Author: Navneet Alang

While some design companies tackle complex problems of sustainability or efficiency, Aguila Design are taking on something way more important: the future of watersports. Their ‘breaking’ watercraft – yes, that’s the actual name – features a out-there spaceship like design that allows the vehicle to stop easily and turn on a dime, while never rolling or capsizing. Snark aside, however, there’s actually some pretty cool technology in this thing. The fin at the bottom of the craft creates a ‘hydrodynamic’ effect, which not only means the craft slips through the water with the greatest of ease,…

If there was one trend to emerge from the geekfest that is South-by-Southwest interactive this year, it’s that mobile location services are heating up. Though nobody’s quite sure why people are all telling the world where they are, it sure is getting popular. Case in point: Patently Apple have discovered that Apple is working on their own location-based service called ‘iGroups’….

I bet you thought you were pretty bad-ass at solving Rubik’s cube, didn’t you? Thought maybe one day you might even beat this guy – who can solve one in about 7 seconds? Well, if you’re looking for a real challenge, here’s one for you: a Rubik’s Cube that has no visible colors on it at all. …

Where Microsoft and Apple have failed, Google, those arrogant so-and-so’s, think they can succeed. Today, the New York Times reported the massive search company is teaming up with both Intel and Sony to produce technology to take control of your living room. Details are sketchy so far, and no-one quite knows if ‘GoogleTV’, as the project has been dubbed, will be comprised of a set-top box, a open software platform or something else….

Amazon’s Kindle service is nearly fully Mac-compatible, as Amazon today launched a beta of their Kindle app for Apple computers. The free application allows Amazon customers full access to Amazon’s electronic book offerings, and allows bibliophiles to read full books on their laptops and desktops without the use of Kindle. It is also fully compatible with the handheld Kindle readers though, synchronizing bookmarks and pages read, so that users can switch back and forth between devices without ever losing their place….

While wristwatches are now a bit of an anachronism (how many people do you know who still wear one?) this one is undeniably cool. Why? Because supposedly, it never stops running. At the heart of this incredibly sophisticated piece of machinery are new solar cells that work in very small devices and off very little light. Couple that with some very slick lithium-ion batteries, and this little gadget is a marvel that combines age-old know-how with modern tech. …

While to some the above picture represents a World Architecture Award-winning design concept for a new home for the Philarmonie de Paris, come on: it’s an Imperial Destroyer, right? Right!? Okay maybe that’s just me. The proposed building by Jungmin Nam – which, sorta’ incredibly, he completed while still at the Harvard School of Design – aims to showcase the different views of Paris, and visitors will not only catch a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower but numerous other aspects of the City of Lights. as the architect states, the idea with this design is to “bring people to a visual contact with the surrounding…

Plants that tweet when they need water? That’s so two years ago, man. No, the future is a much more exciting place where, as this video shows, a robot can snap a picture, upload it to Twitpic and then tell the world all about it on Twitter, simply by using a touch sensor attached to its front. What’s more, the whole thing is controlled by Nokia’s latest smartphone, the N900. It’s a brave new world, people….

When you think of doing good or being environmentally sustainable, building a massive skyscraper probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But surprisingly, that’s exactly the aim behind an idea put forward by Polish architecture firm h3ar for the Sudan. The proposed tower, which looks like its pulled straight from a sci-fi movie, apparently employs a series of pumps to draw water from a recently discovered massive underground lake in Darfur. Since much of the conflict in the area has actually been a result of battles of limited water resources, this can only be a good thing….