News

The rapid rise of air travel in Europe that is cheap and easy to book has seen rail operators miss a trick – a fact not lost on British start-up Loco2.com, an online travel agent focussed exclusively on rail and dedicated to making rail travel in Europe as easy as booking a flight. The Loco2.com website makes it possible for the first time...

The Alter Bike is a fuel cell electric bicycle that has no need for plugs and sockets. Electric bicycles, or pedelecs, do not have the same requirement for recharging infrastructure as electric cars – after all, if you run out of juice, you just pedal home – but...

At £25,680, the BMW i3 is too expensive to be the electric vehicle equivalent of the Ford Model T, but it will nonetheless do much to alter perceptions. Electric cars are often dismissed as novelty vehicles; exotic runabouts for the wealthy or badges of honour for the environmentally devout, but for most, a drive in the i3 will be a...

What if you need to store your bicycle outside, but are without a garden shed? Bike thieves always go for easy pickings first, but they are notoriously resourceful and brazen when need be. The upshot for cyclists is that thieves will remove the hinges from a garden shed, pull aside fence posts to pop open side gates and even demolish a...

Looking like a tendril from the stunning Beijing Olympics bird’s nest stadium, the soon-to-be-built Changsha Meixi lake crossing is another example of the cutting-edge architecture being employed around the world to build landmark pedestrian bridges - a celebration of walking that is always to be encouraged. The architectural practice, NEXT...

The Ziesel is an extreme mobility scooter that laughs in the face of extreme weather and terrain. Of the 300,000 mobility scooters in Britain, most are surprisingly capable at tackling slopes, curbs and small steps, but occasionally they do get into difficulty - there is even a breakdown recovery service for mobility scooters. However, it...

Say what you like about London Mayor Boris Johnson, but there is little doubt he is a dyed-in-the-wool cyclist - as vulnerable to the curse of the flat battery as the rest of us. Johnson was exposed as having ridden without a rear light by a cab driver, who called the mayor during Ask Boris, his weekly phone-in show on London radio station...

A pair of entrepreneurs are seeking funding for their 'dynopod' concepts - pedal-powered workstations that exploit the efficiency of a bicycle to power a range of tools including laptops, food processors and water pumps. Pedal Power's dynopods could help counteract inactive...

Design students have devised a bicycle with a storage compartment incorporated into its front wheel. There is no requirement for a car to have headlamps to pass an MOT, or be driven legally during daylight hours, but that doesn't stop manufacturers including them on every model they sell. They simply assume most motorists want to drive at...

What to do with the 80,000 umbrellas lost on London’s Underground each year? For those that cannot be reunited with their owners, a group of architects may have the answer: The Harvest Dome. The Harvest Dome was built earlier this year in New York using 450 discarded umbrellas support by a floating platform made from 128 recycled drinks...