boston

Lithium-ion battery manufacturer Boston-Power and Swedish automaker Saab are collaborating on a zero emissions version of the Saab 9-3, both companies announced Wednesday.

The ZE Saab 9-3 (ZE for zero emissions) would be an all electric vehicle with a Boston-Power battery.

Many may wonder why Boston-Power would get involved with the struggling, for-sale Saab. But for the Massachusetts-based battery manufacturer, which has been trying to get into transportation batteries, the partnership makes sense, considering its associations.

In January 2009, Boston-Power received $55 million in series D funding from a group led by Foundation Asset Management, the investment arm of a … Read more

I'm sure you are all well-acquainted with the crazy quadrupled BigDog robot, but if it had a master to walk with, it would probably look something like the Petman.

Actually, the similarity is not surprising considering that the walking robot was designed by Boston Dynamics, the same company behind BigDog. Petman has been in development for some time now, but this is the first chance we have had to view his human-like stride.

The military plans to use it to test out clothing for soldiers that needs to be completely protective and not strain or open up under any … Read more

Howeler Yoon Architecture has proposed that an algae farm and vertical garden be erected at the old Filene's Basement site in Boston's Downtown Crossing.

The prefabricated design of interlocking pods containing algae-incubators on the inside and plants on the outside would be a temporary structure until the city of Boston, the site's owners, and the new owner of the bankrupt Filene's Basement chain agree on what to ultimately do with the historic Washington Street real estate.

But it's not just a one-off idea for the Filene's Basement spot.

Howeler Yoon, which is collaborating with … Read more

There are many medical conditions that involve medication with intermittent doses on an as-needed basis, and often, that medication cannot be taken orally.

Scientists have long struggled with how best to deliver medication under these circumstances, where the delivery system might meet three key needs: intermittent dosing, with extreme precision, over the long term.

Research led by Daniel Kohane at Children's Hospital Boston may have hit on an effective new approach: a tiny, implantable device that releases the medication through a membrane whose porousness responds to the switching on or off of a magnetic field.

The membrane is embedded … Read more

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has demoed its Precision Urban Hopper robot, a wheeled ground unit that can leap over 25-foot-tall obstacles and keep on truckin'.

Seen in the video below, released last week by the Sandia National Laboratory, the shoebox-size Hopper easily takes on a chain-link fence, bounces a bit after landing, and then keeps rolling. It seems that a piston-fired leg makes it fly.

The Precision Urban Hopper is being developed by Sandia and Boston Dynamics, creator of the famously creepy BigDog robot, for surveillance operations in urban terrain. Guided by GPS, it is designed to "… Read more

Glen "Big Baby" Davis of the Boston Celtics is a lovable soul. Until he doesn't get a contract.

At least that was the conclusion reached by the more than 1,600 people who followed him on Twitter at twitter.com/bigbabybball.

Despite being a popular member of the Celtics roster, the team hasn't offered him a contract. So his alleged Twitter page tweeted July 14: "Man I love Boston, this is where I started my career! But sometimes you forget that this is a business!!!!"

Which he then followed up with: "celtic have … Read more

We invite Natali Del Conte onto today's show to have some fun with us, but you should've been there in the preshow--she went berzerko! We calm her down a little bit and she talks to us about her Palin/Twitter fallout and her upcoming appearance at Comic-Con 2009. She also dispels rumors about drugs in her undergarments, and we get to a few more exciting stories on the show!

If you're wondering why there's a photo of Lara Croft to the left of this paragraph, look again: it's actually Natali Del Conte, host of Loaded on CNETTV. She'll be at this year's Comic-Con 2009 in San Diego, so be sure to look for that soon! We love it when Natali comes on because we always seem to bring out the dirty side of her, or so we think.

Today's show starts off a little rough because Natali just can't seem to get the Wi-Fi in the studio to connect to her computer, so we're warning you to brace yourselves for a classic NDC scream in the beginning of today's show. After that, everything runs smoothly (as smooth as it can get on The 404).

We get to talking about Sarah Palin resigning and the ridiculous speech that sort of made sense, but didn't say anything. I think NDC put it best when she said that the former Governor of Alaska is very good at the art of "saying without saying." We all watched the speech, too, and after several 17-minute viewings, I still have no idea what the heckbeans is going on. I guess she's not so much of a Maverick after all.

The next story in today's show rundown is about the city of Boston launching a complaint-filing iPhone application. Sounds like a disaster waiting to strike, right? I'd have to agree with you. Now that all citizens of Boston have an open forum to complain, I imagine a flood of the most mundane little squawks about graffiti, potholes, smells, street lights, etc...stuff that you normally wouldn't give a **** about.

After we report on the story, we go around the table and list off a few complaints that we have with the city of New York, and if you think Boston is bad, just wait, there are a few good ones in there. Are you listening, New York?

Finally, we want to send our thanks to our pal Daniel for sending us a very kind e-mail with a picture of what he did this weekend. He writes, "Hey Guys, Wanted to let you know that I spent sometime with the 404 and a Becks this weekend. Feel free to post this to the blog or whatever. Really love your show, keep up the work and congrats on the sponsor." Now if that isn't the most ideal way to sponsor a show, I don't know WHAT is! We jest, but we seriously appreciate pictures like these, they make our day. By the way, our new iTunes album art looks GREAT in Cover Flow!

Battery company Boston Power thinks it can bring electric car battery manufacturing to the U.S. with some help from government stimulus funds.

The Westborough, Mass.-based company on Monday is scheduled to hold a press event in nearby Auburn where it plans to build a factory to make lithium-ion batteries for laptops and electric vehicles.

Construction of the facility, which used to be a distribution center for a clothing retailer, is contingent on a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's advanced battery and cell manufacturing grant program.

Boston Power has applied for $100 million in the … Read more

Here's another offering from Boston Dynamics' zoomorphic line: the RiSE V3, a multi-legged, beaver-tailed robot that can skitter along the ground, shimmy up a pole, and then quietly cling there and stare at you.

The legs are powered by a pair of electric motors and equipped with small surgical needle micro-claws, which allow the unit to dig into and climb up textured, convex, cylindrical structures at a rate of 21 centimeters per second, or just under a half a mile an hour (PDF).

"RiSE V3 is the first general-purpose legged machine to achieve this vertical climbing speed," … Read more