Category Archives: Engineering

Chemistry, Consumer, Engineering, Gadgets, Green, How To, Materials, Science, Technology

Throwable Fire Extinguishers: You Had Me at “Fire Grenade”

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Disco ball and ceiling.
Products not recommended for disco infernos.

Fire is frightening and dangerous – that’s why they call it fire. So it’s a little strange that we have laws requiring us to stock canister extinguishers but not regulations requiring that we learn how, if or when to operate them. If you’re like most people, you probably don’t even know what kind of fire your extinguisher is rated for, and you likely have no idea when you last serviced or inspected the device, if ever.

Recently, a few companies have begun marketing new kinds of extinguishers, updated versions of fire grenades intended to make fighting fires as worry-free as possible. Lightweight and easy to use, they rely on the most basic of human skills: throwing. Which raises the question:

How do throwable fire extinguishers work?

Auto, Computing, Consumer, Culture, Engineering, Forensics, Gadgets, Internet, Law, Psychology, Technology, Top 10

The Internet of Things…that Go Bump in the Night

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An artist's rendering of the Internet of Things.
Drawing by wilgengebroed.

As sci-fi and techno-horror flicks are fond pointing out, the future is chock-full of things that want to kill us. Yep, our own technological progeny want to consign us to the great bit-bucket in the sky but, hey, at least we were warned, right?

Well, sure, if we had any intention of heeding these cinematic Cassandras. Think about it: The Terminator warns us about Skynet, so what do we do? We set to work on autonomous drones. Christine  frightens us with a possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury, so we get busy designing self-driving cars. It’s like we want to die.

And then there’s the Internet of Things: Trillions of everyday objects exchanging data, everywhere, all the time, with only the most basic human oversight. Can’t wait to see how that one turns out.

10 Nightmare Scenarios From the Internet of Things

Computing, Consumer, Engineering, Materials, Technology

Rethinking the Black Box: Is it Time for Cloud Storage?

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Photo of two black boxes
Black boxes are neither black nor particularly boxy. Photo by Mrsocial99mfine.

The 2014 loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 revived a perennial argument among airline safety wonks: In the age of satellites, big data and cloud storage, why do we lock away essential flight data on a box that can go down with the plane? It wasn’t simply a question of losing the device, as nearly happened with the Air France Flight 447 crash five years earlier; it was the risk that, when we finally found it, the data we needed to understand the calamity might already have been erased.

Does the black box need a 21st-century update? And, if so, is cloud storage practical, affordable, reliable and secure enough to supplement or replace the status quo? In other words…

Should black box data be stored in the cloud?

Computing, Consumer, Engineering, Gadgets, Technology

Android Wear is Stalking You

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The much-ballyhooed Moto 360, one of the flagship Android Wear smart watches. Photo by Chris F.

Personal assistants who know all of your business might be fine in the halls of Downton Abbey or stately Wayne Manor, but there’s something a bit unsettling about their 21st century equivalents, smart watches. Chalk it up to working-class roots or incipient techno-paranoia, but many of us balk at a networked device that tracks our every habit, secret and preference like a cybernetic Mrs. O’Brien, particularly one built by a company with a burgeoning robot army and a secretive barge flotilla. Then again, they’re kind of cool…

How Android Wear Works

Astronomy, Engineering, History, Imaging, Physics, Science, Space, Technology

Mars in a Nutshell

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Think you know everything about Mars. eh?

We live in a golden age of Mars exploration, an era of unprecedented knowledge brought to us by ingenious rovers and probes. Already we have learned that our diminutive neighbor once held water and perhaps life. Future missions will help determine where that water went and seek evidence deep beneath the surface of living creatures. One day, we might even go there ourselves. But how much have you kept up on the latest developments?

How Mars Works