Fish out of water: The 2014 Corvette brings back the Stingray

Welcome to the newsletter for Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine. These are the headlines for January the 21st, 2013. Fish out of water: The 2014 Corvette brings back the Stingray You'd have to go back in time a long way to find the very first rumor about the C7 Corvette; the next-generation Corvette has been one of the most anticipated and talked about new car debuts of the past several years. At the Detroit Auto Show, Chevy finally ended the speculation and opened the seventh chapter of the Corvette, a chapter that's driven by a story of past meeting future. Like it or leave it, the new 'Vette is officially here. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Filip Dujardin's impossible architectures defy both physics and sense San Francisco's Highlight Gallery will shortly host a remarkable solo exhibition of architectural imagery by Belgian artist Filip Dujardin. Note the avoidance of the word photography. Though Dujardin's photographs provide the building blocks for his work, the end result are fantastical, Photoshopped constructions depicting nonsensical or even impossible architecture. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Mercedes-Benz reaches out to younger crowd with new entry level CLA-Class Mercedes is touting its new CLA-Class as "a real Mercedes. But not as you know it." The new mid-size four-door coupe is designed to bring the three points into a new demographic of garages, broadening Mercedes' appeal to a younger generation of buyer. The CLA is essentially a baby CLS, which Mercedes says is Germany's best-selling luxury car. The four-door, based on last year's Concept Style Coupe, was revealed at a preview event on the night before this year's North American International Auto Show. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile nCycle concept bike is smart, foldable, secure Despite being around for over a century, bicycles are ideally suited to meet today's urban transport needs – even if issues remain in the form of theft-prevention, storage, and safety. Gizmag has covered its fair share of bike designs which aim to tackle these problems, and nCycle is the latest such concept to hit our collective radar, sporting a modern design and some high-tech features to match. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile AbleNook portable dwelling assembles in two hours A few years back, young architects Sean Verdecia and Jason Ross put their heads together to come up with a cheap, flexible and mobile emergency housing system that would provide families with dignity and privacy during a natural disaster. The challenge, which was part of a research project for the University of South Florida, led the team to develop a new prefabricated living prototype that "snaps together" in a matter of hours. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile ZT60 series leads Panasonic's 2013 Plasma TV line-up Despite the rise and rise of the LED flat screen TV, the humble Plasma is still a favored choice for home movie fans and color reproduction devotees – often with good reason. Panasonic's 2013 offerings in this space are headed-up by the flagship ZT60 series, which the company put to task in a completely blacked-out booth alongside its predecessors at the Consumer Electronics Show. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Sony Xperia Z vs. iPhone 5 Every smartphone maker dreams of iPhone-like success, but only Samsung's Galaxy S series has approached the iPhone's popularity. One company hoping to move in that direction is Sony, with its high-end Xperia Z. Does it stand a chance next to the iPhone 5? Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Students calculate what hyperspace travel would actually look like The two Star franchises (Wars and Trek) and countless science fiction movies have given generations of armchair space travelers an idea of what to expect when looking out the window of a spaceship making the jump to light speed. But it appears these views are – if you'll excuse the pun – a bit warped. Four students from the University of Leicester have used Einstein's theory of Special Relativity to calculate what Han and Chewie would actually see as they made the jump to hyperspace. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile More details emerge on NASA's plan for inflatable ISS module NASA announced last week that it has contracted Bigelow Aerospace to construct an inflatable module to test on the International Space Station. Following the release of more information and imagery, here's a closer look at what the plan entails. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile The VL Destino combines Fisker Karma styling with ZR1 power "America's smallest, newest and most expensive car company" – that's how Bob Lutz describes his new venture VL Automotive. Lutz, a former General Motors Vice Chairman, earned a name for himself as the "father of the Chevy Volt." It's interesting, then, that his latest venture involves taking the electricity out of a plug-in hybrid. Together with industrialist Gilbert Villereal, Lutz has designed the Destino, a restyled Fisker Karma that trades the hybrid powertrain in for something more potent. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Asteroid to miss Earth by less than 20,000 miles next month Asteroid 2012 DA14 is about 40 meters (131 ft) in size, has a mass of 130,000 tons, is traveling relative to the Earth at a speed of some 6.3 km/s (14,100 mph) ... and will miss us by less than 32,000 km (20,000 miles) on February 15. If it did hit the Earth, the result would be a huge explosion yielding about 2.5 megatons, but Asteroid 2012 DA14 will not hit our planet in 2013, and probably never will. Despite the lack of a sensational scenario, this close call still warrants our attention – it will allow astronomers to learn a good deal about asteroids, and represents one of the few chances for ordinary folks to see a asteroid pass really close to Earth. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Einstein's "biggest blunder" beats dark energy in explaining expansion of the Universe It is dangerous to bet against Einstein. Cosmological research shows that the rate at which the Universe expands is increasing, rather than decreasing as was previously thought. The concept of "dark energy" with a negative pressure was introduced to describe this acceleration. Now measurements of the proton to electron mass ratio (PEMR) over the past seven billion years strongly suggest that the models of dark energy are far more contrived in explaining accelerating expansion than is Einstein's self-proclaimed "biggest blunder" – the cosmological constant. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile "Superomniphobic" nanoscale coating repels almost any liquid A team of engineering researchers at the University of Michigan has developed a nanoscale coating that causes almost all liquids to bounce off surfaces treated with it. Consisting of at least 95 percent air, the new "superomniphobic" coating is claimed to repel the broadest range of liquids of any material in its class, opening up the possibility of super stain-resistant clothing, drag-reducing waterproof paints for ship hulls, breathable garments that provide protection from harmful chemicals, and touchscreens resistant to fingerprint smudges. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Retrospective: the top 10 PlayStation 2 games of all time What with the inevitable gadget-frenzy that comes with an event like CES, you'd be forgiven if you'd missed the gloomy news that, after 12 years, Sony has ceased the manufacture of the PlayStation 2 – arguably the finest console ever made. By any yardstick, the PlayStation 2 was a phenomenally successful machine for Sony, shifting in excess of 150 million units and a staggering 1.5 billion games. But it isn't all sad news. The end of a console's life is an ideal time to pick up bargain hardware and software, and compile a final, definitive collection of the finest games available. In that spirit, Gizmag picks out its 10 favorite PlayStation 2 games from the nearly 11,000 launched … no easy task. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile The singNshock alarm clock shocks you from your slumber Alarm clocks are a necessary technological evil for most of us, but the snooze button is an all too easy fallback for those unable to resist just a bit longer out under the covers. The singNshock is a concept that provides a slightly shocking answer to this problem. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Taranis stealth drone set to fly this year It's been 30 months since Taranis, the UK's autonomous stealth drone, featured on the pages of Gizmag when a prototype of the aircraft was unveiled. According to a report in the UK's Telegraph last Sunday, the unmanned combat aircraft is set to undergo flight testing later this year. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Panasonic reduces size and price of "Ene-Farm" home fuel cell By relying on a chemical reaction rather than combustion, fuel cells like the Bloom Energy Server are a more environmentally friendly source of electricity than fossil fuel burning power plants – they're also easier to fit on a residential or commercial block. Unfortunately, their price is still prohibitively expensive for most people. But things are slowly improving as evidenced by Panasonic's latest "Ene-Farm" home fuel cell, which was jointly developed with Tokyo Gas. Later this year, the unit will be sold in Japan by Tokyo Gas for 1,995,000 yen (approx. US$22,320). Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Go360 stars in the silliest video Gizmag has ever made ... yet. The Go360 action camera mount sticks two GoPro cameras on either end of a 1 meter long pole that sits on the top of your helmet and rotates like a giant propeller. And the footage is fantastic. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Sony goes one (inch) better with "world's first 56-inch 4K OLED TV" When Sony showed up to CES 2012 with a Crystal LED prototype TV rather than an OLED TV like its rivals Samsung and LG, it prompted reports that Sony was abandoning OLED TVs aimed at the consumer market. The company might finally have put paid to these reports by displaying a prototype OLED TV at this year's CES. And in the spirit of one-upsmanship, Sony is touting the prototype TV as the "world's first and largest 56-inch 4K OLED TV." Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Empa claims new world record for solar cell efficiency Scientists based at Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, have set a new efficiency record for thin-film copper indium gallium (di)selenid (or CIGS) based solar cells on flexible polymer foils, reaching an efficiency of 20.4 percent. This is an increase from a previous record of 18.7 percent set by the team back in 2011. 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