SAVMS: prefab modular housing in under 3 weeks?

Welcome to the newsletter for Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine. These are the headlines for November the 22nd, 2012. SAVMS: prefab modular housing in under 3 weeks? Madrid-based architectural studio CSO Arquitectura teamed up with prefab construction specialists Torsan to create SAVMS, a modular housing system designed to maximize adaptability while minimizing ecological footprint. The flexibility of the system allows customers to choose a house of their own design, while the prefabricated approach means costs are kept more or less fixed. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Dog-inspired scent detector sniffs out explosives and narcotics Combining nanotechnology and microfluidics, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have created a high-performance detector that draws inspiration from the anatomy of a dog's nose to accurately identify substances – including explosives and narcotics – from very small concentrations of airborne molecules. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile 2013 SRT Viper set for production It was only a few short months ago that Chrysler showed off the 2013 SRT Viper at the New York Motor Show. The latest model boasts some serious refinements over previous iterations of the 10-cylinder beast, with the body style and interior rebuilt from the ground up. The muscle-car is now set to enter production, and the company has released some new performance numbers and an extensive photo gallery to mark the occasion. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Cloaking technology could protect offshore rigs from destructive waves Recent years have seen much progress in the development of invisibility cloaks which bend light around an object so it can't be seen, but can the same principles be applied to ocean waves that are strong enough to smash steel and concrete? That's the aim of Reza Alam's underwater "invisibility cloak." The assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, recently outlined how to use variations of density in ocean water to cloak floating objects from dangerous surface waves. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile New type of electrotherapy makes implantable defibrillators less shocking While regular pacemakers attempt to rectify arrhythmias (irregular heart beat rhythms) using constantly-delivered electric pulses, implantable cardioverter defibrillators do something a bit different. As long as everything stays normal, they don't do any shocking – when they detect a dangerously fast heart beat, however, they respond by delivering a massive jolt of electricity to the heart. While this may save the patient's life, it's also very traumatic and painful. Now, a team of scientists from Washington University in St. Louis may have come up with a solution to that problem. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Georgia Tech's pint-sized robot pianists Researchers at Georgia Tech's GRITS Lab are working with swarms of mini robots that communicate with one another to work effectively. The aim of the research is to create networks that can be controlled by inputting instructions to a single robot. Beginning with a leader, each robot communicates with its nearest neighbors until the instructions have been shared across the network. In an effort to create the most efficient "follow-the-leader" algorithms, the researchers are getting the robot swarm to play musical notes on a simulated piano. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile 2012 eReader Comparison Guide Five years after the release of the first Kindle, eReaders are still going strong. Despite the threat from tablets, many customers still love e-ink screens. If you're wanting to get in on the fun, the choices can be overwhelming. Let us help – with our 2012 eReader Comparison Guide. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile The rebirth of a legend: the 2013 D'Angelico guitars John D'Angelico is regarded by many as the greatest archtop guitar maker of all time. Prized for their smooth, mellow tone and excellent sustain, it's said that only around 1,200 instruments were made during his career in the Lower East Side of New York. This year, the first D'Angelico reissues have been selling faster than they can be made. Fueled by this success, the iconic brand is being relaunched with a new very limited edition USA Masterbuilt version of the 1942 D'Angelico Excel and three standard models. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Augmented reality system could be a boon to dieters You might think that your feeling of satiation when eating is due simply to your stomach filling up. According to the Hirose Tanikawa Group at the University of Tokyo, however, the visual perception of food also has something to do with it – the greater the amount of food that a person sees that they're eating, the sooner they feel full. With that in mind, the team has created a prototype dieting system that uses augmented reality to trick people into thinking their food items are larger than they actually are. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Bar10der combines ten drink-mixing tools in one device What do mechanics, outdoorsmen, and film crew members have in common? They all like to take just about any excuse to whip out their trusted multitool. Now, thanks to the purpose-built Bar10der, the multitool collective can include another group of people – bartenders. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Toshiba unveils four-legged nuclear plant inspection robot Toshiba has unveiled a four-legged inspection robot, which will carry out work at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where people cannot go. The newly developed robot – simply called a Quadruped walking robot – comes equipped with a smaller wheeled robot that can be deployed to navigate hard-to-reach areas. The legged robot can negotiate stairs, uneven terrain, and is able to avoid low-lying obstacles. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Nokia Here gets iOS release The iOS version of Nokia's cloud-based mapping service has been released on Apple's App Store. The service boasts a number of compelling features and undoubtedly aims to capitalize on the problems iPhone and iPad owners have encountered while using Cupertino's own Maps app. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile CommBadge Bluetooth wearable smartphone speaker invokes Star Trek When one considers how long mobile telephone communication has been available, it's perhaps surprising that we're still largely relying on finger input to answer calls and write emails. CommBadge aims to fix this with a wearable Bluetooth speaker that pairs with Android and iOS, and isn't too far removed from something Star Trek's Captain Jean-Luc Picard might wear. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile ATOMS bricks convert LEGO sets and other toys into iPhone-controlled monsters Michael Rosenblatt, design lead behind the first iPod touch, has a point to make about toys. Not all toys. Just the best kind: the ones that enable children (and grown-ups, let's be honest) to create things, be it from LEGO, K-NEX, crayons, paints or Play-Doh. The thing is, they're generally a little on the inert side. With ATOMS from ATOMS Express Toys, Rosenblatt is hoping to redress the balance with a series of modules that can be fitted to other toys (including LEGO) to effectively turn them into moving and sensing robots. 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 weekly newsletter, click here If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter please click here to unsubscribe. COPYRIGHT GIZMAG (C) 2012