Well, the future is looking bleak folks. BLEAK. A word that’s sure to become more familiar and hit the Top 10 baby names for 2024. According to a study by Ball State University Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER), the United States is highly vulnerable to the effects of technological advancement, namely automation, trade…

The one notebook you’ll ever need- Rocketbook’s Everlast. At least that’s the claim from the makers of the highly successful Wave: Cloud Connected Microwavable Notebook and The One, a single-use cloud-connected paper tablet. What do all three have in common? The ability to write on paper, using pen and upload those writings and doodles digitally…

Despite constant updates to the iPad Pro and Microsoft Surface tablets to make them more appealing to professionals, Wacom has managed to remain the tool of choice for serious concept designers that need to tap into the power of more robust laptops and workstations. But out of the entire family of Wacom tablets, it’s the…

As a polite, never rebellious teenager, you probably never wanted to get away from the rest of your family… but when did, you put your angst-ridden, hormonal-imbalanced body to good use by participating in an edifying hobby of your choice, right? Seeking solace through painting or songwriting. Others (like myself) found it through skateboarding. With the wind…

As you are well aware, those wonderful 3D models you create each day are traditionally crafted with a mouse, a keyboard, too many mouse clicks and an occasional flinging of the keyboard across the room. Now this is all well and good, but it’s the 21st century–the age of (almost) flying cars and (almost) colonizing…

Neurotechnology, an algorithm and software company, recently announced it is working on a new form of ultrasonic 3D printing and particle manipulation. In fact, it’s set to shake up manufacturing completely through hands-free creation and assembly of products within a single machine. While you might dry heaved a little at the thought of someone using…

From smart homes with voice interfaces to AI-powered cars that can navigate morning rush hour traffic hands-free, many promises of the so-called ‘future’ have been slowly making their way into our day-to-day lives. And while we’re still waiting on a reliable Breakfast Machine, there’s plenty more cool doodads to hold us over until then. Doodads…

It’s never too early to mold your child into the genius you wish you were! With modern technology that far outclasses your prehistoric abacus, it seems like child prodigies are becoming more and more common in the modern family. So why not get your children ahead of the competition? While your neighbors’ four-year-old is still…

You have the fastest cars on land and a personal boat by sea, but maybe your upper-class cred isn’t enough for a personal jet or helicopter. Unless you’re an accomplished actor, corporate exec or a head of state, it takes a special position to be able to fly in first class with no one else…

Just look at the size of it! If you thought that you were slowly burning your eyesight away with your normal laptop monitor, the folks over at Samsung have introduced a product that leaves you with nowhere to look other than a QLED screen. Set to release the coming week of July 10th, the whopping…

I don’t know what you do with all your all CPU towers. Me? Oh, I’ve made a throne. Think Iron Throne, but with CPUs. However, I made a bet with a 105 year old hermit selling cabbages near the park, that 2017 is the year when the traditionally large, bulky multi-bay, power-pumping CPU tower would…

It’s hard to enjoy something you know you shouldn’t. Diabetics can’t enjoy cookies for fear of dying a sweet death. Teenagers can never really have fun at their own house parties because their parents might barge in. And those who viciously care for the environment can’t drive atmosphere-killing cars to global warming meetings to shame…

With streaming sites, listening to music off your phone, and noise canceling headphones it’s easy to forget music can be a shared experience. And no, that one guy on the train playing music on his phone without headphones doesn’t count. Sticky Sounds, by London Lazerson, wants to bring people together under the power of music…

As more 3D pros—and other creatives with system-intensive needs— turn to Apple for their hardware needs, it would make sense for the company to introduce a full-fledged workstation offering that is on-par with some of the more advanced Windows-based workstations on the market. And after years of speculation, the answer arrived on Monday in the…

Since its first release, Duet Pro has been a fantastic utility for macOS and Windows users looking to add additional responsive displays using their various iDevices—particularly the iPad. Last year, the app introduced new features that helped turn the iPad Pro into a makeshift Wacom tablet for iPad Pro + Pencil owners. With a recent…

If you thought Augmented Reality (AR) was cool when if first came out, was overshadowed by the resurgence of Virtual Reality (VR), then picked up steam again with the advent of Mixed-Reality (MR), then you’ll be interested in this new headset called Aryzon, dubbed ‘The Cardboard of Augmented Reality’. The Netherlands-based ID team developed Aryzon as a fold-and-go AR…

An AR platform so good even the military uses it? In this case, the platform in question is Gravity Jack’s PoindextAR- a system capable of detecting and augmenting any object without the need for markers and it can do so using any smart device with a camera. A bold claim would be an understatement, considering…

How many times have you looked at your iPhone and wished it was an Android? The opposite? No? Well, what if you had an iPhone and Android together? What lunacy is this, you ask? And what if it included twice the battery life, removable storage, a second 5″ display AND a headphone jack? Well now,…

Not everyone was happy about Apple removing the 3.5mm jack from the latest iPhone. Understandable if you sunk good money into a pair of expensive, wired cans because, of course, we can never settle for anything less than perfect sound playback. There are workarounds for the lack of a jack by using a Bluetooth connector…

You know what you do on a rainy day in the Central UK countryside? You sit inside and have a pint. If you’re a massive computer manufacturer, you have a pint and unveil a new workstation. That’s what Lenovo did today at Develop3D Live in Wolverhampton. The ThinkStation P320 is the first PX20 in the P-series family…

When you’re a kid, few things go better together than tools and a build-it-yourself project. Ok, maybe peanut butter and jelly. But for the young mechanic in the family, this engine repair set from Hammacher Schlemmer will take care of the former—and safely, too. Featuring a somewhat detailed engine in the body of a fake…

As futuristic as it sounds, we all knew that the day would come when all of our ‘smart’ wearables are embedded into … well, the things that we’re already wearing. While MIT students and various tinkerers have been experimenting with ‘smart’ fabrics for years now, few concepts have been viable enough to bubble up to…

In the arena of tablet styluses, ranging from basic nubs to advanced pressure-sensitive offerings from Apple and Wacom, little consideration has been put into making the writing devices look at all analog. Instead, the majority of digital sketching styluses are futuristic interpretations of what a writing instrument could be. With the launch of the Noris…

From mechanical wings to jet packs, man’s desire to fly stretches back centuries. But, like flying cars and teleportation, it’s a concept that’s still just beyond our grasp. But for the particularly gutsy extreme sports enthusiast, Hoversurf’s Scorpion 3 Hoverbike just might carry over any fleeting flying desires in the meantime. Built as a combination…

WorldViz is a developer of virtual reality software, but they’re approaching it differently than most. The team, led by Matthias Pusch, Peter Schlueer & Andrew Beall, Ph.D have been developing VR tech since the 90s (no, not the Virtual Boy). They started out in academia, at MIT and the University of California, creating methodological tools…

Robots. They’re set to (maybe) take over the world. But first, they’re going to take over our…desks? If the uArm Swift from uFactory is any indication of what the future of desktop peripherals might look like, robotic arms capable of 3D printing or pick & placing may ultimately be just as common as the desktop…

Three dudes from Caltech just designed the first robotic bat. Alireza Ramezani, Soon-Jo Chung, and Seth Hutchinson scored the cover article with their research published in the latest issue of Journal of Science Robotics, detailing the successful construction and flight of the multi-articulating, adaptive flapping of our favorite flying mammal. Modeled after the species, Rousettus…

From media streaming centers to touch screen ‘magic’ mirrors, there are seemingly few things that the Raspberry Pi cannot do when put in capable hands. But in the case that you find yourself needing more power for all your DIY hacking sessions, look no further than….Asus? Yes – the same Taiwanese makers of the ZenBook,…

I love me a good desktop computer, but there’s something particularly exhilarating when new laptops hit the shelves. If you’ve been jabbing your salivary glands over the thought of a 15″ or 17″ mobile option with 64GB of memory and 2TB of storage with Thunderbolt 3 transfer speeds and touchscreen capabilities, Lenovo has not left you…

Piracy isn’t limited to movies, music, and games alone, you might be surprised to know that 3D models are prime targets for theft as well. For instance, BMW sued TurboSquid, 3D model marketplace, for selling their car design models, and gaming giant Blizzard is still trying in vain to take down porn parodies that…

There’s no denying that the Apple iPad Pro and the Microsoft Surface have become extremely powerful pieces of hardware for pros on the go. That said, while they score high points for portability and ease of use, they’re not necessarily ideal for a typical design professional’s end-to-end workflow that requires a more robust software package.…

Back in 2015, Marin Troselj and his team from Croatia launched a successful Indigogo campaign to bring about STEMI–a six-legged BIY (Build it Yourself) educational robot. As the name implies, they’re a company aimed at creating products with a STEM emphasis in an effort to introduce kids to the sciences. Since then, they’ve sent out…

Graphene. That awesome meta-material that was identified in 1916, imaged in 1948, grown on substrates in the 70’s, and finally manufactured in 2014, has yet to be incorporated into any consumer market applications. Now, graphene has been developed into a structure stronger than steel and lighter in weight. A team of researchers at MIT found…

Almost 60 years ago the first CAD tool was a type of stylus created by Ivan Sutherland at MIT. In Sutherland’s “Sketchpad” you could draw virtual shapes in a virtual space. Even though it was revolutionary, I’m sure early x-y point plotter users were considered eccentric for talking up the novelty of the virtual world.…

Human-driven battle robots are already under construction by MegaBots and an array of Japanese-based Kuratas. While those primarily focus on DESTRUCTION! …there are others focused on SPEED. Entering the race this year is Furrion and their human-piloted, all-electric Prosthesis racing mech. Designed by engineer Jonathan Tippett, the 7,700 lb. Prosthesis was recently unveiled at this year’s CES…

For those who depend on a graphics tablet for design tasks ranging from ideation sketching to 3D modeling, Wacom is pretty much the gold standard when it comes to quality and price. Unlike the iPad Pro or Microsoft Surface, however, there’s little else the graphic tablets are capable of doing efficiently and comfortably when not…

There are literally a ton of devices on the market aimed at recharging mobile devices with the most common being power banks or battery chargers. Others (and I’ve tried a few) rely on the elements such as solar chargers (Goal Zero), water-based chargers (Estream) and even open-flame cookware chargers (PowerPot). Most of those are great,…

Microsoft has been looking to get a foot in the door of the MR (Mixed Reality) world since early 2015 with their development of HoloLens and the Windows Holographic platform. The company has since announced a collaboration with several leading tech companies, including Dell, ASUS, Acer, HP and Lenovo to produce their own MR headsets…

Virtual Reality applications are booming thanks to the onset of VR/AR headsets like Oculus, PlayStation VR, HTC Vive and Samsung Gear VR. Those companies allowed others to develop software that immerses you in a different reality where you can explore and (in some cases) interact with 3D renderings of just about anything. Outside of gaming,…

Office lighting just got 10x and a bag o’ corn chips cooler thanks to the son of famed vacuum designer Sir James Dyson. His son, Jake Dyson, set out to redesign a much needed replacement to the inconsistent, or flickering, or glaring, or otherwise headache-inducing lighting found in most office spaces around the world. Enter…

Little by little augmented/mixed reality (AR/MR) is slipping past the surly bonds of consumption with more and more imagining, nay DEMONSTRATING, what 3D design could be like using devices that are, at least, sure to give us chuckles at the possibilities and, at most, completely take over our every waking hour. Exanaview is a very,…

Our make-something-practical-out-of-anything contributor, Cabe Atwell, just posted his first in a series of ‘Engineering THE WALKING DEAD’ infographics on Element14. With it, I’m pretty sure he’s solved the problem in creating a solution to perpetual motion. ZOMBIES. More specifically, Zombies on treadmills. The idea is brilliant I tell you. All the energy we can capture,…

After nearly two years of beta testing, IrisVR recently released their VR platform products, Prospect and Scope, which are now available to the public as version 1.0. As you can imagine, the apps go beyond simple gaming applications, allowing users to 1) push their 3D models to VR quickly and 2) explore their 3D creations…

Last week, we shared the $379 reMarkable Tablet. Truly remarkable, but some still like the feel of pen and pencil on paper. Enter La Slate. ISKN’s Slate is an ingenious digital sketching tool with sensors that track and digitize sketches made with your own drawing instrument. It weighs a mere 14 ounces, features a wee…

Despite there being more options than ever before for on-the-go digital sketching, it’s still all too easy to get lost in the maze of accessories, dongles, and apps needed to create a single line. Oftentimes, just pulling out an actual piece of paper is more effective when creativity strikes. And while tablets such as the…

With the recent backlash from the #designfail that is the new MacBook Pro to those who want more mobility without sacrificing computing power, the near future of hardware options for professionals is looking…interesting. And while tablets continue to cater to many needs of design professionals, they still lack the power needed for, well, actual design…

While tablets continue to grow ever more powerful, they rarely ever satisfy the full product development pipeline needs for today’s professionals. Nevertheless, that divide is continuing to grow more narrow as hardware developers and third-party developers continue to push the envelope. More recently, Duet Display, the iOS app that previously let users turn their iPad…

Programmable robot toys tend to be on the cute side. Think of the popular BB-8 toy from last year or the popular pup Tekkno from the 90s. But when it comes to spiders, cute isn’t the first thing that pops into your head. Somehow Roboeve, a Beijing based team of engineers, made a robot spider…

Although some manufacturers have created specific multi-tools for various applications, little has changed over the years for all-in-one tools since Tim Leatherman created the first “Boy Scout knife with pliers” back in the 1980s. While convenient, multi-tools are rarely something you want to use unless you are in pinch and didn’t have standard tools nearby.…

Microsoft just did what nobody thought they could ever do–Make people fall in love with one of their products. Yet, at Microsoft’s Surface PC event, they did just that. Microsoft revealed the Surface Studio, a 28″ all-in-one PC display. It’s a beautiful piece of hardware. Microsoft nailed both the execution and demonstration to deliver a product on…