New version of the Brutus electric motorcycle unveiled

New version of the Brutus electric motorcycle unveiled: "Chris Bell has just put the finishing touches to a new version of his Brutus electric sport cruiser. Brutus 2.0 will continue to be tweaked for improved performance ahead of an end of year production window, but has already managed a zero to 60 mph (96.56 km/h) test run in just 4.74 seconds"

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Toyota unveils its hybrid 2012 Le Mans Challenger

Toyota unveils its hybrid 2012 Le Mans Challenger: "Last October Toyota announced its participation in the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship with a hybrid prototype race car. Today the company revealed some of the details of the TS030 HYBRID with surprises galore. The car uses a normally-aspirated 3400cc V8 petrol engine and a supercapacitor energy storage system developed by Nisshinbo."

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Stunt pilot hopes to build a vertical-winged airplane

Stunt pilot hopes to build a vertical-winged airplane: "Matthew Tanner is a Colorado-based air show pilot who also competes in aerobatics competitions and teaches Air Force pilots how to fly. His current stunt aircraft of choice is a Laser Z300. Much as he is able to do with the nimble little airplane, he wants to be able to perform aerial maneuvers that no one has ever seen before. In order to do so, he intends to equip the plane with a pair vertical wings"

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cellCONTROL keeps mobile phones from working in moving cars

cellCONTROL keeps mobile phones from working in moving cars: "Don't want your teenage kids using their mobile phone while they drive? Well, hopefully explaining the dangers to them will do the trick. If it doesn't, however, you could always install Scosche's cellCONTROL in your car."

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Concept Fujitsu Lifebook comes with removable smartphone, tablet, and digital camera

Concept Fujitsu Lifebook comes with removable smartphone, tablet, and digital camera: "These days, your average tech enthusiast typically has at their disposal a smartphone, a laptop, a tablet, and a digital camera; and that's listing the bare minimum. That's quite a bit of processing power and storage space spread out among different gadgets. What if it were possible to link all those devices together into one convenient package that uses all that computing power at once?"

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Mitsubishi reduces friction on ship hulls by blowing bubbles

Mitsubishi reduces friction on ship hulls by blowing bubbles: "In February last year, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and transport company Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) announced plans to investigate the effectiveness of a system intended to reduce the frictional resistance between a vessel's bottom and the seawater using a layer of air bubbles."

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OLED panel could switch between sunroof and light source

OLED panel could switch between sunroof and light source: "What if your car had roof panels that let you see the sky during the day, but that lit the interior of the vehicle at night? This is now a distinct possibility, thanks to work being done by BASF and Philips."

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Tiny magnetically-levitated robots could change the game for robotics

Tiny magnetically-levitated robots could change the game for robotics: "The past five to ten years have seen the birth of microbotics. A whole range of components that are vital for building robots, such as actuators, motors or batteries, became available in micro-scale only fairly recently."

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Apple announces iBooks 2 and iTunes U educational apps

Apple announces iBooks 2 and iTunes U educational apps: "This morning at New York City's Guggenheim Museum, Apple announced the launch of its iBooks 2 for iPad system. The technology is intended to replace traditional paper school textbooks with interactive digital textbooks, that students would access on their own personal iPads. Educational publishers including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson will supply content on the iBookstore, with most titles priced at no more than US$14.99"

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Apple announces iBooks 2 and iTunes U educational apps

Apple announces iBooks 2 and iTunes U educational apps: "This morning at New York City's Guggenheim Museum, Apple announced the launch of its iBooks 2 for iPad system. The technology is intended to replace traditional paper school textbooks with interactive digital textbooks, that students would access on their own personal iPads. Educational publishers including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson will supply content on the iBookstore, with most titles priced at no more than US$14.99"

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Ready or not, Facebook's Timeline is coming to a profile near you | The Digital Home - CNET News

Ready or not, Facebook's Timeline is coming to a profile near you | The Digital Home - CNET News: "If you're one of those Facebook users who has seen Timeline and shunned it, the world's largest social network has some bad news for you: in the coming days, you won't have that option any longer."

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Should I upgrade to the iPhone 4S for Siri? | Signal Strength - CNET News

Should I upgrade to the iPhone 4S for Siri? | Signal Strength - CNET News: "Apple's voice-activated, personal assistant, Siri, is a cool app to show off at parties, but is it useful enough for me to upgrade to the iPhone 4S?"

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What is 4K? Next-generation resolution explained | TV and Home Theater - CNET Reviews

What is 4K? Next-generation resolution explained | TV and Home Theater - CNET Reviews: "As if LED and 3D TV weren't confusing enough, 2012 and beyond will bring an HDTV technology called 4K. It's being heralded as the next high-def, and manufacturers are already lining up to bring you products."

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New T-ray technology could help enable Star Trek-style “tricorders”

New T-ray technology could help enable Star Trek-style “tricorders”: "We recently looked at one of the potential contenders in the US$10 million Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE, which as the name suggests, was inspired by the medical tricorder of Star Trek fame. Now scientists have developed a new way of creating Terahertz (THz) or T-rays, which they say could help make handheld devices with tricorder-like capabilities a reality."

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Kepler spacecraft discovers tiniest solar system yet found

Kepler spacecraft discovers tiniest solar system yet found: "Astronomers using data from NASA's Kepler mission have discovered a tiny solar system consisting of a single red dwarf star, known as KOI-961 and three planets which are 0.78, 0.73 and 0.57 times the radius of Earth."

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Semi-human-powered flight project gets off the ground ... maybe

Semi-human-powered flight project gets off the ground ... maybe: "A Dutch mechanical engineer is working on realizing da Vinci's dream of human-powered flight, with some help from modern technology. Jarnos Smeets is the driving force between the Human Birdwings Project, which utilizes a combination of gadgets including an HTC Wildfire S and a Wii remote. He claims to have conducted his first successful test flight this week, even though he didn't appear to get too far off the ground."

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First flight of Cessna Citation Ten prototype a success

First flight of Cessna Citation Ten prototype a success: "What is set to be the latest addition to Cessna's Citation line of business jets made its first flight this week. The Cessna Citation Ten prototype flew for more than two hours in the skies over Cessna's main manufacturing facility at Wichita, Kansas, with the aircraft's stability and control, handling, autopilot and autothrottle systems, engine operability and avionics all put to the test."

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Camcorder device allows for live, computer-free video streaming

Camcorder device allows for live, computer-free video streaming: "Japanese electronics manufacturer Cerevo might already be known to some readers for its Cerevo Camera Live. Released in May of 2010, the video camera is able to stream content live to Ustream, without the need of a linked computer."

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Researchers engineer microbe to make seaweed a cost-effective source of renewable fuel

Researchers engineer microbe to make seaweed a cost-effective source of renewable fuel: "One of the biggest criticisms leveled at biofuels that are derived from crops such as wheat, corn and sugar cane, is that they result in valuable land being taken away from food production."

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