Screenshot by Michelle Starr/CNET It’s a fact of life: sometimes, you just can’t be there for the important stuff. This was the case for Perth, Australia couple Alison and Jace Larke, when Jace had an unavoidable work commitment at the time of his baby’s dude date that would place him 4,000 km (2,485 miles) away …

MIT Media Lab A prototype device developed by researchers at MIT’s Media Lab would allow the blind to read with their finger without having to learn Braille. The FingerReader, mounted on the user’s finger, is equipped with a number of sensors that allows it to read text on a page on behalf of the reader. While using a computer, a …

Artiphon When is a guitar not a guitar? When it can be laid flat and played as a keyboard! No, we’re not talking about the keytar, although the keytar is pretty sweet; it’s a brand new instrument that’s designed to act like almost any instrument you can think of. Related articles This strange and beautiful object is a 3D-printed violin …

FitFox Fitness trackers and apps are burgeoning in popularity, so it was probably only a matter of time before fitness equipment started getting connected. One of the early adopters is Sophia — a skipping rope currently seeking crowdfunding that connects to an app to keep your rope-jumpin’ interesting — and, of course, to track your progress. Related articles The best …

Studio Chudy and Grase A 2013 report found, in the UK alone, £68 million was being wasted every year from one single factor: overfilling kettles. That is the cost of electricity used to boil water that then never gets used. Of course, it’s difficult to gauge exactly how much water you’ll need for one cup when filling something like a …

Screenshot by Michelle Starr/CNET You just can’t keep an inventive mind down. Su Daocheng — a 60-year-old retiree from Shiyan in the eastern Hubei province of Central China — spends his spare time inventing things. You know, just normal things, like you’d find in any garage — like a helicopter designed for the road or a mechanical elephant. His latest …

Screenshot by Michelle Starr/CNET Engineers around the world are seeking to address our reliance on fossil fuels before they become too scarce or carbon emissions have an irreparable effect on the environment by developing a variety of sustainable solutions, such as solar panels, wind farms and ocean turbines. Related articles An electric plane and Boeing’s Dreamliner star at Farnborough (photos) …

Rapere Fences used to be perfectly fine for keeping prying eyes out of our backyards — but as drones become more accessible to the consumer, concerns about privacy are on the rise. One new startup wants to fight drone with drone. Related articles Homeland Security: Let’s be clear about aerial drone privacy Eyes in the sky: ​Parliament committee warns about …

Beachbot Visit the beach, and you’ll usually see visitors constructing architecture made of sand, either elaborate or simple (my personal favourite was coiling dragons with seashell scales). But some artists — such as Tony Plant and Andres Amador — use the sand as a vast canvas for giant, transient works scraped with a rake, disappearing when the tide washes the …

4moms As any parent of a baby knows, once they start wailing, it can be really stressful trying to soothe them — especially if for some reason you don’t have any help at that time and have other things you need to get done. 4moms This is where mamaRoo comes in. Originally launched in 2010, the mamaRoo is an automated …