In the movie Back to the Future II Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox) travels to the year 2015 where one of the futuristic gizmos he encounters is the Nike MAG shoes that tie themselves and have bright leds. Four years before actual 2015, Nike is releasing a special edition replica of those shoes that apart from the automatic tie-up (although some patents applications speculated that) are exact replicas of the movie prop.

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BAe Systems, one of the biggest defense contractors in the world just presented a system of modular components that appears to be capable of completely hide or modify at will an objectΒ’s thermal infrared signature. As you can see in the video below the ADAPTIV as it called, acts as an invisibility cloak in the IR spectrum and the results are very similar to a sci-fi film.

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The latest addition to the long line of the famous biomemetic robots of Festo is the SmartBird, a flying model that shares the same principal of operation with birds and in particular it is inspired from the herring gull. Read below for more details and videos.

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Is this finally the time when electric vehicles will become mainstream? Better place may be a deciding factor. The small company from Israel, founded four years ago by Shai Agassi became a major player in the EV sector with major partnerships and ambitious goals. The proposition of better place is the integration of electric vehicles to the lifestyle and infrastructure of a city or even a complete country. They campaigning electric vehicles as complete replacement for internal combustion engines not just as another solution.

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DARPAΒ’s Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) is an unmanned rocket-launched aircraft, part of a program that is a research and development effort to increase the technical knowledge base and advance critical technologies. It focuses on maneuverability, control and long duration hypersonic flight instead of propulsion. The vehicle is accelerated by a conventional Minotaur IV rocket and its purpose is to collect data. It should of course also remain controllable during its extremely high speed glide where its velocity is around 20 mach (or 21.000km/h at that altitude).

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Observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have revealed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars. By examining images from different time periods scientists focused on very thin gullies that form during Martian spring and could be caused from flowing briny water. Obviously this could be a major breakthrough concerning the geology, climate and possible ecosystem of Mars.

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Could this be the European rival for Virgin GalacticΒ’s White Knight 2? Yes and no. This is EOLE, one of the Perseus family of projects. Perseus is an initiative of CNES towards the research of innovative technologies for space transportation and their respective demonstrators, through an educative perspective. It was launched 6 years ago with the participation of many Universities and agencies. This particular system is called EOLE and it is the demonstrator for L3AR (Lancement Assisté par Aéroporteur Automatique Réutilisable, or Assisted launch via an automatic reusable aircraft.). The project started in 2008 and its design, aerodynamic configuration and internal arrangement are developed by ONERA, Aviation Design and Planète Sciences. The design was frozen in Mars 2010.

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Mount Everest, once a sight only a few climbers could enjoy is now accessible to everyone through a high-resolution 3D map, much sharper and accurate than Google Earth. The project is a joint venture between researchers from DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, the company 3D RealityMaps GmbH and DigitalGlobe. They used data from 5 different satellite systems along with specially developed software and the result is this amazingly detail 3D model you can see on the video below.

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It would have been very difficult for a design studio or department of an established automaker to produce such an original and imaginative concept like the ECCO. The multi-purpose vehicle (its official description is “zero-emissions mobile living solution”) is one of the 5 projects that comprise the Future Design Series of NAU design studio.

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