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The Housetrike is a cargo bike-based dwelling intended for use by the homeless, refugees and urban nomads. Its designer hopes the tricycle will give its users an independent, healthy, safe and above all dignified life by addressing the challenges of shelter, income and mobility. The cargo box transforms quickly and easily into a warm and...

With over 15,000 passenger vehicles every day crossing the channel to France by ferry and Euro Tunnel at this time of the year, and a similar number of drivers bracing themselves for squabbling passengers, endless loo stops and the ever-present chorus of “are we there yet?”, an end to such Autoroute Angst may soon be at hand for drivers of...

It's hard to know how best to deal with drivers who overtake too fast and too close, but Backtracker believes the answer lies with its high-tech bicycle rear light that can monitor approaching traffic and warn of vehicles approaching at speed. The device can detect vehicles at distances up to 150 metres and speeds of up to 100 mph....

Not content with stealing from the Boeing 747 the title of world’s largest airliner, the Airbus 380 of the near future may be revolutionary for entirely new reasons; it’s pilots will no longer use windows. Pilots already have the option to fly using only their instruments at night and in poor weather, and fully autonomous landings are...

A resourceful Russian DIYer has devised a simple way to transform dicarded drinks bottles into lengths of plastic string that have many uses, including bicycle handlebar wrap or cable clamps. Once the plastic string is in place, the application of heat shrinks and seals it in place, strengthening it in the process. The main component is a...

The use of airbags has greatly improved road safety for car occupants and the technology has now spread from steering wheels to almost every part of a car’s interior – including the glove compartment. A series of crashes in the early 1950s that resulted in gruesome injuries caused by glove compartment doors led to the removal of sharp...

The sound of a traditional bicycle bell is inherently friendly and impossible to ring angrily in the way that car horns are blared, so to help cyclists make heard above the din of city streets, MYBELL is a new design of bicycle speaker that plays any sound you choose at over 100 dB. [quote type="cycle_insurance"] According to the makers of...

Drivers in the near future will be able to see obstacles around blind corners. British engineers have developed a camera that scatters laser light 4,000 times a second and collects the tiny amount of reflected light to build an image of its subject. The camera can see around corners by bouncing its light off walls, the ground and other...

With the distance between airport entrance and departure gate an ever-lengthening walk, the ride-on electric suitcase was an invention waiting to happen. And with the trek between the entrance to Beijing Airport Terminal 3 and its furthest departure gate a staggering 2 miles, China was bound to be its birthplace. Chinese inventor He...

The makers of electric cars have done all they can to make their battery powered vehicles indistinguishable from those fuelled by petrol or diesel – the Nissan Leaf is every inch the conventional city car – but what if the road to success lies in creating cars that dare to be different. Cars such as Nimbus. Nimbus is a hybrid electric...