Looking for a portable Bluetooth speaker that will not disappoint in terms of performance? The Ultimate Ears WONDERBOOM 4, priced at $51.44 (was $100), is an ideal fit. It fits neatly into daypacks or backpacks without adding weight, yet produces music that penetrates through even small spaces and outdoor gatherings with startling power.
Ivan Miranda has turned a long-running experiment with rolling balls into a clock that actually keeps pace with passing seconds. The latest version of his marble timepiece refreshes its display fast enough to show hours, minutes, and seconds without any visible lag between changes. Each digit takes shape inside a compact 3-by-5 grid. Fifteen marbles settle into the exact spots needed to outline a number. White marbles stand where a digit needs its bright segments, while black marbles fill the remaining positions to create clear contrast. The result looks like a physical version of familiar numeric shapes, built from actual objects rather than light or ink.
Engineers at Duke University built a family of robots around one steady goal. They wanted machines that could act with the same strength and quickness no matter which way the body pointed. The clearest working example carries twenty legs that reach outward from a central core. Each leg shortens or lengthens through a cable-driven mechanism. The legs sit in a pattern based on a twelve-sided geometric form, so they spread evenly around the machine. White rounded caps sit at the outer ends of many legs, and small depth cameras look outward from the tips. The finished shape looks rounded and bristling, not unlike a sea urchin resting on the ground.
Acer has introduced the Swift Air 14 as a laptop that focuses on easy movement and extended time between charges. The all-aluminum body weighs 1.25 kg (2.75 lb) and measures as little as 12.9 millimeters thick at its narrowest point. Four color finishes are immediately noticeable: sage green, ice blue, bloom pink, and lilac purple.
Astronomers examining deep views from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have identified a supermassive black hole that reached enormous size while the material around it had barely begun to form stars or build a full galaxy. The object, known as Abell2744-QSO1 or simply QSO1, sat in the universe when it was only about 700 million years old. Its light has traveled more than 13 billion years to reach us.