Honda's "Micro Commuter" features swappable bodies

Welcome to the newsletter for Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine. These are the headlines for November the 19th, 2012. Honda's "Micro Commuter" features swappable bodies Further evidence of the coming fragmentation of personal transportation came today when Honda released details of the next iteration of its "Micro Commuter" prototype which we first saw at the Tokyo Motor Show last year. The new version is close to production-ready (without the extreme aerodynamics of the initial prototype) and concentrates the battery and functionality of the micro EV below the floor, enabling the vehicle's body to be easily changed to accommodate different functionality. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Does Brutus define a new genre of motorcycle? Now here's a motorcycle with a difference. Alessandro Tartarini, son of Italjet founder Leopoldo, this week used the EICMA motorcycle show to present a new motorcycle concept. The aptly named Brutus (not to be confused with the existing Brutus electric motorcycle), is billed as "the SUV of motorcycles," runs a fuel-injected, 45 bhp, 750cc, single-cylinder engine with a CVT and optional reverse gear and weighs in at just under 220 kg (485 lbs) – about the same weight as a BMW 1200 GS or Ducati Multistrada. So does this genuinely represent a new genre of motorcycle? Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Drive Suits let you become a real-life Transformer For the past few years, entrepreneur Drew Beaumier has been creating life-size Transformers-inspired costumes known as Drive Suits. Thanks to the wearer's motorized "drive boots," they can actually trundle along the ground when in "vehicle" mode. It may be a bit late for Halloween, but you can now buy one of your own. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile MIT breakthrough could lead to paper-thin bullet-proof armor Scientists have theorized that paper-thin composite nanomaterials could stop bullets just as effectively as heavy weight body armor, but progress has been hampered by their inability to reliably test such materials against projectile impacts. Researchers at MIT and Rice University have developed a breakthrough stress-test that fires microscopic glass beads at impact-absorbing material. Although the projectiles are much smaller than a bullet, the experimental results could be scaled up to predict how the material would stand up to larger impacts. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Dutch artist 3D prints CT scan of his own skeleton In what could be described as the ultimate memento mori – a genre of art that reminds us of our own mortality – Dutch sculpture Caspar Berger has reproduced an exact copy of his own skeleton. He underwent a CT scan, which provided detailed anatomical data, which was then output on a 3D printer. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Treehouse conference center to inspire sustainable ideas Fancy brainstorming and attending work conferences in a modern treehouse set among the treetops of a pristine forest landscape? Well, four Belgian companies Sappi, The Flemish Forest and Nature Agency, Hechtel-Eksel and Proximity have made it possible by commissioning the construction of a modern treehouse conference center. The "Treehouse" was built by German architectural studio Baumraum, who created the Entre Cielos Treehotel we covered earlier this year and while we also loved the British Eco-Perch, this treehouse project has given us some serious office envy! Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile World-first wooden wind turbine starts spinning in Germany Getting a wind turbine to a decent height to allow it to reach stronger winds than those found closer to the ground generally means sitting them atop a tower. Despite the eco-credentials of wind turbines, these towers are usually constructed from steel, which is not only expensive, but requires large amounts of energy to process. In an effort to make wind turbines even greener, German company TimberTower has erected a wooden 1.5-MW wind turbine in Hannover, Germany. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Lamborghini throws the top off new Aventador LP700-4 Roadster Teenage boys the world over have another drool-worthy Lamborghini to plaster on their bedroom walls with the unveiling of the Aventador LP700-4 Roadster. Powered by the same 700 horsepower 6.5-liter aspirated V12 as its coupe sibling, the convertible Roadster boasts the same 350 km/h (217 mph) top speed and goes from 0 to 100 km/h in three seconds flat, which is only 0.1 seconds slower than the coupe. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Concorde meets railgun – SpaceX founder's plan for future rapid transport Taking to the stage at this year's Economist Innovation Awards, Elon Musk of SpaceX let slip a few more choice details about his "Hyperloop" high-speed transportation system that would see commuters travel between Los Angeles and San Francisco in a mere 30 minutes, describing the concept for the first time as a cross between Concorde and railgun. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile The Economist reveals its 2012 Innovation Awards winners The Economist magazine announced the winners of its 2012 Innovation Awards on Thursday evening. Selected from fields as diverse as bioscience, telecommunications, energy and aerospace, the winners were selected by a panel of judges, comprised largely of previous award winners. As diverse as they were, those awarded did share one particular trait: far from being pie-in-the-sky ideas, their innovations were all proven technologies. Gizmag attended the awards ceremony at BAFTA in London to get the lowdown on the event. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile SBU's Reality Deck breaks one billion-pixel resolution barrier If you're impressed by the 4K TVs set to hit the market from the likes of Sony, Toshiba and LG, then get an eyeful of the new Reality Deck officially opened at New York's Stony Brook University (SBU) last week. Described by its creator as the closest thing in the world to Star Trek's holodeck, the four wall of the Reality Deck are covered in a total of 416 high resolution screens that provide a total resolution of 1.5 billion pixels. SBU says this makes it the largest resolution immersive display ever built driven by a graphic supercomputer. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Ford announces 30 mpg upgrade to its 7-passenger Transit Connect Wagon Ford has just announced an update to its 7-passenger people mover, the Transit Connect Wagon. Generally, such large vehicles aren't know for their stellar fuel efficiency, but the automaker is looking to break that trend with this 30 mpg (7.8 l/100km) vehicle. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile New tech could boost HDD capacity fivefold A team of researchers at the University of Texas is working on a novel design that could circumvent some of the pressing limitations of current data storage technology and open the door to a new generation of very high-density, cheap and reliable hard disk drives. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile AdTrap aims to block all internet advertising Most of us are bombarded by advertisements in one form or another throughout the day. While there's not a lot we can do about the ads in the subway, or placed up on billboards, the internet is another matter. AdTrap is a new low-power, zero configuration device which promises to banish adverts from computers, tablets, and anything else connected to the local network. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Curiosity sends back weather and radiation data NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is now sending back weather reports and radiation measurements. Using the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) instrument built by Spain's Centro de Astrobiologia (CAB), the nuclear-powered robot has been taking measurements of atmospheric pressure, temperature, wind speed and other factors to better understand the Martian environment in hopes of finding out whether life could still exist on the Red Planet. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Nexus 10 vs. Surface RT Apple has owned the 10-inch tablet market. Budget slates have done well on the low end, but other full-sized tablets have been utterly dominated by the iPad. Samsung, Google, and Microsoft hope to change that. Surface RT and Nexus 10 are the most compelling full-sized iPad challengers yet. How do they stack up? Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Mercedes Benz off-roader of the future – the Ener-G-Force What will highway patrol vehicles look like in 2025? That's the question posed by this year's Los Angeles Design Challenge, and Mercedes-Benz has answered with the Ener-G-Force design concept. Despite the brief, the company's North American R&D team hasn't totally abandoned the past in looking to the future, conceiving a rugged, fuel-cell driven concept based on the existing G-Class that would produce its own hydrogen from water on the fly. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Wireless, handheld device for ground control of X-47B unmanned aircraft tested While impressive, unmanned flight is just one of the capabilities required of the Northrop Grumman-built X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) if it is to enter service with the U.S. Navy. Prior to and after any flights, the aircraft also needs to be safely maneuvered around the crowded deck of an aircraft carrier. Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Navy have taken the first step towards this with the demonstration of a wireless, handheld device that will allow deck operators to remotely control the aircraft on a carrier deck. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Teaching robots new tricks without programming Don't believe what the sci-fi movies tell you: when it comes to understanding our world, robots are stupid. Like computers, robots only do what we program them to do. And that's a big problem if we're ever going to realize the dream of practical robot helpers for the masses. Wouldn't it be great if anyone could teach a robot to perform a task, like they would a child? Well, that's precisely what Maya Cakmak has been working on at Willow Garage. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Hubble discovers most distant galaxy ever observed NASA's Hubble telescope has discovered the most distant object yet seen in the universe. The object, a galaxy called MACS0647-JD, is 13.3 billion light years from Earth and can only be seen with the help of a lens of intergalactic proportions. The light from MACS0647-JD left it only 420 million years after the Big Bang, so it provides a valuable look into the nature of the early universe. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Special promotion for Gizmag readers Take Your Coding Skills to the Next Level Welcome to coding bootcamp! This is the crown jewel of coding courses jam-packed with everything a serious programmer should know inside and out. Learn to code training includes 47 hours of online training that will teach you HTML5, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, AJAX, Python, Ruby, Responsive Web Design and more. After finishing the training, you will have all the necessary skills to build your own websites or to land your dream job. Find more about this training here. Read More You are receiving this email because you signed up for our daily newsletter at http://www.gizmag.com. If you would like to switch to our daily newsletter, click here If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter please click here to unsubscribe. COPYRIGHT GIZMAG (C) 2012