This Is Not a Giant Turtle, It's the World's First Fully 3D Printed Car

This wouldn't be the first time we come across rumors or news about 3D printing technology being used to help build a car or plane, but that doesn't matter because it's not what happened. Not exactly.

Instead, what we have here is the very first ever fully 3D printed automobile. A car that was 3D printed in a single, full-size piece.

It sounds incredible, to be sure, but the folks at the Geneva Motor Show don't lie. And it is there that the car is on display.

The 3D printed car has been fairly aptly dubbed Genesis and is made from carbon fiber, with thermoplastic materials applied to the exterior by robots.

It is composed of a shell-like chassis that is reinforced on the inside with interlocking supports, resembling bone structures.

One would think that it took some really sophisticated process to make the car in a single move, and that the creators had to jump through a lot of hoops to make it happen.

That's not what happened. At all. Instead, German engineering firm EDAG came to the conclusion that the best process was fused deposition modeling, or FDM for short.

And it just so happens that FDM is the most common type of 3D printing technology known to man at this point in time.

In fact, most printers from Cubify and MakerBot use FDM, allowing a product to be printed in layers of melted plastic or other materials that have been heated to the point of liquefaction.

In the case of EDAG's Genesis car, robotic extruders produced the melted polymer material to create the structure, and carbon fibers were added during the production process.

Keep in mind that only the body of the Genesis was made this way though. The motor and all the electrical/computer parts are still a different matter.

So I suppose we could say that even EDAG's Genesis isn't a fully 3D printed car, but it will be ages before 3D printing technology can create something as complex as a computer from the ground up. It will coincide with the end of manufacturing industry as we know it (and, thus, will probably kill off capitalism as well).

We won't have to worry about that for a few lifetimes still, however. Or at least a few decades. In the meanwhile, feast your eyes on the product shot, or render, of the turtle-like Genesis car. It's not the biggest vehicle chassis in history, but it will suit racers well enough.

Self-Lacing Trainers Invented by Nike

Even those who dislike science fiction films have a reason to approve of their existence, because they, along with science fiction literature, are where most of the new ideas for high-tech inventions come from.

Today, I give you the self-lacing trainers from Nike, not unlike the ones that Marty McFly got when he went to the future in “Back to the Future 2.”

The autonomous fastening system can both loosen and tighten the upper laces without needing you to bend over and tie them yourself.

Nike’s lead designer Tinker Hatfield intends for the new trainers to make it to market by 2015, and for the system to spread to other shoes after that.

Nike believes that people with motoring disabilities or who suffer from unfortunate crippling injuries will benefit the most.

It would be fitting for 2015 to be the time of arrival too, since that's the year when Marty McFly wore them in the movie.

Gionee Elife S5.5 Officially Unveiled as World's Thinnest Smartphone

We reported yesterday on the upcoming release of Gionee Elife S5.5, which could become the world's thinnest smartphone available on the market.

Today, the Chinese company has made the smartphone official and has confirmed that the device is only 5.5mm thick. The Gionee Elife S5.5 is now available for pre-order in China for only $370 (€270) off contract, which is more than decent considering the phone's specs sheet.

According to Engadget, the LTE version of Gionee Elife S5.5 will be available for purchase beginning June. Unfortunately, there's no telling where exactly the LTE variant will be released, as Gionee has only stated that the Elife S5.5 will be launched in around 40 countries.

Aside from China, Gionee is present on the Indian smartphone market, where the Chinese company has launched several high-end Android smartphones in the last couple of weeks.

We suspect that the next country to get the sleek Elife S5.5 will be India, though we don't have any confirmation on when exactly the smartphone will go on sale.

Back to Gionee Elife S5.5, the device will ship with Android “Amigo” operating system out of the box, which is based on Google's Jelly Bean platform.

On the inside, the smartphone comes equipped with a 1.7GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal memory. That's a bit of a downside, as Gionee Elife S5.5 was rumored to pack MediaTek's octa-core chipset.

Furthermore, the Elife S5.5 has been confirmed to boast a 5-inch capacitive touchscreen display that supports HD (720p) resolution. It also sports a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with autofocus, LED flash and full HD (1080p) video recording, along with a secondary 5-megapixel front-facing camera.

Other highlights of the Gionee Elife S5.5 include 2300 mAh battery, 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, as well as Bluetooth 4.0, GPS with A-GPS and microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB).

Impressive Dark Matter Detector Built in China

In early 2014, China will inaugurate the world's most ambitious dark matter experiment, called Particle and Astrophysical Xenon (PandaX). The installation is buried deep underneath 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) of solid rock, in the heart of a mountain located in the Sichuan province.

The instrument will be focused on searching for, identifying and analyzing weakly interacting massive particles (WIMP), a class of particles believed to make up dark matter. Theory holds that WIMP do not interact with baryonic matter except through gravitational pulls. Dark matter is believed to make up about 24 percent of the Universe's mass-energy budget, whereas normal matter accounts for just 4 percent, Space reports.

The reason why PandaX is buried so deep beneath the surface is to provide it with an additional layer of insulation against other elementary particles that may set off false-positive readings. The rock basically acts like a filter to ensure that only WIMP detections are signaled in the machine.

As its name implies, the experiment will feature a very large container filled with ultra-cold, liquid xenon. Whenever a WIMP interacts with a xenon atom – an occurrence that is predicted to be extremely rare – the two will interact to form particles that can be detected by PandaX. The earliest results from the experiment are expected to arrive by December 2014.