Technology

Primitive Technology: Termite clay kiln & pottery

Making a grate from the usual clay I use It's a bit less than 50 cm in diameter and about 5 cm thick Making holes in the grate to let the flames through Getting clay from a termite mound. Termites mouths are to small to include sticks and stones in their structures, so the clay doesn't need processing. Putting the clay in the pit left behind after building the tiled hut Crushing the clay Slaking the clay with water Treading the clay to break up lumps Dead palm fronds for tempering the clay Treading in the palm fiber Digging the kiln fire box Fitting the grate Making the front wall of the firebox Digging firebox entry Fire to stiffen clay Building walls of the ware chamber Enlargeing firebox entry Adding grate bars to firebox. These are important as they increase heat production several times. Another termite nest built on red clay soil It's a source of clay that keeps replenishing thanks to the worker termites Crushing Slaking Treading The clay has no stick or rocks in it due to the termites being to small to carry them into the nest Crushing up an old kiln grate to make grog for the new clay Mixing grog into the new clay. Grog prevent clay from cracking as it dries. Making an urn Adding coils Scratching the last layer. I have to let the layers so far dry so it doesn't slump. When I come back new wet coils will easily stick to the drier last layer due to the rough surface. Urn, pot, and 5 tiles made of termite clay. Blower housing and 2 tiles made of normal clay. In kiln ready to fire Covering with flat tiles (previously fired) Making fire Fire sticks are easier to make and maintain than pump drills and I'm so fast with them now I use them instead Transfer punk to tinder pile (crushed candle nut leaves) Blow coal into flames Add kindling Making fire under firebox grate to set sticks on grate alight Adding sticks above grate bars from now on 10 minutes in 1 hour in 2 hours in. I over stacked the firebox and the kiln cooled down a bit as the air supply was choked. So I let it burn down a bit and only put in a few sticks at a time 2 hours 30 minutes in. The kiln started heating up again. 3 hours in. The pots are glowing a low orange (845 c or 1550 f degrees) The next day after it cooled down A broken tile. First pot ok The urn spalled but is ok The forge blower housing is now fired Spalling was probably due to the urn not being totally dry Watering cassava patch Forge blower housing is well fired and water resistant now. It goes in the shed. Broken tiles go into a pit to be ground into grog later Spare tiles for the shed. have video.

Primitive Technology: Forge Blower

Fanning fire with piece of Eucalyptus bark Cutting bark with a stone Splitting wood with a stone Assembling fan and rotor Lashing together with strip of bark fiber Fanning fire Digging clay from creek bank Making a fan housing from clay Hole in housing should be same size as hole in spout Drying in hut next to fire Dried housing Wooden socket Air is now sucked through top of housing and is blown out towards the fire Fan always blows air regardless of which way it spins Clay pipe or "Tuyere" Now air is forced directly into fuel bed Wooden stakes Carving another socket Lashing crossbar on with lawyer cane Making cordage from bark fiber Cord is attached to stick and looped around fan rotor Rotor spins easier and faster now Making a furnace from mud Iron bacteria (orange slime) Iron bacteria is commonly found in creeks, swamps and springs Crushed charcoal, and wood ash are added to reduce the iron and lower the melting point of the ore The ingredients are formed into a brick Charcoal from a previous video Pulling melted material from furnace This is mostly slag A few tiny specks of iron metal from the slag Parts of the blower Assembled blower. have video.

Ellen Remembers Teaching Kids Technology

- You're here on a good day. It's a very special episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." We're gonna talk about our changing bodies. Yeah. No, I'm being told no. That is not correct. This episode is about kids. I love talking to kids. I don't know where they come from. I don't know how you make 'em. I know-- I know what they eat, and, uh-- I think I do anyway. Anything really. I love talking to them. There's a lot we can teach kids. Like, they should believe in themselves and be kind to one another. And there's a lot that kids can teach us. Like how to break vases and get gum in your hair. And earlier this year I decided to teach some kids about old technology. I brought in some items that they had never seen before, and I showed 'em how it works. So, Rebecca and Tre, I brought an item, and I would like you to tell me what this is. Do you know what it is? - Oh, a phone. - I know what it is. And it's not any ordinary phone. It's an olden time phone. - Yeah, they used that back in the day. - Back in the day. When you say "back in the day" and you say "an old time phone," how long ago do you think this was used? - Oh, 100. - A hundred years ago? - Yeah, it doesn't even have no FaceTime. - No. I mean, you could do it, but then no one would see it. You'd just be talking right into the phone. - And, like, if somebody walked in, they would be like, "Why are you talking into a phone?" - Right, and then they'd haul you away and put you in the loony bin. - Yeah. - Loony bin? - Yeah, you know. Do you know what this is? Both: Um... - First you have to find the on button. - Uh... - This? I don't see... - No. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. - All right, you don't have to turn it on. Just put that in. I'm just kidding with you. Okay. Do you type a lot? - Yeah. - What do you type? - I work on scripts. - You write scripts? - Yeah. - What, like a movie script? - Yeah. - What's the name of the movie script that you're working on? - "The Lost Island." - "The Lost Island." What's it about? - Well, it's about-- I got inspired by Indiana Jones. It's about these two archaeologists that have to find the lost island. The lost island is where you can get the power of mother nature itself. - Archaeologists are-- they're-- - Trying to find the lost island. - I need that typewriter real quick. - And if you find the temple of the lost island-- - [gasps] - They're trying to find what? - They try to find the temple of the lost island. - Slow down. Slow down. Temple of the lost... - Island. And when they-- and they will get the power of mother nature if they-- - They'll get the what? - The power of mother nature if they find the temple, but the Jewish are planning to take over the world. The Jewish are planning to take over the world if they find it. - The Jewish are planning on taking over the world? - Yeah. If they find the... - I don't know about that. Tell me what this is. - It's like a radio, but it has a speaker so you can talk through. - It was a recording machine, so if someone called and you weren't home, they would leave a message. Like, here, you're calling me, and then I'll leave the message. Hi, It's Ellen. I'm not here right now. Leave a message, and I'll call you back. - Okay. - Beep. Oh, it didn't-- I didn't give you enough time. Okay, let me try it again. Hey, It's Ellen. I'm not home, but if you leave a message, I'll call you back. - Hi. Call me back when you get a chance. - Beep. [laughs] I didn't leave enough time. Okay. Hey, it's Ellen. I'm not home. Leave a message, and I'll call you back. - Um... - Beep. Hi, it's Ellen. I'm not home. Leave a message, and I'll call you back. - Hi. Call me back when you can. - Beep. You didn't say your name. Try it again. Hey, it's Ellen. I'm not home. Leave a message, and I'll call you back. - Hi, it's Rebecca. Call me back. - Beep. [laughter] - This is Ellen. Leave a message, and I'll call you back. - Hi, it's Rebecca, and call me back. [laughter] - Beep. You had a lot more time. - [sighs] - You had so much more time. All right, let's try-- Let William try it. Hi, this is Ellen. Leave a message, and I'll call you back. - Hi, this is William-- - Beep. - And I-- - Beep. - Oh, really? - Hi, this is Ellen. Leave a message, and I'll call you back. - Um... - Beep. - Really? - Hi, this is Ellen. I'm not home. Leave a message, and I'll call you back. - Hi, this is William, and I'll call you back. - If you're gonna call me back, why'd you leave a message? - [laughs] - Oh. [all laugh] - This machine is so complicated. - I know. It's just so complicated. That's why they got rid of it. We have to wrap it up, because I have to get going. You have a microphone. Go ahead and say whatever you want to say or sing whatever you want to sing. - Um... - Beep. Oh. - [groans] - What? Okay, this thing doesn't work. - What do volcanoes eat for dinner? - Is it "ashed potatoes?" - Nope. Paint drops. - [chuckles] - Beep. - Awkward. - [laughs] Okay, you two kids. It's been lovely talking to you. I'll walk you out. - Okay. Bye, everyone. Nice seeing you. - Bye.

Primitive Technology: Freshwater Prawn Trap

Cutting loya cane for trap Splitting loya cane Folding cane into shape Position 4 canes over a center point Use one spoke to tie them together so that now there are 7 spokes (an odd number is needed for weaving) Adding another cane to weave with Weaving over, under, over, under etc. Adding a new piece when the old one runs out Tucking in the left over ends 7 sticks to form the funnel of the trap Ordinary vine is tied on and woven onto the sticks Funnel is pulled from ground for further weaving Funnel is inserted into basket, completing trap Big waterfall Small waterfall Fresh Water Prawns in water More prawns Setting the trap under tree roots Prawns entering the trap. Once inside it won't be able to find the opening to get out due to it's position in space above the floor of the trap Storing in a pot of water Another prawn Making a fire Splitting the prawn kills it instantly (to reduce suffering) Yams I planted years ago from wild yams further down stream Hot rocks from the fire boil the water quicker than having the pot on the fire itself. Less water evaporates before it gets to boiling point this way. Prawns turn red when cooked. Peel the shell and eat them. Tastes similar to fish Eating yams. Tastes similar to potatoes. Has more calories than potatoes do. Prawn trap. have video.

Technology in Sport - Is it Cheating?

With sports engineering, we can model a whole sport. And we can use it to push the physical boundaries of the discipline. And if we introduce technology into sport, is it cheating? [MUSIC PLAYING] Let's start with the 100-meter sprint. We've collected data on the average performances of the top 25 athletes in the 100-meter sprint every year since the 1890s. You can immediately see some pretty major spikes and steps, most obviously from the First and Second World Wars, which worsen performance dramatically. The first post-war Olympics were in 1948, so we usually use that year as the baseline for any comparisons that we do. In the 1970s, there's a dramatic increase in times, which was due to the introduction of fully automated timing. Removing the reaction time of the judges setting their stop watches going increased the time recorded for all runners. There's another smaller step change in 2008 when Usain Bolt came on the scene with his dramatic win at the Beijing Olympics. What's interesting is that, if we remove Bolt from our top 25 and just analyse the other 24, the step change is still there. At these elite levels, it looks like a standout athlete makes everyone else perform better too. The men's 100-meter sprint has improved by around 5% since 1948. Over the same period, the men's javelin has gone some 70 meters to 85 meters, an increase of 21%. Are we really saying that the performance improvements of these two sports is that different? Well, one issue we have is that, with sprinting, our measurement is time, while, for javelin, it's distance. What we need is a common metric. That shared measure is an energy calculation. And as an example of how we can visualise that, we can look at the women's 100-meters freestyle swimming event. Now this circle represents a baseline performance in 1948. And by 2010, performance had improved by 52% to here. Now what are the things that contributed to that performance improvement? Well here, we have the globalisation effects. And by that, I mean population increase, nutrition, coaching, professionalisation. But there are other effects that have improved performance in swimming as well. Here, we have the Olympic games oscillation. And that occurs every four years, so that, in an Olympic year, you see a small but measurable performance improvement. What about technologies that we've allowed? Well, in swimming, we think about the swimsuit. And in 2000, they went from the traditional female style and the Speedos to the longer, full-body suits. More impressively, though, goggles, hats, and shaving down had quite a large effect prior to those swim suits. An effect of goggles was to allow the swimmer to train for longer in chlorinated pools. thereby, improving performance. Of course, there are technologies that have not been allowed. There were the full-body swimsuits in 2008 that had polyurethane panels down the sides. And by 2009, the whole body was covered in polyurethane. And what that did was that reduced the skin friction across the body. It pulled the body in and reduced the cross sectional area of the body presented to the water. And that reduced hydrodynamic drag. The other thing we've noticed in swimming is the transition between hand timing and fully automated timing, something we've seen in other sports. So with these statistics and with this methodology, we can look at the effect of different factors on sport. And one thing we've noticed is how globalisation has started to reach its limits. The Industrial Revolution has had its impact. Most of the improvements we're seeing in sport today are smaller in nature and due to technology. [MUSIC PLAYING] We started our journey with the birth of modern sport and its development, hand-in-hand, with technology. But performances are starting to plateau. And even with the occasional Usain Bolt mixing things up, world records are going to become rare in some of our sports. Now athletes don't like that, audiences don't like that, and the ruling bodies don't like that. Sports engineering will hold the balance between the world of the possible, that's Newton's laws, and the world of the allowed, that's the rules of sport. Now the rules of sport are completely arbitrary. They're steeped in tradition, but they do change. There were 300 ancient Olympic games lasting over 1,200 years. And in that time, we went from the sprint to chariot racing. So the science and engineering we're learning with today's sports will be used to develop those sports that we'll see in the 300th modern Olympic games 1,000 years from now.

Is Technology Made To Break?

In June 2016 technology journalists across the world broke the news that the new iPhone 7 will not come with 3.5mm headphone ports. Apple says this move would allow for a slimmer phone upon release in September 2016. However this new phone is being released mere months after the release of the Apple SE, and a year after the 6s, leaving 3.5 mm headphones essentially useless. This rapid turnover of products has led to claims that the technology industry is intentionally sabotaging their old products in order to get consumers to make new purchases. Without this planned obsolescence, the release of a new product every six months would be ruinous. So can it be true? Is technology really made to break? The term Dynamic Obsolescence was first coined in 1924 when General Motors boss Alfred P. Sloan Jr. suggested a yearly overhaul of car design. The market was saturated, and he wanted to break stagnating sales. Independent car manufacturers couldn’t afford to re-invent every year. Meanwhile, those who didn’t adopt annual redesigns were quickly outpaced as people rushed to buy the latest model. Yet the policy which effectively stifled smaller competitors was embraced by American real-estate broker Bernard London in 1932 as a means of ending the Great Depression. In his essay Ending the Depression through Planned Obsolescence, London stated that economic depressions were driven by the desire to save caused by a decline in buying power. This was man-made, and the solution according to London, should also be man made. Specifically, he said we should impose obsolescence on consumer goods in order to encourage a continuous cycle of consumerism and growth. This can take the form of deliberately degradable parts, a prevention of tampering or repairs or programmed and style obsolescence. An early example of this behaviour was the “Phoebus Cartel” of the Twenties. Light bulb manufacturers agreed to reduce the lifetime of their products to 1,000 hours after they realised more money could be made by making them disposable. Today, Apple is accused of employing these tactics In 2013 when the iOS 7 update was pushed out across the board, many people complained of poorer performance from their iPhones. Catherine Rampell of the New York Times called an analyst to explain this mystery. They told her that the update was being given to older models free of charge to drain their limited life batteries and force users to either buy a new battery or upgrade their phone. The same allegedly happened with the iPhone 3GS and the iOS6 update. Apple have consistently denied deliberately shortening the lives of their products to encourage customers to buy an expensive upgrade. Yet a study conducted by Harvard student Laura Trucco found that Internet searches for the term “iPhone slow” spiked dramatically before the release of a new iPhone model. A similar study of Samsung Galaxy products concluded that there was little correlation between their new product releases and deteriorating products. So is there any point to this behaviour aside from rampant greed on the part of the manufacturers? While certain companies deny planned obsolescence, there are compelling reasons behind the need for such a practise. Manufacturers have stated that consumers are requesting more and more elegant designs. This means that devices are much more delicate than the purely functional styles of the early 2000s. By reacting to changes in fashion and attitudes, companies can be said to simply be reacting to public demand, which is the cornerstone of capitalist societies. And batteries that can’t be removed can be seen as a means of preventing user tampering, which could damage the product. Constant production creates jobs that otherwise wouldn’t be required and inspires technological innovations to meet demand for digital gadgets. And for cheaper items such as children’s clothes, durable clothes are not as important as a child will likely grow out of them within 6 months. So examiners of the practise, such as author Giles Slade, say that while it can be seen as greedy by the public, planned obsolescence has benefited the consumer and the company. However, Planned Obsolescence is not just a threat to consumers’ wallets. Increased production means an increased need for resources to produce. In electronics, this has resulted in increased demand for rare earths such as Dysprosium and has caused a global shortage. These metals, according to the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, cannot be replaced and are vital components to our modern digital life. In countries where such minerals are mined, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, wars have been waged over the rights to the mines. And working conditions in mines are substandard. Worse still increased waste from disposable goods has dire environmental consequences. So while planned obsolescence may be a great idea for a company's balance sheet, the toll paid by the planet could be much, much higher.

Forget Wi-Fi. Meet the new Li-Fi Internet | Harald Haas

Translator: Alina Siluyanova Editor: Yulia Kallistratova I want to show to the public for the first time the ability to transfer video standard LED lamp on the photovoltaic cell using a laptop as a receiver. It does not need a Wi-Fi, only light. The question may arise: "What is it?" And it is necessary that's why: Internet incredibly expanded, to reduce the "digital divide" and make possible what we call the "Internet of things" - tens of millions of devices connected to the Internet. In my view, such an extension is possible only if, that it requires virtually no energy expenditure. This means that it is necessary to make maximum use of existing infrastructure. That was then, and will need a photocell and LED. At the TED conference in 2011 I first showed Li-Fi, from the words of Light Fidelity [«Light fidelity"]. For rapid data Li-Fi uses the normal LED, wherein the transmission is safe and secure. The data is transmitted by means of light, encrypted subtle changes in brightness. If you look back, you will see how many LEDs around, and therefore, already exists a rich infrastructure transmitters Li-Fi. Until now, we have used a special device - a mini-photodetectors - to obtain encrypted information. I wanted to find a way to use the existing infrastructure as well, to receive data from our Li-Fi light sources. That's why I drew attention to the solar cells and solar panels. Photocell absorbs light and converts it into electrical energy. That is why they can be used to recharge the phone. But here we must remember, that the data is encrypted in minor changes in the brightness of the LED, which means that if the incoming light is constantly changing, the same happens with the energy collected from this photocell. So, the main mechanism for transmitting information by light through the solar cell is available, after all collected energy change match transmitted data. Of course, the question arises: whether it is possible to capture rapid and subtle changes in brightness, emitted by the LED lamp? Answer: Yes, you can. In the laboratory, we have shown, that the amount of information you can get up to 50 megabytes per sekudnu from conventional standard LEDs that faster than most existing broadband connections. Now we show in practice. This box is ordinary LED lamp. It - standard photocell. It is connected to the notebook. Also here we have the appliance to visualize the energy collected from the solar cell. The device has shown activity. This is because the cell is now collects the scattered light. Now I first turned on the lights that's such a simple movement long. Notice how the needle jumped to the right. Currently photocell It collects energy from this artificial light source. If you turn off the light, the arrow goes back to zero. Again I turn. So we collect energy from a photocell. Now I begin to broadcast video. To do this, I just hit this button here. Now our LED transmits video imperceptible to us by changes in brightness, who did not catch the naked eye, since changes too fast to notice them. But to prove to you the work of the theory, I will hedge solar cell from light. You immediately notice that the collection of energy stopped, and the video stopped. If you remove the barrier, the video starts again. (Applause) Actions can be repeated. So we stop the broadcast of video, and the collection of energy also stops. This proves that the cell acts as a receiver. Now imagine that the LED - street light, shrouded in mist. To simulate fog I brought a handkerchief. (Laugh) I do I cover the photocell with a handkerchief. The first thing you notice, that the collection of energy stopped, as expected, but the video is still working. This means that despite the lock enough energy is supplied through the handkerchief on the photocell, which allows it to decode and play back information in this case, high-definition video. It is important to note that the cell turned into a receiver High speed wireless signals encoded in the light, while fulfilling its primary function and device for collecting energy. It is therefore possible to use existing solar cells on the roof as a broadband receiver from the laser station on the next hill or, as in the example of the streetlamp. It does not matter exactly where the light beam photocell concerns. It is truth too and translucent solar cells embedded into the window, photovoltaic cells installed on street furniture or on billions of different devices, which form the Internet of Things. After all, we simply I do not want to charge them regularly or worse, replace the batteries every few months. As I said, Today, I first demonstrated this in public. This laboratory demonstration prototype. But my team and I are confident that we can promote our message to the market over the next two to three years. And we hope that we can help reduce the digital divide, as well as contribute to billion devices connect to the Internet. And all this without causing massive increase in energy consumption. On the contrary - we use solar cells. Thank you.

Is there a limit to technological progress? - Clément Vidal

Many generations have felt they've reached the pinnacle of technological advancement, yet look back 100 years, and the technologies we take for granted today would seem like impossible magic. So will there be a point where we reach an actual limit of technological progress? And if so, are we anywhere near that limit now? Half a century ago, Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev was asking similar questions when he came up with a way to measure technological progress, even when we have no idea exactly what it might look like. Anything we do in the future will require energy, so Kardashev's scale classifies potential civilizations, whether alien civilizations out there in the universe or our own, into three levels based on energy consumption. The tiny amount of energy we currently consume pales next to what we leave untapped. A Type I, or planetary civilization, can access all the energy resources of its home planet. In our case, this is the 174,000 terawatts Earth receives from the Sun. We currently only harness about 15 terawatts of it, mostly by burning solar energy stored in fossil fuels. To approach becoming a Type I civilization, we would need to capture solar energy more directly and efficiently by covering the planet with solar panels. Based on the most optimistic models, we might get there within just four centuries. What would be next? Well, the Earth only gets a sliver of the Sun's energy, while the rest of its 400 yottawatts is wasted in dead space. But a Type II, or stellar civilization, would make the most of its home star's energy. Instead of installing solar panels around a planet, a Type II civilization would install them directly orbiting its star, forming a theoretical structure called a Dyson sphere. And the third step? A Type III civilization would harness all the energy of its home galaxy. But we can also think of progress in the opposite way. How small can we go? To that end, British cosmologist John Barrow classified civilizations by the size of objects they control. That ranges from mechanical structures at our own scale, to the building blocks of our own biology, down to unlocking atoms themselves. We've currently touched the atomic level, though our control remains limited. But we potentially could go much smaller in the future. To get a sense of the extent to which that's true, the observable universe is 26 orders of magnitude larger than a human body. That means if you zoomed out by a factor of ten 26 times, you'd be at the scale of the universe. But to reach the minimum length scale, known as the Planck length, you would need to zoom in 35 times. As physicist Richard Feynman once said, "There's plenty of room at the bottom." Instead of one or the other, it's likely that our civilization will continue to develop along both Kardashev and Barrow scales. Precision on a smaller scale lets us use energy more efficiently and unlocks new energy sources, like nuclear fusion, or even antimatter. And this increased energy lets us expand and build on a larger scale. A truly advanced civilization, then, would harness both stellar energy and subatomic technologies. But these predictions weren't made just for us humans. They double as a possible means of detecting intelligent life in the universe. If we find a Dyson sphere around a distant star, that's a pretty compelling sign of life. Or, what if, instead of a structure that passively soaked up all the star's energy, like a plant, an alien civilization built one that actively sucked the energy out of the star like a hummingbird. Frighteningly enough, we've observed super dense celestial bodies about the size of a planet that drain energy out of a much bigger star. It would be much too premature to conclude that this is evidence of life in the universe. There are also explanations for these observations that don't involve alien life forms. But that doesn't stop us from asking, "What if?"

Top 10 Modern Technologies That Are Actually Ancient

10. Flamethrowers The flamethrower is thought to have been invented in 1901 by Richard Fielder as a petroleum weapon. It was first used in World War 1. But 1300 years earlier, the Byzantine Empire was already using a unique weapon that could burn on water, called Greek Fire. They used it as a naval flamethrower to set enemy ships ablaze. Modern scholars speculate that it was made using petroleum and sulfur, but exactly how it worked remains a mystery. By the 1950s, the US army was using a similar explosive weapon that also used petroleum. It was called Napalm and was infamously used to burn down jungles during the Vietnam War. 9. Plastic surgery Modern plastic surgery was developed by Sir Harold Gillies [Gil leys] in 1917. He used skin grafting to treat the facial burn injuries of Walter Yeo, who was horrifically wounded in World War 1. But plastic surgery dates back to at least 3,000 BC. Ancient Egyptians actually introduced the practice of nasal reconstruction, as documented in the Edwin Smith Papyrus. This was often done to rebuild thieves’ noses, which were cut off as a punishment for stealing. 8. Vending machine Vending machines were first introduced in late 19th Century London to dispense postcards and books. But the vending machine has a 2,000-year history. In the 1st Century, the Greek physicist Hero created coin-operated machines that dispensed holy water in temples. A coin placed in the machine’s slot would push down on a lever, releasing water, until the coin would eventually fall off. These were introduced to stop worshipers from taking more holy water than they were paying for. Today vending machines dispense everything from burritos in Los Angeles, to mashed potato in Singapore, and even schoolgirls’ used panties in Japan. 7. Alarm Clocks The invention of the alarm clock is usually accredited to Levi Hutchins. [Lee Vy] [Hut chins] In 1787 he created a clock that made an alarm sound every day at 4am. But around 440 BC in Ancient Greece, the philosopher Plato used a water clock to wake him up for his lectures. Plato’s water clock resembled an hourglass that gradually filled up with water through various tubes and siphons. When these vessels filled up quickly, they would produce a whistling sound, waking the sleeper up. 6. Earthquake detector In 1875 the Italian scientist Filippo Cecchi [Phil-lee-po] [Check key] invented the modern seismograph to detect earthquakes. This consisted of two vibrating pendulums and a large metal coil. But the lifesaving practice of predicting earthquakes began almost 2,000 years ago, when Chinese inventor Zhang Heng [Ja ang] [Heng] created the very first seismoscope in 132 AD. Zhang’s seismoscope was a 1.8m bronze vessel, ornamented with dragons. When an earthquake was detected, a small bronze ball would drop from the mouth of a dragon into the vessel, acting as an alarm. Six years after inventing the device, Zhang used it to detect a magnitude 7 earthquake 2,500 km away in the Gansu Province. 5. Automatic doors In 1954, American entrepreneurs Dee Horton and Lew Hewitt were inspired to create automatic doors to combat the problem of swing doors in windy weather. But in 50 BC, Hero of Alexandria had already beaten them to it, designing an automatic door for temples. When Priests lit a fire on the door altar, it caused pressure to build up in a brass vessel. This activated a water pump, which displaced the mechanism’s weight, causing a series of ropes and pulleys to slide the temple doors open. 4. Batteries The history of the battery is often traced back to 18th Century Italian scientist Luigi Galvani. He discovered that when he attached 2 pieces of metal to the legs of a dead frog, the legs would twitch, indicating the presence of electricity. Inspired by Galvani’s experiment, physicist Alessandro Volta built a crude battery in 1799, which consisted of copper zinc disks and cardboard, soaked in acid. But this wasn’t the first. In 1938 an archaeologist discovered a clay pot in Baghdad, containing a copper cylinder and an iron rod. These are thought by some archeologists to be an early battery from 200 BC. They’ve been dubbed the ‘Baghdad Batteries’, but expert on Iraqi archaeology, Professor Elizabeth Stone, stated that she does not know a single archaeologist who believed that these were batteries. However, in 2005 Mythbusters proved that the artifact could produce 4 volts of electricity when acidic solution was added to the iron electrodes in the vessel. And this charge that would have been strong enough to electroplate coins or jewelry. 3. The computer In 1900 a 2000-year-old machine known as the Antikythera [Anti-kithera] mechanism was discovered in a shipwreck. For more than 100 years, scientists were mystified as to the purpose of this highly complex and ancient device, which was comprised of intricate bronze cogs and dials. Today it’s theorized that this is an analog computer created by the ancient Greeks to determine astronomical positions, eclipses, and the dates of Olympic games. Another mechanism of the same complexity wouldn’t be made for another 1,500 years, when in 1834 scientist Charles Babbage devised the first ever mechanical computer, an analytical engine that calculated mathematical functions. Measuring 3 meters long and weighing 5 tons, Babbage’s device is quite a contrast to Apple’s 28-cm, 1kg MacBook air. 2. Death ray In 2007 the US military unveiled the Active Denial System. This weapon releases highly focused particle beams as hot as 50C, that are capable of inflicting 2nd degree burns. But in 212 BC the Greek physicist Archimedes had already invented a death ray. He used highly polished copper to reflect sunlight onto approaching ships, causing them to catch fire. In 2004 Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters tried and failed to replicate Archimedes’ death ray, as they couldn’t achieve the 593C temperature needed to ignite the ship. But 1 year later, researchers at MIT University managed to set an oak ship ablaze after just 10 minutes of reflecting sunlight onto it. 1. Robots The first electronic autonomous robots were created by William Grey Walter in 1948. Shaped like tortoises, the robots were capable of re-locating their recharging station when they ran low on battery power. But the existence of robotics dates back 2,000 years to the ancient Greek engineer Hero of Alexandria. Hailed as the first roboticist, Hero engineered steam-powered automatons to put on theatrical performances for audiences. The robots could be programmed to do specific tasks and then left to themselves to complete the work, using a system of pulleys, carts, and rotating cylinders.

Volvo Trucks - New technology prevents accidents by making trucks “more human”

more cyclists, pedestrians and vehicles must share the roads, resulting in difficult and sometimes dangerous traffic situations. Volvo Trucks has now developed an entirely new technology which could eliminate the risk of accidents completely. This unique system is able to analyse and respond to a truck's surroundings. The technology allows a 360-degree scan of everything that happens in the vehicle's environment. The truck then analyses the traffic around it. It also makes it possible to predict up to five seconds ahead what surrounding objects, like people, cyclists and other vehicles, will do, even when moving. In a turn, a truck driver's field of view can be limited on the passenger side of the vehicle, but here the system detects the approaching cyclist and warns the driver. If the driver doesn't stop, the truck brakes for him. By alerting the driver to risks and, when needed, taking over control of the vehicle, the system helps eliminate human error and the risk of accidents. The system will be ready for the market in five to ten years' time.

15 Futuristic Technologies You'll See In Your Lifetime

• From the possible colonisation of other worlds to clothes that will automatically clean themselves when you step into sunlight, we count 15 technological advances predicted by wise minds for the future of our species within the next 50 years or so 15 - Autonomous Robots, • This is one that could go very well, or destroy human life as we know it - robots capable of performing independent functions to help mankind • We already have this technology to a small degree in missiles and helicopters that can automatically fly themselves, and despite wide protest to stop the development of machines that can fight wars for us Skynet-style, it's highly possible we may turn to this technology to prevent human lives being wasted on the battlefield • Just imagine an arms race producing death robots of greater and greater magnitude, stronger and smarter than human beings with each passing model 14 - Moon Colonisation, • You might turn around to say, well, what's the point of building a moon-base when there's nothing on it and no point being there? • In 2009 the LCROSS probe discovered ice that can be melted down into water near the lunar south pole, catapulting the possibility and opportunities of a permanent expedition to the Moon • An international group of companies and governments are already building concept plans for a moon base that'll use resources of the moon to expand the sphere of human influence, and though it'll take time, you can almost guarantee we'll have a permanent human prescience on the Moon just as we do in space with the International Space Station 13 - Replicators, • Sure we already have 3D printers and we can already create a vast number of useful things, but in the next 10 years alone you're going to start to see them create things like a Star Trek replicator • Soon they'll be as inexpensive as a HDTV, one in every home, download blueprints from the internet to create a birthday cake or a Rolex watch - even car parts providing you need them • It even has uses in practical medicines - imagine the day when you can download and print organs you need to replace, or even sooner than that, build prescription medicine using a basic formula from inside your own home 12 - Longer Life, • In the last 50 years alone, the average life expectancy has gone up from 65 to 75 with dramatic rises as you look back further to the beginning of basic medicine • With nanotechnology, little robots swimming through your bloodstream fixing problems before they arise, that average could easily exceed 110, 50 years from today • Parents could choose their children's traits before they're even born, eliminate biological defects, but with longer life come social implications - if your life expectancy has doubled, what does it mean for a career, retirement, marriage - bearing children? Will people even WANT to stay in a single relationship for a hundred years anymore? 11 - Batteries, • Right now it's a massive problem in the industry that phone and laptop batteries can only last one or two days used frequently, but there's been some progress • Soon you'll be able to throw your phone in a bowl when you get home from work and it'll wirelessly charge it - you'll also find flexible batteries used for wearable wrist screens • But most importantly, a team of researchers at the Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory has started testing batteries that could last well over 50 years with one charge - not only a revolution for smartphones, but also pacemakers, removing the need for surgery every 10 years and instead allow it to last an entire lifetime • The best part? This technology isn't even that far off, you'll start hearing about it in the next 10 years 10 - Drinkable Ocean Water, • Of course, this won't mean our oceans will be transformed into desalted drinking water - that'd kill a huge amount of underwater species • But the ability to build solar power plants that can strip the salt from ocean water using residual heat en masse, providing drinkable water for regions of the world currently experiencing droughts without running out because, well, you have the entire ocean to work with • You might even see this technology come out in 20-30 years, and though it won't solve hunger problems at least it'll quench our thirsts till 3D printers can cook us up a roast ham using sawdust and toothpicks 9 - Self-Cleaning Clothes, • Engineers in China have already developed a coating for clothes that will eliminate stains and odour-producing bacteria, and all you have to do is step into the sun • In South Korea they've eliminated the need to use detergent, by instead getting you to dunk your clothes into a tank filled with robotic fish who clean them for you • The fish robots are able to detect dirt and grime on clothes using sensors, whereupon they will suck the grime from your clothes and squirt jelly to absorb dirt, which also prevents oxidation and discolouration 8 - Fat Pill, • It's possible in the next 10 to 20 years that we might be able to swallow a pill that will stop us from getting fat based on what we eat • Of course, it won't stop us from getting lazy or unfit, but for those with obesity problems and eating disorders it may be a lifesaver - genetically modified rats are already able to eat and eat and never gain weight, it's simply a matter of transferring it to humans • If we're able to control weight, we might use the same technology to treat or eliminate diseases affecting our bodies 7 - Invisible Computers, • Over the years, we've seen technology get smaller and smaller - micro SD cards sold dirt cheap at high capacity, phones the size of a fingernail • Eventually we'll reach the point where they'll be so small, and so powerful in terms of computing that we won't even see them - they'll be in our clothes, inside rings, watches and contact lenses with no need for keyboard input • We're already on the verge of a wearable computing age, but within 50 years our lives will be so intertwined with technology that you won't even be able to take a dump without robots being involved 6 - Memory Storage, • With Google Glass and similar products slowly starting to appear, we're going to see a massive advance in the realm of image and video storage • Just imagine you're watching your kid take his first steps and you realise you didn't have time to record it, well, the tech built into your head will have automatically done it for you • Instead of trying to remember a thing that happened, you simply access the file on that date and time and watch a highlight reel of it - it'll be like smartphone recording only 10x more efficient 5 - Cancer, • One would HOPE that cancer will be a thing of the past 50 years from now, but you can't deny it's a pretty uphill battle with some researchers claiming it'll never be cured because of the way humans are naturally built • But what we look to are better treatments, less invasive medicine - which may come in the form of chemotherapy nanoparticles, mini robots that will heavily reduce pain and side effects • Not only that, but it'll even make the treatment more effective specifically tracking and eliminating dangerous cells which may continue to grow in your body 4 - Reversing Climate Change, • Despite all the warning signs of climate change running rampant the world over, society as a whole hasn't taken enough steps to prevent permanent damage down the line • What we CAN do is manually reduce it for ourselves by geoengineering projects to reduce carbon emissions in our atmosphere, to literally suck the fumes we produce in our daily lives out of the sky and render them harmless • Basic plans have already begun, which also include artificial trees and ocean fertilisation but the projects haven't been backed on an international scale as of yet 3 - Digital Existence, • We can't anticipate what leaps and bounds technology will undertake in the next 50 years, I mean just look at virtual reality - we thought he had it back in 1995, but even today 20 years later we're only barely tapping the potential • If you've watched the movie Transcendence starring Johnny Depp, you'll understand what I mean by a digital existence where you take the human brain and upload it to a cloud service, effectively making you immortal • There's a hefty chance 50 years is a bit generous in discovering this technology, but what you WILL see are the first whisperings of it - plans and tests, followed by mice getting successfully uploaded to a cloud some time later, then monkeys, then humans, followed by expensive procedures and eventually a wide rollout - providing we can map the quadrillion connections between all the brain's neurons first • Until then, get your cryogenic chambers ready - you're gonna need 'em 2 - App Doctors, • These technically already exist, but they haven't been adopted into mainstream medicine yet - exactly what it sounds like, an app that can detect what is wrong with you and prescribe medication • It'll measure your heart rate, respiration, saliva and blood tests too - basic functions that'll get more advanced as technology moves forward • The reason they aren't used professionally is because the medical industry don't feel they've gotten quite to the point of being officially used - you don't want to measure someone's face and prescribe them anti-stupid pills when they're fine 1 - Dark Matter • It accounts for over 23 percent of the universe, but we can't see what it is, but maybe within 20 years or so we'll have the technology to unlock its secrets • The reason we know about it is because we can see the magnetic field in space pulling everything towards it and yet we can't identify the source • Some suggest our universe exists inside the ring of a supermassive black hole slowly pulling us towards the center, and that multiple realities exists when you cross the event horizon found in the center • Whatever the answer, we'll be one step closer to discovering the mystery behind our universe.

No Job is Safe from Technology, with Andrew McAfee

The median American worker doesn’t do manual labor anymore. The average American worker is not a ditch digger. But they’re also not doing incredibly high end particle physics or data science. They are what you’d call the somewhat routine knowledge worker. That is right in the sweet spot of where technology is making its greatest inroads. And a good example of that is a tax preparer. That’s someone who has mastered a very complicated American tax code but they do the same thing over and over. They apply that code to an individual person. That’s recently become fairly easy to automate and automate very well. So now a lot of us find a $40 program like TurboTax completely adequate for our needs. That’s great news for two out of three constituencies. That’s great news for us as consumers. We get very good tax advice at a lower price point. It’s really good news for the team at Intuit. They created a lot of value. They should be able to capture some of that value. The constituency that’s most negatively affected is the body of tax preparers out there. These are folk who are actually above average educated. They’ve been to college. They’ve been to an advanced degree. They’ve got a CPA. They’ve done the right thing. They’ve invested their human capital in an area they thought would lead to a long and productive career. And all of a sudden here comes a $40 piece of software that’s putting a lot of downward pressure on their wages. And the law has been another pretty high prestige, well paid, highly educated profession. There’s a lot of pressure in the legal industry these days. Law school applications – not per capita but raw law school applications are at their lowest level since the 1970s. There are a number of reasons for that. One of them is the fact that if you’re in a discovery process right now and you want to figure out what’s in the other guy’s documents, you no longer need to employ an army of lawyers to sit around and read boxes full of documents. Those boxes are now electronic folders full of electronic documents. And we’ve got a category of software called eDiscovery where you basically just tell it what you’re looking for, hit a button and milliseconds later you get back every instance of that pattern. If there’s a smoking gun in the documents it’s very likely to find it. The head-to-head comparisons that we’re able to do between the results of eDiscovery and the results of that army of lawyers sitting around and reading documents indicate that the eDiscovery actually gives you higher quality outcomes. So a lot of these trends are putting pressure not just on that classic median American worker but even on fairly highly educated, well paid ones like law. It’s always been the case that technology is an engine of what Joseph Schumpeter called creative destruction. The simultaneous destruction of old companies and industries and jobs and tasks and the creation of new ones. And that’s clearly going on right now. We see a lot of new creation of technologies, jobs, industries and professions. So data scientist is a very new job description. This is not just a statistician with a new business card. These are people who have really mastered a very diverse and important body of skills and they’re bringing them together to take advantage of the oceans of digital data that we have and really tremendous amounts of computational power. Not a job category that existed ten years ago but one that’s up there at the fairly high end of the skill distribution. It’s a pretty good example of this phenomenon of skill-biased technical change.

Future Military Technology: US Marines test new Future Weapons, Military Drones, Robots & Equipment

Future Military Technology: US Marines test new Future Weapons, Military Drones, Robots & Equipment. have video.

Top 5 Future Technology Inventions | 2019 - 2050

The Next Wave in Financial Technology

FACEBOOK TWITTER GOOGLE MS. BARKER: Ather, welcome and thanks for joining us. MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you for having me. MS. BARKER: In your role at Bank of America, you focus a lot on financial technology, otherwise known as FinTech. Can you firstly explain a bit about what that is exactly? MR. WILLIAMS: Sure. FinTech, or Financial Technology, is the sector of venture capital really focused on innovating in the space around payments and infrastructure traditionally owned by banks. So, thinking about whether it's in the securities side of the business or in payments and traditional banking, Fintech is about creating a digitized infrastructure for people to transact in. creating a digitized infrastructure for people to transact, and that's really been the focus of FinTech. And that investment has skyrocketed in the last couple of years. It's gone from about $4 billion about a year or two ago to about $12 billion in the most recent year. MS. BARKER: And what are some of the biggest trends you're seeing in payment technologies? MR. WILLIAMS: So, I think there's really three. So, real-time payments is sort of the thing of the day. So, that means that you can send and receive send a payment, receive confirmation in seconds versus the hours or minutes or days in some cases it takes today. That's sort of the first trend. The second trend is really the evolution of digital wallets and what I'll call alias based networks. The ability to send money to someone based on a unique identifier, a cell phone number or an email address, and do that through your mobile phone. The third I would say is the evolution of blockchain, which is the underpinning technology behind crypto-currencies. So instead of having a central counterparty where a bank sends money to say the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve looks for the bank that has an account there and puts the money in their account and they count a credit on to you, it's the ability for everyone to be in this network and to be able to track the history of an asset moving. MS. BARKER: There are a number of examples of how payment technologies and FinTech are helping people in underdeveloped areas of the world. Can you tell us a few? MR. WILLIAMS: Sure. I think the two major ways that come to mind are so, mobile technology and sort of I'll call it the connected economy or the shared economy, have driven the technologies to organize things. Whether that's organizing taxis or organizing apartments for rent. And so, you can apply that to banking and think about you've got people who have cash and people who need cash. and being able to connect them in the peer-to-peer lending or a crowd source funding kind of manner so you can invest in a business or an individual or a charity, and do that in a very low cost, high visibility way, a very transparent way has been fundamental. The second thing again is I think opening a different set of accounts for people to transact. So, that is the mobile wallet and people being able to have a bank account in a market where usually some of these emerging markets cash is not safe and that creates and promotes inclusion, which then brings you sort of into the commercial world. And we see that the next billion consumers are going to come from outside of the developed markets. And they're going to spend upwards of an incremental $18 trillion in the next 10 years. So, it's a huge opportunity but we need to provide them with the capabilities to enter into commerce. MS. BARKER: Ather, thanks so much for joining us. MR. WILLIAMS: You're welcome. Thank you.

This Motorcycle Won't Fall Over

Hello everyone and welcome. In this artical, we're going to be talking about Honda's new motorcycle technology, which they call Honda Riding Assist, which is used to help prevent the bike from falling over. And now, usually something like this would require gyroscopes, but Honda's solution is actually really simple and doesn't use any gyroscopes at all. So, if you think about sitting on a bike, or a bicycle in this example, basically, you don't really have any tools to help hold you up except, you know, shifting your weight, and then of course you can change the location of where you turn the handlebars. And so as you turn the handlebar, that's the exact same tool that Honda is using in order to help their bikes stay upright. Now, in order to understand how this technology works, we need to talk about trail length. So, there's two different trail lengths we're going to be talking about: positive trail length, and this is where the streering axis on the bike lies ahead of where the center of the tire is, and this is good for sporty riding, this is good for pretty much any riding at speed. And then there's something called negative trail length, and this is where the streering axis will lie behind the center of the tire. And so this is good for super low speeds to maintain stability. And so what these do is change how the bike moves when you pivot that streering axis. And so if you turn to the right with positve trail length if you turn that bike to the right it's going to want to turn into that, and fall into that corner. If you turn a negative trail length bike so you're sitting on a bike like this, you turn the wheel like that it's going to want to push you out this way. And so to understand how that works, we're looking down on top of the tire. So there's our center point that's actually touching the ground, and if you have positive trail length, that means your pivot point is going to be up here, so if you were to pivot up here, that's going to want to push that center this whole tire this direction, and so, obviously, if you're pushing the tire out that direction, it's going to want to make your bike fall over this way. So you turn the bike in, it pushes the bike it pushes the tire that direction and you fall over. The other side with negative trail length, if you have that center there, you're pivoting the tire this direction, so your'e going to try to turn it like that. You're going to try to push the tire that way, rather than, like, this way and so that's going to push your bike, of course, that way. And so if you're starting to fall over this direction, and you turn the bike in you turn those handles in you're going to push yourself back up. So a very simple demonstration here using a coaster and a sheet of paper. You can see that if we have positive trail length, so the pivot point is ahead of the center of the tire. If I rotate that, it's going to move the sheet of paper to the left. If we have negative trail length, so the pivot point is behind the center of the tire and you rotate it, you're going to move the sheet of paper to the right. So this is what Honda's actually doing with their bike. So they've got a simple setup. Here, you've got a variable sight angle system, which extends the front of the bike out. You've got a steer by wire system for low speeds and you've got the streering motor so that the computer can take over control. So the process is very simple. At low speeds, your handlebars are going to disconnect from the streering and a computer is going to take over and do those minute adjustments for you. So if the bike starts to tilt, it simply turns that wheel into that direction that the bike starts to fall, and it maintains the bike upright, so that it doesn't fall over. Now, this is a pretty cool technology and I can almost already read the comments of people saying, you know, "this is for people who have no idea what they're doing," but I can certainly think of scenarios you know, if you're older, if you're shorter, or if you just have a really heavy bike and you still want to ride and, you know, these things are working against you, there are certainly scenarios in which this can be beneficial and help make it easier for people. When you're standing there at a stop light or, you know, crawling at slow speeds in traffic and you don't want to worry about putting your foot down or things like that. You know, depending on if you're older, shorter, etc., how heavy the bike is... So I can certainly see the benefit of a system like this and it is really cool how simple the system is. So thank you guys for watching, and if you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below.

The Technology behind the Adaptive Series LED Motorcycle Headlight

It's not normal. This came directly form the minds of J.W. Speaker Engineers. And that's the facts. Motorcycle is a very interesting vehicle It's a half of the illumination of a car. Right now motorcycle to have an immense blind spot when you're leaning into the corner. The low beam pattern will tilt as your turning. Basically putting the foreground into darkness. Think of a raccoon, the damage that could do. Or a dear, as you go around a corner. All of a sudden there is something there that you need to be able see but you can't without our light. Something that you don't see your gonna hit for sure. On a motorcycle you can't have enough light. First time I heard adaptive and headlight same sentence I was immediately curious. I was how are we ever going to do this?! We had that idea a long time ago. The problem was the technology. The term adaptive light is particularly useful in this case because the light really adapts to how you would need it. Now technology finally enables you to see it better. Feel much more comfortable when your ride. We use sensors inside to detect how the motorcycles moving and it kind of projects where you gonna be and where you're going to need the light. Then it turns on different elements. That's our technology. That's a know how for a motorcycle. The second you start to lean a little bit, go around a curve or hit something really sharp... The area that would normally be black by the flood pattern is illuminated. It's not just simply switching on and off. You're doing that will perceive as destructive. I think the highest compliment we received was, "You didn't notice it was there, but then once you took it away man you missed it!" This lamp is a very special lamp. It's the first of its kind that actually makes the ride safer, more enjoyable, it's fun to use, it's beautiful! It has the the wide spread of our standard J.W. Speaker headlamps, it has the hot spot and the punch for down the road with the high beam, and then on top of that we’ve added the vehicle dynamics where it’s responding to the corning of the motorcycle. People are going to be clamoring to get their hands on these lamps. Nothing like this has ever been brought to market. We want to be the leader. We want to be the first and we want to increase the safety. There isn't a competitive product. There's nothing even close. Everybody's can be showing off to their friends, look at this amazing light I have. Once you ride it, it's hard to go back. Other lamps just point their light down the road Our lamp we can actually direct exactly where the rider needs it. Once people see them in use and and drive behind them, they sell themselves. So... it's kind of a big deal To get the adaptive lighting from an OE means replacing the vehicle. In this case you can actually bring those the existing vehicle to current technology with just the replacement headlight. There's nothing else out that looks like this. People are saying I want this. There's the guys that are looking for the technology, looking for... have had a bad experience, maybe had a close call an accident. They really understand the importance of lighting on a motorcycle. If you can get those guys they will bring everybody else with them. It's completely innovative, new. The potential is huge. Everybody is going to want one. This is a game-changer. Nobody else has this. It's... it's huge! It's going to blow everybody's minds.

5 Bike Inventions That Will Make Bike Thieves Jobless

- Bikes are stolen like a lot. Two every minute, over a million every year, and that's just what's reported. That's why we're so excited to bring you Linka, the world's first auto-unlocking smart bike lock. Linka can do a lot of cool things, but at its core, it's a powerful lock that's hard mounted to your frame, so you're always ready. When you're ready to lock up, just tap the button, and a hardened steel ring slides into place, making it impossible to ride away. So now that your bike's locked, if someone tries picking it up, Linka has a built-in accelerometer that automatically triggers a siren stopping the thief in their tracks while simultaneously sending a tamper alert directly to your phone so you know what's up. Now, what makes a Linka a smart lock is its ability to recognize who you are and automatically unlock as you approach. Of course, you can always unlock it with your smartphone or for phoneless access you can press your four-digit passcode. So if you want to lock your bike to something, add on a Linka chain and just lock up to an existing bike rack. If you already have a chain or a U-lock, then you're all set. Inside Linka is a really powerful battery. You can get up to one whole year before your next charge, and the Linka app notifies you when your battery is low, so you never really have to think about it. So about the app. Not only does it auto-unlock Linka, send tamper alerts, and track battery usage. We're really excited to introduce our theft indicator map. The app tracks reported stolen bikes in your area and warns you of dangerous locations. We'll even recommend a safer place to park. (light music) - [Voiceover] This is John. Like 63% of all bicycle users, John had his bicycle stolen, and it keeps happening. - Ugh, not again. (sighs) - [Voiceover] Bicycle locks today are really old-fashioned. They're heavy, poorly designed, and have terrible value for money. Imagine John could take out his smartphone and locate his bicycle while the thief is on the run. We have invented the first GPS-tracked, siren-alarmed, sensor-enabled bicycle lock. (upbeat music) Best of all, there's no key. It is fully remote controlled with your smartphone. So, how does it work? With Lock 8, John can secure his bicycle easily with a swipe of his finger on the app, or he can simply walk away to activate the alarm with or without the cable. Now John's bike is safe. When a thief tries to tamper with the lock, it will trigger a painfully loud alarm since the cable is wired. And you immediately receive a push notification on your mobile phone, which allows you to react quickly. If he attempts to hammer it off or if he uses a saw, the vibration sensor will also trigger the alarm. Freezing Lock 8 or attempting to melt it will be useless since the device also has a thermometer, which will trigger the alarm in case of an abrupt change in temperature. With the community alarm feature, you can add other people so that they also receive the push notification in case you're away. You can locate, share, borrow, and lend bikes. With Lock 8, you can send an electronic key to your friends on Facebook and allow them to use your bike anywhere, anytime. ("The Heart" by Needtobreathe) - [Voiceover] At Noke, we thought the lock industry could use a little shaking up, so we created the Noke padlock, the world's first smart padlock. Noke has won numerous awards and has been recognized as a game-changing innovation. However, some people need an extra level of protection, so we created the Noke U-lock. Incorporating all the cutting-edge technology used in the original Noke into a practically indestructible hardened steel body, the Noke U-lock will protect your bicycle or motorbike in the toughest environments while also giving you easy access using only your smartphone. Available with an app for iOS, Android, and Windows phones, the Noke U-lock uses wireless Bluetooth technology. When clicked, it automatically looks for a phone with a compatible key and unlocks. You don't even need to remove your phone from your pocket or purse. Just click and go. No more worrying about lost keys or forgotten combinations. Sharing your bike with others is easy. With just a couple taps, you can quickly and securely share your bike with your friends. Even better, you can revoke access automatically without needing to track down keys. The Noke U-lock incorporates a long life rechargeable battery that will last several years between charges, but we wanted the Noke U-lock to do even more, so we added an alarm. After locking Noke, hold down the button to arm the alarm function. If someone tampers with your Noke for more than three seconds, a loud alarm will shriek for 30 seconds, drawing attention and likely scaring off the intruder. The alarm function resets every time you open Noke. The history function in the app shows you who, when, and where Noke was used. What if your phone dies or is lost? Not a problem. Just key in your custom quick click code. This ensures that you'll never be left stranded. In the unlikely event that you ignore the warning in the app and let your battery die, you can always give Noke a jump start with an external battery. Finally, maybe you don't have a smartphone or prefer to bike without it. We've got you covered. Just add the optional key fob to your order, and you'll be able to access Noke with or without your smartphone. - Sure, it looks like a typical U-lock. Yes, you use it to lock up your bike, and, yes, it's as strong as any lock on the market, but Skylock is a lot more. You know what keyless entry is, right? Like when someone unlocks their car just by walking up to it. Well, Skylock is keyless entry for your bike. It uses always on Bluetooth LE to connect to your phone so you can lock and unlock your bike with a tap of a button. And thanks to Skylock's solar panel, its battery never runs out. Ordinarily, I wouldn't leave my bike unattended for even an hour, but Skylock isn't ordinary. It has a built-in anti-theft feature. I just log Skylock into my local Wi-Fi network, and it sends me an alert if anything or anyone disturbs my bike. (beep) (slurping) Skylock uses its built-in accelerometer to monitor all movement when you're not around, and you can adjust the sensitivity to make sure there's an actual threat. You don't even need to tap a button to unlock Skylock. You can set it to use your proximity to unlock. (click) Or if you don't have your phone, just enter a code using the capacitive touch pad. Let's talk safety. (bang) (thud) Skylock knows when you've been in an accident and will check to make sure you're okay. (beep) If you're not okay, it'll alert the authorities. Help is on the way. Your bike can be out getting use even when you're not riding it because Skylock makes bike-sharing super easy. You can give anyone with a smartphone access to your Skylock instantly, securely. - [Woman] See you later, boo boo. (upbeat music) (click) (rhythmic electronic music) - [Voiceover] It's time to get rid of your bike key. One less thing to carry and no more lost keys or endless searches to find them because Bitlock is replacing your bike key with your smartphone. To use Bitlock, simply walk up to your bike and press the button on Bitlock to open it. Bitlock senses your proximity and knows who you are. You don't even have to touch your phone. It works like magic. When you reach your destination, simply press the button on Bitlock again to lock your bike, and walk away from it. Bitlock disables itself once you get three feet away. Alternatively, you can lock and unlock Bitlock directly from the app. Every time you interact with Bitlock, your bike location is bookmarked using your phone's GPS, so you'll never forget where you parked.

BEST CAR TECH UNDER $20 (February 2017 Deals)

- I have the top three car gadgets from Bluetooth wireless streaming, to a few other LED surprises, and a giveaway all coming right up. (cash register dings) (upbeat xylophone music) Hi I'm the YouTube Deal Guy, Matt Granite. Welcome to your one-stop shop for savings. I'm here, as many of the amazing subscribers know, for you every day to save you more cash than anyone else in the country. All of the deals I find are the lowest recorded prices and I give everything I test away for free. At the end of this video I am giving away a $50 MSRP, usually sells for about 40 bucks, Bluetooth streaming system for your car that I tested at the Consumer Electronics Show. But I'm searching today for the less expensive alternatives, a way to bring hands-free calling to your car, and also one of my favorite LED car hook gadgets. So many of you missed this particular deal that I did with intern Casey, I believe it was two weeks ago. Why? The YouTube notification system did not work. No alerts went out and many of you did not know this deal was even featured, so I'm revisiting it one more time at under $7. And then finally, just to pair with that, one of the most awesome car charging systems with an overcharge alert to make sure your iPad, or iPhone, or whatever smart device it is you are using, does not get ruined. That sold out when I featured it last year, it's back at its lowest recorded price. So we've got three things, three gadgets. And I want to begin before we get to this really cool awesome item, the FlexSMART X2 is a great way to bring Bluetooth streaming and hands-free calling to your vehicle using your car radio. But a lot of people don't want to go that route, and some of you have a headphone jack or an auxiliary in your vehicle. So let me show this to you up close. This is a simple system, you plug this into your auxiliary or headphone jack that many of you will see, if you do have a fairly recent car, usually right under your CD slot. Then you get some additional functionality to control your smartphone from this. You have a play and pause button right on the device itself, you have the ability to switch tracks or to change from one mode to the next, you have a charge slot, and you have a microphone. And I was really skeptical about the microphone audio quality tied to this, but as you can see from the ratings, not only is this an amazing grab, but our intern, Cody, did agree this did the job. - I don't have a smart car, I have a dumb truck and a dumb car, so-- - [Matt] Cody, don't be hard on it, it's a great vehicle. - I know, I'm sorry. But every time I talk to you, man, the audio quality through the speakers sounds amazing and what I like about it, I have my hands on the wheel and I could control my smartphone right from this device. - There are several models all basically made in the same factory with different brand names. I've listed my favorite at under 20 bucks located right under this video screen, a great grab. The second item I want to feature is my favorite car charger. It has an overcharge alert system, because keep in mind, many of us are plugging items that are $700 of value into our DC adapter, and this smart system not only charges faster but it shows you the type of charge being distributed. I put this to the test with our intern, Casey. - Yeah, just hanging out, charging two devices at once. - Which is great, yes, you can definitely get your tablet charged. This is now just starting to pick up its battery which is great, but you have the voltage indicator, so you know exactly what's going on. - And now I'm gonna plug this Samsung phone in to charge. - Now obviously this can handle, oh you got a new message from your mom. (Casey chuckles) - [Cameraman] Aww! - Tell her, send her my best. - Hi mama. - You can also plug in, iPhones, whatever it is, I have my Prime phone plugged in. The beep you hear now, registering a low voltage, it's informing us of that, which is great, that's a good way to know that this is not equipped with our ignition off. (car engine roars) There we go. No more low voltage. (Casey chuckles) You can see it goes up when we actually turn the ignition on, and again this is something that you would not have this information from any other charger. The lowest recorded price, the Quick Charge ports, it will not overcharge your device, which is great, you could charge an Apple, or Android, a Samsung, an iPhone, a tablet, an iPad, whatever it is you want to charge. And then you always know what's going on voltage-wise which is so key and something very rare to find at any price point, let alone one that's under 10 bucks. This deal, which is located right under the video screen, is an awesome grab. And third, but not last, but not least? Whatever it is, this is my favorite car hook, $7. These sold out and they are now back in stock. And many of you missed the notification. Let me quickly show this to you before our giveaway. Totally normal thing, we are in a live truck with a Michael Kors purse, two hooks and a lot of bags. But what's key about this live truck is the backseat has absolutely no storage options. So I'm merely gonna hook this on. Put this right over here. They clip on, they're firm, they're sturdy. - [Casey] I'll just hang up this purse right here. It's not mine but I wish it was 'cause it's Michael Kors. But it hangs up great. - [Matt] Hanging great. And then on the same type of thing, we could hang this bag right here, we could actually put a full backpack on top of it. And this would allow for groceries to go under the bags without everything getting on top of each other. - [Casey] I also like how these hooks have lights on them because it's great for seeing things that are in your bags. - Rather than give away something that's $15 in value, I wanted to go all the way up to the FlexSMART X2. And it is going to the next subscriber using TubeBuddy's random selection tool to find a subscriber who's commented in the last six months. Congratulations goes to Debbie Wolf, just email support@panha.ml or chenpanha88@gmail.com with your address so I can send you your freebie. That looks awkward but yes, you've won, and congratulations. And if you're reading right now and you're not yet subscribed, you never want to miss another giveaway.