How It Works: The Most Advanced Gas-Powered R/C Car
Gas-powered remote-control cars provide realistic racing fun. They burn a gasoline-like fuel called nitro (made of methanol, nitromethane and lubricant) with miniature internal combustion engines....
View Article5 Possible Causes Of The Germanwings Jetliner Crash [Updated]
Update (3/25/2015, 8:48 p.m. ET): An initial analysis of the cockpit voice recorder suggests one of the pilots was locked out of the cockpit at the time Flight 9525 began its final descent, and failed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Car Disrupted: Hydrogen Hits The Road This Fall
The Mirai hits streets this fall. Toyota Like jetpacks or robot butlers, hydrogen vehicles have historically been high on promise and low on delivery. Matt McClory, an engineer at Toyota, says he can...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Inside The New Stealth Arsenal
On May 2, 2011, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)—locked in a steady, predawn orbit above a residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan—transmitted live video of an unfolding military raid to a laptop...
View ArticleA New Foldable Flyer
It’s not quite a flying car, but after landing, you can tow the Icon A5 home and park it in a garage. It’s one of the first civilian flyers to feature automated folding wings, which slim down the mini...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Plane That Folds Into a Car
2015 Invention Award Winner Category: Aviation Inventors: Štefan Klein and Juraj Vaculík Company: AeroMobil Invention: AeroMobil Development cost to date: Undisclosed Maturity: 2/5 After...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Party On Autopilot With The Mercedes-Benz Vision Tokyo
The impending arrival of autonomous vehicles has a lot of engineers wondering: What will the interior of a smart car look like without the steering wheel, pedals, and gauges? And what will we do with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Getting on a plane? Here’s how they’re inspected to keep you safe
Aviation has had a great run in recent years. Until the fatal Southwest Airlines accident on April 17, there hadn’t been a single death aboard a U.S.-based airliner in nearly ten years. That pristine...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Moving Forward After The Crash Of SpaceShipTwo
Aspiring space tourists placed high hopes on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2), many of whom plunked down upwards of $200,000 for a future ticket into suborbit. But on October 31st, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How It Works: The Polaris Slingshot Three-Wheeled Supercar
New classes of vehicle don’t come along all that often, which is why the Polaris Slingshot stands out among this year’s launches. The three-wheeled moto roadster draws from the company’s experience...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Astrophotography Is Worth the Trouble
Astrophotography is hard. Astronomically hard. Everything has to be perfect. Your telescope, with camera attached, must track your target in precise synchronization with the rotation of the Earth. It...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Can Our National Flagship Be Saved?
She’s the most famous ship that never sank, and a technological triumph of her era. At her launch, she boasted the most extensive use of lightweight aluminum in any structure, full air-conditioning,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Russia floats new nuclear power station—and new risks
The beginning of towing of FPU ‘Academik Lomonosov’ to Pevek. rosatom.ru The world’s first commercial floating nuclear power station—a 21,500-metric-ton Russian vessel called the Akademik Lomonosov—is...
View ArticleDelta Rolls Out Fancy Seats for Plebeians
It’s about time the folks in economy class got some lovin’. For years we’ve seen the likes of Virgin Atlantic, Emirates Air, and Singapore Airlines pamper their first-class passengers (Virgin calls...
View ArticleA Naked Engine For Cleaner Flights
In 1983, engineers at General Electric experimented with an “unducted fan” engine. Without the external casing, airflow through the blades increased, delivering more power for the same amount of fuel....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tesla Launches Its Electric SUV, The Model X
Tesla Motors debuted its newest, quirkiest, and most outrageous product yet last night at its factory in Fremont, California. The long-awaited Model X SUV is a 7-seater with exotic “falcon-wing”...
View ArticleTesla Cars Become Autonomous Overnight
The Rise of the Machines has begun—fittingly, via an overnight wireless global “awakening.” That’s right, owners of Tesla Model S and Model X electric vehicles woke up today to cars suddenly empowered...
View ArticleSo What If The Tesla Model S Is No Longer Recommended By Consumer Reports?
The stock price of Elon Musk’s electric car company Tesla Motors went on steep spiral today, shedding at one point 9 percent of its value based on the news that Consumer Reports—which had awarded the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dreams, Fantasies, and Realities: Inside Honda’s Japanese R&D Lab
For a few brief moments, Honda showed us the future of driving. It’s not what you think. It’s electric, yes, but not dependent on batteries alone. It’s certainly autonomous, but probably not quite as...
View ArticleRobert Afzal is developing powerful laser blasters for the U.S. military
Lasers can map planets, cut metal, play your old CDs, zap tattoos, and send cats into furry frenzies of clickbait. But Robert Afzal, who leads Lockheed Martin’s advanced laser systems program, wants...
View ArticleClik here to view.
It’s not just Syria—chemical weapons still pose a global threat
Last week’s bombing of Syrian chemical weapons facilities by the United States and its allies sent a clear message: the use of such weapons will bring quick and severe retaliation. Time will tell...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Power-multiplying exoskeletons are slimming down for use on the battlefield
Dashing around a battlefield in the bulky robo-armor Tom Cruise wore in Edge of Tomorrow won’t cut it in the real world. For starters, it’s way too big. And the energy required to power something that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Even if you missed out on the Concorde, you may soon get a chance to fly in a...
The control room at the U.S. Air Force Academy’s Aeronautics Research Center is remarkably quiet given the fury Blake Scholl and his engineers just uncorked. Thick concrete walls and a robust slab of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What’s Next For Virgin Galactic?
In 2004, I sat down in a flight simulator at Scaled Composites with test pilot and engineer Peter Siebold. He’d built the simulator—a precise replica of the cockpit in Scaled’s radically...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What Is Faraday Future And Why Should We Care?
Faraday Future—a secretive, California-based selectric-vehicle startup that’s been teasing a big reveal for weeks—finally pulled the sheet off its debut concept in Las Vegas Monday night, just ahead...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Amazing Views From This Morning’s Total Solar Eclipse
Much of Europe–along with some of North Africa and the Middle East–awoke to a stunning solar eclipse this morning. The rare event drew diehard eclipse chasers and researchers to the two remote areas...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tesla Pushes The Limits Of The Model S With ‘Ludicrous Mode’
Electric car maker Tesla conducted a mysterious conference call/press announcement today. By “mysterious,” of course, we simply mean they didn’t announce what they were talking about beforehand, and...
View ArticleAudi Built A Moon Rover
Tucked into a corner of Audi’s expansive booth at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week sat a little piece of hardcore astronomical research—a pint-sized lunar rover....
View ArticleClik here to view.
This is Jaguar’s first real attempt to take on Tesla
If you drive Jaguar’s new, all-electric I-Pace, then shrug because it doesn’t growl like a jungle cat, I can’t help you. If you find yourself put off by the fact that it needs charging every 240 miles...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The 10 Most Amazing Machines At The Tokyo Motor Show
At the 44th Tokyo Motor Show preview today, carmakers—mostly Japanese—rolled out their visions of future mobility. They are efficient, autonomous, connected, and, of course, completely chill. Here’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The most exciting aerospace innovations of 2018
Jet pack? Psh. Try jet suit. Gravity Industries Looking for this year’s list? 2019’s Best of What’s New winners, this way. >> Let’s not waste any time: There’s a jet suit in this year’s Best of...
View ArticleThe Volkswagen Scandal Is A Roundhouse Kick In the Head to Innovation
In technology—as in science—skeptics are everywhere. Google, for instance, fell on its face while wearing Google Glass to cocktail parties because people didn’t buy into the benefits of the tech....
View ArticleA Human Driver Vs. Robby The Autonomous Racecar
It’s a sunny morning at Sonoma Raceway, north of San Francisco—a great day for a race. My driver, Robby, pulls up to greet me. Robby is not a person. It’s a car—an autonomous racecar, to be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
BMW’s i8 Is Where Every Supercar Manufacturer Needs to Go
It wasn’t that long ago that every major sports car manufacturer scoffed at the idea of inserting hybrid-electric powertrains into their track-tuned road-rockets. They reasoned electric motors simply...
View ArticleClik here to view.
AeroMobil Flying Car Crashes In Slovakia
Last Friday, the AeroMobil 3.0 prototype, recently featured in Popular Science‘s 2015 Invention Awards, crashed during a flight test in Slovakia. When the flying car ran into trouble, its pilot,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
This Is Why Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Crashed, According To The NTSB
At a public meeting in Washington, D.C., this morning, the National Transportation Safety Board revealed that a combination of human error and inadequate safety measures caused the breakup and crash...
View ArticleElon Musk Cancelling A Customer’s Tesla Order Makes No Sense
It’s been a few days since the big Musk-vs-Angry-Tesla-Customer flap livened up our Twitter feeds, and having spent that time mulling the brouhaha and reading—and rereading—the two Medium posts from...
View ArticleNatural-Gas-Powered Cars Fetching Big Bucks Online
We reported last week on how feebly powered, fuel-sipping 1990s-vintage hatchbacks have been lighting up the used car market recently due to skyrocketing gas prices. In an interesting twist to this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
2015 Detroit Auto Show: Ford Unleashes Hell’s Fury, Times Three
Sorry, your browser doesn’t support HTML5 video. You can try to view the gif directly: https://gfycat.com/WellinformedEuphoricBlackfly/ Ford made a huge splash this morning at the North American...
View ArticleClik here to view.
At The 2016 Auto Show: Detroit Grows Up
The unspoken themes at this year’s North American International Auto Show are beauty and brains. There were plenty of gorgeous two-door coupes to go around—some concepts, some the real deal—and lots...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The 5 Most Anticipated Cars At The Detroit Auto Show
Lexus GS F Sedan Lexus The North American International Auto Show—”Detroit” in auto-journalist shorthand—kicks off this week with a string of press and industry previews before the doors open to the...
View ArticleToyota Wants Crash-Proof Cars, But Don’t Call Them ‘Self-Driving’
The Toyota Motor Company has been conspicuously absent from most of the buzz surrounding self-driving cars in recent years (not counting Google’s fleet of modified, self-driving Toyota Priuses)....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Watch An iPad Land An Airplane [Exclusive]
High above rural Arkansas, I’m jammed in the back of a small four-seat airplane. Andrew Barker pilots the aircraft while Austin Meyer sits beside him. Everything is going great—until the engine...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fully Loaded: The Ultimate Backyard Observatory for Stargazers
What a heavenly year for stargazers. We’ve had a spectacular solar eclipse in Asia, a clutch rescue of the Hubble Space Telescope, and the surprising crash of a comet into Jupiter—discovered, no less,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
2015 Detroit Auto Show: Acura’s New NSX Is An American-Made Hybrid Supercar
Honda’s Acura division finally unveiled the long-awaited production version of its new NSX supercar this afternoon in Detroit. The sleek hybrid machine—designed and to be built in the United States—is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Best New Cars Of 2016 Are Going On A Weight-Loss Plan
Every major car show chases some kind of theme. A few years ago, all that manufacturers could talk about was LED headlights. Then it was hybrid technology. Then accident avoidance. At the Detroit Auto...
View ArticleHow Volvo Plans To End All Traffic Fatalities By 2020
It’s hard to get excited about safety. But Volvo’s new XC90 SUV is so packed with life-saving technology, it’s an exception. The car has a number of radar sensors and camera monitors used by its...
View ArticleAs Clouds Grow Darker Over Volkswagen, What’s Next For The Automotive Giant?
This has been a particularly dramatic week for floundering automotive giant Volkswagen—one that played out with an air of intrigue and subterfuge that’s becoming almost Nixonian in scale. On this side...
View ArticleAlfa Romeo’s 4C Spider Is A Lightweight Sports Car Without The Sacrifices
Luxury amenities and safety enhancements have bloated our once-lightweight, easy-to-handle sports cars. Fifty years ago, for instance, the first Porsche 911 weighed in at 2,300 pounds. Today’s model...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A fatal helicopter crash exposes the complexities—and risks—of influencer...
This past March, a sightseeing helicopter carrying five tourists crashed into the East River of New York City, taking all five lives with it. In the days and weeks that followed, the company that...
View Article