with unprecedented success."

The researchers believe that the device, which is smaller than a bee's stinger, will appear first in high-performance supercomputers.

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McLaren unveils V8-powered "entry level" 540C Coupé

McLaren is chasing new customers with its 'most attainable' car yet, the 540C Coupe

McLaren has continued its rapid range expansion with the unveiling of its new "entry-level" 540C Coupé at the Shanghai Auto Show. This isn't your average poverty-pack range starter, however, with the cheapest member of McLaren's Sport Series still capable of a 3.5 second sprint to 100 km/h (62 mph) thanks to its twin-turbo V8 engine.

As is evident in the name, the latest addition to McLaren's model lineup is producing 540 ps (533 hp/397 kW) from the British brand's twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter V8 motor. This is enough to shoot the 540C to 100 km/h in only 3.5 seconds, which is only 0.3 seconds slower than the 570S with which the 540C shares its V8 engine. Backing up its lightning-quick 0-100 km/h time is an equally impressive 0-200 km/h (124 mph) time of 10.5 seconds, and the car will keep on pulling to 320 km/h (199 mph).

Peak power is available at a lofty 7,500 rpm, while the V8's torque curve is incredibly flat, with the engine's full 540 Nm (398 ft lb) of torque available between 3,500 and 6,500 rpm. The 540C Coupé is also fitted with automatic start/stop technology for improved fuel economy, which McLaren says is 25.5 mpg (9.2 L/100 km) on the EU combined cycle.

As well as sharing a motor, the 540C and 570S are both built around McLaren's carbon fiber MonoCell II chassis. On top of making a safe, strong backbone for the car, the MonoCell is seriously light – in the 570S, it weighs less than 80 kg (176 lb).

Combined with the 540C's aluminum body panels, the lightweight MonoCell contributes to a dry weight of just 1,311 kg (2,890 lb), which McLaren claims is almost 150 kg (331 lb) lighter than its nearest competitor. Lightness aside, the 540C's chassis has been designed to allow easy ingress and egress from the cabin as McLaren chases greater everyday usability.

Containing all of that turbocharged power in the corners is the job of the 540C's newly developed suspension system, which combines front and rear anti-rollbars with double wishbones and fully independent adaptive dampers. The tuning of these dampers has been revised to provide a more comfortable experience than the setup in the 570S, although owners can make the car feel stiffer by putting it into Sport or Track mode.

Working with the adaptive damper system is McLaren's brake steer system, which allows drivers to get the power down earlier out of corners by braking the inside rear wheel.

Inside, McLaren has focused on providing owners with good exterior visibility and plenty of space – both of which add to the 540C's everyday drivability. The brand's IRIS touchscreen is the centerpiece of the floating center console, and allows owners to control everything from navigation to the air conditioning.

Styling-wise, the 540C looks very similar to its more expensive 570S stablemate, albeit with a few subtle aero tweaks. Unique aero blades sit below the bonnet, and have been tweaked to channel air through the lower bodywork and then over the bonnet.

So, how much will the entry level McLaren 540C Coupé cost you? At least £126,000 (approx. US$187,675), and the order books are already open.

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Review: The T10 in-ear headphones from RHA

Within the ergonomic metal injection-molded stainless steel housing of each earpiece is a hand-made dynamic driver (Photo: Paul Ridden/Gizmag.com)

In November last year, British headphone maker Reid Heath Audio (RHA) released a new flagship in-ear headphone model called the T10i that featured interchangeable tuning filters which altered the frequency response from the company's reference signature to focus on either lows or highs. The high fidelity, noise isolating earphones went on to earn the company a Red Dot Award in the Product Design category. RHA has recently added a sibling that's sonically the same but doesn't have an inline control and is a little cheaper, and it's this T10 model that Gizmag has been taking for a test drive.

The inline remote of the T10i in-ear headphones was designed to be used with compatible Apple devices. For those who listen to most or all of their music through non-Apple systems, this control can be something of a waste. Hence the T10 earphones, which provide pretty much exactly the same listening experience, but without the redundant remote.

Within the ergonomic metal injection-molded stainless steel housing of each earpiece, the result of a 10-hour metal injection molding process that involves heating the steel to over 1,300° C (2,372° F) while the shape is formed, is a hand-made dynamic driver. This flagship 770.1 holds the promise of a natural, true-to-life balanced sound signature. Other than the fact that it has a Mylar diaphragm, the company has not revealed anything else about the driver, saying that "detailed specifications can sometimes be misleading (for example, bigger drivers equals better sound)."

We can tell you that the T10s offer passive noise isolation, an overall frequency range of 16 Hz to 22 kHz, 16 Ohm impedance, 100 dB sensitivity and a maximum power output of 5 mW. The in-ear headphones also come supplied with three custom tuning filters. The reference filter (silver band) came screwed into the housing and offers the most neutral of the three responses. The bass filter (black band) enhances the lower registers for genres such as hip hop, dubstep and metal. The treble filter (copper band) tips the balance in favor of the highs for jazz and acoustic listening. Filters not is use are stored in a metal holder. Very classy.

The high-end feel continues with the inclusion of 10 ear tips – dual density silicone, double flange silicone and memory foam – all but the ones in use being stored on a stainless steel ear tip holder. Between the business end and the 3.5 mm gold-plated jack is a multicore, oxygen-free copper cable that's 94 cm (37 in) from cable end of the jack to the Y joint and then a further 46 cm (18 in) to the start of the patent-pending over-ear hooks. When listening to music on the move, we found this to be rather too long for our tastes and led to a few awkward tugs when rising from kneeling or sitting position to standing.

The earphones didn't budge from their positions in each ear though due mainly to the hooks that can be manipulated for a contoured, secure fit. But the ear hooks did lead to a few tangled knots when removing the earphones from stow-away safety for use.

The T10s won't be duking it out for any featherweight earphones crown, they tip the scales at 38 g (1.34 oz) with filter and medium silicone tips attached. That's more than the weight of the Moderna MS 200 earphones we reviewed back in 2013 and Samsung's great-looking but sonically disappointing Level in-ear headphones put together.

Bringing up the rear to complete the supplied package is a spring-loaded plastic clothing clip for extra security and a zipped carry case (12.8 x 7.9 x 3 cm/5 x 3.1 x 1.2 in).

All-day comfort in a stylish package

From the stainless steel jack cover to the soft-touch feel of the cable and the signatured casing at the Y joint to the molded driver housings, the T10s just ooze high end style. They appear well constructed and that RHA has put a lot of thought into the aesthetics as well as the sound is evident.

For those who don't like ear hooks, they keep their manhandled position so you can flatten them out and dangle (though doing so will add another 10-11 cm/4 in to the length of the cable). The only problem I had with this was that the shape of the housing seemed to fight against me stuffing the bud in my canal, meaning that I had to place right earphone in left ear and left earphone in right ear to get something approaching a snug fit. I did discover a sport-friendly alternative though.

The over-ear hooks can be bent into all manner of shapes, you could even tie them in knots if you wanted and they wouldn't utter one word of complaint. The play on them is also quite good so I pushed the right and left buds into their proper ear canals as though I was going to feed the hooks over the back of my ears, but pushed the top of the springy bit under the inferior crus of the antihelix to rest against the cymba of the concha and the T10s pretty much didn't budge when I was running for the train or out for a run with the dogs. Definitely not as comfortable as hanging the hooks behind the ears though.

When used as designed, I found these earphones to be very comfortable indeed. I've listened to over 100 hours of music and watched a good number of videos wearing these and felt no long haul fatigue. For the most part – and despite their weight – I hardly noticed they were wrapped around my ears and plugged in at all. The pre-music preparation was a bit more fiddly than simply popping in a pair of straight-down-dangly earphones and moving off, but the audio performance was worth the effort.

Plugged in performance

Comfort is very important, but a good many audioholics will put up with a little discomfort for top notch sonic performance. So were the T10s just ear candy, or did they deliver? I've spent much of my waking hours over the last few weeks plugged into RHA's weighty in-ear headphones, and have listened to various genres played through a number of different portable devices, media players and hi-fi systems.

The same set of medium silicone buds were used with all of the filters and the EQ flattened on all music sources. The following selections are representative of how the T10s performed overall.

First up, the Third Bardo's late 60s epic Five Years Ahead Of My Time given an 80s reworking by Rhode Island's psychedelic garage masters Plan 9. On this occasion, the format was MP3 through the reference filter and a Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 was the source device.

The T10s allowed a goodly amount of space for the multiple guitars mixed left, right and center to do their stuff without bashing into one another or fighting for attention (though not nearly as much as Phiaton's MS-200s). The overall sound was clear and detailed. However, though the rapid-firing bass runs sounded rich and fat, the kick did seem to get a little lost in the mix. Elsewhere a spirited full kit workout was given plenty of room to impress, from the colorful tones of the toms to the washing, crashing and ringing of cymbals and hi-hat.

Even though I've been regularly listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon for decades, I never tire of this audiophile favorite and Money is usually one of the first tracks I head to when testing audio equipment. For this outing, FLAC format and a Cowon dedicated audio player were used, and all three tuning filters were tried.

The reference filter delivered a lively and engaging listening experience. There was good instrumentation throughout, the saxophone, vocals and multiple guitars were all well placed and, though not the most spacious soundstage we've experienced from earphones in this price range, it by no means felt cramped. I'd say that there's more than enough bottom end punch to satisfy those who haven't grown up in the Beats generation, but those who prefer more thunder can install the bass filter.

First though, the silicone tips need to be removed. Then the filters in residence need to be turned counterclockwise to extract them from the molded steel housings. The bass filters need to take their rightful place in the housings and the silicone tips slid back on. The whole process is a bit fiddly and, of course, such tuning tweaks can also be achieved by some under the hood EQ tweaking. But screwing in the filter does allow for a more uniform listening experience across different source devices without having to ensure that the EQ precisely matches. It's by no means an exact science, but can save some time and effort making in-device frequency adjustments, so long as a filter doesn't slip from between finger and thumb, resulting is precious listening time being wasted scrambling on the floor looking for it.

The bass filters produced a more pronounced bass chug, and I noticed that the tom action had moved a touch more forward in the mix, particularly during one of the quieter guitar sequences. As the frequency curve moves toward the lower mids, it levels out to match the reference line and the rest of the range is every bit as colorful as with the reference filter.

The change in sound after the treble filter was installed wasn't as pronounced as when the bass filter replaced the reference. The lower registers were much the same as with the reference filter in place, but the hi-hat and cymbal, the tremolo and wah guitars and the upper registers of the keyboard work were all brought further forward in the mix (without being overpowering).

The treble filter is recommended for jazz, a cappella and acoustic music so I had expected it to shine on the slow jazzy 12-bar blues of Call it Stormy Monday by T-Bone Walker (on vinyl), but the brass work was too far forward and T-Bone's subtle chops were too far back. Happily, the reference filter came to the rescue and delivered the kind of intimate performance I'm more used to.

Sticking with the treble filter, the T10s next spent some time in the company of Sweden's acoustic guitar masters Peter Almqvist and Ulf Wakenius (again on vinyl). I've listened to the lively treatment that Guitars Unlimited gives to one of Django Reinhardt's most well-known compositions, Nuages, numerous times through quality speakers and circumaural headphones and the T10s sporting the treble filter more than matched the best of those experiences. These earphones really brought out the beautiful natural tones of both instruments, particularly the pop of the lead breaks. Most impressed.

Where the T10i earphones were designed with Apple device users in mind, the T10s have Android users in their sights. So, the next stop was a Huawei Android smartphone to give an MP3 of Out of Line by Device a listen through the reference filter. The bass and kick are really given some importance in the mix of this modern metal electronica anthem, and I was keen to see if the fine vocal performances from David Draimen and Serj Tankian managed to cut through the noise. And they did, with impressive clarity. Very tight performance.

Swapping over to the black bass filter, the low end wallop was geared up a notch or three. The bass and sub-bass got a little more room to move too, with the thundering bass guitar not cozying up to the kick quite as much. Vocals were still well placed and didn't threaten to merge or conflict with other sounds in the same frequency range and the highs of the intentionally distorted cymbal bashing continued to forcefully dice and slice.

The reference filter was designed as a good performer across a host of different genres, so how did the T10s handle the classics? Well, they offered a very life-like reproduction of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major Op 35 performed live by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France with Julia Fischer taking lead honors. The source sound quality was by no means high (a YouTube video via an Asus All-in-One Windows PC), but RHA's stereo imaging, instrumentation and soundstaging managed to inject more emotion and intensity into a captivating performance than the Samsung's Level earphones, used as a side-by-side comparison, could muster.

The bottom line

The T10s offered a comfortable secure fit that not only did a great job of isolating me from the outside world, but also managed to keep my tunes locked in. In the sub-$200 arena, RHA's earphones are about the most comfortable I've ever tried.

The choice of tips is quite generous, with the foam tips offering the most noise isolation, and the all-metal holder for between use storage gives off a high-end vibe and goes well with the molded steel housings of the T10s themselves. All that shiny steel (together with that extra long cable) does contribute to a rather heavy pair of in-ear headphones, but the over-ear hooks do a good job of reducing the load.

The sonic performance is immersive, detailed, quite roomy and clear. The reference filters are already rich and full, with a good measure of tight bottom end (and definitely not as neutral as the name would suggest). The mids appear steady and vocals manage to break through whatever the background cacophony of choice. The highs stealthily avoid any sibilance or sharpness traps to round off a solid sonic airing.

As the names suggest, the bass filter give more power to the lower registers while the treble filter brings some extra sparkle to the top end.

Swapping out the tuning filters can be fiddly, an activity that didn't seem to improve with experience, and RHA's in-ear headphones are not the first to include them. High-end in-ear monitors from Shure and AKG, for example, come with filtered tuning, though at a significantly higher price of admission. They do what they're designed for though, and if used correctly can markedly improve a listener's experience.

The T10 in-ear headphones carry a suggested retail price of US$189.95, and are sonically no different from the Apple-friendly T10i earphones for $10 more. If solid performers in a stylish, very comfortable package are what you're looking for, then either of these RHA flagships are highly recommended.

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New device combines the advantages of batteries and supercapacitors

A hybrid supercapacitor combines high power and energy density (Photo: UCLA)

Scientists at UCLA's California NanoSystems Institute have developed a new device that combines the high energy densities of batteries and the quick charge and discharge rates of supercapacitors. The hybrid supercapacitor is reportedly six times as energy-dense as a commercially available supercapacitor and packs nearly as much energy per unit volume as a lead-acid battery.

Batteries can store a lot of energy in a small and light package, but they can’t charge or discharge very quickly or last a long time the way supercapacitors can. A single device that combines all of these positive attributes could change the entire technological landscape of today, leading to lighter, compact phones and electric cars that charge in seconds instead of hours.

Professor Richard Kaner and Dr. Maher El-Kady have made an important step in this direction by creating a high-performance hybrid supercapacitor. Like other supercapacitors, their device charges and discharges very quickly and lasts more than 10,000 recharge cycles. But, according the scientists, their invention also stores six times more energy than a conventional supercapacitor, holding more than twice as much charge as a typical thin-film lithium battery in one fifth the thickness of a sheet of paper.

The amount of energy that can be stored in such a device depends in large part on the contact area between the electrolyte and the two electrodes: the greater the contact area, the more energy can be stored. Previous hybrid supercapacitors used porous structures in the electrode to maximize this area, but the pores were simply too big, and therefore too few, bearing relatively little effect on performance.

Kaner and El-Kady used manganese dioxide (a material used for alkaline batteries) for the electrodes, but also added a special three-dimensional laser-scribed graphene (LSG) structure. Crucially, this graphene structure was specifically designed for high conductivity, porosity and surface area, allowing the device to pack much more energy per unit volume and mass.

"Even though our electrodes are thin (around 15 microns), they are capable of storing more charge than the 100–200 micronmeter thick commercial supercapacitor electrodes mainly because our hybrid LSG/MnO2 electrodes are very energy dense," El-Kady told Gizmag.

According to the researchers, the supercapacitors can reach energy densities of up to 42 Wh/l, compared with 7 Wh/l for state of the art commercial carbon-based supercapacitors. Their device also provides power densities up to around 10 kW/l, which is 100 times more than lead acid batteries and on the higher end of performance for commercial supercapacitors.

"The LSG–manganese-dioxide capacitors can store as much electrical charge as a lead acid battery, yet can be recharged in seconds, and they store about six times the capacity of state-of-the-art commercially available supercapacitors," says Kaner.

Supercapacitors are usually stacked on top of each other and packaged into a single unit, but the researchers have been able to take advantage of the thinness of their device by integrating it inside a solar cell array. In this application, it was found that the supercapacitor could quickly store electrical charge generated by a solar cell during the day, hold the charge until evening, and then power an LED overnight.

This is just one of many potential uses for the technology.

"Let’s say you wanted to put a small amount of electrical current into an adhesive bandage for drug release or healing assistance technology," Kaner said. "The microsupercapacitor is so thin you could put it inside the bandage to supply the current. You could also recharge it quickly and use it for a very long time."

Kaner tells us his team is now exploring using these electrodes to build hybrid supercapacitors on a large scale.

You can see the device at work in the short video below.

The research is described in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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