Old railway handcars appear in classic films as simple machines with a long beam that two people push up and down in opposite rhythm. That motion turns a crank and spins the wheels, sending the cart rolling along the rails at a steady, unhurried pace. Sam Barker and Tom decided the idea deserved a modern remake built almost entirely from plastic.
Photo credit: Sonny Dickson
Apple’s long-awaited foldable phone has reached the hands of a small group of early testers, and the feedback arriving through Mark Gurman’s latest Power On newsletter is largely positive. People who have spent time with the prototypes, referred to internally as the iPhone Ultra, keep coming back to how the device feels when closed and how it works once opened.
People who want a pair of over-ear headphones with good noise cancelation and a long battery life without spending money on AirPods Max continue to prefer the Beats Studio Pro, priced at $149.99 (was $350). They borrow enough from Apple’s playbook to be comfortable while being versatile enough for Android users, and they do it in a package that is substantially lighter and more robust than the aluminum cans that many people desire.
Mexican jumping beans have long intrigued people with their capacity to twitch and hop across a table when touched by a hand or exposed to sunlight. A little moth larva within a hollow seed pod is responsible for the motion. Heat drives the larva to pull on silk threads, propelling the entire pod into rolls, flips, and short hops in search of cooler shade. Researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology’s Bioinspired Soft Robotics department have developed a robot that exhibits the same restless behavior without the usage of motors, batteries, circuits, or an onboard computer.
Rockstar and parent company Take-Two Interactive have spent the past week watching pieces of GTA 6 slip into public view one short clip at a time. A figure or group operating under the name Cyberleek began posting what looks like real gameplay footage on August 18. By the middle of this week the videos had piled up past a half-dozen, some of them still circulating even after the main website and Telegram channel went dark.