OffroadTechnology

Why solar power? Well it's cleaner, more sustainable energy. It's virtually infinite, unlike fossil fuels, and you don't have to drill into the earth to get to it. It doesn't seep or spill into our oceans. It doesn't pollute our air or give people black lung disease. It's also really convenient for powering consumer gadgets when you're on the go. You may find yourself without an outlet, but chances are, you'll always be near the sun. With the summer months coming up, prepare for hiking, camping, or days at the beach with solar-powered products that will keep your phone charged, music blasting, and room lit. 1. Hiking backpack This ECEEB weather-proof hiking backpack is made of nylon and polyester and comes with an attachable 7-watt solar panel. The solar panel doesn't hold a charge—it's not a battery pack—but will charge your device when it's light makes contact with the panel, which has a built-in five-volt port to charge yo...

In-car infotainment systems—the interfaces that tell you the name of the song on the radio or insist you make a U-Turn—are inadequate. They’re often too complicated to operate while driving and, worse, out-of-date by the time the car actually finds a home in your garage. In recent years, though, a handful of car companies have caved, letting third-party apps integrate with (or instead of) the car’s standard interface. Today’s top contenders are Apple’s CarPlay and Android Auto. Each is a stripped-down version of your phone’s system that runs on your car’s computer interface. They allow drivers and passengers to control music, navigate, and communicate by way of voice commands and the car’s manual controls. In theory, better apps mean safer driving; if you don’t need to access your phone, you can better focus on driving. But how do the systems stack up when you actually hit the road? Popular Science tested Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in matching 2017 Mercedes Benz ...

Before he retired from McGill University, Pieter Sijpke used to give his architecture students some pretty cool homework. He once told the class, "I want to be drinking in a snow bar by Friday." His students went outside and got to work, and sure enough, "we had 50 people inside the snow bar by Friday afternoon." Sijpke is originally from Holland, where water is usually found in liquid form. So when he moved to Canada, he was fascinated by snow and ice. To him, frozen water is a fantastic (and free) building material. He's built some seriously impressive structures out of snow and ice—including a 1/5-scale model of the Roman Pantheon. The 32.7-foot tall, 32.7-foot diameter structure was made from 400 tons of snow. More than 125 McGill students and faculty squeezed inside its walls, which were four feet thick. So Popular Science asked Sijpke how to build an igloo. "Scientifically, the best way is how the Inuit in the North still do it," h...

Sometimes science simply confirms what we already know to be true. You know what I’m talking about: researchers will find evidence that losing sleep makes you cranky and bad at your job, that eating lots of vegetables is good for your gut, or that Uranus is surrounded by a noxious fart cloud. Indeed, the new findings on the latter published in Nature Astronomy come as no surprise to those who’ve spent time closely examining Uranus. More than a year ago, planetary scientists told Gizmodo’s Ryan F. Mandelbaum that the essence of this ice giant’s scent would probably be dominated by ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide gives rotten eggs their stink, but it’s also associated with the odor of a human fart. Still, scientists had never directly detected the presence of these stinky molecules. Until now, that is. The authors of the new study examined sunlight bouncing off Uranus as captured by the 8-meter Gemini North telescope in Hawaii. Scientists determined what sor...