Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: AWD electric skateboards and anti-surveillance shades

At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion crowdfunding campaigns on the web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there — alongside some real gems. In this column, we cut through all the worthless wearables and Oculus Rift ripoffs to round up the week’s most unusual, ambitious, and exciting projects. But don’t grab your wallet just yet. Keep in mind that any crowdfunded project can fail — even the most well-intentioned. Do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.

Taybles B-Side — Cassette tape coffee table

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Ever wanted a coffee table that looks like a giant cassette tape? No? Well, once you see these retro tables from Taybles, you might change your tune. Whereas the original Cassette Tape Table (the A-Side) typically sold for around $1,700 to $2,300, the LA-based startup’s new model (the B-Side) goes for just $250. When the original table first went on sale, frugal fans gave feedback, asking Taybles to offer a more affordable model. The company obliged, and is now up on Kickstarter with a much more affordable version.

“The easiest way to describe the difference between the A-Side table and the B-Side table is with this analogy,” the creators told Digital Trends. “Think of the A-Side as an original masterpiece painting and the B-Side as a more mass-produced print of that same painting.” Both tables are scaled 10.5 to 1 of a cassette tape. While the A-Side is handcrafted in Los Angeles and completely customizable, with options like LED lights and bar-top epoxy, the B-Side is built overseas with fewer features, though it still includes a whiteboard top and hidden storage drawer.

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Carvon — AWD electric skateboards

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For the past few years, electric motors have steadily become smaller and more powerful, while batteries have become drastically more power-dense and long-lasting.  That might not sound particularly groundbreaking or revolutionary, since most technology tends to become smaller and more powerful over time. In this case however, these two trends have coalesced and blended together to create a sort of renaissance in personal mobility devices.  Now more than ever, there are all manner of cool little wheeled gizmos hitting the market. Electric scooters, gyroscopically-stabilized unicycles, and motorized skates that strap onto your shoes are just some examples, and Carvon just dropped two more on us this week.

The Evo (aka “The Cruiser”) packs dual V3 motors positioned next to its wheels, rather than inside, which the company says allows for thicker urethane wheels, a smoother ride, and improved performance. The board can exceed 30 mph, and boasts with a 14-mile range. The flagship Revo (aka “The Climber”) goes one step further, with dual V3 motors up front and a single X Motor in the back, totaling 3,000 watts of output for what the company calls “a gearbox on wheels.” While excelling at climbing hills, the Revo 4WD also boasts an impressive 35 mph top speed and 20-mile range.

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TriboTex CarBoss — nanoparticles for engine repair

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Nanotechnology is a textbook example of an overhyped technology. Despite the fact that tech pundits have been singing its praises for decades, nanotech hasn’t really impacted the lives of everyday people in a big way. But that’s slowly starting to change, as it seems that our technology is finally catching up with our imaginations. Case in point? This crazy new material from nanotech company TriboTex. It’s one of a small handful of nanotech-based products that are not only practical, but actually available to average consumers.

CarBoss, as it’s called, is designed to extend the operational life-span of your car’s engine by improving efficiency where lubricated friction takes place. To make this possible, CarBoss uses a self-assembling nanostructured coating that not only lubricates your engine’s moving parts, but also provides regenerative effects to frictional surfaces. The company’s patented nanotech employs tiny particles that have one smooth side and one sticky side. The particles bond to frictional surfaces in your engine, with their sticky sides down and lubricated sides up, and make everything run smoother.

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Wheel — ultraminimalist record player

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Looking at the Wheel turntable from Miniot, you’ll quickly notice something strange. No, not the fact that it looks like a flying saucer, but that at first glance, it doesn’t appear to have a tonearm. But don’t let your eyes fool you. Instead of using the standard layout used by the vast majority of turntables — with the tonearm mounted in the top right corner — the Wheel uses a tonearm hidden within the platter, playing the record from below instead of from above. This has practical advantages — you don’t have to worry about dropping the needle on the record improperly, for example — but it also results in one of the coolest-looking turntables we’ve seen in some time.

The placement isn’t the only unique thing about the tonearm used in the Wheel. The tonearm is machined out of a single piece of laminated mahogany, and features a built-in infrared sensor for accurate movement and placement. It is is fine-tuned for damping, resonance, and weight distribution, which Miniot says makes for excellent sound. The unique build also adds another curious feature to the Wheel: it can play records while standing vertically, which means you could theoretically hang it on your wall like a clock.

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Eko glasses — Anti-surveillance sunglasses

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Whether you like it or not, we live in a state of surveillance. Cameras are everywhere nowadays, and to make matters worse, advancements in facial-recognition tech could soon give governments and private corporations the power to not only recognize us, but also cross-reference our faces to other personal data found online. But not to worry — there’s a new set of spectacles on Kickstarter that might help you bamboozle even the most sophisticated facial recognition tech.

The Eko shades, as they’re called, are rimmed with a type of retro-reflective material that bounces light back to exactly where it came from. Most surfaces reflect light by diffusing or scattering it in all directions, but this material is specially designed to reflect light back at the exact same angle as it arrived. If caught in flash photography, retro-reflective material will send most of the light back to the camera’s sensor. This will put the dynamic range of the camera’s sensor to the test, and likely result in an image that’s underexposed for everything but the rims of your glasses. Of course, this won’t help much for any camera that doesn’t require a flash, but it’s still a pretty interesting concept.

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Save nearly 50% off on Zendure’s A8 26,800mAh QC3.0 Portable Battery Bank!

There aren’t a lot of things in the world that are worse than having your phone or tablet die on you throughout the day, and even worse than that is having a charging cable at the ready, but no place to plug in.

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Having a backup battery is probably the best option to keep in your back pocket if you’re bad for having devices die on you, but with so many options at so many price points (the majority of them being quite high), it’s hard to figure out if you’re picking up a lemon or a super-star.

With the Zendure A8 26,800mAh QC3.0 Portable Battery Bank, you’re definitely a winner. Known as one of the fastest charging power banks on the planet, and armed with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 technology, this massive backup battery can effortlessly charge your phone 7-9 times without needed to be recharged itself.

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Normally for such a powerful backup battery, you’d have to pay over $100 – $126.95, actually. While this price is totally fair for the product you’re picking up, Windows Central Digital Offers has your back, and through us you can pick up the Zendure A8 26,800mAh QC3.0 Portable Battery Bank for only $64.95. That’s nearly 50% off!

Having your devices die on you throughout the day is a major bummer, so why would you keep taking that risk? Let Android Central Digital Offers help you out and save nearly 50% off on your new top-of-the-line power bank today!

After Math: Keep pace in the space race

It’s been a productive week for those of us trying to get the hell off this crazy planet. NASA showed off a radiation-proof flight vest for interplanetary astronauts while Blue Origin debuted its latest rocket engine and previewed its upcoming New Glenn spacecraft. We also take a look at a solar farm visible from the ISS and examine just how badly the Trump regime is gutting NASA’s Earth Science programs. Numbers, because how else will we know when it’s time to blast off?

Catch the highlights of Senator Cory Booker’s speech at SXSW 2017

Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) is known for being an inspirational speaker, and he brought his game face to SXSW 2017. As one of the opening speakers for the show, he spent an hour answering questions and talking about what keeps him motivated and endlessly positive despite the difficult political climate he’s working in. Booker’s also pretty adept at social media and talked at length about how he’s using it to connect with his constituents, and why the negative attitudes running rampant on the internet don’t get him down.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from SXSW 2017.

Ben Heck’s next three builds are meant to be shipping products

You asked for bigger, better, longer-term builds, so the team is going to design three things that can be brought to market or to a crowdfunding site like Kickstarter. First up: Logic Bomb, a refactoring of the Hackmanji board game. How can it be made durable, smaller and help make digital logic as easy to learn as using a Speak & Spell? Next up is the Super Glue Gun, which is great because Ben has an obsession with such things. Finally, our viewers’ top choice: a mini pinball machine. Can this build be made into a kit? is 3D printing suitable? Follow the team as they work on these builds and have your say in guiding the projects over on the element14 Community!

Adidas is working on new, ‘open’ digital fitness products

The acquisition of Runtastic gave Adidas a major boost in its fitness tech efforts, and it didn’t hurt that the $238 million purchase came with over 100 million users attached. Since 2015, the year it bought the popular app, Adidas has focused on making Runtastic a bigger part of its business strategy. Last month the company announced it would be shutting down its MiCoach platform, which had been powering a suite of health and fitness products, in favor of consolidating that ecosystem with Runtastic’s. The next step, according to Adidas’ Head of Digital Sports, is to work with third parties on making more “personalized” experiences.

“It’s not just about ‘Can we develop a new piece of hardware that is a standalone Adidas ecosystem,’” Burr told Engadget in an interview at SXSW 2017. “You’ll be seeing that we’ll be opening up a bunch of our content and know-how to other third party devices, and [making] it more of an open platform scenario so that we can extend onto other people’s devices as well.” She says the goal will be to make fitness experiences that are tailored for each individual, since not everybody takes the same approach to training or working out.

“It’s not about creating these monolithic experiences that we want everyone to be in, in the same way,” Burr said. As for when we can expect these new products, whether this may be an app or a wearable, there’s no timeframe right now, but Burr says they’re coming “down the road.”

Click here to catch up on the latest news from SXSW 2017.

Home printer buying guide: How to choose the best printer

Essays. Coupons. Last-minute directions to Grandma’s house. Whatever you need to print, there’s a home printer that can do it. And intense competition among competitors such as HP, Epson, Canon and others has forced prices to such absurd lows that you can now walk into a store — even your local supermarket — and walk out with a brand new printer for $60 or less.

But selecting a home printer can be tough given the sheer amount of options on the market, not to mention the convoluted terms that only seem to complicate the process. With that in mind, we’ve put together a quick-and-dirty buying guide for selecting a home printer, with simple explanations of some of most common terms and recommendations that will serve the majority of users.

Inkjet or laser?

The first question all printer buyers must tackle comes down to a simple matter of what and how much you plan on printing.

Color inkjet printers comprise the bulk of the market simply because they can print just about anything: Essays, pie charts, or glossy photos, you name it. And today’s inkjet printers and all-in-ones are fast, often with print speeds that rival or surpass their laser counterparts.

Laser printers are still a good bet for office settings when most of the printing that you need to do is in monochrome. For the most part, monochrome laser printers can be purchased at affordable prices, offer good print speed, and in some cases, provide prints at a lower cost per page than a color inkjet. But it’s not a given, and you have to decide whether to give up the flexibility that a color inkjet printer offers. Color laser printers are another option, but they generally have a higher cost per page printed than a color inkjet.

In the past, laser printers have offered a higher page yield per cartridge than an inkjet printer. That’s changing, however, with some newer inkjet printers offering as many as 10,000 printed pages from a monochrome ink cartridge and 7,000 pages or more from each color cartridge. That translates into a lower cost per page, and less frequent cartridge changes.

For home use, a multifunction unit makes a lot of sense, not only because it’s cheaper than buying a printer and a standalone scanner, but also for the sake of saving room. Since all-in-ones are extremely common and manufacturers rarely charge much of a premium for them (you can often find one for as little as $50-$60) we highly recommend them for home users.

Note: Soon, you may not have to decide whether to purchase a standalone printer or an all-in-one. While manufacturers continue to bring out new printer-only units for the office, many of the new devices being introduced for home users are all-in-one models, phasing out print-only models.

‘The Mummy’ in VR was shallow, but the seats were not

VR seat company Positron teamed up with Universal at SXSW this year to showcase a “Zero Gravity VR Experience” tied in with the studio’s The Mummy reboot.

While it fell (way) short of simulating weightlessness, it was nonetheless a nice way to watch virtual reality. If only the stuff I was watching wasn’t quite so shallow.

Like the movie it’s based on, Universal’s setup at SXSW is flashy and expensive. You walk into a nondescript ballroom at a convention center, and are greeted by a section of an aircraft’s fuselage, together with a life-sized “Egyptian” sarcophagus from the movie. Behind a blackout curtain lay 20 or so VR seats, arranged as you’d expect seating in a high-class movie theater. These seats — Positron Voyagers — are the real stars of the show.

Positron debuted the Voyager at Sundance earlier this year, and has since been touting the seat at various VR and film shows. Resembling an Arne Jacobsen egg chair, but with none of the charm and subtlety, the Voyager contains motors to control pitch and yaw to simulate motion, a built-in Subpac for vibrations, as well as a standard Oculus Rift headset and some noise-canceling headphones.

The actual VR experience was of the shallow PR-grab variety; a 10-minute featurette narrated by Tom Cruise, showing how the movie’s zero-gravity action sequence (which was pretty much 90 percent of the trailer) was filmed.

This featurette started with perhaps the most-impressive demonstration: You sit in a plane, it takes off. Thanks to its impressive dexterity and vibration motors, the seat effectively simulated the inertia you feel when you’re “pinned back” on takeoff. Likewise, as the camera circled around, and the chair swiveled synchronously, it provided a real sense of place you don’t get when you’re sitting stationary — it seems an effective way to reduce motion sickness by tricking your body into feeling like it’s moving around.

Where the demonstration fell apart was in the “zero-gravity” sequences. Something definitely happened — the seat tilted back, vibrations cut out, and so on — but in no shape or form did it replicate weightlessness.

I really like the Voyager. Positron wants this chair in theaters everywhere, and it’s partnered with IMAX to at least start working towards that goal. The problem now is content. It’s really difficult to get hyped about virtual reality, or this genuinely good chair, when watching a lifeless featurette, or honestly any of the shallow VR experiences Hollywood is tentatively churning out. VR isn’t going anywhere, sure, but it’s also not going to get people excited until they can watch something more interesting than a floating scientologist.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from SXSW 2017.

PassivDom makes totally autonomous homes capable of withstanding zombies

Why it matters to you

Environmentally friendly and totally autonomous, PassivDom homes are for the truly adventurous folks who just want to get off the grid completely.

PassivDom is making a lofty claim, but if it’s even a little bit true, it could change the way we humans live our lives. Meet the Ukrainian company that is taking house-making to a new level — one capable withstanding a Zombie apocalypse. That’s right, PassivDom, the maker of “the first totally autonomous house in the world,” wants you to be able to enjoy an off-grid 3D-printed gadget house. Because sometimes, living in society just gets too hard.

“PassivDom is the world’s first mobile and transportable house with Passive House parameters,” said Max Gerbut, the company’s founder, in an interview with TechCrunch. “Due to the use of advanced materials and unique developments by our engineers, PassivDom has the highest thermal performance among residential buildings. The walls of PassivDom are as warm as brick. Thermal characteristics are high enough to use 20 times less energy than an ordinary building. That’s why it is possible to realize full off-grid autonomy in a cold climate without complex and expensive engineering heating system.”

More: Solar Skins could help aesthetics-conscious homeowners go green

With a PassivDom house, residents are able to manage all systems from their smartphones. And all those systems are powered by the sun. With no electricity or gas to speak of, this may be the among the most environmentally friendly houses you’ve seen. And because it’s so one with nature, it also claims to be totally autonomous. “PassivDom allows living in the mountains, in the forest, on the seashore in conditions as comfortable as a 5-star hotel,” the company state on its website.

And you can live in all those locations because the PassivDom is really a house on wheels. You can travel just about anywhere you’d like and rest assured that you can rest your head on your pillow in the PassivDom when you’re done exploring for the day.

But convenience doesn’t mean discomfort. PassivDom promises “maximum comfort conditions” thanks to its self-learning system that keeps temperature and humidity levels in check by monitoring your oxygen and carbon dioxide content. And this smart house is truly ready for move-in right out of the box, as it comes with furniture, household appliances, pillows, and yes, wine glasses.

As its stands, PassivDom has three models available for order. The most basic truly autonomous version will set you back about $64,000, and will get you 36 square meters of self-managing fun. The module comes with furniture, all necessary appliances, built-in kitchen, bathroom (toilet, sink, shower), heating and cooling systems, and a smart air ventilation system with oxygen level control.

A cloud-based video surveillance and alarm system promises to keep your home safe, and a self-sufficient power system, independent water supply, and independent sewage will allow you to take the home wherever you need to go.

New York sets aside $5 million for its tech training fund

New York’s authorities want the state’s residents to benefit from its ongoing transformation into a high-tech locale. Their new Tech Training Fund could be the key to make that happen. Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has announced that the Empire State is setting aside $5 million to award to various tech training providers. He and his team will soon start accepting proposals from interested providers, and the ones chosen are expected to conjure up novel training and education solutions. The campaign’s aim is to make sure New Yorkers are ready and qualified for various current and future tech jobs across the state.

Governor Cuomo said in a statement:

“The New York Tech Training Fund and Tech Workforce Task Force will engage industry and academic leaders to help prepare New Yorkers for jobs in the ever-growing tech field and guarantee that New York remains at the forefront of the innovation economy. The strength of our economy depends on the strength of our workers, and by ensuring that our workforce is equipped with the skills and opportunities to succeed, we are building a stronger, more prosperous state for generations to come.”

In addition, Cuomo will meet with local leaders in April to discuss how they can better prepare everyone, from K-12 students to older employees, for more tech-oriented opportunities. You’ll be able to access the official Request for Proposals on the New York State’s website — the page doesn’t lead to anything at the moment — on March 13th.

Source: Governor Andrew Cuomo