Just in time to hit the pre-holiday purchasing rush, Marty McFly’s famous footwear from Back to the Future will be available to buy starting at the end of November. The HyperAdapt 1.0 is going to carry a high price tag (yet unannounced), but heck, it will lace itself, too.

Each shoe has a cable system using fishing line and a pressure sensor – when you put in, the cable tightens based on an algorithmic pressures equation. This can be further adjusted via buttons in the tongue.

And yes, it takes power, so LEDs in the heel light up when loosening or tightening but also as a low-battery warning. A single charge will take a few hours but last weeks and can be achieved through a clip-on charger (like the Apple Watch).

So why does it still have laces? Those are just for the visuals – they loosen and tighten but just reflect the hidden mechanism doing the actual loosening and tightening below. Replicas and props have been released before, but these are the real deal: they will work, even if they cost a pretty penny.

The post For Sale: Nike’s Back-to-the-Futuristic Self-Lacing Shoes first appeared on Gajitz.

The Vision from Mercedes-Benz comes equipped with a set of detachable rooftop drones to make the last steps of a delivery smooth, reliable and efficient.

It works on both ends, too: the drones can load up the compact freight vehicle from a distribution center then detach and deliver goods at a destination. Packages can be taken out of the back or simply raised through a hatch in the roof and handed off to a waiting unmanned aerial vehicle.

In a future where driverless vehicles are an impending reality, the design makes sense: it obviates the need for human intervention anywhere in the delivery cycle. The deliveries would also be more predictable, which is helpful for waiting consumers, and easier in cities, where parking can be hard to find.

“With the Vision Van we are presenting the intelligent, clean and fully interconnected van of the future”, said Volker Mornhinweg, head of Mercedes-Benz Vans. “The Vision Van integrates many concrete concepts for future delivery operations in the urban environment.”

“We are integrating the intelligence of a state-of-the-art logistics depot into a van,” Mornhinweg continued. “We estimate that this vehicle would enable an increase in productivity of up to 50 per cent in last-mile delivery services.”

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Analog tape disks degrade, digital storage media is temperature-sensitive, and books (print on paper) are still some of the best ways to store data long-term, at least until five-dimensional storage came along to change all of that, jumping us from centuries to eons in scope.

Researchers at the University of Southampton’s Optical Research Center have developed a 5D storage technique that can keep data safe for billions of years, etching it onto thermally-stable discs with femotsecond laser bursts. Think: Superman’s memory crystals, except real.

The medium can hold a stunning 360 terabytes per disc and withstand temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius, but kept in ideal conditions have a shelf life of 14 billion years. Human-readable etchings at larger scales allow the discs to be marked for future identification.

The trick is in the layering of nanoscale dots, defined by three points in space as well as their size and orientation, constituting their fourth and fifth dimensions. Light traveling through the disc is read with a polarizer. In the past three years, the team has upped the storage capacity from a few hundred kilobytes to its currency status.

“It is thrilling to think that we have created the technology to preserve documents and information and store it in space for future generations,” Professor Peter Kazansky from the ORC said in a statement. “This technology can secure the last evidence of our civilisation: all we’ve learnt will not be forgotten.”

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Designed to make walking with mobility assistance less painful and more comfortable, these crutches employs flexible armbands that are easier to hold in place and distribute weight to parts of the body more capable of carrying it.

Users are are not locked or strapped into the staffs but rather slipped into place; they also make it easy for people to go into a hands-free mode for holding phones, drinks or other objects as well as opening doors.

Flexible straps can be moved along the length of the cradle, customized to user preference. Lifting arms and shifting positions is also made easy. None of this setup requires any kind of specialized tools or complex procedures for operation – the focus with each component, and the whole, is on usability and flexibility of use.

More from the makers: “the ‘m+d crutch’ comes with a standard foot designed to absorb some of the shock of each step. the tread and material flexibility allow the crutch’s foot to conform to the ground and grip it to prevent slipping.”

“The standard foot can be easily removed and replaced with other feet designed for various terrains and activities. alternative feet will be available in the future.”

The post Rest Elbows Not Armpits: Ergonomic Arm-Friendly Crutches first appeared on Gajitz.

Breaking down the Internet of Things into a set of user-friendly building blocks, this kit lets you make your own internet-connected creations right out of the box and without any coding experience, all thanks to SAM.

A set of physical modules compliment a software package that make it possible to link inputs and outputs with the cloud and apps, things like buttons, pressure sensors, thermometers tied to lights, buzzers and motors. Each block has its own wireless connection and battery and can thus operate independently as needed and completely wirelessly as well.

Bluetooth conveys sensor-captured data to your device, which then communicates demands and tasks back outward. You could program your doorbell, for instance, to prompt an unconnected camera to take a picture of your visitor. A lot like ‘If This Then That’, you can create simple or more complex chains of consequences for actions and responses. Expert users can also peel back the wrapper casing to reveal the electronics within in order to better understand (or hack) them.

From its creators: “There was no really easy way to create a product, an app, or a piece of art using electronics and coding. I thought this was crazy as it basically meant cutting off the majority of the designers who haven’t had the luxury to have a technical education.”

“[The Internet of Things] is becoming essential. The boundaries have blurred between the world of physical and digital products, and the potential to connect one thing to another is huge. This doesn’t just mean physical objects talking to one another but talking to broader services and experiences, which might only exist digitally.”

The post DIY IOT: Toolkit for Creating Your Own Internet of Things first appeared on Gajitz.