Honda's FC sport concept. Looks cool huh, well its only a concept, but if this were my car I'd probably turn heads and even break a few necks....SWEEEET! Is it real though, yes it was real at the LA car show. SO what does Honda say about it "The FC Sport emphasizes the design flexibility and potential of Honda’s V Flow fuel cell technology — already deployed in the Honda FCX Clarity sedan — and reconfigures it into a lightweight sports car design with an ultralow center of gravity, powerful electric motor performance and zero emissions,” said the press materials. “People who love sports cars will still have a reason to love in a hydrogen-powered future.” What they didn't say is that fuel cell still has really taken the market by storm. Maybe another year Honda.

Games meet dentistry with the PediSedate

Sometimes we hear about gadgets that are made for good but could definitely be used for evil. Take the PediSedate, a combo gaming device and sedation machine.

It's essentially a Game Boy system modified to distract kids ages 3 to 9 with Tetris or something while they're pumped full of nitrous oxide to knock them unconscious for dental surgery. Sounds evil, even though it's intended to make things easier on the kid.

But that's not all it does. The colorful headset includes systems to monitor the patient, such as a pulse-oximeter to slightly adjust the flow of gas in real time, meaning it's safer for the kid than just raw gas.

Boston-area anesthesiologist Dr. Geoffrey Hart, the company's founder, received grants totaling $1.8 million from the NIH and the Albert Einstein Society to make his vision into a product. New England product design company Design Continuum delivered prototypes.

No word whether a DSi version might be in the works to update the idea, but we wouldn't doubt it. The PediSedate is not exactly brand new, but we've apparently been anesthetized, so we're wondering if any of our readers have ever come across one.

(Via OhGizmo)

Will air-powered robot hand grip the future?

In the future, we'll likely be bowing down to our robot overlords. They'll have amazing artificial intelligence and powerful metal bodies. I've long thought the bodies would be electronic servos powered by high-charge batteries, but a new development by the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory of the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech might change that.

(Credit: Virginia Tech)

Meet Raphael, the Robotic Air-Powered Hand with Elastic Ligaments. It's a gripper that's powerful enough to hold something heavy, say an Uzi, but delicate enough to grasp human brains without destroying them. Certainly this is what the robotic soldiers of the future will be outfitted with.

The hand uses compressed air that passes through tiny actuators to control each finger separately. A microcomputer dictates how much air is given to each finger through an accordion-like tube. Less air means a softer grip, while more air means a firm grip that could rip out a human's windpipe.

The students who designed the man-killing machinery will be splitting a $10,500 prize for winning first place in an innovative-design competition sponsored by the Cleveland-based Compressed Air and Gas Institute, the association of manufacturers of compressed air and gas systems and equipment. Besides standalone robots, the hand could be fitted to amputees as a prosthetic, creating murderous cyborgs or, hopefully, humans capable of fighting off the mechanical menace with their own parts.

The hand is already on its second prototype design, with the newer model to be used by Charli, a humanoid robot also being built by Virginia Tech's Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory.

I'm seeing a brighter future already.