Cool and Amazing brings together information about technology, gadgets, design, art and anything else affecting our everyday life.
We are inspired by future technology and the occasional amazing item that might impact our daily life.
Italdesign Automobili Speciali, a limited edition production brand from Italdesign will be building five of the mid-engined supercar you see below. The supercar is based on the Lamborghini Huracan and will be built almost entirely of carbon fiber.
The supercar will be powered by a 5.2-liter V10 with a top speed in excess of 205 mph and should be lighter than a run-of-the-mill Huracán. Lamborghini and Italdesign often work closely with each other and with Lamborghini having control over Italdesign this new model will probably be the most exclusive Lamborghini Huracán.
Bell Helicopters is currently working on the design of an advanced third-generation tiltrotor aircraft able to hit speeds of 300 knots, have a cruise speed of 280 knots, hover and maneuver like an helicopter while reducing the radar signature of the aircraft. The design is to have a range of 2,100 nautical miles and an effective combat range of 500 to 800.
The advanced tiltrotor is being engineered with stealthy characteristics and infrared (IR) heat suppressing systems. Bell is working on advanced technologies designed to reduce the heat emmisions from the twin engines. Unlike the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor, the engines remain in place while the rotors and drive shafts tilt. A driveshaft runs through the straight wing allowing both prop rotors to be driven by a single engine in the event of engine loss. The V-280 will have retractable landing gear, a triple-redundant fly by wire control system and a V-tail configuration.
The Bell V-280 will be slightly bigger then a Black Hawk helicopter and able to carry up to 14 passengers including combat troops. The aircraft will integrate a high-tech 360-degree sensor suite similar to the one used on the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. The sensors around the aircraft will stitch the images together to supply a 360 degree view to both pilots including allowing the pilots to look straight down under the aircraft. The information will also be able to be passed to the troops in the back using special designed goggles giving them a view of the surroundings.
Bell will also offer an armed attack version with a gun, 2.75in folding-fin rockets and some type of missile including hellfire or some later generation missile guided by laser or IR technology. The Bell V-280 Valor is being developed under the the U.S. Army Joint Multi-Role program and is slated to be operational sometime after 2030.
The latest entry in the electric motorcycle comes from Austrian engineer Johann Hammerschmidt. The Johammer J1 is a futuristic electric cruiser with innovative energy technology. The company claims a range of 200 miles with the larger capacity battery while a smaller battery with a reported range of 150 miles will also be offered. Both models will have a top speed of 75 mph.
The battery pack is located below the rider in the center of the motorcycle with the electric motor and controller in the rear wheel. The extremely torsion-resistant aluminium main frame accommodates the shock absorbers and battery pack.
A DC-excited synchronous motor with single-stage transmission, both submerged in sealed oil bath require no maintenance. The electric motor offers engine brake with power recuperation. The entire rear assembly is supported by a single-side box-section aluminum swingarm. The twin front swingarms employ hub center steering.
The Johammer J1 has no central instrument panel with the electronic data being displayed by LED windows in the rearview mirrors. The J1.150 will weigh 350 pounds while the J1.200 will top the scales at 390 pounds.
The J1.150 is priced at €22.900 and the J1.200 at €24.900
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II and the Aegis Combat System have successfully demonstrated during a live fire exercise the integration and capabilities of the combined Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA).
During the September 12 test at the White Sands Missile Range, a U.S. Marine Corps F-35B acting as an elevated sensor detected an airborne threat over-the-horizon. The threat data was then sent to a Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense ground station through the aircraft’s Multi-Function Advanced Data Link (MADL) connected to the Aegis Weapon System on the USS Desert Ship (LLS-1), a land-based ship. An SM-6 was then fired and subsequently engaged and intercepted the target. The F-35 was able to destroy an airborne adversary without firing a single shot of its own.
The test proves the F-35 can enter a heavily contested enemy airspace using its stealth technology, detect threats and have them destroyed by a missile fired from land forces or a naval destroyer without firing a shot and risking giving up its position.
This coordinated attack method will allow the SM-6 to shoot at targets before the Aegis radar can see them. The SM-6 effective range can be extended using the highly mobile sensor. This only scratches the surface of the potential war fighting capabilities F-35 aircraft will ultimately enable across our military forces.
The Army is working on a new high-speed, first-of-its-kind long-range ground launched attack missile able to pinpoint and destroy enemy bunkers, helicopter staging areas, troop concentrations and other fixed-location targets from as much as three times the range of existing weapons. The Long Range Precision Fires (LRPF) is to be operational by 2027 and is being designed to destroy targets at distances up to 312 Miles (500 kilometers).
Artist rendering
The new LRPF missile is designed to replace the Army’s current aging 1980’s era MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System, a ground-launched missile able to fire to at least 160 kilometers. The Long Range Precision Fires Missile will attack, neutralize, suppress and destroy targets using missile-delivered indirect precision fires.
Raytheon’s Long-Range Precision Fires weapon is designed to integrate with existing rocket launchers. The LRPF will fire from the two existing Army launchers, the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System and the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System. The launcher will fire two missiles from a single weapons pod. The new missile's range and speed will allow Army combat units to engage targets over vast geographic spaces in high-threat environments.
Mercedes Benz announces the Maybach Vision 6 Concept.
The Vision 6 is huge and at 18.7 feet is 10 inches longer than the Mercedes-Maybach S600. Hiding under the extremely long hood is not a V-12 but a trunk with custom-fitted luggage. Mounted in the floor under the hood is an 80 kW-hr battery for better weight distribution and a low center of gravity. The battery drives four permanent-magnet synchronous electric motors, one connected to each wheel and together they produce 738 horsepower. To support this amount of power you need big wheels and the Vision 6 is being shown with 24 inches at each corner.
Mercedes Benz claims the Vision 6 will hit 62 mph in less than four seconds with a top speed limited to 155 mph. Under normal driving conditions it will do 200 miles on a charge by EPA standards, and thanks to a DC quick-charge system, can take on 62 miles worth of electricity in just five minutes.
Step through the gullwing doors and this 2+2 four-seater is a five-star spaceship. Passengers will sit in swoopy chairs and control everything on a continuous strip of touchscreen, which runs the length of the dash and both doors. The seats are full of sensors that can track everything from your health to the color of your clothes and use the information to mix up the mood lighting. The windshield is a massive display screen where both the driver and passengers can obtain augmented reality information.
The Vision 6 concept will most likely never see production but it will serve to showcase future luxury electric vehicle technologies.
Most current Wi-Fi solutions stumble when everyone is home with a few devices streaming 4K content, game systems trying to connect, a few portable devices roaming the house and your neighbor's router competing for channels. A single router can no longer meet the Wi-Fi demands of most homes today. It’s easy to promise full coverage WiFi when conditions are perfect but with today's multi storied homes it's becoming almost impossible.
Plume is the only WiFi solution powered by the cloud, which means it can adapt to real life in real-time—ensuring every room and every device has a reliably fast connection today, tomorrow, and years from now. Rather than relying on a router that sits in one place and hopefully covers all the space we need, Plume takes a different approach and offers something it calls pods that can be plugged directly into wall sockets around the home. Plume Pods are beautiful but you don’t have to see them, they plug into any wall outlet, leaving your surfaces free of hardware. And the best part is that you get to keep your neighboring plug space.
Plume's technology uses Adaptive WiFi that is able to respond to varying conditions around the home. Plume maximizes your WiFi by optimizing the flow of data. The low frequency 2.4 GHz WiFi band has a longer range but slower speeds than the high frequency 5 GHz band with higher speeds and shorter range. Plume strategically figures out which band to use for each device based on where it is and what application it’s running. Plume recommends a pod for each room of the house to give complete coverage. The Pods are controlled by something called the Plume Cloud to provide more speed and connectivity than you get with a single router network.
The system is setup using a mobile app and will allow for guest access. The pods will launch in the fall and will sell for $49 each at that time.
Russia has been working steadily toward its own version of a fifth-generation aircraft with the Sukhoi PAK FA but industry insiders are saying the airplane is having developmental issues. The Russian Defense Ministry have openly stated the PAK FA will be stealthy, supermaneuverable and have supercruise capability but the lack of evolutionary technology aboard the plane, the engines are the same as those aboard Russia's 4th generation Su-35, and the sharing of many of the same on-board systems with the Su-35 also put the fifth-generation fighter designation in question. The aircraft is intended to be the successor to the MiG-29 and Su-27 in the Russian Air Force.
Reports have surfaced of problems with the plane's engine performance, the reliability of its AESA radar, and of poor stealth engineering. Compared to the US Air Force F-22 Raptor or the F-35 Lightning II, the PAK FA is significantly less stealthy than the US fighters. The F-22 Raptor stealth systems holds a huge advantage over the Russian jet.
The PAK FA is designed to be a fast, high flying and stealthy air superiority fighter and it might hold a slight agility advantage over the F-22 with its three-dimensional thrust vectoring engines but the F-22 Raptor probably has the edge in terms of sensor and weapon integration as well as a much more advanced stealth configuration.
The PAK FA has a maximum speed at altitude of Mach 2.3 (2,440 km/h, 1,520 mph) and can Supercruise at Mach 1.6 (1,700 km/h, 1,060 mph)
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is pursuing, through the "VTOL X-Plane" program, an aeronautical leap forward in vertical take-off, hover and flight. The future X-plane must be able to act like an helicopter but at the same time be able to execute high-speed flight like an airplane. Helicopters can take off and land almost anywhere and hover, but they can't fly very fast. Fixed-wing planes can fly fast but can’t hover. The tiltrotor V-22 Osprey, which has two large wingtip rotors that tilt upward to take off like a helicopter and then rotates them forward to fly like an airplane, is the only operational aircraft that comes close. DARPA wants a technology demonstrator that will fly at “sustained speeds” of 345 to 460 miles per hour.
Boeing's concept
Four companies have offered designs to build this plane-of-the-future technology demonstrator. The designs include new types of tiltrotors, compound helicopters with innovative mechanisms for vertical and horizontal thrust and innovative systems of electrical fans. The fans are powered by distributed electric systems using conventional gas turbine engines which in turn produce electricity for the powerful fans that will propel the vehicle vertically and through the air. DARPA will choose one company to build the VTOL X-Plane and flight test it in 2017-18
At the Samsung's annual Developer Conference in San Francisco, the company introduced a prototype "digital personal assistant" called Otto similar to Amazon Echo. Samsung said the Otto is a "reference design" and won't be available anytime soon. Instead it will be used by developers to introduce other concepts of home automation.
Many companies are developing products for the smart home and being able to walk into a room and say "lights on," without having to locate the wall switch will be very useful. Changing the room temperature without having to physically get off your couch or touch the thermostat would be pretty neat.
Otto has a rotating head that swivels and moves up and down which presumably will be useful to give it a little personality. The rotating head has an HD camera that can be used for facial recognition. It might be able to recognize who's talking or entering the room and respond accordingly. Otto could also be useful as a security camera to detect an intruder walking into a room if the front door was locked and none of the owners mobile phones were in range. Otto could send out a text message with an attached photo.
You can now customize your daily routines with Philips Hue. You can automate your lights from the comfort of your favorite chair or from accross the world using Siri on your iPhone. Using the Hue Bridge, a device that lets your phone communicate with Philips’s smart light bulbs, you can automate your lights to set the mood, change the ambiance or automate your lights completely to make it seem like you’re home when you’re not. Philips Hue welcomes you home and lets you control your lights from your bedroom to your backyard.
Philips Hue is all about simplifying your life and giving you peace of mind in smart and useful ways. You can change colors depending on your mood or sync lights to the sound of your music, it's all about an immersive effect.
Engineers at GE Aviation just assembled the world’s largest jet engine and put it on a test stand at the company’s test site for jet engines located in the woods near Peebles, Ohio. GE also built the first U.S. jet engine in 1942. The brand new GE9X front fan spans a full 11 feet in diameter (3.35 meters), a world record and is a winner in several disciplines.
GE is using additive manufacturing, known as 3D printing, to essentially print parts from the ground up. The engine has 3D printed fuel nozzles and the most extensive use of parts made from lightweight and ultra heat-resistant materials called ceramic matrix composites (CMCs). The technology allows engineers to design complex internal shapes that were previously impossible to achieve.
The material used inside the combustor and the turbine built out of CMCs operates in temperatures as high as 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit. The hotter the engine runs, the more efficient it is in reducing fuel burn and emissions. The GE9X is designed to generate 100,000 pounds of thrust but the world record belongs to the engine’s predecessor, the GE90-115B, which generated 127,500 pounds of thrust. For comparison, one space shuttle main engine produces 375,000 pounds.
GE has been testing the new design for the GE9X carbon fiber blades on a scaled-down
testing rig at Boeing. Image credit: GE Aviation
GE Aviation will be the exclusive engine maker for the new Boeing 777X, the next-generation version of the 777. The engine is scheduled to enter service by the end of the decade.
Gordon Murray, designer of some of the best F1 cars together with engine experts Geo Technology and Shell scientists have cooperated to create an ultra-light prototype of a city car that uses a third less energy in its lifetime than a typical city car. The team worked closely together to co-engineer the car’s body, engine and lubricants to minimize fuel use and CO2 emissions. The car uses significantly less energy from its manufacture to the end of its life.
“You could build this car and drive it for around 100,000 kilometres before consuming the same energy it takes to make a typical SUV,” says engineer Bob Mainwaring, Shell’s Technology Manager for Innovation, who is leading the project.
The car’s body is made with recycled carbon fiber to help reduce its overall weight to 550 kilograms. To help reduce air friction the wing mirrors have been replaced with tiny digital cameras that relay the view of the road behind through screens inside. The car has a top speed of about 68mph (110 km/h) – more than enough for a day trip away from the city – but performs best at 31-44mph (50-70km/h)
Tracking Point is marketing to the Army and Marine Corps squads the recently unveiled squad-level M1400 338LM bolt-action rifle. The M1400 provides a clear advantage against any adversary in current and future battle fields being able to engage targets moving up to 20 mph out to 1400 yards. A trained sniper is no longer needed to engage enemies at long distances, any soldier can now reliably deliver lethal shot well beyond what is possible from today’s expert marksmen. The M1400 features Tracking Point’s RapidLok Target Elimination Fire Control System. As a soldier pulls the trigger, the target is automatically acquired and tracked. Total Time-To-Kill (TTK) is approximately 2.5 seconds from trigger pull.
The M1400 is 45 inches long and features a 22-inch barrel. The M1400 weighs 15.4 pounds and will retail for $16,995.
The Gerald R. Ford class of super-carriers will be the first carriers to use the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS).
The new launch system has been under development by the US Navy to launch carrier-based aircraft using a linear drive motor. The advantage over the old steam catapults is more stable acceleration reducing stress on the aircraft's airframes. The system also has the advantage of reduced system weight with a projected lower cost and decreased maintenance requirements.
The EMALS system can control the launch with greater precision, allowing it to launch various types of aircraft, from heavy fighter jets to light unmanned aircraft. Extensive testing being conducted at the Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst in New Jersey have so far launched successfully every fixed-wing carrier-borne aircraft type in the USN inventory.
In the summer of 2015, the EMALS aboard the Gerald R. Ford launched "dead-loads" off of the bow of CVN 78 into the James River. "Dead-loads" are large, wheeled, steel vessels weighing up to 80,000 pounds to simulate the weight of actual aircraft.
Ford will offer a new F-150 Special Service Vehicle (SSV) in SuperCrew and SuperCab versions. The military grade aluminum F-150 custom truck is outfitted for police and emergency services. The new truck will be offered with a choice of a 3.5-liter turbocharged V6 or a 5.0-liter V8 with 4x2 or 4x4 drivetrains.
