Why have 1 room when you can have 2? Our favorite transforming homes

More than half of the world population lives in metropolitan areas. By 2050, this number is expected to increase by 66 percent, with an additional 2.5 billion humans inhabiting worldwide cites, according to a report by the United Nations. This is a daunting prospect, considering cities are already rather densely populated with little wiggle room for further expansion.

Fortunately, many architecture and design firms are working to intelligently maximize existing living space to get the most functionality out of even the most modest studios. From sliding walls to murphy beds, there are a slew of creative ways to efficiently utilize our current living spaces and these six transforming homes are as ingenious as they are breathtaking.

Transformer Apartment

We’ve covered the Transformer Apartment extensively in the past and for good reason. Even years after the initial unveiling, this unit is still one of our favorite designs. Artist Vlad Mishin created the modular wall central to the overall functionality of the Transformer Apartment. This pliable partition separates the 645-square-foot apartment in half. The individual panels can slide and also rotate for an array of settings and styles, allowing the room to be compartmentalized into a series of rooms or one open space.

BedUp Room

Sleep is certainly crucial to our overall wellbeing, but our bedrooms are under utilized the other hours of the day. To address this, the BedUp Vision mockup lets you transform your bedroom into a practical workspace during waking hours. A pair of steel cables attach to a tray beneath the mattress, allowing the bed to be easily raised to the ceiling, and freeing up valuable floor space beneath. You can look at a few of BedUp’s other models here.

Yo! Home

Like the BedUp model, the Yo! Home also incorporates a rising bed frame to maximize living space when you’re not sleeping. However, this transforming home has a wealth of other creative space-saving touches. Hollow nooks have been built into the floor to minimize clutter and offer additional storage. Similarly, other floor panels transform into a dining table, and a breakfast counter slides out of one of the walls for supplemental culinary space.

Adjustable partitions allow the rooms to be reconfigured for additional space and/or personal aesthetic preference. The Yo! Home is still in the prototype phase, but the team plans to incorporate these floor plans into 24 apartments in Manchester, England.

Flat 27A

Situated in Hong Kong, Flat 27A is the brainchild of design studio Design Eight Five Two (DEFT). The main objective for the project was to maximize the 550-square-foot living space for a client and his pet cat. The flat was originally built as a two-bedroom arrangement, but after the design overhaul the space can be separated into individual rooms or a single space with plenty of natural lighting.

In the dining area, the table can be extended to accompany up to 10 guests, and the bench opens for additional storage space. In case you were wondering, the cat now has its own private quarters built into one of the wooden storage units, and the kitty box is concealed in a nook underneath the sink.

LifeEdited apartment

Graham Hill, founder of sustainability website TreeHugger, opened a competition for architects around the world to turn his 420-square-foot Manhattan apartment into a modular living space. Hill eventually chose Romanian architects Catalin Sandu and Adrian Iancu’s design, with a renovation cost of nearly $400,000.

The final product, the LifeEdited apartment, includes murphy beds, transformable furniture, and adjustable walls. After the redesign, the SoHo apartment was listed for just under one million dollars. You can read more about the LifeEdited apartment here.

Ori

MIT Media Lab collaborated with designer Yves Béharto create the Ori transforming home system. The name “Ori” comes from the Japanese word “origami,” meaning “to fold,” and this living space does just that and much more. The system is designed around a modular partition, dividing the room into a bedroom and a functional office/entertainment area. The central unit includes a closet, shelving, and a slide-out bed, all of which one can easily reposition, allowing for more or less space on either side.

The unit is controlled via a simple control panel, and the Ori system is also compatible with an app enabling you to adjust the arrangement — as well as the lighting — via your smartphone. The Ori system will be used in projects underway in Boston, Massachusetts, Washington DC, and Seattle, Washington.

Tesla updates its data-sharing policy to help with its self-driving technology

Why it matters to you

If you’ve got a Tesla, you’ve got a car that’s decked out with sensors. Now, some of that sensor data is going to be collected to make self-driving technology a reality.

Tesla wants you to help render yourself obsolete — at least, insofar as driving is concerned. Over the weekend, the car company updated its Autopilot feature along with its data sharing policy to allow for video collections, all in the name of making self-driving a reality. That means that if you have a Tesla equipped with sensors, you’ll be sharing your driving data with the company.

In a message to customers, Tesla wrote, “We are working hard to improve autonomous safety features and make self-driving a reality for you as soon as possible. In order to do so, we need to collect short video clips using the car’s external cameras to learn how to recognize things like lane lines, street signs, and traffic light positions.”

Noting that there is strength in numbers, Tesla added that the more access to information the company has, “the better your Tesla’s self-driving ability will become.”

The electric carmaker also noted that the video clips will not be linked to your car’s identification number, promising, “We have ensured that there is no way to search our system for clips that are associated with a specific car.”

That said, even though your data may not be traced back to you, it’ll likely be shared at large. Tesla pointed out that information collected may be shared “with partners that contribute similar data to help us provide the service. At no point is any personally identifiable information collected or shared during the process.”

Aside from the new data-sharing policy, Tesla’s Autopilot update is quite exciting in and of itself. If you have a Model S or Model X from October of 2016 or later, you’ll now have access to more features, like active avoidance for side collisions if you’re going between 30 and 83 MPH, an automatic high beam mode that will turn off your brights if other drivers are approaching, and Autosteer,  which now works up to 90 mph on the highway and 45 mph on smaller roads.

The Nintendo PlayStation can finally play CD games

It was no small feat when Terry and Dan Diebold got their hands on a prototype of the fabled Nintendo PlayStation, but there has always been a catch to it: its signature feature, the CD drive, couldn’t actually play games. Even a load of repair work barely got the drive to turn on. Well, the end is finally in sight. Professional tinkerer Ben Heckendorn (aka Ben Heck) has managed to get the CD drive working, including games. The solution, as he explains, involved replacing some “questionable” capacitors and “jiggling some things around” — he was caught off-guard when things started working. The biggest challenge now is finding games to use with the near-mythological system.

As you might have gathered given the hardware’s sudden cancellation, no one wrote official games for this Nintendo/Sony hybrid (at least, that we know of). To date, enthusiasts have had to write games based on emulators that can only take vague stabs at what the full console can do. That’s borne out in Ben’s early testing. One homebrew game had legions of glitches until the developer modified it, while another title just boots to a black screen. You’re not going to see some long-lost Super Mario Bros. game, in short. This will, however, encourage coders to write games that could take advantage of Super Nintendo-level processing power and CD storage.

And even with the dearth of software, this latest work might be worth it for the insights into what Nintendo and Sony were planning. For instance, it’s clear that the CD drive wasn’t casually tacked on — there’s an SNES program sending instructions directly to a relevant controller chip, instead of through an add-on bus. Ben is sending the console back to the Diebolds, but he can be satisfied at having answered some of the video game world’s longstanding mysteries.

Source: Ben Heck Show (YouTube), Element14

Self-repairing roads could also charge your electric car

Potholes are bad enough for the jarring rides, car damage and safety hazards they create, but it’s also problematic to fix them. You’re looking at lane and road closures that can last for days, assuming the city can even spare the resources. However, Dutch researchers might have a solution that not only helps the road fix itself, but promises to solve range anxiety for electric car drivers. Delft University’s Erik Schlangen tells The Verge that there are plans to test self-repairing asphalt whose conductive steel fibers and bacteria would both fix small cracks in the pavement and send electricity to EVs above. The trial will charge your vehicles when you’re stopped at intersections, giving you a little bit of extra range in those moments you’re waiting for the light to turn green.

There are numerous challenges involved in making it all work. The healing requires an induction machine that generates enough heat in both the asphalt and the fibers to trigger the repair process. And of course, you’d need to both send electricity through the steel and outfit cars with wireless charging systems. Schlangen estimates that this road would cost about 25 percent more than usual even if you discount the additional equipment.

However, the payoff for both city infrastructure and drivers could be well worth the steep initial cost. The constant decay of asphalt makes it expensive and time-consuming to maintain, in some cases discouraging cities from starting work in the first place. If you’ve driven often enough, you’ve no doubt seen roads that never seem to get proper care — Schlangen believes the new approach would double the lifespan of a road and dramatically reduce maintenance costs, which could improve road quality even on neglected side streets. And if there were enough EV chargers at traffic lights, they could reduce the need for dedicated charging stations.

It’s not certain when tests would start, although there have been Dutch experiments with self-fixing asphalt dating back to 2010. The greatest challenge may simply be convincing everyone to participate. Municipal governments might balk at having to redo their roads, and car companies may be loathe to including expensive new charging hardware. This is more a vision of what driving could be like years from now, once all the pieces have fallen into place.

Via: Inhabitat

Source: The Verge

Cricket now offers HD Voice to a select number of its Android phones

Why it matters to you

You never want to be that person yelling into your phone in public.

It’s not just Verizon that wants you to stop asking, “Can you hear me now?” Late last week, Cricket Wireless added HD Voice to its service offerings — that is, for owners of a few select Android phones. That means that customers who make and receive calls on the Alcatel Idol 4, LG Escape 3, Samsung Galaxy Sol 2, or ZTE Grand X 4 will enjoy improved voice call quality thanks to HD Voice’s Voice over LTE (VoLTE) technology. In addition, these customers will also be able to surf the web while talking using an LTE connection.

We ought to point out that not only will you have to have a VoLTE-compatible phone, but the recipient of your phone call must have a qualifying device that is connected to Cricket’s LTE network as well. That said, if you have both those thing going for you, Cricket promises “significantly improved voice clarity.”

“High Definition Voice (HD Voice) is just one of the ways we’re working to build a better network for our customers,” the carrier said. “HD Voice uses VoLTE (voice over LTE) technology. At Cricket, you’ll get voice calling over our nationwide 4G LTE network. Enjoy crisp and clear conversations while using your phone to surf the web or stream music or video at up to 4G LTE speeds.”

Even in the loudest of environments, Cricket promises that HD Voice will cut through the noise.

“Conversations will sound more natural, almost as if the person at the other end of the line is right there next to you. And with HD Voice, you can talk while surfing at 4G LTE speeds,” the carrier stated in its FAQ. How is this done? Cricket notes that it uses wide-band audio technology and noise cancellation for more natural sounding voices and less background distractions.

Best of all, there’s no additional cost for Cricket’s HD Voice service, and all you have to do to access the technology is update your phone’s software.

The San Francisco BART has committed to 100 percent renewable energy, but it’ll take awhile

Why it matters to you

If you’re opting for public transportation in San Francisco to save the planet, here’s some great news — the BART is going even greener.

You’re already reducing your carbon footprint by taking public transportation, and now the system itself is reducing its own carbon footprint. That is, if that public transportation is located in San Francisco. The California city’s BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) system has adopted “aggressive guidelines” enabling it to buy more power directly from renewable sources. Thanks to the newly approved Wholesale Electricity Portfolio Policy, the BART is going greener than ever.

“Every day, BART takes cars off the road and helps drive down our greenhouse gas emissions,” said BART Director Nick Josefowitz. “But especially now, BART and the Bay Area must shoulder even more responsibility to combat climate change. Even though BART is not required to comply with the state’s renewable energy standards, we have committed to purchasing 100% renewable electricity and taking a leadership role in decarbonizing our transportation sector.”

While BART already boasts a relatively clean portfolio in terms of its power sources, its newfound ability to buy its own power from various renewable energy sources including solar, wind, and small hydroelectric facilities, will make the transport system more environmentally friendly still. The hope is that the BART will derive its power from at least 50 percent eligible renewable sources and from at least 90 percent low and zero carbon sources by 2025. And a few more decades down the road, BART hopes to hit 100 percent in both these categories.

“Given that renewable energy supply costs have fallen significantly in recent years and have approached cost parity with other supply sources, BART has an opportunity to set clean energy goals that are both ambitious and realistic,” said BART’s Sustainability Manager Holly Gordon.

Thus far, BART seems like it’s the very first electrified public transit system to make the 100 percent renewable power pledge. And hopefully, it’ll set a precedent that transport agencies across the country (and the world) can emulate.

NASA is reviewing candidates for its next Solar System mission

NASA might be focusing on Mars recently, but it hasn’t forgotten the rest of the Solar System. The agency has begun reviewing the 12 proposals it received for the New Frontiers program, the same one that gave rise to New Horizons, Juno and other notable unmanned missions. All the proposals will go through scientific and technical probing with the next seven months, with one or a few moving on to the next phase of the selection process. NASA will choose the best mission to develop in 2019 and will spend up to $1 billion to make it a reality.

While the agency typically keeps New Frontiers submissions a secret, the themes it listed when it was looking for submissions can give you an idea of what they’re about:

• Comet Surface Sample Return
• Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return
• Ocean Worlds (Titan and/or Enceladus)
• Saturn Probe
• Trojan Tour and Rendezvous
• Venus In Situ Explorer

During a talk about Cassini’s Grand Finale, Linda Spilker, one of the project’s scientists, revealed that three of the proposals want to continue the probe’s work. One of them wants to bring back gas from Saturn’s atmosphere, while another wants to explore Titan’s hydrocarbon lakes. The last one intends to get samples from Enceladus’ geysers and to analyze them for amino acids, which are a possible indicator of life.

NASA aims to launch the mission it chooses by 2024, and based on previous New Frontiers projects, we might be in for a lot of fascinating discoveries and high-res images. New Horizons took the closest photos of Pluto we’ve ever seen, Juno (pictured above) is exploring Jupiter and has been capturing detailed images, as well, while Osiris-Rex is on its way to rendezvous with near-Earth asteroid Bennu.

Via: Popular Mechanics

Source: NASA

The TV industry just edged closer to a giant merger

All that talk of major TV media buyouts just got more substantive. Reuters tipsters claim that Sinclair Broadcast Group, not 20th Century Fox as many suspected, is close to a deal to buy TV giant Tribune Media. Negotiations are reportedly still underway and might not pan out, but there’s now a clear front runner. In fact, the sources maintain that Fox didn’t even submit a bid — so much for that talk of wanting more control over distributing media.

To no one’s surprise, neither side of the potential deal has commented so far.

While a deal like this wouldn’t be quite as attention-getting as if Fox were involved, it could still have a significant effect on the media you see. Sinclair would add Tribune’s 42 stations to a roster of 173 — that’s a lot of TV under one banner, which raises concerns about overdependence on just a handful of sources for news. A buyout is believed to be on the table mostly because new FCC chairman Ajit Pai is rethinking regulation that prevents companies from owning stations that serve more than 39 percent of TV-equipped US homes.

Source: Reuters

Spoil your pup or give one a home with these 5 dog-friendly apps

Whether you’re a seasoned dog whisperer or you’ve just taken your first step into the wonderful world of puppy parenting, there are loads of apps for dog owners that can make taking care of and having fun with your faithful companion even easier. There are apps for finding a home for a dog in need, making sure your dog is always safe at home, and even apps designed to get your pup’s attention long enough to snap the perfect portrait. Best of all, each of the apps in this list is available from both Google Play and the App Store for free  — so no matter what device you own, you and your best friend won’t miss out.

Rover

With Rover, you can connect with thousands of dog walkers and sitters around the country. User reviews, background checks, and comprehensive search filters make it easier to find one you can trust. Better yet, you can communicate with them directly within the app, and Rover handles payments, too. If you want to list services yourself, Rover also makes it easy to manage your business on the go, and keep your clients informed with text, photo, and video messages. It even features handy push notifications. According to Rover’s website, the service accepts less than 20 percent of potential sitters, and is available in more than 10,000 cities — which should give dog lovers a little peace of mind while they’re out and about.

Download now for:

Android iOS

BarkCam

Think of BarkCam as the app your dog would likely use if they ever wanted to take a selfie. With the app, you can play a sound, like a door bell, to pique your pup’s interest right as you take the photo. With any luck, you’ll nab a stunning portrait, which you can then dress up with Instagram-esque filters and adorable stickers. BarkCam allows you to edit photos you’ve already taken as well. If you’re particularly smitten with your work of art, BarkCam also features a shop where you can purchase prints, smartphone cases, and other accessories emblazoned with your pup’s mug. The app is made by Bark & Co., a company you may know from Bark Box, which is a subscription service that packs doggy treats and toys into a monthly package.

Download now for:

Android iOS

PetCoach

Every dog owner has questions, and PetCoach allows you get answers directly from those who know best. Whether it’s about diet and nutrition, training, or anything else that comes to mind, PetCoach’s roster of verified veterinarians and experts are on hand to hear your concerns. You can ask questions privately, of course, but public answers also show what like-minded dog owners have asked in the past, which could help in a pinch. The fact that PetCoach offers all these resources for free just sweetens the deal.

Download now for:

Android iOS

ShelterPal

The next app isn’t an app in the strictest sense, but it might be the most important entry on our list. Cloud communications firm Twilio launched ShelterPal in response to National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day, which was April 30. ShelterPal takes the form of an SMS bot that matches you with a shelter dog or cat through the use of artificial intelligence and image recognition. Simply text “Shelter Me” to (980) 477-3728, and answer a series of questions. ShelterPal will ask you about the kind of pet you’re seeking and request your ZIP code, as well as a picture of your living space. It’ll analyze everything and return with a photo and details of a pet it thinks will be a good match, along with the shelter’s contact info. Next step: Get out there and make a pup’s dream come true!

Whistle

One of the most worrisome thoughts in a dog owner’s life is the possibility of their pet getting out of the house and roaming around somewhere unsafe. Fortunately, location tracking and GPS technology have made major strides in the last decade or so, and companies now produce relatively inexpensive smart devices that can easily sync up with your phone to give you an up-to-the-second reading on your pup’s location, as well as their activity and sleep patterns. Whistle is one of the most popular solutions out there, and although the app is free, the tracker runs $80. Still, the company will let you and your pooch try one for 90 days, and you can send it back for a full refund if you’re not satisfied.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Got an NES Classic? Here’s how to hack it to play more than 700 games

If you were one of the lucky 2 million or so people who bought the NES Classic before Nintendo stopped production, you may be elated now, but who knows when boredom will set in? As cool as the NES Classic is — err, was? — it only comes with 30 games, and even classics like Super Mario Bros. 3 get old after a while.

Fret not! It is possible to add more games to your NES Classic. The device is essentially a tiny computer running an emulator, a program that imitates the software on a console. With a little tweaking, and a lack of scruples, you can add any NES games that you want to your Classic. Even better, you won’t need to do much in the way of “hacking,” as some clever Nintendo fans have already developed programs to load games from a computer onto a NES Classic.

A word of caution, however. While it’s not illegal to modify your NES Classic, or to download a program like the one we use in our example, you will need a digital copy of any game you want to install. For NES games, these are typically filed as ROMs, and are protected by copyright law. If you want to acquire ROMs, there are a number of popular sites to do so, but be careful about potentially downloading illegal material.

To install games on the Classic, you will need a program like Hakchi, which we’ll be using. First, plug your NES Classic into a Windows-based PC via a USB cable. Afterward, download the latest version of Hakchi from the developer’s page. It will come as a ZIP file; if you have Windows 10, you can simply right-click the file and select Extract All. Otherwise, you will need to extract it using a program such as WinZIP or 7-Zip.

Once you have extracted the Hakchi program, run it.

The program will open a window. Click the button labeled Synchronize selected games with NES Mini. The program will ask you to dump the original kernel image. Click Yes.

Hakchi will then give you some instructions to follow. Ensure that the Power button on the NES Classic is off, and that the device is connected via a USB cable. Next, hold down the Reset button and press the Power button (while still holding the Reset button). Then, let go of the Reset button.

In Hakchi, click the button prompting you to install drivers. Once the program finishes dumping the kernel, click Synchronize… again. When prompted, click Yes to begin flashing the custom kernel. Once the process finishes, click OK, and you can begin loading games.

Once you have the game files on your computer, click the Add more games button in Hakchi. Select the files you want to add, and click OK. Once you have added all the games you want, click Synchronize. That’s it!