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Innovators: Something amazing

The technology of tomorrow — and the people making it
When was the last time you laid your hands on a new innovation, tried it out, and were truly amazed? Maybe it’s your first time driving a Tesla, hearing Dolby Atmos, or gaming in VR. In a landscape littered with incremental improvements and upgrades, it’s those wow moments that we really remember. In the Innovators series, Digital Trends goes behind the scenes with people on the cutting edge of innovation, to see how they do it.

Trek Bontrager WaveCel Helmet

Inside the high-tech lab that makes the world’s safest bike helmet

Trek and Bontrager have developed a new cycling helmet technology that looks to dramatically improve performance and safety. Dubbed WaveCel, the new tech uses three processes – flex, crumple, and glide – to disperse the energy absorbed on contact in an accident, providing up to 48 times more protection against head injury.
cemtrex smartdesk up close desk feat

This $3,600 workstation isn’t just a desk. It’s a cockpit of productivity

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How Laika blends 3D printing and CGI to make mesmerizing stop-motion movies

Three-Wheel EV

Can electric motors finally make three-wheeled cars great?

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The Great White Shark’s genome has been decoded, and it could help us end cancer

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NASA’s space observatory will map the sky with unprecedented detail

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NASA to launch SPHEREx mission to investigate the origins of our universe

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InSight’s heat probe will dig 16 feet beneath the surface of Mars

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Ant-inspired walking robot navigates without GPS by using polarized light

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China’s mind-controlled cyborg rats are proof we live in a cyberpunk dystopia

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A.I.-powered website creates freakishly lifelike faces of people who don’t exist

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Meet the Icon A5: a high-tech airplane that anyone can fly

ibm probabilistic ai huntingtons diseases doctor seeing patient

IBM’s latest A.I. can help doctors detect how quickly a disease is progressing

IBM has developed an A.I. that can be used to predict how a range of diseases -- including diabetes, Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s -- are likely to develop. The tool could one day be used by physicians to make more accurate diagnoses and design more effective treatments.
Crescent Moon Eva All-Foam V2 Snowshoe

Crescent Moon Eva All-Foam V2 Snowshoe review

Crescent Moon threw out the book when it designed its latest snowshoe. The one-piece teardrop snowshoe has no moving parts and is made of EVA foam, the impact-absorbing material in your sneakers. How does this unique snowshoe compare to a traditional snowshoe? Read on to find out.
fender acoustasonic guitar

Fender’s Acoustasonic guitar uses advanced tech to become a tonal chameleon

From shredding distortion to a soft and supple fingerstyle, Fender's latest guitar innovation is an acoustic/electric hybrid that allows guitar players to dial in the widest possible range of tones, making it a compelling new option for those with a wide range of musical inspirations.
wiliot bluetooth sensor battery free tag

Meet Wiliot, a battery-less Bluetooth chip that pulls power from thin air

A tiny chip being developed by a semiconductor company called Wiliot could harvest the energy it needs out of thin air, the company claims. No battery needed. The paper-thin device pulls power from ambient radio frequencies like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cell signals.
Impossible Burger 2.0 featured image

Taste test: The new Impossible Burger is a triumph of food engineering

Impossible Foods is back with a new-and-improved plant-based burger, and we got a chance to try it out at CES 2019. Suffice it to say that our minds were blown by the Impossible Burger 2.0. Everything is dialed in -- the smell, the color, the texture, the flavor -- that it's hard to tell it's not actual beef.
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Transformers for your feet. 21st-century design creates an all-condition shoe

Whether you're trekking through far-off lands or just on a day hike, comfortable and functional shoes are essential. Typically, you need rugged hiking boots, breathable shoes for hot days, and something comfortable to wear around the campfire. Or you could just bring these.
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To put a quantum computer on your desk, Intel has a plan unlike any other

Quantum computers, once they become common, will complete difficult tasks thousands of times more quickly than current PCs. That could obviously threaten a classic chipmaker like Intel, but it plans to use its knowledge of silicon production to build quantum chips more quickly than its peers.
dolby atmos nhra 11000 horses in your living room dolbyfeature feat

How do you re-create the air-ripping launch of 11,000-hp dragsters? Dolby Atmos

Dolby and the NHRA have been working together on something special. The two entities have been producing live drag races in spine-chilling Dolby Atmos. Digital Trends recently went behind the scenes at a race in Las Vegas to check out this newly forged partnership in action.
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Inside a Bitcoin mine, fans, silicon, and frigid temperatures keep crypto pumping

Ever wondered what it's like inside a bitcoin mine? Since it's a digital currency, you can't just dig it up with a pickaxe -- so to get an inside look at how it works, we packed up our cameras and drove up to Wenatchee, Washington to see a mine in person. Check out the video to get an inside look!
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Inside the Intel lab that put a legit gaming desktop in the palm of your hand

Meta description: Intel’s Next Unit of Computing, or NUC, has worked hard to miniaturize desktops over the last six years. Now, with the help of AMD’s Vega, its taking pint-sized performance to the next level. We took an inside look at the lab where it all happened.
DirectTV 4K HDR Pebble Beach

DirecTV wants to make 4K HDR sports par for the course. Here’s how it’ll work

4K HDR TVs deserve live sports in 4K HDR, and DirecTV is doing its best to deliver more of that content to its subscribers while pushing an industry forward.
Marvel universe live

Inside the tech behind Marvel Universe Live’s ‘Age of Heroes’ stunt show

Marvel Universe Live: Age of Heroes features Black Panther, Spiderman, Doctor Strange, and more Marvel favorites in a live action stunt show.
Marijuana tech

Inside the high-tech labs that make sure your legal marijuana is safe

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Watch: IBM uses artificial intelligence to make music with Phony Ppl

We brought IBM's AI music composition program Watson Beat to R&B group Phony PPL to see if actual musicians could find a cool way to use it.
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They’re real. We slipped on Nike’s HyperAdapt 1.0 self-lacing sneakers

We take a walk in Nike's first ever self-lacing sneakers, the Hyperadapt 1.0 and speak with Tiffany Beers, senior innovator at Nike about how it came about.
Starship Drone

Starship Technologies’ cute sidewalk drones will roll into London soon

Forget quadcopters; Starship Technologies is bringing drone delivery back down to earth with a fleet of six wheeled robots that deliver goods on the ground.
PicoBrew Jim Mitchell

PicoBrew’s Zymatic brews beer with a mouse click (and purists are pissed)

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Next-gen artificial limbs help amputees grab onto a better life

Next-gen artificial limbs are allowing amputees to regain lost function once provided by one of nature’s most complicated engineering feats: the human hand.
Ryno Motors front macro

Taking a spin on Ryno’s one-wheeled, self-balancing electric ‘microcycle’

blueshift bamboo speaker helium supercapacitor powered front

Blueshift’s bamboo Bluetooth beauty ditches D cells for supercapacitors

Bluetooth speakers are everywhere, but none are remotely like Sam Beck's Blueshift speakers. Check out what makes these portable speakers so amazing
brad baker works electric rover in action

There is such a thing as a badass scooter, and Works Electric calls it the Rover

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How a small Oregon company grew a business from garbage

Portland, Oregon-based Cass of Bass makes portable speakers from reclaimed and recycled materials to create truly unique portable speaker systems.