A gravity-wielding winder appears, which resembles a sci-fi gadget rather than something you’d want on your desk. Metilis refers to it as the Gravity Furnace, which will come as no surprise. This single-watch winder spins automatic watches with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker, but instead of a boring wooden box, it resembles a chunky robot from an old-school anime.
Moree, in the northwest of New South Wales, has become a trial ground for something new in Australian policing. There are now two drones sitting atop the local police station, ready to take flight at a moment’s notice, but there is a catch: they are being guided by pilots hundreds of kilometers away in Sydney. This marks the start of PolAir-rural, a six-month experiment that will discreetly alter the way police manage crime in rural areas.
When it comes to serious outdoor pursuits and long, multi-day journeys that require performance tracking, the Garmin epix Pro (Gen 2) Sapphire Edition, priced at $449.99 (was $999.99), outperforms the Apple Watch Ultra. For starters, it’s definitely no slouch in the battery life department, as it lasts 16 days in smartwatch mode and 30 hours of straight GPS tracking.
DM Performance took a close look at the Renault Twizy and simply had to get their hands on it. They thought the conventional 17 HP electric motor was severely inadequate. So they decided to replace it with the entire assembly from a Stark Varg electric motocross bike. This gives the little two-seater an impressive 80 horsepower and a whopping 692 pound-feet of torque, thanks to a unique chain drive system that replaces the usual setup.
The Philips Fidelio FT1 combines vinyl as well as CDs in one sleek package, and the quality is surprisingly natural. This turntable can play vinyl records at 33 1/3 and 45 rpm using a belt-driven system, and the CD tray at the front of the unit accepts CDs, including CD-Rs, CD-RWs, and MP3 discs. Using the front-facing buttons or the included software, you can easily choose between formats. When you have an album on both vinyl and CD, there is no need to use separate players.
Microsoft’s Project Silica has reached a significant milestone in its goal to develop ultra-long-lasting storage that can survive for generations. Researchers in the field have just published a paper in Nature outlining a major breakthrough in the approach, as they are now using good old-fashioned kitchen cookware glass, such as that found in an oven door or a Pyrex dish, rather than super-specialized glass that is far too expensive for the job.
This self-reloading magnet dispenser is the type of invention you didn’t realize you needed until you see it in action and can’t picture life without it. Maker EmGi has created a handheld tool that places neodymium magnets precisely where you want them, with the correct orientation every time, and loads the next one from a built-in stockpile so you never have to pause to fiddle around for the next one.
Tito of Macho Nacho Productions takes out his trusty screwdriver and goes to work on a limited edition Zelda Game & Watch from Nintendo that he received in 2020. This portable includes three iconic games: the original Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and Link’s Awakening from the Game Boy. It comes with a great collection of features out of the box, including a crisp LCD screen, a nice D-pad, and separate start and select buttons. The battery life is adequate, and it even has a USB-C charging connection, but Tito wants to take this device to the next level.
JVC’s W-VHS VCR made a splash in the analog tape world when it debuted in 1993, and with good cause. Engineers at the business decided to go all out on the tried-and-true VHS cassette casing, upgrading the tape and devising some ingenious ways to load high definition video onto it a few years before digital formats truly took hold. From the outside, the product appeared to be any ordinary VCR, but, surprise, under the hood, it is managing signals far beyond the capabilities of a standard VHS.
The 1996 Nissan NISMO 400R is one of those rare, ultra exclusive performance cars that came out of Japan in the 1990s and currently up for auction. To be honest, NISMO built this model mostly as a tribute to their work on the Le Mans GT-R LM. Engineers took the R33 Skyline GT-R V-Spec base and made it into something far more capable than a production car.