For More Storage Space In Your iPhone, Download Heavier Apps

It seems like strange advice: if your phone is full with rubbish and you want to free some of the storage up, then download even more rubbish. But it works. A new trick lets people get extra space on their iPhone just by downloading some new apps, and by tricking the phone into believing that it needs to clear up some space. To do it, all you need to do is to download a heavier app that takes up more space on your phone than you have left. As soon as you do so, your iPhone will automatically start clearing up much needed storage space. You can see the progress happens in real time, if you head to the Storage options. The amount of remaining space will gradually go up as you see the size of each app go down. One good app to download is Heartstone, which is really big and also has the advantage of being free. But you can download any app and delete it as soon as phone has started clearing up space. That can include deleting things that are backed up in photos, as well as trimming down different apps’ data so that the space can be added.

For The Visually Impaired: Obstacle-Warning Cane

Scientist have developed a new smart cane that could help transform the lives of the blind and visually impaired by allowing them to sense the environment beyond the physical length of their walking stick. Researchers from The University of Manchester in the UK upgraded the cane – which has been used as mobility told for centuries – by adding a low-cost embedded computer. The tool, dubbed mySmartCane works much like a common car parking sensor. The ultrasonic ball wirelessly measure the distance to approaching objects and converts this data into an audio signal. The visually impaired user can gauge the object distance from the frequency of the sound, before the cane physically bumps against it. The user can hear the sounds using headphones. The key takeaway was that mySmartCane had to be as simple and low-cost, so researcher used 3D printing and cheap sensor to create an ultrasonic sensory ball, which attaches to most existing white-canes.

Out-Of-The-World Solution: NASA Hunts For 'Space Poop' Geniuses

When you’ve got to go but you’re out there in space, zipped up in a spacesuit, with no toilet in sight and a crew of other astronauts around, what do you do? NASA has launched a contest for inventors to solve this uncomfortable issue, and promises to award $30,000 to the best “space poop” solutions. Inventors have until December 20 to submit designs for a personalized waste-wicking system that will handle everything, hands-free, for a period of up to six days. The old standby solution consisted of diapers. The two men and one woman who packed themselves into a Russian Soyuz space capsule last week had to wait two full days between launching from Kazakhstan and arriving at the International Space Station. On Future missions to deep space destinations, NASA suspects it could take up to six days to get to a proper toilet. Currently, astronauts use a toilet contraption that includes a vacuum and a tube to help evacuate fecal matter.

Coming, Solar Panel Roads Across Continents

Electric avenues that can transmit the sun’s energy onto power grids may be coming to a city near you. A subsidiary of Bouygues SA has designed rugged solar panels, capable of withstanding the weight of an 18-wheeler truck that they’re now building into road surfaces. After nearly five years of research and laboratory tests, they’re constructing 100 outdoor test sites and plan to commercialize the technology in early 2018. Researchers want to find a second life for a road. Solar farms use land that could otherwise be used for agriculture, while the roads are free. As solar costs plummet, panels are being increasingly integrated into everyday material. Last month Tesla Motors Inc. surprised investors by unveiling roof shingles that double as solar panels. Other companies are integrating photovoltaics into building facades. Wattway joins groups including Sweden’s Scania and Solar Roadways in the US seeking to integrate panels onto pavement. To resist the weight of traffic, Wattway layers several types of plastics to create a clear an durable casing. The solar panel underneath is an ordinary model, similar to panels on rooftops. The electrical wiring is embedded in the road and the contraption is topped by an anti-slip surface made from crushed glass. A kilometer-sized testing site began construction last month in the French village of Tourouvre in Normandy. The 2,800 sqm of solar panels are expected to generate 280kw at peak, with the installation generating enough to power all the public lighting in a town of 5,000 for a year, according to the company. For now, the cost of the materials makes only demonstration projects sensible. A square meter of the solar road currently costs €2,000 ($2,126) and €2,500. That includes monitoring, data collection and installation costs. Wattway says it can make the price competitive with traditional solar farms by 2020. Wattway has also installed its panels to light billboards and is working on links to street lights. The next two sites will be in Calgary in Canada and in the US state of Georgia, with plans to build them in Africa, Japan and throughout the EU in the pipeline. Researcher need to test for all kinds of different traffic and climate conditions. They want to find the limits of it. They think that maybe it will not be able to withstand a snow plow. The potential fragility joins cost as a potential hurdle.