Top 10 Engineering Gadgets

Although tech gadgets are being released in massive numbers these days, to find that best gift idea for your loved ones is often a tough ask. You go through tons of websites to get that one good tech product and the whole process becomes so cumbersome that you don’t get to discover the right product at the right time. Here’s a list that will make things easier for you – let’s have a look at 10 new engineering gadgets that would make for a great gift for anyone (even yourself).

Flair Central Air Control System

Get each room in your hope to the perfect temperature with the Flair Central Air Control System. Combining two units, Puck and Vent, this system works with central air units, mini-splits, as well as window A/C units to make sure every room remains at your ideal temperature. Puck is the wireless thermostat that controls the system and Vent, an actual vent, helps direct the air throughout the room and house.

Brain One – Standalone Telemetry Device for Motorsports and Action Sports

BRAIN One is a portable device that attaches to any vehicle or apparatus without cables or wires. It contains a range of sensors, including GPS+Glonass, thermometer, microphone, barometer, 9-axis inertial sensor and more, that measure all aspects of an action sport performance–from speed and bending angles to lap time and elevation differences.

Phoenix – World’s Most Advanced Exoskeleton

Introducing Phoenix – one of the world’s most advanced exoskeleton for helping people with mobility disorders. The purpose of this design is to help them stay upright and mobile. Both at the clinic as well as at home, Phoenix has been able to help individuals stand up and walk about, thus making them come out of their disorder, one step at a time.

Gest – The Gesture Controlled Wearable

Control your smartphone, tablet, or computer just by moving with Gest, the gesture controlled wearable. Designed to fit around the palm of your hand, this wearable has cable-connected rings that slide onto your fingers. Using advanced technology, Gest detects and interprets the location and movements of your hand and fingers to perform actions such as closing apps, moving your cursor, and flipping through slides.

Fleye – Your Personal Flying Robot

Introducing Fleye, you personal flying robot. More than just a drone, Fleye is extremely smart and has been engineered to fix many problems we face with ordinary drones. Built with a single shielded propeller and four control vanes, this flying robot instantly takes flight, has the ability to automatically follow you, and even responds to physical actions such as being pushed away without the risk of injury.

Sona Connected Bracelet by Caeden

Relieve some stress in your day with the Sona Connected Bracelet by Caeden. Designed for the busy professional, this bracelet isn’t just smart by staying connected but it truly intelligent. Rather than track just your heart rate, the Sona Connected Bracelet measures your heart rate variability, the gaps between your heartbeats.

The New Segway Robot by Ninebot – Personal Mobility Gone Cuter

Segway’s self-balancing technology has finally been reduced into a tiny form-factor than the original personal transportation device. This one’s just a few feet tall and happens to come with a head and face with two LED eyes that seem to blink and smile. You can even add a pair of articulated arms. They plug into the back where, eventually, you’ll also be able to add other hardware accessories.

Endless Mini Desktop Computer

Introducing the Endless Mini Desktop Computer, an entire computer that fits in your hand. Designed for those that have never owned a computer or had access to the internet, such as those in developing countries, the Endless Mini can easily connect to a user’s TV or other display system they already own.

Nima by 6SensorLabs – World’s First Portable Gluten Sensor

Healthy eating won’t be much of a tedious job if you have the Nima sensor in your bag. This tiny pocket-sized sensor is capable of analyzing your food quality at the molecular level. The one-time use capsules allows you to put what you want to test and gives you an accurate result at the end of the next 2 minutes.

TP-Link Talon AD7200 – The World’s First 802.11ad Router

With the introduction of the first 802.11ad Wi-Fi enabled laptop comes the TP-Link Talon AD7200, the world’s first 802.11ad router. The 802.11ad Wi-Fi feature, also known as WiGig, lets a device connect and communicate over Wi-Fi at multi-gigabit speeds. But this feature remains unused without the proper equipment.

Gravitational waves: Groundbreaking discovery could let us hear from the very darkest and strangest parts of space

Gravitational waves: Groundbreaking discovery could let us hear from the very darkest and strangest parts of space

On 11 February, the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) announced that it had made the first ever direct detection of gravitational waves, ripples in space-time predicted by Albert Einstein almost exactly 100 years ago.

Nature is live-blogging the news and what it means for science below; scroll down for the LIGO webcast live from Washington DC.

Scientists are claiming a stunning discovery in their quest to fully understand gravity.

They have observed the warping of space-time generated by the collision of two black holes more than a billion light-years from Earth.

The international team says the first detection of these gravitational waves will usher in a new era for astronomy.

It is the culmination of decades of searching and could ultimately offer a window on the Big Bang.

The research, by the Ligo Collaboration, has been accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters

The collaboration operates a number of labs around the world that fire lasers through long tunnels, trying to sense ripples in the fabric of space-time.

Expected signals are extremely subtle, and disturb the machines, known as interferometers, by just fractions of the width of an atom.

But the black hole merger was picked up by two widely separated LIGO facilities in the US.

"We have detected gravitational waves," David Reitze, executive director of the Ligo project, told journalists at a news conference in Washington DC.

Image copyrightNSF/LIGO

Image captionThe LIGO Collaboration fires lasers through long tunnels, trying to sense ripples in the fabric of space-time

Prof Karsten Danzmann, from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physicsand Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany, is a European leader on the collaboration.

He said the detection was one of the most important developments in science since the discovery of the Higgs particle, and on a par with the determination of the structure of DNA.

"There is a Nobel Prize in it - there is no doubt," he told the BBC.

"It is the first ever direct detection of gravitational waves; it's the first ever direct detection of black holes and it is a confirmation of General Relativity because the property of these black holes agrees exactly with what Einstein predicted almost exactly 100 years ago."

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Ripples in the fabric of space-time

• Gravitational waves are prediction of the Theory of General Relativity
• Their existence has been inferred by science but only now directly detected
• They are ripples in the fabric of space and time produced by violent events
• Accelerating masses will produce waves that propagate at the speed of light
• Detectable sources ought to include merging black holes and neutron stars
• LIGO fires lasers into long, L-shaped tunnels; the waves disturb the light
• Detecting the waves opens up the Universe to completely new investigations

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That view was reinforced by Professor Stephen Hawking, who is an expert on black holes. Speaking exclusively to BBC News he said he believed that the detection marked a moment in scientific history.

"Gravitational waves provide a completely new way at looking at the Universe. The ability to detect them has the potential to revolutionise astronomy. This discovery is the first detection of a black hole binary system and the first observation of black holes merging," he said.

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Media captionFive reasons why gravitational waves matter

"Apart from testing (Albert Einstein's theory of) General Relativity, we could hope to see black holes through the history of the Universe. We may even see relics of the very early Universe during the Big Bang at some of the most extreme energies possible."

The Ligo laser interferometers in Hanford, in Washington, and Livingstone, in Louisiana, were only recently refurbished and had just come back online when they sensed the signal from the collision. This occurred at 10.51 GMT on 14 September last year.

On a graph, the data looks like a symmetrical, wiggly line that gradually increases in height and then suddenly fades away.

"We found a beautiful signature from of the merger of two black holes and it agrees exactly - fantastically - with the numerical solutions to Einstein equations... it looked too beautiful to be true," said Prof Danzmann.

Prof Sheila Rowan, who is one of the lead UK researchers involved in the project, said that the first detection of gravitational waves was just the start of a "terrifically exciting" journey.

"The fact that we are sitting here on Earth feeling the actual fabric of the Universe stretch and compress slightly due to the merger of black holes that occurred just over a billion years ago - I think that's phenomenal. It's amazing that when we first turned on our detectors, the Universe was ready and waiting to say 'hello'," the Glasgow University scientist told the BBC.

Being able to detect gravitational waves enables astronomers finally to probe what they call "dark Universe" - the majority part of the cosmos that is invisible to the light telescopes in use today.

Perfect probe

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Media captionScience correspondent explains gravitational waves and what their discovery means for science

Not only will they be able to investigate black holes and strange objects known as neutron stars (giant suns that have collapsed to the size of cities), they should also be able to "look" much deeper into the Universe - and thus farther back in time. It may even be possible eventually to sense the moment of the Big Bang.

"Gravitational waves go through everything. They are hardly affected by what they pass through, and that means that they are perfect messengers," said Prof Bernard Schutz, from Cardiff University, UK.

"The information carried on the gravitational wave is exactly the same as when the system sent it out; and that is unusual in astronomy. We can't see light from whole regions of our own galaxy because of the dust that is in the way, and we can't see the early part of the Big Bang because the Universe was opaque to light earlier than a certain time.

"With gravitational waves, we do expect eventually to see the Big Bang itself," he told the BBC.

In addition, the study of gravitational waves may ultimately help scientists in their quest to solve some of the biggest problems in physics, such as the unification of forces, linking quantum theory with gravity.

At the moment, the General Relativity describes the cosmos on the largest scales tremendously well, but it is to quantum ideas that we resort when talking about the smallest interactions. Being able to study places in the Universe where gravity is extreme, such as at black holes, may open a path to new, more complete thinking on these issues.

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• A laser is fed into the machine and its beam is split along two paths
• The separate paths bounce back and forth between damped mirrors
• Eventually, the two light parts are recombined and sent to a detector
• Gravitational waves passing through the lab should disturb the set-up
• Theory holds they should very subtly stretch and squeeze its space
• This ought to show itself as a change in the lengths of the light arms (green)
• The photodetector captures this signal in the recombined beam

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Scientists have sought experimental evidence for gravitational waves for more than 40 years.

Einstein himself actually thought a detection might be beyond the reach of technology.

His theory of General Relativity suggests that objects such as stars and planets can warp space around them - in the same way that a billiard ball creates a dip when placed on a thin, stretched, rubber sheet.

Gravity is a consequence of that distortion - objects will be attracted to the warped space in the same way that a pea will fall in to the dip created by the billiard ball.

Inspirational moment

Einstein predicted that if the gravity in an area was changed suddenly - by an exploding star, say - waves of gravitational energy would ripple across the Universe at light-speed, stretching and squeezing space as they travelled.

Although a fantastically small effect, modern technology has now risen to the challenge.

Much of the R&D work for the Washington and Louisiana machines was done at Europe's smaller GEO600 interferometer in Hannover.

"I think it's phenomenal to be able to build an instrument capable of measuring [gravitational waves]," said Prof Rowan.

"It is hugely exciting for a whole generation of young people coming along, because these kinds of observations and this real pushing back of the frontiers is really what inspires a lot of young people to get into science and engineering."

Image copyrightGEO600

Image captionMuch of the R&D work necessary for the breakthrough was done at Europe's GEO600 laser interferometer

source:http://www.bbc.com  ,  www.nature.com

HYPER LOOP TECH IS REVOLUTIONIZING TRANSPORTATION

HYPER LOOP TECH IS REVOLUTIONIZING TRANSPORTATION. 

Elon Musk has a plan for humanity that covers clean energy, electric cars and spreading out amongst the stars. The billionaire also wants to do away with the tired and slow railways of the past in favor of pushing people around like parcels in a mail tube. That's what Hyperloop is: a series of vacuum tubes that'll enable travelers to get from A to B inminutes rather than hours. But Musk himself didn't have the time to develop the concept beyond his original idea, so in 2013 he open-sourced the project for anyone to have a go. Less than three years later, the first strides toward a global network of near-supersonic travel tubes are being taken.

The Principle

Remember those vacuum tube networks that businesses used to use to send papers across large buildings? Hyperloop is basically that, but big enough to shoot people cross-country at amazing speeds. First, the tube is six feet wide, and is maintained as a low-pressure environment, though not a true vacuum. In order to prevent the passenger pod from touching the tube, it'll float slightly above it, either on a cushion of air or using magnetic levitation. Arx Pax, creator of the Hendo Hoverboard, is working to see if its magnetic field architecture technology is suitable for keeping Hyperloop friction-free.

In many ways, Hyperloop is just a sort of maglev train. But because it doesn't have to deal with as much air resistance, top speeds are much higher. Hyperloop is expected to hit 750MPH, more than twice as fast as the Central Japan Railway's record-breaking 366MPH speed run. California's $70 billion high-speed rail project looks positively tortoiselike when you realize that it'll only reach speeds of "over" 200MPH.

If a network of Hyperloop tubes were built across the United States, it would effectively eliminate the domestic short-haul airline industry. For example, if you want to get from New York to Washington, DC, it'll take you just under three hours on Amtrak's Acela Express -- which is what passes for high-speed rail in the US. You could also take a flight, which would take an hour and 15 minutes, plus the time spent at security, the gate, and baggage claim. That same journey with Hyperloop is expected to take just half an hour.

It was the amount of money thrown at California's high-speed railway project that prompted Musk to launch the Hyperloop idea. He felt that the technology was outdated, the costs too high and the speed insufficient for a modern, 21st-century transport system. In his original outline, Hyperloop would be cheaper for several reasons, including the fact that governments wouldn't need to purchase land to make it happen. Instead, it would be held in the air by a series of pylons so small that they could sit in the median strip of a major highway. Construction would be quick and cheap, too, since the pipes could be fabricated elsewhere and just welded into place when they were delivered.

Hyperloop isn't just about making sure business types can get between meetings faster than everyone else, either. A huge cause of congestion on roads is freight traffic -- eighteen-wheelers carrying cargo containers from ports to warehouses. Los Angeles Port is one of the largest points of entry for containers into the United States, and much of that is taken east by road. Imagine if, instead, containers were pushed via Hyperloop to a new logistics center in Nevada; it would cut thousands of road journeys each year. Yup, Hyperloop could even do something to reduce LA's notoriously awful traffic.

The Contenders

Musk's open-sourcing of the idea meant that anyone who wanted to have a go could try and build their own futuristic transport system. Very quickly, two Los Angeles–based players emerged, ready for the challenge and going by infuriatingly similar names: Hyperloop Transportation Technologies and its main rival, Hyperloop Technologies. But while their names are similar, almost nothing else about them is. In fact, when someone comes along wanting to write a David and Goliath movie about Hyperloop, they'll find it remarkably easy.

David: Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT)

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) is a crowdsourced engineering project led by German entrepreneur Dirk Ahlborn. When people think about involving the "crowd" in an enterprise, it's normally in the hope of gaining their money -- but not here. Instead, scientists and engineers have agreed to donate their time and expertise, collaborating with one another online to refine the Hyperloop technology.

You might think that HTT is staffed entirely by amateurs. But last year, Ahlborn assured Engadget that the bulk of his team members have day jobs at legitimate science and engineering outfits like Tesla, SpaceX and NASA. Each person who gets involved is rewarded with the promise of stock options in whatever corporate entity is formed in the future. Ahlborn doesn't believe that they're doing it for the promise of cash, but give their time in the hope of making a difference.

Testbed: Quay Valley, California

Quay Valley is a "new town" that's being cooked up by GROW Projects, an LA-based company that develops environmental projects. Located halfway between San Francisco and LA, Quay Valley is slated to run entirely on renewable, sustainable technology and house 75,000 people by the early 2020s. The project has stalled several times, but GROW Projects signed a deal with HTT to host a five-mile test loop that would encircle the community. This would be used as a proving ground to refine the technology, as well as convey residents from one end of the city to the other in just 80 seconds.

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies filed permits with the local Kings County authorities on January 20th. If it's granted permission to begin construction and everything goes according to plan (and that's a big if), HTT will open the facility to passengers by 2018. Then again, there's still no word on when Quay Valley will begin construction, and right now the green city of the future is reminding us a bit of Florida's Babcock Ranch, which has also foundered.

Goliath: Hyperloop Technologies (HT)

If HTT is the scrappy underdog relying on the goodwill of its engineers, then Hyperloop Technologies is the blue chip alternative. Its co-founder Shervin Pishevar is a venture capitalist with stakes in firms like Uber, AirBnB and Warby Parker. His wealth is estimated to be in the high hundred millions or low billions. Pishevar is also friends with Elon Musk and knew about the Hyperloop concept before it was made public.

HT's other co-founder is Kevin Brogan -- now known as Brogan BamBrogan -- who leads the engineering side of the enterprise. Brogan was a key figure at SpaceX and is responsible for designing the Falcon 1 rocket as well as the Dragon spacecraft. Late last year, the company also recruited another industry heavyweight in the form of ex-Cisco presidentRob Lloyd, who became the new CEO.

Testbed: City of North Las Vegas, Nevada

Hyperloop Technologies is building its first test facility at the Apex Industrial Park in the City of North Las Vegas, Nevada. The company has already broken ground on the location and is expected to begin testing inside a two-mile tube by the end of this year.

The Enabler: SpaceX

Elon Musk has no interest in building a Hyperloop himself, but SpaceX will act as a sort of evangelist to help push the idea along. The company is co-sponsoring a pod design competition that'll see teams from colleges all around the world build the ultimate passenger capsule. It's also rumored that Musk had a large proportion of his engineers working to refine the Hyperloop concept before he made it public.

Testbed: Hawthorne, California

SpaceX has pledged to build a one-mile test track close to its HQ in Hawthorne, California, where winners of the pod design competition can test their ideas. The firm has recruitedAECOM to build the facility, and construction is expected to begin this spring. The company has always said that the loop will be built next to its headquarters, but that part of LA is heavily developed. It's not clear, at least for now, where exactly there's sufficient space.

The Problems with Hyperloop

Elon Musk's original white paper spoke disdainfully of California's high-speed rail project, which is expected to cost $70 billion. His feeling was that a smaller, lighter, nimbler Hyperloop would cost less. Of course, the sums involved are still eye-watering. Musk's essay on the technology makes it plain: "Several billion is a low number when compared with the tens of billions proposed for the track of the California rail project." Unfortunately, nobody's yet able, or willing, to put a price tag on a real-world Hyperloop.

Then there's the question of who is expected to pick up the bill, since private finance rarely puts in cash for big infrastructure projects without the public's help. Hyperloop Technologies has the backing of some of the wealthiest people in the world, and could bankroll this itself. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies doesn't have the same deep pockets, but it's hoping investors will step up to finance a test track at Quay Valley. If these firms struggle to keep the cash flowing, then help may have to come from governments, which may not be willing to subsidize an untested system.

If Hyperloop does become entangled in the political process, HT has an ace up its sleeve:Jim Messina (pictured, left). Messina was the deputy chief of staff in the Obama White House between 2009 and 2011 and was a key adviser in Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. Messina is likely to be involved with Hillary Clinton's election campaign this year, and also has ties to the prime ministers of the UK and Italy.

If you're working on an experimental but potentially world-changing piece of technology, it helps if you have the ears of some of the most powerful people in the world. But while Messina's involvement may be a blessing, it could also be a curse that'll set back Hyperloop development. His backing of the UK's Conservative Party likely guarantees that the technology will never be adopted in that country. The party is pursuing a policy of de-funding public infrastructure and has no interest in upgrading its transport system -- meaning that there's no money for a Hyperloop.

It's going to be interesting to see what the experience of Hyperloop will be like from the perspective of its passengers. Many of the early concept drawings show windowed pods flying through transparent tubes, but the tubes are likely to be all metal. That means that pods will be similarly enclosed, and it's not clear how that'll affect people who suffer from motion sickness. Dirk Ahlborn has said that it's likely there will be displays inside each pod simulating the journey, tricking people's eyes into thinking that they're in a car. There should be no physical side effects beyond this, since Hyperloop will travel faster than your average jumbo jet, but slower than craft like the Concorde.

The State of Hyperloop in 2016

Hyperloop Technologies is pledging to have its first working loop by the end of 2016, while HTT is promising that its version will be ready in 2017. SpaceX is planning to have its shorter test loop completed by this summer, to help engineers refine designs for the transport pods. Both HT and HTT claim they'll have passenger-ready Hyperloops by the end of the decade. Given that the concept was unveiled only in 2013, that would be a staggeringly fast turnaround. If everything goes according to plan, we'll be shooting people across cities in futuristic vacuum tubes long before Google can get its first self-driving electric cars in consumer driveways.

[Image Credits: SpaceX (Initial Sketch, Interior Concept), Hyperloop Transportation Technologies/Omegabyte 3D (Quay Valley Concept), Jae C. Hong/Associated Press (SpaceX HQ), Hyperloop Transportation Technologies/Enzo Mazzeo (crowd shot), Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty (Musk), Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty (Obama and Messina)]