Cutting Edge

3D-printed 'Liberator' gun fires first successful shot

A Texas man has become the first person to successfully fire a real bullet from a gun created on a home 3D printer. Sound crazy? In fact, the blueprint for the pistol is available for free online for anyone to access. And it's legal.

University of Texas law student Cody Wilson, 25, released a video of a 3D-printed gun named the "Liberator" taking test shots over the weekend. The gun is mostly made of plastic, with the exception of two metal pieces: a metal firing pin and a 6-ounce piece of steel that's required by law under the Undetectable Firearms Act. Of course, the piece of steel that makes the weapon visible to metal detectors, and legal, can certainly be omitted by future hobbyists.

Wilson invited Forbes reporter Andy Greenberg to witness the trial. Greenberg reports that 15 of the gun's 16 pieces were printed by a Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer -- the metal firing pin is the 16th piece. … Read more

Robotics students build automated locker for special-needs peer

Pinckney Community High School in Pinckney, Mich., is the site of a robotics experiment gone very, very right. Junior Nick Torrance has muscular dystrophy. He uses a wheelchair to get around, but the muscle disease makes it difficult to handle simple activities, like opening up his locker.

The high school already has a top-notch robotics class. Seniors Micah Stuhldreher and Wyatt Smrcka won the 2012 SkillsUSA national robotics competition, so they were a natural choice to tackle the locker door problem with a robotics solution.… Read more

Terrafugia to develop vertical takeoff flying car

Frustrated commuters may soon get some good news from Terrafugia, the maker of the Transition flying car.

The company on Sunday said it has begun feasibility studies of a four-seat, vertical takeoff and landing plug-in hybrid-electric flying car, the TF-X. The vehicle will "further increase the safety, simplicity, and convenience of personal aviation" by using state-of-the-art intelligent systems and other technology, Terrafugia said.

"This is the right time for us to begin thinking about the future of the company beyond Transition development," Carl Dietrich, Terrafugia's chief executive and chief technology officer, said in a press … Read more

Meteor shower created by Halley's Comet to peak Sunday

The meteor shower created by the debris trail of Halley's Comet will peak Sunday evening, and NASA is providing a live view of the celestial fireworks show.

Prime viewing of the annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower should be around 9 p.m. ET, providing stargazers with 30 to 40 meteors an hour, according to NASA. A camera at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Hunstsville, Ala., will provide live video of the event from 8 p.m. ET to 3 a.m. ET Monday (see below).

The space agency will also host a live chat with Bill Cooke, … Read more

Super tool: Canada enshrines robot space arm in museum

It was once described as a "glorified crane," but was so much more than that.

Tireless cargo handler, astronaut platform, and critical inspection tool, the Canadarm was an essential component of NASA's space shuttle fleet from 1981 to 2011.

This past week, it became a permanent exhibit at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa.

"This exhibit commemorates an important part of our history in space," Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore said at a ceremony to unveil the exhibit. "The Canadarm is a symbol of our country's ingenuity and expertise in space robotics. It has positioned Canada as a leader in space." … Read more

Beam app fills the Google Glass-to-YouTube upload gap

Google's Glass can shoot video with its built-in camera, but one missing piece is getting it right onto YouTube, which Google also happens to own.

Fullscreen, a Los Angeles-based company, has solved that with what it claims is the first YouTube app for Glass. The software, called Beam, lets Glass owners post their videos to YouTube, as well as automatically share them on Twitter once they're live.

In short, first-person crotch-shot videos will be uploaded to YouTube faster than ever.

That very same feature could eventually be added by Google at some point, but for now users either … Read more

X-51A Waverider hits Mach 5.1 in final flight

The final flight of the U.S. Air Force's X-51A Waverider program wasn't a long one, but it was long enough.

The Air Force cheerfully announced Friday that the scramjet-powered X-51A flew for more than six minutes earlier this week. Of that total flight time, partner Boeing said, three and a half minutes was done on scramjet power and the vehicle reached a top speed of Mach 5.1, which pushed it into the hypersonic range that researchers had been hoping for.

The accomplishment marked the longest flight for the $300 million X-51A technology demonstration program and, the … Read more

The Week in Pictures: Atomic movies to galactic storms

Today, we're looking back at some of the most memorable photos of the week. From the geeky to the grand, these are the images from the week's tech stories that stood out, defining the future and all that the world might become. There were gigantic storms on Saturn, 3D printed ears, and Google's new heads-up, augmented reality interface, Glass, which is expected to make it's way to public availability next year. Being made available in limited release, it's decidedly very geeky, and a little weird. Virgin Galactic reached an important milestone when the commercial passenger … Read more

NASA wants to send your best haiku... to Mars

For its trip to Mars, NASA wants haikus like this, Why? Because it's cool.

That's pretty much the gist of this whole story, actually. Maybe I should start composing all stories in the form of a haiku to save us all time.

It's no joke, though, that NASA really is collecting submissions of three-line poems from the public to send into space aboard the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft, which will launch later this year for a mission to study the Red Planet's atmosphere.… Read more