Author: Navneet Alang

Given the number of people who use wheelchairs and the importance of them in their lives, it’s a shame that we have seen little in the way of innovation in the field, whether in design, comfort or features. This futuristic concept, however, looks to change that. First, by using a rear ball, it greatly increases maneuverability. The use of shocks and hubless wheels also adds to the comfort, which unbeknown to many is a serious problem with contemporary wheelchairs. It also uses a teardrop design on the seat to make it more ergonomic and comfortable. The geek coup-de-grace though? The chair can be…

Except Cars, of course. Nobody knows what Pixar was thinking with that one. Okay, so if one wanted to get picky, this isn’t a tech story proper – but how many geeks do you know who don’t love Pixar movies? Yeah, thought so. Which is why it seemed important to tell you that, though we associate sequels with things like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, word on the street is that Toy Story 3 is another Pixar masterpiece. CNET reporter Daniel Terdman got access to an early screening in California and he seems mighty pleased: Pixar, yet again, has managed to turn animated silliness into top-tier filmmaking…

Themed restaurants are all the rage these days – heck, even Kim Jong Il has a line of establishments with pretty, dancing waitresses (no, really). But pirates or weird maid outfits are nothing compared to Hajime in Thailand – a restaurant that uses robots for staff. The robots, who are dressed up look vageuly like ancient Thai warriors, serve food through a central path. Customers order through a touch-screen system and the robots deliver their orders. They also, for reasons that remain somewhat inexplicable, dance while they serve food, which seems like a fitting mix of entertaining and just…

You know, Twitter can do a lot of things: it tells you what the world is thinking and, similarly, lets you tell the world what’s on your mind. But now you can add a new feature to that list: predicting the future. At least, that’s the word out of HP’s The Social Computing Lab in Palo Alto. After studying the relationship between tweets and box-office revenue for movies, they discovered that Twitter was a better predictor of success for a film that standard industry research tools. Just as fascinating as the results are how they were obtained: the team used Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service, which employs…

Everyone knows that your average rock star has to dedicate his or her time equally to two main things: the music; and their legions of adoring and slightly easy fans. Well, with the new Gigway pen, they’ll have more time to dedicate to the latter. The ‘pen’ is actually not for writing at all, but rather scans and reads sheets music and then plays it back to you so that you know how its meant to be heard. No more wondering how that suspended ninth is supposed to sound! Just run the Gigway pen over the music and let it do its magic. On top of this, the Gigway can play back sound through headphones or its set of included…

For all the talk of being environmentally-friendly, a lot of people are hopping on fixed-gear bikes and scooters because they look cool. Well, this concept seems to roll with that vibe – and succeeds admirably. Designed by Daneil Dayag, this Urban Scooter concept boasts a very slick design and, instead of the usual spoke-hub model, seems to run by moving the wheel by its rim, giving it a futuristic look that’s much more ‘urban hispter’ than the usual ‘person who’s really too old to be riding a freaking scooter’. The electric vehicle is aimed at those who are not only looking for an easy, low-pollution…

Last year, when YouTube decided to Rickroll all its users – i.e. send all video links to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna’ Give You Up” – there was a sense that April Fool’s pranks in the tech world had reached their peak. How could anyone top the ultimate self-referential prank that took a universal web joke and ‘made it official’? But if this morning is any indication, that’s far from the case. In fact, it seems that the blogosphere is positively lit-up with hundreds and thousands of stories claiming to be true, but are most definitely not. Google changing their name to Topeka? YouTube introducing ‘TEXTp’?…

Sometimes, it’s a little hard to listen to dry, good-for-you messages about environmentalism. But a robot? That’s cute? Where I do start recycling?! That seems to be the idea behind the concept ‘Plant-O-Bot’, a robot that gains energy from the plants that it stores in its own body. The adorable little thing has an energy meter on the front that lets you know how the robot is doing: green and it and its plants are doing fine; red, and both the Plant-O-Bot and its green friends aren’t doing so hot. Designed by Bharoto Yekti, the concept aims to work as a kind of ‘living’ metaphor for our relationship to…

Who amongst us, the cognoscenti and intelligentsia of the world, hasn’t dreamed of doing something as incredible, sweeping and artful as melting a door with a lightsaber? Fine, maybe that’s a dream limited to a few basement-dwelling nerds. But at least we now have bookends for our dreams! (Ooh, unintentional puns FTW!) New to the Star Wars shop is a pair of bookends that display what it might look like to have a lightsaber piercing through your collection of books, comics or DVDs. Dedicated fans will note, of course, that the lightsaber blade (which lights up) is red, meaning that it probably belongs…

That picture you see there, folks? That’s a shot of Toronto in Google Streetview. In 3D. No, we don’t have any idea what’s going on either. All we do know is that you click on the little head with the 3D glasses and presto – insta-3D. While this may sound like an April Fool’s joke – and it may very well be a kind of one – we’ve seen this with our own eyes, and you can too, checking anywhere in Google Maps that supports Streetview. While we can’t report on whether or not the 3D actually works (can’t find those glasses that came with Coraline), reports from around Twitter seem to suggest it does. What possible use…