Japanese tech company Kirin Holdings recently unveiled the commercial version of its taste-enhancing spoon, dubbed Elecispoon, which improves taste buds’ perception of salt, thus making food taste better.

We originally covered Kirin’s taste-enhancing technology a couple of years ago. The company’s researchers had teamed up with scientists at Meiji University to develop a line of smart kitchenware that used electricity to make food taste saltier and tastier than it actually was. Back then, they were testing a smart spoon and bowl which worked in tandem to make foods about 1.5 times saltier than they were, but it seems that only the spoon made it to market. Kirin Technology recently announced its newest product, Elecispoon, a smart spoon designed to improve people’s health by helping them cut salt from their food.

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Switzerland’s road maintenance authority has developed an ingenious mobile bridge that allows the paving of public roads without the need to stop traffic on the affected lanes.

Traffic jams are a necessary evil when it comes to road maintenance, and despite experts’ best efforts to come up with a solution to this logistic problem, motorists still have to deal with them whenever road work is required. However, Switzerland’s Federal Roads Office may have come up with an ingenious-enough solution to revolutionize road paving. Earlier this year, it unveiled the Astra Bridge, a 257-meter-long mobile bridge that allows traffic to pass over sections of road while infrastructure is being repaired below. It’s such a simple concept that it almost makes you wonder why engineers took so long to invent it, but there is a reason why the Astra Bridge is the first of its kind – it’s not as simple as it sounds.

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Ohio-based flamethrower manufacturer Throwflame recently unveiled the Thermonator, a remote-controlled robot dog with a functional flamethrower mounted on its back.

Robot dogs have been getting more and more popular in recent years, with news reports from China suggesting that they are replacing real dogs because they require less attention and maintenance. However, one American company is using the robotic quadruped as a platform for its flamethrowers. The Thermonator is an advanced flamethrowing dog equipped with Throwflame’s ARC flamethrower which has a firing range of 30 feet and can be used for a variety of tasks, including wildfire management, agricultural burns, snow and ice removal, and special effects. And you can buy yours for just $9,420.

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Roughly the size of a studio apartment, the world’s largest passenger elevator weighs a whopping 16 tons, is supported by 9 steel cables, and can accommodate up to 235 people at a time.

In 2022, Finnish elevator company KONE installed the world’s largest passenger elevator inside the Jio World Center building in Mumbai, India. Designed to cater to large groups of people attending weddings or exhibitions at the state-of-the-art convention center, this marvel of design and engineering measures 25.78 square meters and offers all-round scenic views of the complex and its beautiful gardens. Due to its enormous size, the world’s largest passenger elevator relies on an innovative pulley beam system that consists of 18 large pulleys, 9 steel cables, and rails fixed over steel columns.

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An artificial intelligence model developed by an international team of researchers has demonstrated the ability to predict future events in people��s lives, including the time of their death.

Life2vec, a so-called transformer model trained on a massive volume of data to predict various aspects of a person’s life, was created by scientists in Denmark and the United States. After being fed data from Danish health and demographic records for six million people, like time of birth, schooling, education, salary, housing, and health, the AI model was trained to predict what would come next. According to its creators, Life2vec demonstrated an eerie ability to predict when people would die based on data analysis. For example, when tested on a group of people between the ages of 35 and 65, half of whom died between 2016 and 2020, it was able to predict who would die and who would live, with 78% accuracy.

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Created in 1774 to impress royalty and their guests, the Silver Swan automaton remains an impressively intricate mechanical wonder that continues to captivate audiences.

Built for royalty that ended up changing their minds, the Silver Swan is one of the most famous automatons in history. It was put together at the Mechanical Museum of James Cox, a London jeweler and 18th-century entrepreneur, using an internal mechanism designed by inventor John Joseph Merlin. The chased, repoussé silver body of the swan conceals three clockwork mechanisms that control a music box, a pool of glass with swimming silver fish, and the life-like movements of the majestic bird’s neck and head. Seeing the Silver Swan in action, it’s easy to forget that this mesmerizing mechanical marvel is no less than 250 years old.

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Scientists at South Korea’s Chung-Ang University have created an ultra-light exosuit that can help runners cover short distances faster.

They may not be mainstream yet, but exoskeletons have been a part of our world for a while now. We’ve seen some that make carrying heavy loads a breeze, and others that help physically disabled people move around with ease. But wearable technology that helps people run faster has been pretty rare, especially in the super-light form recently presented by scientists at Chung-Ang University’s School of Mechanical Engineering in South Korea. They created a contraption that only weighs around 2.5 kg (5.5lbs) but can help the average person run a 200-meter sprint almost a second faster than without the suit.

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Chinese engineers once set a Guinness World Record After Rotating a 30,000-tonne bus terminal in Xiamen 288 meters by using hundreds of hydraulic jacks and rolling tracks.

The Houxi Long Distance Bus Station is situated in the Jimei District of Xiamen, China’s Fujian Province.  Four years ago, local authorities decided to move one of its terminals from one street to another in order to make room for a new high-speed railway project. After weighing their options, engineers decided that the best solution was to rotate the gigantic building at a 90-degree angle, using one of its narrow sides as the center point. The far side of the terminals needed to slide along the ground for about 288 meters, which is hard to do with a structure that weighs 30,000 tons, or as much as 170 Boeing 737 passenger planes.

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The Omnivision OVM6948 CameraCubeChip® holds the record for the world’s smallest commercially available camera. It measures 0.65 mm x 0.65 mm, with a z‑height of just 1.158 mm.

Developed by Omnivision, a global technology company specializing in innovative advanced digital imaging, analog, and touch & display solutions for multiple applications across several industries, the CameraCubeChip® is based on the tiny OVM6948 sensor, which claimed the Guinness Record for the world’s smallest commercially available image sensor. It can be mounted on various medical instruments, including disposable guidewires, endoscopes, and catheters with diameters as small as 1.0 mm. Its impressively small size makes it perfect for use within the body’s narrowest blood vessels for neuro, ophthalmic, ENT, cardiac, spinal, urology, gynecology, and arthroscopy procedures.

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The ARCHAX is a real-life 4.5-meter-tall mecha robot created by Japanese company Tsubame Industry that can be yours for the low price of 400 million yen ($2.75 million).

If, like me, you grew up watching Gundam anime and playing video games like Armored Core or Titanfall, you probably imagined yourself piloting a giant mecha at least once in your life. Well, thanks to a company called Tsubame Industry, that dream is about to become reality. Well, if you can afford it, of course. The small Japanese startup recently showcased its newest product, dubbed ‘ARCHAX’, a pilotable robot inspired by Japanese mecha culture. Standing a whopping 4.5 meters tall and weighing around 3.5 tons, this real-life mecha is powered by a 300V battery and can switch from a standing mode to drivable mode, attaining a top speed of 10 kilometers per hour. However, in order to experience the thrill of piloting the ARCHAX, you’ll have to pay an estimated 400 million yen ($2.75 million) for one.

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The Sol e-book reader is a new and innovative e-book reader that you wear on your face, just like a pair of sunglasses.

If the humble Kindle isn’t just isn’t good enough anymore and you’re looking for the next big thing in the e-book reader space, you may want to check out the Sol e-book reader, an intriguing device shaped like a pair of sunglasses. Somewhat similar to a VR headset, the Sol is a much more simplistic gadget designed solely as a hands-free e-reader. Weighing only around 100 grams and shaped like a pair of black sunglasses, the Sol was created for a more comfortable reading experience, like reading a book while lying down. But, before you ask, no, you will not be able to flip pages with your eyes or the power of your mind…

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American company Throw Flame recently unveiled its latest product, Thermonator, the world’s first flamethrower-wielding robot dog.

Robot dogs have been around for a while now, and in countries like China, they’re actually competing against actual pooches. But it turns out that these four-legged robots can be more than lifeless pets. For example, Throw Flame, a US-based company specializing in flamethrowers, recently showcased the world’s first flamethrower-equipped robot dog. Dubbed “Thermonator”, it comes with a high-performance flamethrower mounted on its back which allows it to shoot flames up to 9 meters in front of it. According to the Throw Flame website, the Thermonator allows users to remotely “shoot flames anywhere you want!”

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The aptly-named R/P FLIP is an open ocean research platform that can flip between the horizontal and vertical position at the flip of a button and is often mistaken for a capsizing ship.

Owned by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the FLIP (short for ‘floating instrument platform’) is a 108-meter-long ocean research platform designed to partially flood and pitch backward 90°, leaving only the 17-meter end above water, in a vertical position, with the bulkheads acting as decks. Because most of the ballast for the platform is actually ocean water at depths below the influence of surface waves, the R/P FLIP behaves like a buoy, which means it is virtually immune to wave action. The platform’s hull is designed to resist twisting. After its mission is complete, compressed air is pushed into the large ballast tanks, causing the entire platform to flip back into a horizontal position.

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Danish startup Autofuel has developed a robotic arm capable of refueling a variety of vehicles at gas stations without any kind of human assistance.

A Neste fuel station in Finland is currently the only place in the world where you can have your car refueled by a robot. It’s the pilot site chosen by Autofuel to test its futuristic refueling system – a robotic arm that can locate a car’s fuel tank door, select the right type of fuel, and operate the pump without any kind of human assistance. The third-generation Autofuel robotic arm has been in testing for over a year, and the Danish company is planning to start public testing later this year. Although it may be a while before refueling robots become mainstream, Autofuel believes they will become invaluable when truly autonomous vehicles finally hit the roads.

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A team of scientists has created a tiny robot that can melt itself and then resolidify on command in order to pass through tight spaces.

Remember Terminator 2’s terrifying antagonist, the advanced T-1000 shapeshifting android? It was made out of this liquid metal that allowed it to melt and then resolidify and cause all kinds of havoc. Well, guess what? Scientists claim to have created a real-life version of the T-1000, a small robot that can melt and resolidify itself on command, enabling it to easily escape from confined spaces. There’s even a video of it performing this neat trick, and while it may not be as impressive as the T-1000 Terminator, it’s definitely an impressive, if somewhat scary, look into the future.

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