STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

[MIKA27]

Uncovering A 500-Year-Old Shipwreck From The Golden Age Of Exploration

500 years after it sank to the bottom of the Arabian Sea, researchers believe they have found the Esmerelda, a ship in Vasco da Gama’s fleet during his second voyage to India. The excavation has so far yielded over 2800 artefacts.

The Esmerelda — captained by da Gama’s own uncle Vincente Sodré — is the oldest recovered shipwreck from the Golden Age of Exploration. Among the artefacts are the ship’s bell, dozens of monogrammed stone cannonballs and a rare silver coin called an Indio, which is only the second to ever be found.

It was originally minted for trade between Portugal and India, but as a result of its rarity it’s sometimes known as the “ghost coin of Dom Manuel I”, Portugal’s king at the time. Though the ship was first located in 1998, the careful work of digging out these historical items didn’t begin until 2013.

Despite an estimated 20% of ships passing through the Carreira da India, a sea route to India that da Gama discovered by passing around the Cape of Good Hope, very few wrecks have been found or unearthed, making the Esmerelda a rare look into the earliest sparks of globalization.

[MIKA27]

The Jumanji Remake May Become Something Very Unexpected

When news broke that Sony Pictures was going to remake Jumanji, we were suitably confused. Didn’t the first movie with Robin Williams kind of just get it right? Well, now we have an idea of how filmmaker Jake Kasdan plans on differentiating his version: by casting Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart.

Variety reports that Johnson and Hart, who’ll appear together in this winter’s Central Intelligence (above) are in talks to co-star in the film, which already has a US release date of 28 July 2017.

Things aren’t 100 per cent just yet, as contracts haven’t been signed and the crazy busy actors are looking for breaks in their schedules. According to the trade, Hart will be the more difficult actor to lock down, if you can believe it.

Jumanji is based on the award-winning book by Chris Van Allsburg about a family who opens a board game that turns its jungle-themed adventure into a reality.

OK, so we’re not fans of the idea of a Jumanji remake. But you have to admit, a Jumanji with Johnson and Hart is going to, at the very least, be a very different spin on the material than the original movie.

MIKA: Even if the remake will be good(?) I will always have a place for the Robin Williams version which IMO is still timeless. My son and I watch the original several times a year, great family movie.

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Video Shot From Fighter Jets Will Melt Your Face

To help Saab Defence and Security capture some spectacular footage of its Gripen fighter jet, a Swedish-based company called Blue Sky built a custom gyro-stabilised camera system that can ride along at speeds of over 555km per hour.

When paired with a 6K Red Dragon digital cinema camera and a $US40,000 Canon camera lens, the resulting footage provides a never-before-seen opportunity to ride along in a fighter like you were almost sitting in the cockpit.

[MIKA27]

A Tiny Death Star Is The Only Reason You Should Buy A Levitating Speaker

An unknown breakthrough in consumer levitation technology has led to an influx of floating speakers that don’t sound any different, but look kinda cool — were this the mid-’80s. Before you write them off completely, someone has managed to find a way to make these novelties genuinely worthy of your desk space, as a tiny Death Star replica.

A 1000 mAh battery promises you at least six hours of streaming John Williams to this compact speaker, and it glows when the lights are switched off, helping to sell the effect of a functional space station. But that’s about all you get for $US220 ($285) — except of course for the nifty floating effect. Don’t pretend like you’re cursor isn’t hovering over that “Add to Cart” button.

[MIKA27]

Chris Pratt And Jennifer Lawrence's New Scifi Film Looks Absolutely Amazing

When a studio decides to release a sci-fi movie during Christmas, they think it has both commercial and awards potential. Both certainly seem possible for Passengers, starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. Sony Pictures debuted the first footage from the film at CinemaCon, and it looks amazing.

Written by Jon Spaihts and directed by Morten Tyldum, Passengers is set in a future where a group of people are going into space to colonise a new planet. That planet is 120 years away so these people must go into a hyper sleep in order to survive the trip with some life to spare. Thirty years into the trip, there’s a malfunction and two passengers wake up. Those two are played by Pratt and Lawrence, and that’s where the movie basically begins.

The footage Sony screened at CinemaCon 2016 started a little earlier in the plot. First, we see a ship flying through space. This ship, the Avalon, looks a bit like the space station in 2001 and is heading to the Homestead 2 Colony with 5228 passengers. All the passengers are sleeping in pods that looks a lot like those in Aliens. They should stay in the pods for 120 years but, for some reason, one opens. It holds Chris Pratt’s character. Upon awaking, he thinks he’s going to meet the rest of his passengers for his new life. He gets ready, jokes about his cool new jacket, walks past the robot cleaning the floors and looks for people. There’s no one.

“Hello?” Pratt screams as he’s running around the Avalon. Soon, he realises there’s been a terrible mistake, and he’s the only one awake. Then, Pratt starts to explore the enormous ship. He tries to buy a Latte Extreme, but those are only available to premium passengers, so he has to settle for the simple black coffee since he’s a lower class passenger.

Pratt walks around and sees what he believes to be another human. It’s Michael Sheen as a bartender in a setting that looks a bit too much like The Shining. Pratt quickly realises this is an android and asks it what happens when the sleep pods malfunction. “It can’t happen,” says the android. When Pratt explains that it did happen, the robot replies, “It’s not possible for you to be here.”

Pratt’s character, alone, spends his time fixing things. Back on Earth, he was a mechanic so this makes him happy. Then, one day, he sees a girl played by Jennifer Lawrence. She’s a New York writer with much better accommodations than Pratt’s character. She asks him, “Do you know what’s going on?” He tells her and then reveals that he’s been the only person awake for over a year.

Lawrence’s character asks if there’s a way to get back into hibernation. Pratt says no. “Everything is designed to keep us alive,” he says. “I’ve tried everything.” Defeated, Lawrence asks, “What is there to do here?”

The trailer then cuts to a montage of the couple going to a fancy dinner, watching movies and taking a swim. Pratt tells Lawrence she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, and she crawls over the table and starts kissing him.

All is well alone on the Avalon, but things start to get worse. They lose their gravity and Lawrence, swimming in the pool, almost drowns as she and the water rise.

Towards the end, the footage goes into super fast edit mode. Pratt and Lawrence are standing outside the ship. Pratt crashes a little vehicle in the cafeteria. “There has to be a way,” he says. “There are 5000 other people on this ship — we have to do this.” Air sucks them into space. Fire blows them into space. Then the title: Passengers.

Passengers looks like the perfect mix of sci-fi, romance, drama and action. We can only hope it lives up to this footage. The film hits theatres January 1.

[MIKA27]

The Werner Herzog Of Blacksmiths Makes A Knife From A Wagon Wheel

I’ve seen a lot of knife-making videos, but none with quite this much ennui.

Niels Provos is uniquely skilled in that his talent as a blacksmith is only matched by his ability to be dryly funny. Some creators would languish in the beauty of forging, while Provos comments flatly on the “completely irrelevant” effect slow-motion has on the flickering overhead fluorescents.

Heating the recycled wrought iron doesn’t quite go as planned. Neither does shaping the handle. But still, with a dour wit and total lack of emotional attachment, he moves ahead, creating a beautiful knife all the same.

There’s something to be learned from his way of life: among other things, collect more wagon wheels.

[MIKA27]

Audi's Virtual Cockpit Is One Of 2016's Best Car Interiors

The innovative, analog-dial-replacing Virtual Cockpit in Audi’s TT-S sports car and new R8 has earned itself a place on the coveted Wards Auto best interior list for 2016. Alongside plush BMW limousines and a sleek Mercedes Benz, Audi’s high-tech driver’s display points to a future where driver and passenger alike get their information from huge high-res in-car screens.

The Virtual Cockpit in the new Audi TT is an example of the car world’s current trend of bringing as much information in front of the driver as possible, with a live feed of speed and engine RPM joined by a customisable central display for media, maps or other info. Interestingly, the TT doesn’t have another central screen for the passenger to use, while the less-sporty Q7 and A4, which also use the Virtual Cockpit display, do.

Also highly placed was Volvo’s XC90, with a beautiful Nappa leather and woodgrain interior dominated by a 12.3-inch instrument cluster and portrait-orientation touchscreen in-car entertertainment system. The majority of the list in 2016 was dominated by luxury brands with the BMW 7 Series, Lexus RX and Mercedes Benz GLC all scoring high marks.

Other winners in the Ward’s 10 Best list were the US-only Cadillac XT5 and Chrysler Pacifica, while the lower end of the car-buying market should be happy with the relative luxury and refinement of the Honda Civic and Nissan Maxima. The only sports car in the list other than the Audi TT, interestingly, is the Chevrolet Camaro, a car that copped flak last year for an interior that looked very similar to a Holden Commodore’s.

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ASTON MARTIN VANTAGE GT8

Based largely on the V8 Vantage GTE race car, the Aston Martin Vantage GT8 is a track-ready, street-legal rocket. It's powered by a modified version of the company's 4.7L V8, channeling its 440 hp through your choice of a six-speed manual or seven-speed Sportshift transmission. Of course, power is only half the equation, with the weight kept down by plentiful carbon fiber in the front splitter, front and rear bumpers, fenders, side sills, rear diffuser, sports seats, and, optionally, both the roof and the rear wing. It still has air conditioning and a modern infotainment system, but even those can't stop it from being the lightest, most powerful V8 Vantage ever.

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Deadpool's Director Wants Spider-Man To Crossover Into Fox's Marvel Movies

Usually, this sort of talk would be passed off as wild dreams that could never happen. But apparently the teams behind Deadpool and the X-Men movies have already started laying out the groundwork for this classic comics team-up to happen on the big screen.

It seems like the unprecedented deal-making between Sony and Marvel that is allowing Spider-Man to appear in Civil War and beyond may open the floodgates. The Marvel Comics movies — rights to which are currently spread out across Sony (Spider-Man), Fox (X-Men and select characters) and Disney (most of Marvel’s roster) — could start mixing together much more often. Speaking to Superhero Hype recently, X-Men producer Simon Kinberg said that he and Deadpool director Tim Miller have been trying to “build bridges” between Fox, Sony and Marvel to allow the webslinger to appear alongside Deadpool in a future cinematic adventure:

With all of the deals that have recently started happening, we asked if they could get visitation rights to Sony’s friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. I would love to see it. Both of us are close with [Marvel’s] Kevin [Feige], we respect and love Kevin. If it were even remotely possible, we will find a way ’cause we’d would love to see it.

Obviously, there’s nothing truly concrete here, so don’t expect Deadpool 2 to suddenly become Deadpool Meets Spider-Man. We’re still firmly in the “wildest dreams” territory.

But the fact that Kinberg and Miller think they have a chance at making this happen — and that they think Sony might be open to Spider-Man appearing in Fox’s movies — is a big step in a direction no fan would have believed possible in before Sony and Marvel’s major deal last year.

[MIKA27]

Oscar Isaac Somehow Just Got Us Even More Excited For Star Wars Episode VIII

When Rey stands in front of Luke Skywalker, long lost lightsaber in hand, it’s kind of impossible not to be beside yourself with excitement for what comes next. And yet, co-star Oscar Isaac somehow managed to make Star Wars Episode VIII sound even more exciting.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Isaac said about the film:

[Director] Rian [Johnson] is definitely going to places and investigating things that haven’t really been done in the Star Wars universe. For me, it’s so fun getting to explore different things that I wouldn’t have expected in this universe. In some ways it feels like we’re making an independent film. Certain things we get to play with — this kind of intimacy that we get to find — it’s special. It’s been really fun.

Isaac is a Star Wars fan, going back decades, before he became the best damn pilot in the galaxy. So if he says the film has things he didn’t expect, that’s very cool indeed. Not to mention that tantalising mention of “intimacy.” All of this sounds very promising — but not entirely unexpected from the director who gave us Brick, Brothers Bloom and Looper.

Star Wars Episode VIII opens 15 December 2017.

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Ride Along With 360-Degree Highlights Of The Long Beach Formula E Race

Formula E is F1’s less noisy, slightly more obscure cousin. But one place it really shines is the video highlights, which let you ride on board with the drivers as they somehow avoid crashing.

These 360-degree videos are actually just the beginning of much bigger plans: Formula E is working on broadcasting races live in VR, to anyone using Oculus Rift, HTC Vive or Gear VR headsets.

It makes a ton of sense: car racing is one of the few sports I really think could be made better through 360-degree VR. There’s no real benefit to watching baseball or soccer through a headset, but stick me virtually on top of a 322km/h open-cockpit car blasting through the streets of Monaco? Now we’re talking.

In the meantime, you can go enjoy these highlights from this weekend’s race at Long Beach. You’ll need to use Chrome at a minimum, but if you’ve got a smartphone and Google Cardboard handy, it’s worth your time to do it properly.

[MIKA27]

Da Vinci’s Descendants Found

Historians in Florence, Italy recently revealed some direct descendants of Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. Four decades of research, beginning in 1973, have uncovered 35 descendants including a pastry chef, a policeman, an accountant, a retired blacksmith and an architect. The most famous is opera, television, and film Oscar-nominated (Romeo and Juliet,1968) director Franco Zeffirelli. Ironically, Zeffirelli was presented with a Leonardo Prize by the Italian president in 2007.

Acclaimed Film Director Franco Zeffirelli

Historians Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato reconstructed the genealogy of da Vinci and the lives and burial plots of some of his descendants. They recreated 15 generations. Vezzosi is director of the Leonardo da Vinci Museum in Florence and Sabato is president of the International da Vinci Association. They scoured church and estate records in Italy, France and Spain.

Vezzosi says,

We checked documents and tombs as far as France and Spain. We even found an unknown tomb of Leonardo’s family in Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci was the illegitimate son of a father who was a Florentine legal notary named Ser Piero Da Vinci and his mother, recorded in 1457, Caterina, wife of Achattabriga di Piero dei Vaccha da Vinci. He was born in the Tuscany town of Vinci in 1452.

Though Leonardo da Vinci never married or had any known children, he had siblings. The historians found those descendants traced from his siblings. Most of them live around Florence and the nearby villages of Empoli and Vinci.

Some of Leonardo da Vinci’s Descendants

One descendant, architect Elene Calosi from Empoli told La Republica,

How does it feel to be descended from Leonardo da Vinci? Obviously I’m surprised, but happy, happy also for my grandmother who is no more, who was proud to have the name Vinci. Who has not studied Leonardo or seen his paintings?

Another descendant, Giovanni Calosi said that his mother had documents and letters that were written backwards and could only be read in a mirror. Da Vinci had used mirrored script. He says,

We never gave any importance to those documents, which were tossed and sold. What we thought was a legend passed down through generations turns out to be the truth.

Unfortunately, the genealogy cannot be backed up by da Vinci’s DNA. He died in 1519 in Amboise, France and his body was lost during religious wars during the 16th century. However, the historians next want to trace his DNA through the identified descendants.

[MIKA27]

You've Never Seen a Man More Annoyed to Save Someone's Life

As he watches a man slowly drive his car into flooded waters, you know exactly what's likely going through this reporter's head: Am I really going to have to save this guy? Will I have to take my shoes off? I don't have a change of clothes on me. This is seriously going to ruin my day.

"Why are you doing that? Why are you doing that?! Ugh. God...da..." the reporter, KTRK Houston's Steve Campion, asks as a man just sits in his slowly sinking car. "Oh my God. What, what do we do? I don't wanna... ugh..." he asks, exasperated, to whatever cruel higher power put him in this really awkward position.

Certainly the driver, realizing the car will soon be completely submerged, will exit the vehicle, right?

Wrong.

"Dude, you gotta get out of the car. You gotta get out," Campion says, still reporting live on the scene. "Swim. Leave the car. Swim."

Eventually the man leaves his car and Campion reluctantly enters the water to help him out. First the newsroom copier broke and now this. Mondays, am I right?

[MIKA27]

You Can Now Take a Cruise to Cuba, But There's a Huge Catch

Cuban-born people will soon be able to board Cuban-bound cruises, courtesy of Carnival. The company announced today that it will allow those born in Cuba to book cruises on its Fathom line, which will send a ship to Cuba every other week beginning May 1. But whether they'll be allowed off the ship is still in dispute.

Currently, the Cuban government forbids Cubans and Cuban-born individuals to travel to the island by sea, although Carnival said they remain "optimistic" officials will change their mind. Carnival also said they won't sail to Cuba until the government changes its policy.

"If Cuba's decision is delayed beyond May 1, we will delay the start of our sailings," CEO Arnold Donald said in a letter to its employees.

The cruise company was in hot water (pun extremely intended) last week when a class action lawsuit was filed against it for refusing bookings to Cuban-born individuals in deference to the country's policy.

So while Carnival's new announcement is a suave PR move, this basically means no one (Cuban or otherwise) will be cruising to the island via Fathom any time soon, unless the government changes its laws.

[MIKA27]

Cooking with Beer

Beer is no longer used merely as a last minute ingredient to make a meal sound a little more impressive, a new cooking book by beer aficionado Mark Dredge, shows just how versatile this already admired beverage can be. Cooking with Beer presents 75 delicious recipes using beer as a key ingredient, proving it can have a profound influence in shaping the overall flavor of a dish. Beautifully illustrated with pictures of each mouth watering, beer infused dishes, you´ll learn how to make delicious stuff such as beer-cured bacon and Hefeweizen French toast, to beer snacks or even beer pizza!

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EL PURISTA SMOKERS ARMCHAIR

Enjoying a relaxing smoke is difficult when your chair's not comfortable. The El Purista Smokers Armchair ensures you get as much enjoyment as possible out of each session. Created by Rodrigo Gonzalez and Alexander Sauer, the chair's design recalls the iconic Eames lounger, but with a more square form and hidden slide-out storage in the arms that doubles as a place to set an ashtray and your drink of choice. The inner layer of the chair is made from beech while the top is a walnut veneer, both using trees from sustainable German forests. It's finished with eco-friendly aniline leather, barrel-dyed to preserve natural features like thorns, cracks, and bites, and is made by hand in Germany.

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Jurassic World 2 Just Got A Very Intriguing Director

When Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow signed on to make Star Wars: Episode IX, it was obvious he couldn’t do two blockbusters sequels. Now, after months of unconfirmed rumours, the director forJurassic World 2 has officially been announced: J.A. Bayona.

“Who?” you ask? Well, Juan Antonio Bayona directed the powerful true story The Impossible, the terrifying film The Orphanage and this year’s fantasy A Monster Calls (new trailer here!). He’s a talented film maker who is certainly more experienced than Trevorrow was when he did Jurassic World — he’d only directed one feature at the time — and that worked out pretty well.

The announcement came through the Twitter feeds of each director:

Trevorrow is co-writing the sequel with his partner Derek Connelly before moving on to a galaxy far, far away. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard will both return as well. The untitled sequel is scheduled for release in the US on 22 June 2018.

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Master Of Monsters Doug Jones Will Resurrect Nosferatu

You likely know the name Doug Jones — he’s the man behind the mask of countless monsters, aliens, heroes and demons ranging from Buffy to Hellboy to Falling Skies to Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surferto The Strain. Now he’s bringing his particular talents and his tall, thin frame to Nosferatu‘s titular vampire.

Hiring Jones to play Count Orlock isn’t the remake’s only cool idea. Variety says that director David Lee Fisher is “creating a remix of the original film with a mixture of live-action combined with colorized digital backgrounds recreated from the original film”. Trying to bring 1920s German cinematic expressionism into the 21st century? That could be very cool if done correctly. If done incorrectly, well, it will still be a remake of one of the world’s best vampire movies starring one of entertainment’s best on-screen monsters.

[MIKA27]

Australian Scientists Discover A Natural Path To High Performance Renewable Batteries

Inspired by 16th century Chinese medicine, Australian scientists from Griffith University have turned to nature for solutions to improve the performance of batteries.

Professor Eddie Shanqing Zhang and his team have identified three natural sources which will not only reduce pollution in the manufacturing of lithium ion batteries and lithium-sulfur batteries, but improve overall performance and cyclability. This discovery could power a new generation of batteries using renewable power generation.

It’s this innovative research focus that saw Professor Zhang named as the mid/senior career research winner in the Griffith University Vice Chancellor’s Research Excellence Awards last night.

Professor Zhang, who works in the Griffith School of Environment and the Centre for Clean Environment and Energy, said his lifelong dream had been to develop new technologies that would change the world and now, after 20 years of research and world first discoveries, he is on the cusp of another major contribution to the science field.

“This century there are three important things we must explore — the environment, energy and health,” he said. “I am working on two of those areas.”

“Batteries will further improve our modern life but we need to address environmental issues by reducing the use of unsustainable materials and the production of toxic wastes in the manufacturing process.”

The team has identified Gum Acacia, a deciduous legume from Northeast Africa used in food and medicine as a soluble dietary fiber, Sodium Algnate (sea algae) and bamboo carbon has natural sources of highly efficient polymers.

“Among them, the use of the Gum Acacia, as binder could reduce the pollution in the manufacturing process by eliminating the use of toxic solvent NMP and saving millions dollars recycling equipment and improve overall performance of the produced Li-S battery by about 500 per cent in comparison with conventional lithium ion battery,” Professor Zhang said.

“This discovery and achievement will attract battery communities’ interest in developing and commercialising green electrode fabrication process for Lithium-sulfur cells. This fabrication strategy could also be applied to other rechargeable battery systems such as lithium-air and sodium-ion batteries.”

[MIKA27]

The Latest Warcraft Trailer Is All About The Orcish Action

We actually haven’t seen that much of the “war” in the upcoming Warcraft movie yet, but this new trailer seems to be trying to make up for that by showing you a cornucopia of people and orcs getting hacked, shanked and hammered.

Conversely, the new trailer doesn’t really add that much in telling us about the story — orcs are invading, orcs bad, fight orcs, no wait some orcs are good! — but it gives us a better look at some of the more fantastical elements of the world of Azeroth, like magic and Dwarves, and a bit more of Paula Patton’s half-orc Garona kicking butt and taking names.

I’m still holding out hope that Warcraft is a fun recreation of a classic gaming series — but man, these trailers are really not helping. That soundtrack is just abysmal.

[MIKA27]

No Living Room Is Complete Without A Star Trek Pinball Machine Coffee Table

Your mum always told you to keep your feet off the coffee table, but you’ll finally have good reason to listen to her advice with this wonderfully over-the-top Star Trek pinball machine sitting smack dab in the middle of your living room.

It started life as a legit Star Trek pinball machine built and sold by Data East back in 1991, but over the course of some 390 hours it was transformed into the beautifully-detailed coffee table that looks like a miniature shuttle craft landed in your living room. There’s even a secret pull-out compartment revealing a set of glowing dilithium crystals, and the pinball game itself is still fully playable, for those times when you can’t find a Star Trek rerun to watch.

As for pricing, it’s one of those “if you have to ask you probably can’t afford it” type of collectibles, but you’re looking at around $US15,000 ($19,367) (plus the fee for a trustworthy middleman, since it doesn’t ship to Australia). However, who needs to buy a car or go anywhere when you have one of these in your home?

[MIKA27]

The Twilight Zone Will Return As An 'Interactive' TV Series

CBS has announced plans to revive the iconic anthology series The Twilight Zone, but it won’t be an ordinary TV show. Instead it’s a melding of TV and video games, helmed by gaming industry legend Ken Levine (the driving force behind Bioshock).

Revealed by The Wrap, the new Twilight Zone will be made with the help of a digital video company called Interlude, which creates interactive videos that let viewers decide the outcome of events — promising a similar level of interactivity in the new series that will, according to CBS, tell stories that “change and adapt the story based on what [the viewer] feels”. Choose your own adventure, Twilight Zone-style. This has the chance to be mindbogglingly weird and delightful.

So it makes perfect sense that Ken Levine — former head of games developer Irrational Games, and best known as the writer on System Shock 2, Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite, games known for their reality-twisting storytelling that subverted player expectation and perception — will be writing and directing the pilot for the series. That sort of sensibility would work brilliantly for a series like Twilight Zone, and we can’t wait to hear more. Unfortunately, there are no further details yet.

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This Thermal Imaging Helmet Gives Firefighters Predator Vision

Thermal vision might have been made popular by Predator, but infrared imaging is useful for humans as well as mutant aliens. Specifically, giving firefighters hands-free thermal vision could save lives, as well as making Hollywood jealous.

Scott Sight is an thermal imaging headset designed to make firefighters’ lives easier. It integrates a thermal camera into a standard mask, with the camera mounted on the right-hand side and a tiny screen positioned in the bottom of the firefighters’ field of vision.

It’s not true HoloLens-style augmented reality — you still need to flick your eyes between the real world and the tiny display — but it works something like Google Glass, or the helmet-mounted display Apache pilots use.

Thermal imaging is already a staple in firefighters’ toolkits. It lets them see victims through dense smoke, but also spot hot spots or fires that are burning inside walls. At the moment, handheld cameras with a rear-mounted display are the norm, but they’re bulky, and obviously use up hands.

Augmented reality is currently a jaw-dropping technology searching for practical applications. Scott’s helmet-mounted display is a fantastic start, but imagine a HoloLens-style display, coupled with a thermal imaging camera, which would automatically flag up victims and hot spots — not to mention, of course, giving us a good weapon in the war against Ridley Scott’s alien invasion.

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Watch Aston Martin's Vulcan Supercar Tear Up Highlands Raceway In New Zealand

The extremely limited 24-car production run of the Aston Martin Vulcan meant that we probably wouldn’t ever see one in Australia. If you want to take a quick trip across the ditch, though, you can. There’s one that lives at Highlands Motorsport Park in New Zealand, though, and it’s pretty quick around the 4.1km track.

The man behind Highlands Motorsport Park is Tony Quinn, who made his name on the VIP Petfoods brand of fresh cat and dog food. He was lucky enough to secure the only Aston Martin Vulcan to be delivered to the Southern Hemisphere, and in the video above it’s unleashed upon his own personal race track.

The Vulcan is a track-only car, and a racecar par excellence — its Aston V12 has been stretched to 7.0 litres’ capacity, and is capable of a solid 800bhp. The Vulcan’s incredibly light 180kg carbon fibre tub uses the company’s learnings from the One-77 project, while the rest of the entire chassis is also carbon fibre. Connecting the engine to the road is a race-ready 6-speed sequential ‘box made by Xtrac.

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Uniden's New Dash Cam Is Designed To Help Stop Accidents

The iGO Cam 755 won’t just record your accidents in Full HD+ — making it the only dash cam on the market to record at that quality — it aims to stop them happening in the first place.

As expected, it comes with a speed camera warning to alert you of upcoming fixed speed cameras and red light cameras. But the coolest part is Lane Assist.

Lane Assist gives you both visual and audible alerts when your car is drifting over a lane while you are driving, although Uniden do concede this feature is limited in poor visibility or where there are inconsistent or faded road markings.

The aim of Lane Assist is not just to alert you to the fact you are about to run off the road or into another car, but to prompt you to take a break. It can be tempting to keep going on a road trip, but with studies showing fatigued drivers have similar response times to drunk drivers, it’s best to err on the side of caution.

Of course at it’s core the iGO Cam 755 is a dash cam, and it does what you’d expect from a dash cam — records accidents.

With the help of advanced accident recording “black box” technologies, a built-in G-sensor and Collision Detection Mode, the camera identifies any changes in motion to instantly trigger recording. In an accident, this lets you see how the collision happened and even analyse the direction of impact. Geotagging saves details of the location where an incident occurred.

The 2304 x 1296 Full HD+ resolution, plus a 170 degree angle lens, means the video quality is right up there. This makes it easier to report traffic events and accidents to police and insurance companies. There’s also a car plate stamp that makes it easy to identify the user’s number plate while viewing footage.

In addition to the safety benefits, the enhanced video footage lets you capture scenic drives and off-road adventures, while the time lapse recording feature lets you capture long journeys in a one to two minute video. You can watch it back on your TV via HDMI or AV out cable. To view footage on the go, there’s a 2.7-inch LCD colour display on the dash cam itself.

Other features include a micro SD slot, and Night Vision for clear footage, even in low lit environments.

The setup is a basic plug and play. A quick release clip means it can be easily dismantled and moved between cars if needed.

The iGO Cam 755 is available from today for $229.95. Here’s some footage of it in action: