Nissan’s engineers were originally tasked to simply recreate the sound of an engine. But, says 30-year veteran noise and vibration expert, Toshiyuki Tabata:

“We decided that if we’re going to do this, if we have to make sound, then we’re going to make it beautiful and futuristic. We wanted something a bit different, something closer to the world of art.”

The sound will kick in automatically when the car starts, and turn off at about 20km/h (when tyre noise is enough to warn pedestrians).

Of course, it’s not the first time we’ve seen this sort of tech. Fisker Karma’s electric car will use a similar system designed to sound “like something between a formula One car and a jet plane”. That’s cool and all, but I think I’d still take the Sci-Fi option. [Nissan via Bloomberg via LA Times]

The modest distance (and height of about 1.5 metres) isn’t a bad start in human-powered flight for a do-it-yourselfer. Dutchman Jesse van Kuijk hopes to go further in the future, without the bike chain powering his propeller slipping off its cog.

Though he’s never flown in a real plane, Jesse says he studied self-powered craft like the Gossamer Condor and the English-Channel crossing Gossamer Albatross. He also got tips from the Albatross’ pilot, American Bryan Allen, who is now a software engineer for the Mars exploration project.

So, what did you do during the holidays? [Spiegel via Inhabitat]

“Most people think it’s a spaceship,” Schaller said of his silver creation that measures 56 feet long, 20 feet wide and 17 feet tall. “It was originally designed to be a hovercraft. Now it looks like it’s going to end up as a houseboat. I won’t live long enough to get enough money to make it a hovercraft – not unless I went back to work full time; and then I wouldn’t have the time to work on it.”

Much of the vessel is constructed out of found materials—like a travel trailer he found in the woods, a former acid dipping vat from the Piper Aircraft plant and an old satellite dish. It’s brilliant—like a free association sculpture from a genius engineer. Seriously, this guy built his first solid-fuel jet engine in a high school shop class. I built a toolbox. Advantage: Schaller. [TCPalm via Fark]

The pump is just a small part of a larger $US14 billion plan to seal up New Orleans’ levees and bolster the city’s disaster preparedness, but it’s without a doubt the most visually impressive. PopSci’s thrown together a couple of diagrams to give us a sense of scale, and trust me, they’re necessary — see that little white thing next to the diesel engine? That’s a full-sized human being. There aren’t a whole lot of companies that make combustion engines that cartoonishly huge, so my money’s on something from a company like Wartsila-Sulzer, which makes engines like this to spin the props on ultramassive cargo ships, and conceivably, pumps:
At any rate, the pump is expected to be operational — and NOLA slightly safer — by 2011. More at [PopSci]

It’s actually an early concept-proof of the Chime Generator for the 10,000 Year Clock. The brainchild of Computer Scientist, Danny Hillis, The Clock of the Long Now is designed to operate with minimum human intervention (winding, easy maintenance), and is constructed of largely valueless materials to limit looting by future civilisations.

The first prototype began working on December 31st 1999—in time to chime twice for the new millennium—and is now on display in London. The two more recent prototypes are in San Francisco.

Early concept proof of a Chime Generator to create unique chime sequences every day for 10,000 years. There are over 3.5 million possibilities. Brian Eno used the same algorithm for his album “January 07003—Bell Studies for the Clock of the Long Now.”

First working prototype of Orrey—or planetary display—for the 10,000 year clock.

This is Funchal Airport’s runway, in the Island of Madeira. It was one of the most dangerous in the world because its runway was just too short for large aeroplanes. It had to be extended and engineers had two options: Extend the ground base with extra soil and concrete, or build a platform on top of 180 230-foot pillars. The answer just looks spectacular.

And probably as safe as it is scary. [Premier Holidays via Dark Roasted Blend]

For a class project, computer-engineering college kids built a system that tracks body movements using a camera and a coloured vest, mapping them to a Space Invaders-type game that requires you to jump to shoot.

You become the controller in the classic game, which is deliberately intended to promote cardiovascular health: There’s a sensor that tracks heart rate and sends it to the game component, where it, in theory, could be used “to vary game speed and difficulty.” The only sad part about this is that the original game was intended to be Pong, which would’ve been potentially more of a two-player, and thus more dangerous, thing.

In spite of all this new interaction—and a respectable effort of of building and programming put forth by by the three dudes, Clarkson University juniors Allen, Doug and Matt—the object of the game is still quite simple. As you can hear someone tell the vested Allen in the (unintentionally?) hilarious video on Matt’s website, “We fixed it. Now don’t die.” [The Matt Cave via Hackaday via Ubergizmo]

Just imagine, if everything that used transistors today was actually powered by beautiful vacuum tubes of old. Control yourselves, steampunkers, this 1942 RCA doc “Electrons on Parade” may blow your vintage thought fuses.

And, also, forget Twitter—I need the narrator of these videos to just follow me around and annotate the minutiae of my life in that glorious 1940s radio voice. Now that would be entertainment.

[via Make]

The 11-people gang—facing now up to five years in prison—did the covert engineering work to avoid paying import taxes and because vodka is incredibly cheap in Russia.

Now I’m thinking into building a beer pipeline between my house and the German bar downstairs. [Daily Telegraph]