Infotainment

It seems the construction boom in bustling Dubai is far from over – already home to several world record-holding projects, including the tallest building (for just a little while longer), the largest shopping mall and biggest man-made island, plans are now afoot to construct what will likely be the world's largest underwater luxury hotel, the Water Discus. Several years ago, we reported on another such ambitious project, Hydropolis, which sadly never got past the blueprint stage. If Polish company Deep Ocean Technology's (DOT) plans come to fruition, however, guests could one day find themselves asleep beneath the waters of the Persian Gulf. To bring this fantasy complex into being, DOT, with the help of Swiss firm BIG InvestConsult AG, turned to local shipyard Drydocks World, which will be tasked with constructing the futuristic disc-shaped hotel. The underwater portion, with about 11,000 square feet (1,000 square meters) of usable area, will house 21 two-guest rooms, an

BRAVEN is looking to stand-out from the Bluetooth speaker crowd with a new line that offers the versatility of integrated phone charging plus speakerphone and daisy chaining functionality. The BRAVEN SIX Series comes in three flavors - two aluminum models and a ruggedized unit - which boast between 12 and 20 hours charging time. The sleek 6.25 in. x 2.5 in. x 1.75 in. (15.9cm x 6.4cm x 4.5cm) enclosures contain two HD audio drivers, left and right channel passive sub woofers and a duplex microphone for hands-free calls. The speaker output is 3 watts and there's an option to connect via an audio cable if your want to bypass the Bluetooth link. The cheapest of the three models - the US$150 BRAVEN 600 - is made from aircraft-grade aluminum and promises up to 14 hours of playtime. At the other end of the scale is the $190 BRAVEN 650 which looks just like the 600 but gets aptX and AAC audio encoding, more playback time - rated at 20 hours - and comes in a red or "Mountain Ash"

Wouldn't your latest generation tablet be way cooler if it ran on live crabs? Thanks to Yukio-Pegio Gunji and his team at Japan’s Kobe University, the era of crab computing is upon us ... well, sort of. The scientists have exploited the natural behavior of soldier crabs to design and build logic gates - the most basic components of an analogue computer. They may not be as compact as more conventional computers, but crab computers are certainly much more fun to watch. Electricity and microcircuits aren’t the only way to build a computer. In fact, electronic computers are a relatively recent invention. The first true computers of the 19th and early 20th centuries were built out of gears and cams and over the years many other computers have forsaken electronics for marbles, air, water, DNA molecules and even slime mold to crunch numbers. Compared to the slime mold, though, making a computer out of live crabs seems downright conservative. The scientists at Kobe university didn’t just p

With so many animal species on the planet it’s no wonder there are still many interesting factoids to learn. Credits:  www.buzzfeed.com

Japan’s Tokyoflash has made a name for itself with numerous weird and wonderful – or maybe baffling - ways to tell the time. Now, bringing to mind Homer Simpson’s quote of, “From now on Honey, we'll be spelling everything with letters,” when Marge is impressed by a house that has its street number spelled out with letters, German design agency Biegert & Funk is set to release a wristwatch that fancies things up by telling the time in words. Essentially a shrunk down version of the company’s QLOCKTWO wall and desktop clocks, the QLOCKTWO W features a square face measuring 35 x 35 mm (1.37 in) that contains a grid of 110 letters. Press the button on the right hand side of the watch and the relevant letters will light up to reveal the time in readable text – “It is half past ten” or “It is a quarter to seven”, for example. Additional presses of the button will reveal the calendar day, and then the seconds. Biegert & Funk will release the QLOCKTWO W in the northern autumn in st

What is the purpose of life? A very difficult and controversial subject and for which every person has a different thought and opinions. Some people think that the purpose of life is to enjoy life to the fullest and be happy. Some think it is about being successful in ones chosen career or path. While yet others think that there is no such thing as "purpose of life" and we just need to live each day as it comes.   I agree with each view as each is correct in its own way and if pondered over deeply will lead us to the same truth. My view of the purpose of life is to search for and attain God. Each of us has the same goal and yet we use different approaches / roads to arrive at the destination. In Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna says that God can be attained in a variety of ways and each one has to choose the path that suits the most. For some, it is the path of worship and for some it is the path of work. If one has chosen work, it should be done selflessly and without any expecta

Considering the pictures, I think that there’s hardly a need to warn you about the extreme danger of this trick.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Mercedes-Benz SL and to celebrate the occasion, Mercedes has completely restored the oldest surviving example to its original condition. The restored car's unveiling coincides with the introduction of latest versions of the SL for 2013: The SL 500 and the SL 350.       The original SL By 1951, Mercedes-Benz had resumed post-war production for five years and was keen to get back into the racing circuit that had done so much for the company's public image before the war. On 12 March 1952, on the autobahn between Stuttgart and Heilbronn, Mercedes-Benz introduced its sports car prototype to the press: The 300 SL. With a 94.5-inch (240 cm) wheelbase and an overall length of 166-inches (423 cm), the 300 SL was designed to weigh as little as possible. "SL" stands for "Super Lightweight" and to achieve this, Mercedes built the car around a tubular steel frame that looked less like a car chassis t

Maybe putting your shoes on seems like a reasonably simple task, but for some people it is impossibly difficult. Those who are disabled or have back pain or arthritis might be completely unable to bend down and pull on even a simple slip-on pair of shoes. A group of designers fashioned this odd-looking solution as an entry in the 2011 Red Dot design competition. Aptly named Topless Shoes, the invention is – for lack of a better comparison – sort of like sinking your feet into twin tissue boxes and walking around with them on. There are small gripping parts inside each shoe that hold onto your feet and keep you from walking right out of the shoes. The interior of the shoes is flexible enough to expand slightly to allow the foot in, then it contracts around the foot to hold it securely. However, it doesn’t look like the interior material comes across the top of the foot completely, leaving it exposed. This fact may make the shoes unsuitable for certain weather or

Finding your car in a huge parking facility can be a pain even when you have a remote fob to flash the lights and beep the horn. You usually have to be in the correct level of the garage to notice the light and horns, after all. The Car Compass is a concept for the absentminded among us. It’s a small device that guides you right to your car with a series of arrows on its tiny display. Unlike the standard method of wandering around clicking the “lock” button and trying to follow the sound of the horn and flashing lights (which is even harder when you aren’t the only forgetful soul there), the Car Compass would give you a definite route to follow to get back to your car. The concept, developed by AhhaProject as a case study for BMW, doesn’t say whether it would guide you up and down to different levels of a parking garage, but pushing the button and following the resulting directional light would at least get you to the right section of the facilit

In-car DVD players and handheld game consoles have proven a godsend to parents looking to avoid the regular cries of "are we there yet?" from kids in the back seat. Similar to Toyota's "Window to the World" concept, GM's "Windows of Opportunity" (WOO) project looks to advance back seat entertainment even further. The project saw the automaker giving researchers and students from the FUTURE LAB at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Israel free reign to design applications that rear seat passengers would interact with through their side windows, which act as interactive displays.     To inspire the students and let their creative juices run free when creating their applications, GM made it clear that it didn't have any immediate plans to put interactive display windows into production vehicles. However, the company said if they were to be put into production, they would likely use electronically charged "smart glas

Although it can't be denied that smartphones are ... well, that they're really smart, the fact is that not everyone wants to play games, shoot and watch videos, surf the web or use apps every time they step out their door. For many people, the ability to make and receive phone calls is all that really matters. It was for minimalists like these that Austrian electronics company emporia designed its very basic, large-keyed mobile phones. While they were previously not available to North American consumers, that changed with an announcement last week at CES. There are two phones scheduled for release in the new market - the emporiaCLICK and the emporiaSOLIDplus. The CLICK has a clamshell design, and incorporates features such as: Digital camera One-touch Call for Care emergency function - push to dial emergency services or up to five stored numbers until someone picks up SMS and MMS texts LED flashlight Incoming call alert with LED light, high-powered vibration