Be honest: when you think about the world of the future, do you still picture flying cars? Even though it’s still impractical to have a bunch of cars flying around in neighborhoods, a small aircraft that converts to a street-legal car is getting pretty close to becoming a reality. So it makes sense that, as the technology to fly airplanes gets smaller and cheaper, we should be producing aircraft that are smaller and cheaper. John McGinnis wants to put an airplane in every garage, to make them as ubiquitous as minivans and station wagons for busy families on the go.

His project is Synergy, a family-size light aircraft that aims to make air travel cheaper, simpler, faster and far more comfortable than flying on commercial planes. It sounds a little bit insane at first, but it’s hard not to get caught up in McGinnis’ enthusiasm for this revolutionary concept.

He is raising money for the project on Kickstarter (as of the time of publishing, the goal has already been met) – but this project doesn’t bring with it the usual swag that accompanies Kickstarter start-ups. The team isn’t sending out individual aircraft in exchange for pledges; they are simply offering the chance to be a part of a new branch of aviation history. The money will be used to create a working prototype which can then go through the rigorous testing required to bring the Synergy into our everyday lives.

The Synergy is so revolutionary in part because it doesn’t even have wings. Rather, it has a double box tail which McGinnis says reduces drag dramatically. He calls it a “modern magic carpet” that will allow the little plane to fly with ten times the fuel economy of a small jet. The 25% scale model that has already been built seems to fly very well.

McGinnis is realistic about the long, bumpy road ahead of the Synergy. He doesn’t expect to have it in every driveway in the next year. But the project is gaining steam from supporters around the world who agree that this is the first significant advance in aircraft design in a lifetime. Who knows – maybe in a hundred years the Synergy will have a place of honor in the history books right next to the Spirit of St. Louis.

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In city environments, the visual clutter of streetlights, phone poles, utility boxes, electric poles and cell phone towers is just something that we’ve learned to accept and, for the most part, ignore. But Vancouver writer and artist Douglas Coupland thinks that our cities deserve better than that, so he’s redesigned the way that urban utilities interact with the urban environment. The V-Pole (V for Vancouver, of course) is a surprisingly stylish utility pole encompassing just about everything the modern city dweller needs.

Each pole is connected to underground optical wiring. Different utilities can be included in the poles, depending on what is necessary for that area, with modular pieces. Thanks to a new technology developed at Bell Labs, those gigantic utility boxes we are used to seeing can now be replaced by compact devices the size and shape of a Rubik’s cube. That is really the driving technology that allows the V-Pole to squeeze so many utilities into such a small space.

Besides the LED streetlight at the top, a single V-Pole can provide mobile network coverage, wi-fi, electric vehicle charging, parking transactions, and neighborhood bulletin board services. It’s way more energy efficient and and cheaper than current versions of all of these services, and because they are all combined visual clutter is dramatically decreased. Thanks to its modular nature, it will be expandable for future generations. Eventually, we may even be able to forget that urban utilities used to take up so much space in our cities.

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How do you measure something that is so mind-bogglingly vast that we have barely begun to explore it? Astronomers do it every day, and it turns out that they have some pretty nifty (and surprisingly simple) secrets. This short film from the Royal Observatory Greenwich explains some of the tools astronomers use to figure out how far distant stars are from us.

Thankfully, the cute animation uses simple terms, so even those unfamiliar with space studies will be able to follow along. If you take a moment to really consider the centuries of study, work and sometimes dangerous discoveries that have gone into these measurements – well, it’s nearly as mind-boggling as the vast universe itself.

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In general, our mobile phones are used for two types of communication: synchronous (talking on the phone) and asynchronous (texting). When talking, you have the benefit of using a certain tone of voice to communicate feelings. But texting lacks such a dimension unless you count emoticons. There is less of a tangible personal connection when using text messages to communicate. Noticing this, Marco Triverio created Feel Me, an app that bridges the gap between synchronous and asynchronous communication.

Feel Me uses non-verbal communication through mobile phones in a very immediate way. When two users are using the app at the same time, they can each see where the other is touching on their phone at that very moment. It creates a sort of intimate security, letting both people feel connected to one another with a virtual touch.

When both users touch exactly the same spot at the same moment, a reaction happens – a vibration, perhaps, or a sound. The feedback reinforces the feeling that the two are connected in some way, even though they may be physically very far apart. There is definitely something to be said for knowing that, even through an impersonal communication method like text messages, you still have a connection with the person on the other end of the conversation.

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Diners and restaurant critics seem to agree that the noise level in a restaurant can make or break the dining experience. But it’s a fine balance – too much noise and customers feel crowded and overwhelmed; too little and they feel like their conversations can be overheard by absolutely everyone in the place. A restaurant in Berkeley, California has come up with a high-tech solution to the noise conundrum.

Comal, a Mexican restaurant owned by ex-Phish manager John Paluska, is using a combination of microphones, speakers, a digital processor, and absorption materials to create a totally unique noise control system. The first step in transforming the space into a sound-friendly one was to install plenty of sound-dampening material: wood fiber acoustic panels, fiberglass duct liner and even some recycled denim jeans.

A network of 123 speakers and microphones are distributed all throughout the dining room, hidden by art and other design elements. The microphones pick up the sound from the restaurant and feed it through a digital processor. Then it’s spit back out into the dining room based on commands from an iPad. A restaurant manager walking around the dining room can decide what level of sound is appropriate and even designate different levels for different areas. So far, it’s kept Comal – the first restaurant to use this technology – at a calm and conversational volume.

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