Just a Quick Note...

I do still have plans for this blog, it's just that I'm just extremely busy right now. I'm thinking that I might get a proper start on putting up content here in the new year, although I may have a post or two ready before then.

In any case, please check back soon.

Swedish Women Create An Invisible Bike Helmet Known as Hövding

When I was a child I would go out on many bike rides with my friends. It was always fun, cutting down bumpy dirt trails through our local woods or winding our way around the tight paths of the nearby canal. Part of that fun didn't extend to us ever slipping on helmets though, it was simply never the ‘cool’ thing to do. Even after we were told stories of kids getting killed due to having no head protection when they fell of their bikes at top speed, we still didn't change our ways. They were ugly and clunky, and not something you wanted to be seen wearing when you got to the age where flirting with girls was your biggest priority in life. We threw away our safety simply because it didn't fit our aesthetic needs.

As an adult I now know the value of a good bike helmet, and I've read countless stories of people who've been spared death, or at least brain damage, because their helmet did its job. There are plenty of shoddy ones out there too though, so it’s always worth paying a little more. Although the problem is that they still look pretty terrible, and their protection still isn’t as good as it could be. This is where Swedish design students Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin step in, with their creation called Hövding; the invisible bike helmet.

The Hövding is basically a personal airbag, developed in cooperation with airbag manufacturer Alva Sweden. I takes on the appearance of a trendy neckwrap, but instead of simply being a fashion statement it has an airbag and sensor inserted inside. This sensor is designed to trip when the wearer suffers a crash. Have a fall off your bicycle and the airbag inflates, cushioning your head as you fall to the ground. The designers believe this makes it a lot safer than your average bicycle helmet because it gives a higher degree of all-round protection.

The problem is that such technology doesn't come cheap, and the helmet will currently set you back 399 Euros (about £320 or $530). Some say you can't put a price on personal safety though, so at the risk of losing your life without a helmet your investment in one these will pay you back a thousand times.

You can watch a short film about the helmet and its designers below, including a few clips of the invention being tested through the aid of crash dummies.

“If people say it’s impossible we have to prove them wrong”

It certainly looks like they have a big shot at doing just that.

(Via The Presurfer)

Google Street View Allows Us to Explore Venice

Every now and again I'll load up Google Maps and drop a pin somewhere at random in the world. I’ll then jump into street view to take a look around the area, just to see what a random street looks like in another country. Of course, it doesn't always work as there are vast swathes of the world not covered by Google Street View; such as China for instance. However, we can now count Venice, Italy as one of those places that you can now take a virtual trip around.

Instead of flying to Italy and spending a fortune on a hotel and paying for a gondola ride, you can now do it from the comfort of your home. Thanks to Venice’s tight streets and many canals, Google couldn't drive around with a car as they would normally do. Instead they used people, as they've been doing when documenting nature hikes and other places inaccessible by car, who carried the 360 degree Google cameras as backpacks. This allowed them to walk down narrow alleyways and still get photos, and also meant they could sit in a gondola and get some picturesque shots for us at home. Google says they covered “265 miles on foot and 114 miles by boat” capturing such delights as the stunning Piazza San Marco and the Devil’s Bridge on Torcello Island.

After you've taken a virtual tour of the city you can also visit Google’s Museo Correr Art Project. This brilliant resource gives you an insight into the collections at the Museo Correr museum in Venice. It houses a collection of artworks that document the history of this beautiful city; from the early days of Venice up to the 16th century. A selection of the artworks are now available to view on Google’s resource, including the detailed drawing of the city above that you can zoom in on in order to examine the carefully sketched buildings. You can also view the collections of the Ca’ Pesaro – International Gallery of Modern Art and the Museo del Verto.

Google has also made a behind the scenes video to show us just how they collected such fantastic imagery. Take a gander at that below.

 

Welcome To The Knowledge Vaults!

Hello, and welcome to yet another new blog of mine – The Knowledge Vaults!

The premise for this blog came from the ungodly amount of reading that I do on a daily basis. Part of my day job is writing articles for a series of blogs; covering topics such as gardening, DIY, barbecues and bathrooms. Since I'm not always clued up on these various topics I have to do a lot of research to make sure what I'm saying isn’t just crap I made up on the spot. Plus, these days Google wants everyone to do ‘quality content’ and even though I've always put my heart and soul into everything I write, I want to make sure that the articles I put out for the company I work for are actually useful and entertaining for the reader and aren't just a way to get sales. The whole marketing team is well aware of that fact, so we put a lot of effort into getting it right.

Anyway, I digress. Because I'm constantly in the need for new topics to cover I trawl across a lot of research to get that inspiration that will kick start an idea in my head. I love learning new things all the time, especially about more obscure stuff that always gives you something to talk about when conversation grows stale (although I must admit that people can see it as a little strange when you suddenly pour out a fountain of random knowledge). Blogs like Neatorama and The Presurfer are daily visits for me and I really admire what they do there. The same goes for the wonderful Today I Found Out and the always fascinating Atlas Obscura. There are a whole host of other sites too, plus magazines (How it Works, Wonderpedia), books and the good old time-sucker that is Wikipedia; all of which have this incredible fountain of knowledge that I love to tap into.

Here I'm going to try and emulate their success and post about all the things I learn on a daily basis, the interesting things I find that are worth sharing and obscure knowledge that will no doubt help you get through your average TV quiz show or pub quiz! We'll visit fascinating locations around the world, find out more about some of the world’s rarest animals, delve deep into the history of pretty much everything and have a few laughs at random videos I find along the path.

Please join me in this journey through the wilds of the Internet and the vaults of knowledge that lie out there, eager for someone to pick and prod at them to unleash their secrets on a mind that’s always thirsty to learn something new.

If you have any tips to share you can either email me at knowledgevaults AT gmail DOT COM or tweet me @knowledgevaults. I will make sure to credit you in the blog post!