motivate

Transportation design firm Motive Industries released computer-generated images of what a pickup made of composite material could look like.

The Bison is a midsize truck concept with the the cargo capacity of a full-size Ford F-series, according to Motive. Constructed of carbon fiber composite, the Bison offers a 50 percent weight savings over a steel truck without sacrificing strength.

The same chassis could be used with conventional gas or diesel engines, and it can also accommodate a hybrid, electric, or fuel cell power train, according to Motive. The flexible platform and body design would make it an attractive option for … Read more

First, the good news: a top executive at SB LiMotive says it may be possible to design lithium batteries that can deliver a 300-mile daily range.

And now the bad news: the prototype batteries have an unsettling tendency to burst into flames.

And that, in a nutshell, is what occupies Joachim Fetzer these days. As executive vice president of SB LiMotive, it's Fetzer's job to deliver lithium ion batteries to customers--mission accomplished--and figure out how to improve their performance--a work in progress.

SB LiMotive is a 50-50 joint venture between Robert Bosch and Samsung, launched in 2008. The … Read more

Motive Industries, an automotive design firm in Canada, is developing the most literal of green vehicles--an electric car with a chassis made from cannabis.

The body of the Kestrel, a four-seat electric vehicle, is engineered using impact-resistant biocomposite derived from Canadian grown and manufactured hemp mats.

Its construction takes enviromentally friendly engineering one step further--the hemp fibers in the composite keep the body weight low, which reduces the energy needed to propel the vehicle while offering a renewable alternative to composites derived from petrochemicals. Aptera, a California-based EV start-up, uses silica-based fabric for its composite material that is impossible to … Read more

Do you intend to be nice to your co-workers today? Do you intend to spend a little longer in the shower so that your personal crevices are spotless? Do you intend to write that friend request to Mark Zuckerberg and keep your list of friends private?

Well, a group of scientists at UCLA would like to thank you for words, but prefers to scan your brains to prove to you what you really intend to do.

If this all sounds a little macabre, then you clearly don't intend to follow science's inexorable path. According to Reuters, a team … Read more

Streaks Motivational Calendar uses a simple--and surprisingly effective--concept to motivate you to stay productive. The idea is that you choose a thing you want to do more of, such as exercising, for example. Streaks Motivational Calendar lets you set up an exercising calendar on which you can mark off each day that you exercise with a big red X. Once you have a few days marked off, you'll have a streak.

Streaks Motivational Calendar lets you set up multiple calendars so you can track your progress toward various goals. You can name your calendars for any ongoing task, then … Read more

Probably like many people reading this blog post, I experienced firsthand the trouble Apple and AT&T had with the overwhelming number of preorders for the iPhone 4 on Tuesday. I thought I was being smart by deciding to skip the long lines and get the iPhone 4 delivered to my house, but I ended up getting nothing but errors after only the first few steps into the process.

After several attempts, I decided to wait a couple of days before trying again and ended up buying the black 32GB model through Apple on Thursday. Unfortunately, with the enormous … Read more

Mystic Board is at it again, providing useless, atrociously designed software under the guise of offering personal insight and self-improvement. MB Motivation And Self Help is a suite of Mystic Board programs that we've encountered before individually, and we're sorry to say that packaging these programs together did not make them any less ridiculous.

The three programs included in MB Motivation And Self Help are Subliminal Message Software, Hypnosis, and Color Therapy. All three of these are encased in horrible interfaces that are cluttered with Mystic Board advertising. We started with the Subliminal Message Software, which was laughable. … Read more

A space race lifted off Friday in Southern California, only this one involved elevators.

Powering their laser-controlled robot to climb a 900-meter-long cable, the team from Seattle-based LaserMotive was crowned the winner in NASA's Space Elevator Power-Beaming Challenge game on Friday.

Held at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base in Lancaster, Calif., the challenge pits teams against each other to see whose robotic space elevator can inch up the cable the quickest in under 7.5 minutes. A helicopter holds the steel cable in place as each robotic elevator races to the top. The … Read more

My mom always told me “Make your passion your profession, and you’ll be a happy man.” She was right, and I am glad I followed her advice. Yet I appear to be part of a minority. In an article about growing disenchantment at work (“Hating What You Do”), this week’s Economist cites a survey conducted by the Center for Work-Life Policy, an American consultancy. It found that between June 2007 and December 2008 the proportion of workers who professed loyalty to their employers slumped from 95% to 39%, and the number voicing trust in them fell from 79% … Read more