Rubik’s WOWCube: What Really Makes A Toy?

October 15, 2025 by Maya Posch 20 Comments

If there ever was a toy that enjoys universal appeal and recognition, the humble Rubik’s Cube definitely is on the list. Invented in 1974 by sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik with originally the name of Magic Cube, it features a three-by-three grid of colored surfaces and an internal mechanism which allows for each of these individual sections of each cube face to be moved to any other face. This makes the goal of returning each face to its original single color into a challenge, one which has both intrigued and vexed many generations over the decades. Maybe you’ve seen one?

Although there have been some variations of the basic 3×3 grid cube design over the years, none have been as controversial as the recently introduced WOWCube. Not only does this feature a measly 2×2 grid on each face, each part of the grid is also a display that is intended to be used alongside an internal processor and motion sensors for digital games. After spending many years in development, the Rubik’s WOWCube recently went up for sale at $299, raising many questions about what market it’s really targeting.

Is the WOWCube a ‘real’ Rubik’s Cube, and what makes something into a memorable toy and what into a mere novelty gadget that is forgotten by the next year like a plague of fidget spinners?

Continue reading “Rubik’s WOWCube: What Really Makes A Toy?” →

Smart Bulbs Are Turning Into Motion Sensors

October 7, 2025 by Lewin Day 33 Comments

If you’ve got an existing smart home rig, motion sensors can be a useful addition to your setup. You can use them for all kinds of things, from turning on lights when you enter a room, to shutting off HVAC systems when an area is unoccupied. Typically, you’d add dedicated motion sensors to your smart home to achieve this. But what if your existing smart light bulbs could act as the motion sensors instead?

Continue reading “Smart Bulbs Are Turning Into Motion Sensors” →

How Regulations Are Trying To Keep Home Battery Installs Safe

September 24, 2025 by Lewin Day 81 Comments

The advent of rooftop solar power generation was a huge step forward for renewable energy. No longer was generating electricity the sole preserve of governments and major commercial providers; now just about any homeowner could start putting juice into the grid for a few thousand dollars. Since then, we’ve seen the rise of the home battery, which both promises to make individual homes more self sufficient, whilst also allowing them to make more money selling energy to the grid where needed.

Home batteries are becoming increasingly popular, but as with any new home utility, there come risks. After all, a large capacity battery can present great danger if not installed or used correctly. In the face of these dangers, authorities in jurisdictions around the world have been working to ensure home batteries are installed with due regard for the safety of the occupants of the average home.

Continue reading “How Regulations Are Trying To Keep Home Battery Installs Safe” →

Meta’s Ray-Ban Display Glasses And The New Glassholes

September 22, 2025 by Maya Posch 133 Comments

It’s becoming somewhat of a running gag that any device or object will be made ‘smart’ these days, whether it’s a phone, TV, refrigerator, home thermostat, headphones or glasses. This generally means somehow cramming a computer, display, camera and other components into the unsuspecting device, with the overarching goal of somehow making it more useful to the user and not impacting its basic functionality.

Although smart phones and smart TVs have been readily embraced, smart glasses have always been a bit of a tough sell. Part of the problem here is of course that most people do not generally wear glasses, between people whose vision does not require correction and those who wear e.g. contact lenses. This means that the market for smart glasses isn’t immediately obvious. Does it target people who wear glasses anyway, people who wear sunglasses a lot, or will this basically move a smart phone’s functionality to your face?

Smart glasses also raise many privacy concerns, as their cameras and microphones may be recording at any given time, which can be unnerving to people. When Google launched their Google Glass smart glasses, this led to the coining of the term ‘glasshole‘ for people who refuse to follow perceived proper smart glasses etiquette.

Continue reading “Meta’s Ray-Ban Display Glasses And The New Glassholes” →

A New Generation Of Spacecraft Head To The ISS

September 18, 2025 by Tom Nardi 22 Comments

While many in the industry were at first skeptical of NASA’s goal to put resupply flights to the International Space Station in the hands of commercial operators, the results speak for themselves. Since 2012, the SpaceX Dragon family of spacecraft has been transporting crew and cargo from American soil to the orbiting laboratory, a capability that the space agency had lost with the retirement of the Space Shuttle. Putting these relatively routine missions in the hands of a commercial provider like SpaceX takes some of the logistical and financial burden off of NASA, allowing them to focus on more forward-looking projects.

SpaceX Dragon arriving at the ISS for the first time in 2012.

But as the saying goes, you should never put all of your eggs in one basket. As successful as SpaceX has been, there’s always a chance that some issue could temporarily ground either the Falcon 9 or the Dragon.

While Russia’s Progress and Soyuz vehicles would still be available in an emergency situation, it’s in everyone’s best interest that there be multiple backup vehicles that can bring critical supplies to the Station.

Which is precisely why several new or upgraded spacecraft, designed specifically for performing resupply missions to the ISS and any potential commercial successor, are coming online over the next few years.

In fact, one of them is already flying its first mission, and will likely have arrived at the International Space Station by the time you read this article.

Continue reading “A New Generation Of Spacecraft Head To The ISS” →

Dragon Is The Latest, And Final, Craft To Reboost ISS

September 11, 2025 by Tom Nardi 48 Comments

The International Space Station has been in orbit around the Earth, at least in some form, since November of 1998 — but not without help. In the vacuum of space, an object in orbit can generally be counted on to remain zipping around more or less forever, but the Station is low enough to experience a bit of atmospheric drag. It isn’t much, but it saps enough velocity from the Station that without regular “reboosts” to speed it back up , the orbiting complex would eventually come crashing down.

Naturally, the United States and Russia were aware of this when they set out to assemble the Station. That’s why early core modules such as Zarya and Zvezda came equipped with thrusters that could be used to not only rotate the complex about all axes, but accelerate it to counteract the impact of drag. Eventually the thrusters on Zarya were disabled, and its propellant tanks were plumbed into Zvezda’s fuel system to provide additional capacity.

An early image of ISS, Zarya module in center and Zvezda at far right.

Visiting spacecraft attached to the Russian side of the ISS can transfer propellant into these combined tanks, and they’ve been topped off regularly over the years. In fact, the NASA paper A Review of In-Space Propellant Transfer Capabilities and Challenges for Missions Involving Propellant Resupply, notes this as one of the most significant examples of practical propellant transfer between orbital vehicles, with more than 40,000 kgs of propellants pumped into the ISS as of 2019.

But while the thrusters on Zvezda are still available for use, it turns out there’s an easier way to accelerate the Station; visiting spacecraft can literally push the orbital complex with their own maneuvering thrusters. Of course this is somewhat easier said than done, and not all vehicles have been able to accomplish the feat, but over the decades several craft have taken on the burden of lifting the ISS into a higher orbit.

Earlier this month, a specially modified SpaceX Cargo Dragon became the newest addition to the list of spacecraft that can perform a reboost. The craft will boost the Station several times over the rest of the year, which will provide valuable data for when it comes time to reverse the process and de-orbit the ISS in the future.

Continue reading “Dragon Is The Latest, And Final, Craft To Reboost ISS” →

The Sense And Nonsense Of Virtual Power Plants

September 2, 2025 by Maya Posch 33 Comments

Over the past decades power grids have undergone a transformation towards smaller and more intermittent generators – primarily in the form of wind and solar generators – as well as smaller grid-connected batteries. This poses a significant problem when it comes to grid management, as this relies on careful management of supply and demand. Quite recently the term Virtual Power Plant (VPP) was coined to describe these aggregations of disparate resources into something that at least superficially can be treated more or less as a regular dispatchable power plant, capable of increasing and reducing output as required.

Although not actual singular power plants, by purportedly making a VPP act like one, the claim is that this provides the benefits of large plants such as gas-fired turbines at a fraction of a cost, and with significant more redundancy as the failure of a singular generator or battery is easily compensated for within the system.

The question is thus whether this premise truly holds up, or whether there are hidden costs that the marketing glosses over.

Continue reading “The Sense And Nonsense Of Virtual Power Plants” →