Weekly Recap: 60TB SSD, Dancing Robots, Multi-Tasking Toaster, Virtually Free Vertu , BladeGlider, etc.

The 60TB SSD

Last week, Samsung announced it had created world’s largest SSD, a 15.36TB model priced at 10,000$. This week, Seagate announced an SSD four times as large, a 60TB, 3.5-inch monster which should be available in early 2017. The company said that it will eventually offer 100TB models. The price is not yet available.

⇨ Ars Technica, “Seagate’s new 60TB SSD is world’s largest”.

Dancing Robots

At the Qingdao international beer festival, the world record for most robots dancing simultaneously was handily beaten by 1,007 robots dancing in unison (the previous record was 540). Why 1,007 and not 999, 1,000 or 1,050? That’s because some robots were disqualified for falling over or not completing the entire minute-long routine.

⇨ Guinness World Records, “1,007 dancing robots break world record in China.”

Multi-Tasking Toaster

Even in your wildest dreams, you never expected your toast to remind you to pay your bills. But now this is the stuff of reality, thanks to Toasteroid, a connected toaster that prints messages or images right on your toast.

⇨ Circuit Breaker, “Do you want your toast to remind you to pay your bills?”

Foosballer Robot

A robot developed by EPFL students was able to compete against human players with average skills in table football. The next step will be to program the robot with some strategy and organise a competition among robots.

⇨ École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, “All brawn, little brains: EPFL students' table-football robot”.

Virtually Free Vertu

Luxury phonemaker Vertu, the inventor of the must-have bling phone for fashionistas, whose phones have typically sold for between 10,000 and 35,000 USD, has just released an Android phone for the token price of 4,200 USD (5,470 CAD) (the raspberry ostrich-skin model that we’re particularly fond of does cost a teeny bit more). Plus, the price includes the charger and headphones. But don’t despair: if you don’t want to look cheap, you can still get the S40 for 32,750 USD (42,575 CAD)!

⇨ Circuit Breaker, “Vertu announces new smartphones starting at the low, low price of $4,200.”

BladeGlider

Nissan has built functional prototypes of a 100% electric three-seater sports car. The beautiful BladeGlider sports a 220kWh battery, tops out at 185km/h, and accelerates from 0 to 100km/h in less than 5 seconds. The BladeGlider is currently being shown off in Rio, capitalizing on the Olympic Games. The nifty feature of backview mirrors replaced with screens on either side of the steering wheel could soon spread to all commercially-available cars.

⇨ Popular Science, “Nissan BladeGlider prototype points to the future.”