Samsung unveils the Galaxy S4

Welcome to the newsletter for Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine. These are the headlines for March the 18th, 2013. Samsung unveils the Galaxy S4 When Samsung tipped its Unpacked event in New York City, there was no mystery surrounding what the company would announce. It's no surprise, then, that the company stuck to the script and opened the curtain to its latest flagship, the Galaxy S4. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile 60 years of Corvette At the first major auto show of 2013, Chevrolet presented one of the biggest car debuts of the year: the long-awaited seventh-generation Corvette, a model that brings back the iconic Stingray label and draws on a design heritage stretching back 60 years. To trace this evolution, Gizmag dives into the history of one of the true legends of American motoring. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile In pictures: eVolo's madcap skyscraper competition winners eVolo Magazine has announced the winners of its 2013 speculative skyscraper design competition. Novelty, be it technical or aesthetic, is the order of the day, and while one shouldn't expect to see any of these designs crop up in their chosen city of residence at any point in the next 3,000 or so years, there is plenty of first rate eye-candy and a smattering of urban speculative to peruse. Prepare to suspend disbelief. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Pinion sealed gearbox offers an alternative to those darn derailleurs Rear derailleurs are problematic, particularly on mountain bikes. They get bent, they get gunked up, and they're exposed to the elements. While sealed hub transmissions lack these problems, not all of them have axles that are strong enough for multi-terrain use, they add revolving weight, and that weight is added in the back of the bike – not low and in the middle, where you want it. German company Pinion has developed what it claims is something better ... a sealed gearbox located adjacent to the bottom bracket. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Zero energy home uses 40,000 recycled plastic bottles for insulation Italian architectural firm Traverso-Vighy and the Department of Physics at the University of Padua have teamed up to create an innovative zero-energy home dubbed "Tvzeb." Located in the woodlands a few kilometers from the historic center of Vicenza, the home combines the use of recycled materials, geothermal and solar energy generation, LED lighting and wall and roof insulation made from 40,000 recycled plastic bottles. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Audi's Swarm concept reinvents the humble taillight Practically, this may be a terrible idea, but as a tech demo, it's an excellent illustration of OLED, and its potential to kick holes in the divide between what we think of as display technology and what we think of as lighting technology. The concept is called Swarm, and is in essence an ultra wide aspect ratio TV placed on a car's derrière where the taillights should be. The idea is that the swooping, fluid animations displayed will relay all sorts of useful information to other road users. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile The 2013 Philips DesignLine puts a new slant on HDTV When it comes to HDTV placement, you've generally faced with two options – a stand for sitting the TV in an entertainment unit or on a table, or a wall mount. With its 2013 Philips DesignLine, TP Vision is offering a third option – simply leaning the TV against a wall. When it comes to a modern minimalist look, the new DesignLine TV takes the cake, with no visible frame or stand, it looks like nothing more than a square sheet of glass. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Samsung Galaxy S4 vs. Galaxy S3 After selling millions of Galaxy S3 handsets, Samsung has the tech world's attention. With countless eyeballs fixed on the reveal of the Galaxy S4, the company presented a minor hardware update with tons of new software features. Is the Galaxy S4 significant enough to warrant an upgrade from the Galaxy S3? Let's see how the specs – and other features – of Samsung's hottest Galaxies compare. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Video inpainting software deletes people from HD video footage In a development sure to send conspiracy theorists into a tizzy, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (MPII) have developed video inpainting software that can effectively delete people or objects from high-definition footage. The software analyzes each video frame and calculates what pixels should replace a moving area that has been marked for removal. In a world first, the software can compensate for multiple people overlapped by the unwanted element, even if they are walking towards (or away from) the camera. See the incredible video demonstration after the break. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile 4D Sportsground features rotating surface to support multiple uses Some sports venues – think indoor basketball courts/ice hockey rinks – use their space to support multiple sports. LEDSSPORT's Pulastic LED Court and ASB's GlassFloor both use LEDs to redraw line marking to suit different sports, but the new 4D Sportsground being developed in The Netherlands takes the concept to the next level, delivering a sports field that seamlessly rotates between three separate surfaces. Its designers hope to develop a field that spends 24 hours a day in use. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile The best Google Reader replacements Were you disappointed at the news that Google will soon kill its RSS service, Google Reader? If so, you aren't alone. Fortunately, you have until July 1 to find a worthy alternative. Read on, as we break down the best Google Reader replacements. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Get ready to find E.T. with the James Webb Space Telescope NASA astronomers involved in the mission of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) say the successor to the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes will likely enable mankind to finally answer the existential question "Are we alone?" within this generation. That was one of the clear themes in a recent panel discussion on the telescope at the South By Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas, where a full scale model of the JWST was also on display outdoors all week long. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Clawed micro-drone swoops up prey mid-flight Here's something you don't see everyday: a Micro Unmanned Aerial vehicle (MAV) that can grab objects on the fly with all the elegance of an eagle snatching a fish from the water's surface. Although MAVs and UAVs are increasingly being equipped to pick up, transport, and drop off payloads, we've never seen this incredibly precise form of grasping on the fly replicated – until now. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile SpiderSense suit delivers superhuman perception In the Spider-Man comics and movies, the famous hero's "Spider Sense" warns him of incoming danger, which proves to be just as important a superpower as slinging webs and climbing walls. Now a group of researchers at the University of Illinois in Chicago may have found a way to replicate such superhuman perception that doesn't involve any radioactive spiders. Using a collection of sensors placed all over the body, the group has designed a "SpiderSense" suit that detects objects in the environment and warns the wearer when anything gets too close. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Wheelylift saves space and effort when parking bikes The Netherlands is known for its bicycle-friendly culture as well as the skinny houses found in the capital, Amsterdam – the result of a taxes in the 16th century being based (among other things) on the width of a house. Therefore, we weren't too surprised to find that this space-saving parking device for bicycles harks from the land of tulips, clogs and windmills. Called Wheelylift, it was devised by Dutch designer Jules Sypkens for the spatially-challenged cycling contingent the world over. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Swiss company aims to fly satellites into space If you want to launch a satellite in the usual way – on top of a rocket – it will typically cost you at least US$50,000,000. Newly-inaugurated aerospace firm Swiss Space Systems (S3), however, claims that it will be able to put your small satellite into orbit for about 10.6 million bucks. Why so cheap? S3 is planning on flying satellites into space, using an airliner and an unmanned shuttle. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile High-res Nexus 7, iPad mini with Retina Display coming later this year? In the past year, both large tablets and 5-inch smartphones have shifted to razor-sharp, high-resolution displays. Smaller tablets, however, have yet to make that leap. According to an analyst who's been keeping tabs on the supply chain, that could soon change – with both the iPad mini and Nexus 7 switching to high-res "Retina" displays. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Volkswagen announces its first electric production car – the e-up! Volkswagen may be a bit late to the electric vehicle game, as far as major global manufacturers go, but it's making up for it quickly. Hot on the heels of the world premiere of its e-Co-Motion electric van concept and the revolutionary XL1 hybrid, the company is introducing its first electric production car – the e-up! – which made its debut at its Annual Press and Investors Conference. The electric up! is a city car that can travel up to 93 miles (150 km) per charge. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Boeing outlines additional safety features for 787 batteries Boeing has announced improvements to the lithium-ion batteries for its 787 Dreamliner. A series of modifications to the batteries and their casings were made in response to battery fires in mid-January aboard two 787s in Boston and over Japan that resulted in all 50 of the planes delivered to customers being grounded. According to a company press release, the modifications along with improved testing regimes should prevent a repeat of the incidents. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile This chair will self-destruct in eight sits What if the concept of disabling a product after certain conditions are met wasn't just restricted to digital goods? That's the idea that a design team in Switzerland decided to explore with the "DRM Chair," a piece of furniture rigged to fall apart after being sat on eight times. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile Plans for Sweden's ESS particle accelerator unveiled The European Spallation Source (ESS), a new particle accelerator to be built in Lund, Sweden, has been in the works for years, but, following the result of a design competition, we now have a fairly good idea of how the thing will look. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile NYC Mayor announces finalists in Reinvent Payphones competition Payphones may seem like yesterday's technology, but they aren't quite dead yet ... at least not in New York. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced semi-finalists in a competition designed to drag payphone infrastructure into the 21st century – the "Reinvent Payphones" Design Challenge. Read on Desktop or Read on Mobile 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) 2013