In the world of electric cars, efficiency is king — wasted energy is just more miles you can't travel. While regenerative braking is old news, regenerative tires that use heat and vibration to recharge the battery would be something completely new.
This the most useful advice about getting a man's heart I've ever seen. I imagine Tony Stark thinks these are brilliant PR. And he's right.
Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne would feel at home inside DARPA's GXV-T missile-dodging superbuggy. This video shows how the Pentagon's research arm wants the cockpit to be: Closed, with high-definition touch screens providing wide-angle visibility and displaying combat information in augmented reality. It's really…
The IXION windowless jet—which makes its interior transparent using display panels that cover most of the cabin—might look like an impossible sci-fi concept but the fact is that we are not very far from this. Check out the video. It's so cool.
Call me nostalgic but, when I first saw these hand-drawn concepts from Frozen, I couldn't help but think that a classic 2D version would have looked so much better. The warmth and beauty in these drawings are not in the flashy computer animated version.
Concept designer Al Brady is at it again with some really cool racers with inverted cockpits—they are like flying bikes. Can you imagine yourself piloting one of these things? The sensation of speed in that position would probably cause adrenaline to overflow out of your ears and nostrils.
We are used to seeing space settlements in sci-fi illustrations and movies, but these are not realistic. Bryan Versteeg—from Spacehabs—uses scientific principles to develop concepts that can actually happen one day. The Kalpana One Space Settlement is one of them. Bryan has sent us new renders of this awesome place.
I don't like Cadillacs but I'd drive the hell out of this concept by Ondrej Jirec, a Czech student at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. If Darth Vader had a car, this would be it (although I'm sure Sark—the villain from the original Tron—would drive one too.)
When I was a kid, I always loved it when auto show season came around, and the concept cars hit the stage. Looking at those uncommon curves felt like looking into the future, where roads twisted through the heavens and The Jetsons read like a historical document. It's funny how that feeling survives.
Christopher Christophi and Lucas Mazarrasa came up with this surprising concept for the eVolo skyscraper competition: The Hyper-Speed Vertical Train Hub. I don't really know how it would work—I'm guessing superconductors and magic—but I'd love to see it built, with all those maglev trains coming up and down the tower…
Just imagine the experience of a lifetime: Jumping from low Earth orbit, your world turns into fire as the acceleration increases...
Scott Robertson is one of my favorite concept designers of all time, a true master (both figuratively and literally). Anyone who loves science fiction and space and cars and mechs and any kind of awesome vehicle should own at least Blast and Drive. Here's a tiny sample of his extraordinary work.
This. This is what Apple needs to beat everyone: A $99 Apple TV with the graphic oomph of an iPhone 5S, plus a new larger remote that doubles as a full gamepad and a motion joystick—like the Nintendo Wiimote. If this concept becomes a reality, Cupertino really can win the living room.
Just like Romeo and Juliet, flies are tragically destined to crave their one true love: Pungent, moldy, rotten garbage. And thanks to this ingenious trash can design that traps flies only to have them starve, the flies' love can prove just as fatal as Shakespeare's.
Navigating a city with a child in a stroller is hard enough, but imagine doing the same with a set of twins. Those double strollers are like driving a miniature bus, and you'll always be on the hunt for ramps, elevators, or a long way around a set of stairs. It's a problem that designer Jade Olsson may have just…
It's a concept but it's a super fun one. Toshiba's shape-shifting concept 5-in-1 PC somehow manages to be a laptop, a tablet, a convertible tablet, a canvas, and a presentation TV-type device. A few of those five might be redundant (and/or useless), but it's pretty freaking sweet to see one computer try to be…
Not only the Toyota FV2—for Fun Vehicle 2—looks like a conveyance from the movie Tron Legacy, but it can be part of that fantasy world too: You control this car/skateboard/motorcycle hybrid using your entire body. Plus, the vehicle changes its color at will. We'll see it in action in the Tokyo Motor Show.
Microsoft's Albert Penello, head of product planning for Xbox, had admitted that the company's super-cool IllumiRoom concept would prove far, far too expensive to bother releasing it commercially. Shame.
iOS 7 hasn’t even been shipped to the public yet, but we’ve seen almost everything about it already, and it’s radically different in design aesthetic from anything Apple’s done before. It’s Jony Ive’s creation, and it’s certainly colourful—but what if Apple applied the same aesthetic to OS X as well?
If there's anything the internet has waxed poetic about wanting—nay—needing to see on the upcoming iOS 7 release, it's a general flat design overhaul. But while that's a completely valid demand, we've yet to hear too much about how Apple might address specific features in need of major functionality tuneups—until…
