technology

Because hydrogen fuel infrastructure is more or less non-existent, Hyundai's rollout will be small. The car will be available at select dealers in Southern California, all within range of the company's sources of hydrogen, which include a nearby waste water treatment plant. Local drivers will be able to "gas" up for free at any of seven distribution stations...

Think about that for a moment: a flashlight that shines for as long as you hold onto it. No more scrambling for and chucking away AA batteries. It could have an immediate impact on more than 1.2 billion people -- one-fifth of the world's population -- who, according to the World Bank, lack regular access to electricity.

Stunningly, no one on record has thought to use thermoelectric technology to power a flashlight. But for Ann, peltier tiles, which produce an electrical current when opposite sides are heated and cooled at the same time, were a convenient solution to a friend's study problem.

The world's first-ever smartshoe is called Le Chal, which means "let's go" in Hindi. Designed by Anirudh Sharma, who works at the MIT Media Lab, and Krispian Lawrence, these shoes work as haptic navigation devices that connect to your smartphone.

The basic idea is pretty simple. You simply tell your phone where to go using the app's voice recognition software, and the app uses GPS to plot the course from your current location. Once you're on your way, the shoes vibrate when it's time to turn—on the left side for a left turn and on the right for a right turn. The vibrations become more intense as you get closer to your destination.

When Chip Yates started working on his electric airplane in 2012, he wasn't trying to make conventional, gas-powered aircraft look slow. That hasn't changed, he says. "That was not the design goal."

But he's happy to point out his plane is as fast or faster than its competitors that run on single piston gas engines. The five world records Yates set last year for electric planes were finally officially verified by the Fédération Aéronautique International (FAI) last week, and now he can officially claim bragging rights.

"There are two types of communication technologies," says Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-lead author of a paper on the work. "One that allows us to communicate with the dogs, and one that allows them to communicate with us."

"Dogs communicate primarily through body language, and one of our challenges was to develop sensors that tell us about their behavior by observing their posture remotely," Roberts says. "So we can determine when they're sitting, standing, running, etc., even when they're out of sight – a harness-mounted computer the size of a deck of cards transmits those data wirelessly. At the same time, we've incorporated speakers and vibrating motors, called haptics, into the harness, which enable us to communicate with the dogs."

Hendo is introducing the world's first real working hoverboard.

So where does the HENDO hoverboard stand today? Well, about 1 inch off the ground. As you can see from the video above, the prototype is real and it works! But to see it hover in person, and better yet, to defy gravity by riding it, is something you need to experience as well.

With the support of the Kickstarter community, we all can. We need your help to put the finishing touches on the Hendo Hoverboard, to help us produce them, and to create places to ride them.

Hendo is looking for $250,000 in funding to refine the working technology from the prototype and start production. Pledges start at $5, but if you want your childhood dream to come true $10,000 will get you a real working Hendo Hoverboard.

Surprisingly the only shocking thing is that two adults agreed to shock themselves with them.