“technology is at last starting to enable something that was the dream of [Apple] from the very beginning—to make technology personal. So personal that you can wear it.” [...]

“Both the hand and the machine can produce things with exquisite care or with no care at all. But it’s important to remember that what was seen at one time as the most sophisticated technology eventually becomes tradition. There was a time when even the metal needle would have been seen as shocking and profoundly new." — vogue.com

The NYPD has used cell-site simulators, commonly known as Stingrays, more than 1,000 times since 2008, according to documents turned over to the [NYCLU]. The documents represent the first time the department has acknowledged using the devices.

The NYPD also disclosed that it does not get a warrant before using a Stingray, which sweeps up massive amounts of data. Instead, the police obtain a “pen register order” from a court... [which] do not require the police to establish probable cause... — theintercept.com

Stephen Lund considers the Canadian city of Victoria his canvas and a bicycle his brush. And the paint? Strava, a GPS tracking system which marks his routes with crimson lines.
So far, he has pedaled around in the shapes of critters such as an angler fish, giraffe, giant anteater, and nine-banded armadillo; mythical and interplanetary creatures such as the Siren of the Salish Sea, the Sea Serpent of Haro Strait, and the Dark Lord of the Sith. — atlasobscura.com

Robots will take over the courtyard of London’s V&A Museum this summer to build a pavilion inspired by flying beetles.

The installation – designed by architect Achim Menges – features an undulating canopy of tightly woven carbon fibre cells, drawing on the shells of insects called elytra. Visitors will also be able to watch the robots in action over the course of the summer as they continue to add new sections to the evolving ‘Elytra Filament Pavilion’. — the Spaces

[A former sanitation policy director for New York City, Ben] Miller is working with his partners at the planning firm Closed Loops, with funding from state grants, to bring pneumatic tubes to New York’s High Line.

Rather than rotting in landfills, carrot peels and apple cores from nearby restaurants could travel under the feet of unsuspecting tourists through pneumatic tubes hung below the elevated park. A small facility could turn them into compost right there in the neighborhood. — fusion.net

Shanna Tellerman wants to help you redecorate your home. She’s not a designer, furniture aficionado, or personal shopper. She’s the founder and CEO of a company called Modsy that rolls all of the aforementioned jobs into one mobile app to make redesigning a room easier (and more fun) [...]

What makes Modsy different from the handful of other home design tools out there is that it actually lets users see designs in the context of their own homes—and its renderings are utterly realistic. — Fast Company

An 80-storey ‘Dynamic Tower’ will be standing in Dubai by 2020 is everything goes to plan, architectural firm Dynamic Group has told us. When built it will be the world’s first skyscraper consisting of separate rotating floors attached to a central column, and inside there will be luxury apartments (natch).

If you’re wondering what a rotating skyscraper actually is, it’s very much as the name suggests. [...] control the rotation speed and direction of their apartment through voice activation. — whatson.ae

So 3D printing didn’t even have much of a chance before the railing began regarding fumes and toxicity and in general, the question of how sick we might be getting while the filament takes its time melting nearby...[A recent University of Texas at Austin] report seems to offer up fairly common sense information, although they do state that more studies should be done regarding exposure to fumes and potential carcinogens, and should be weighed against usage patterns while 3D printing. — 3dprint.com

[MIT's] team was awarded the top prize, and...Delft University of Technology from the Netherlands were the next runners-up. [...]

Musk took questions from the audience on everything from what inspired him to create the Hyperloop idea (being stuck in LA traffic), what advice he had for the winning teams (lots of dry runs), and what "crazy idea" he is working on next (electric jets — Musk says he thinks he's close to something, but said precious little about how they'd work). — theverge.com

Japanese researchers have developed a wearable chair called Archelis that can help surgeons when they are performing long surgeries. [...]

The wearer of Archelis will not get full comfort of sitting on a chair but the gadget actually wraps around the wearer's buttocks and legs, providing support that effectively allows them to sit down wherever and whenever needed. — techtimes.com

Most small manufacturers — a big chunk of the nation’s supply chain — are running older, pre-Internet equipment. “One of the issues we have to address,” said Harris, “is this legacy equipment.”

The digital thread can be hard to trace in an entrepreneur like Ellegiers’ plan to ship an app for making a desk, instead of a finished product. 

“Most shops are definitely not ready for this,” Ellegiers said. — marketplace.org

After staging [a 48-hr long continuous VR experience], [Thorsten] Wiedemann is convinced that “long period VR trips” are possible, and that current technology is sufficient for such purposes. The only problem was when he had a panic attack after the 25th hour, when he was pretty close to giving up.

“I had no physical problems, no burning eyes, killing headaches or nausea,” Wiedemann says. “The path to the future is now prepared..." — the Creators Project