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Innovators: Something amazing
The technology of tomorrow — and the people making it
When was the last time you laid your hands on a new innovation, tried it out, and were truly amazed? Maybe it’s your first time driving a Tesla, hearing Dolby Atmos, or gaming in VR. In a landscape littered with incremental improvements and upgrades, it’s those wow moments that we really remember. In the Innovators series, Digital Trends goes behind the scenes with people on the cutting edge of innovation, to see how they do it.
This $3,600 workstation isn’t just a desk. It’s a cockpit of productivity
Standing desks? Tired. Cemtrex Smartdesk? Wired. This innovative desk reimagines everything about your workspace, integrating a computer, a Qi charging pad, a document scanner, your VoIP phone, and so much more directly into your workstation. Now that's smart.
Next-gen artificial limbs help amputees grab onto a better life
Next-gen artificial limbs are allowing amputees to regain lost function once provided by one of nature’s most complicated engineering feats: the human hand.
Taking a spin on Ryno’s one-wheeled, self-balancing electric ‘microcycle’
Chris Hoffmann took his 13-year-old daughter’s sketch from a dream to a real, self-balancing, one-wheeled motorcycle that you can ride. And now he's ready to sell it to the world.
Blueshift’s bamboo Bluetooth beauty ditches D cells for supercapacitors
Bluetooth speakers are everywhere, but none are remotely like Sam Beck's Blueshift speakers. Check out what makes these portable speakers so amazing
There is such a thing as a badass scooter, and Works Electric calls it the Rover
In a tiny workshop outside Portland, Oregon, one man builds the only scooter you wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen on. We visited the shop to take it for a spin.
NASA’s space observatory will map the sky with unprecedented detail
NASA is preparing to launch a cutting-edge space observatory to create the most detailed map ever produced of the sky. Doing so will involve surveying hundreds of millions of galaxies -- some of which are so far away that their light takes 10 billion years to reach Earth.
NASA to launch SPHEREx mission to investigate the origins of our universe
NASA is launching an ambitious mission to map the entire sky in order to understand the origins of the universe. The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission will launch in 2023 and is planned to last for two years.
They’re real. We slipped on Nike’s HyperAdapt 1.0 self-lacing sneakers
We take a walk in Nike's first ever self-lacing sneakers, the Hyperadapt 1.0 and speak with Tiffany Beers, senior innovator at Nike about how it came about.
InSight’s heat probe will dig 16 feet beneath the surface of Mars
Having placed its seismometer onto the Martian surface and covered it with a heat shield, NASA's InSight mission has deployed its second instrument. New images from the lander have confirmed that InSight succeeded in setting the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package instrument onto the surface.
Taste test: The new Impossible Burger is a triumph of food engineering
Impossible Foods is back with a new-and-improved plant-based burger, and we got a chance to try it out at CES 2019. Suffice it to say that our minds were blown by the Impossible Burger 2.0. Everything is dialed in -- the smell, the color, the texture, the flavor -- that it's hard to tell it's not actual beef.
The Great White Shark’s genome has been decoded, and it could help us end cancer
In a significant step for marine and genetic science, researchers have decoded the genome of the great white shark. The genetic code revealed a wealth of insight into what makes these creatures so successful from an evolutionary standpoint.
A.I.-powered website creates freakishly lifelike faces of people who don’t exist
No, this isn't a missing person. It's a face generated by a new artificial intelligence on the website ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com. Just in case you needed a reminder of how freakishly good A.I. is becoming at generating realistic images of people. Here's how the A.I. works.
China’s mind-controlled cyborg rats are proof we live in a cyberpunk dystopia
Neuroscience researchers from Zhejiang University have created a method that allows humans to control the movements of rats. They used an EEG cap on a human to detect instructions for movements and sent this information directly into the brain of the rat via microelectrodes.
Ant-inspired walking robot navigates without GPS by using polarized light
What do you get if you cross Boston Dynamics and Ant-Man? You get Antbot, a robot from the French National Center for Scientific Research which uses ant-like navigation to move around without the aid of GPS. Antbot uses an optical compass that detects polarized light to determine its heading.
Crescent Moon Eva All-Foam V2 Snowshoe review
Crescent Moon threw out the book when it designed its latest snowshoe. The one-piece teardrop snowshoe has no moving parts and is made of EVA foam, the impact-absorbing material in your sneakers. How does this unique snowshoe compare to a traditional snowshoe? Read on to find out.
Meet Wiliot, a battery-less Bluetooth chip that pulls power from thin air
A tiny chip being developed by a semiconductor company called Wiliot could harvest the energy it needs out of thin air, the company claims. No battery needed. The paper-thin device pulls power from ambient radio frequencies like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cell signals.
Fender’s Acoustasonic guitar uses advanced tech to become a tonal chameleon
From shredding distortion to a soft and supple fingerstyle, Fender's latest guitar innovation is an acoustic/electric hybrid that allows guitar players to dial in the widest possible range of tones, making it a compelling new option for those with a wide range of musical inspirations.
IBM’s latest A.I. can help doctors detect how quickly a disease is progressing
IBM has developed an A.I. that can be used to predict how a range of diseases -- including diabetes, Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s -- are likely to develop. The tool could one day be used by physicians to make more accurate diagnoses and design more effective treatments.
Watch: IBM uses artificial intelligence to make music with Phony Ppl
We brought IBM's AI music composition program Watson Beat to R&B group Phony PPL to see if actual musicians could find a cool way to use it.
Inside the high-tech labs that make sure your legal marijuana is safe
Just as your bottle of beer is tested and labeled for alcohol content before it makes it to the grocery store, legalized marijuana undergoes rigorous testing before it appears in a safe, accurately labelled jar at your local dispensary. Here’s the science labs use to do it.
Inside the tech behind Marvel Universe Live’s ‘Age of Heroes’ stunt show
Marvel Universe Live: Age of Heroes features Black Panther, Spiderman, Doctor Strange, and more Marvel favorites in a live action stunt show.
How a small Oregon company grew a business from garbage
Portland, Oregon-based Cass of Bass makes portable speakers from reclaimed and recycled materials to create truly unique portable speaker systems.
Starship Technologies’ cute sidewalk drones will roll into London soon
Forget quadcopters; Starship Technologies is bringing drone delivery back down to earth with a fleet of six wheeled robots that deliver goods on the ground.