New Atlas

Since its inception, the Ram Truck brand has tried to be the most truck of all the trucks. “Best-in-Class” this and “Segment-leading” that headlined every press release and advertisement. Not anymore. Today’s trucks are basically really, really large sedans. Advertisements and country music videos might look back with rosy glasses at the good ol’ days when pickups had bench seats and gun racks and parked next to near-ripe corn fields in the sunset. But the reality is that those trucks were uncomfortable, bouncy, unreliable horror shows of utilitarianism. Today’s trucks aren’t even close when compared. They’re powerful, cushy, and tech-filled. Every pickup truck brand is like this now. Ram has, however, somehow taken this to a new level.

Zuvi is a beauty-tech company known for its innovative hair dryers that use light instead of heat. This time, the company is stepping into a new category of hair care products by introducing ColorBox – an at-home hair coloring system designed for those who love bright, bold shades and aren’t afraid to experiment with their look. At its core, ColorBox is built on a simple but powerful color theory concept: thousands of shades can be created by mixing just three primary colors. So how does it actually work? Think of a printer, but instead of ink on paper, it produces a custom hair dye in your chosen color. Just like a printer, ColorBox has three cartridges – yellow, blue, and red – plus a conditioner-based diluting cream.

Despite the many improvements in virtual reality (VR) technology, with realistic visual and auditory content that makes the user feel immersed in the environment, the olfactory sense has not been as faithfully replicated in the medium. The 1939 movie Scent of Mystery was the first movie with the catchily named Smell-O-Vision system, that allowed viewers to experience scents that were released from behind their seats and timed with specific scenes. It utilized a manually operated machine called the Smell Brain, which was powered by compressed air. Unfortunately it was noisy and provided uneven scent dispersion in the cinema, resulting in mixed audience reviews.

Durabook has unveiled the Z14I-HG, a fully rugged mobile workstation packing 682 TOPS (trillion operations per second) of AI power inside a magnesium-alloy shell built to survive everything from minus 29 °C (-20 °F) frozen tundra to plus 63 °C (145 °F) desert heat and direct sandstorm exposure. Strip away the certifications and the spec sheet, and the Z14I-HG makes one fundamental argument: serious AI in the field shouldn't need a stable internet connection to function. For defense, energy, and emergency response teams working without reliable connectivity, that means everything. Demanding workloads run locally, sensitive data never touches a remote server, and the mission continues regardless of what the network is doing.

Budget smartwatch maker Mobvoi has launched the TicNote Pods, which combine wireless earbuds with 4G connectivity and AI transcribing capabilities, aiming to turn everyday conversations into fully indexed, searchable notes and tasks. Wireless earbuds have evolved considerably beyond simple audio playback, with features like voice assistants and health tracking adding to their capabilities. For the most part, though, they’re still built around listening and calls. Mobvoi is working toward pushing the category in a slightly different direction with its TicNote Pods: a pair of earbuds designed to capture and process spoken information.

Carryboy is a name with which we're already familiar thanks to its awesome work in turning Toyota's Hilux Champ mini-pickup into the all-out 4x4 tiny RV of our dreams. This time around, the Bangkok-based RV and truck accessories builder has teamed up with Chinese auto badge Farizon to create one of the most compelling all-electric camper vans the world over. It invites campers aboard through a uniquely wide entry and ensures they remain comfortable with an equally unique floor plan. The commercial vehicles arm of Geely , Farizon Auto has a full lineup of vans alongside heavy- and light-duty trucks and buses. It's been working its way into the van life space, as evidenced by the X-Van electric pop-up camper it debuted in China last summer.

Up, up, and away! That's the flight sequence for most commercially available drones. However, for drones powered by Aerix Systems’ proprietary omnidirectional propulsion technology, a more fitting description would be: up, zoom off, twist, and slide … often all at once! To understand the innovation behind the technology – or why it should even be considered an innovation in the first place – it's important to have a refresher on how drones, a.k.a Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), work. Most drones in existence today fall into two categories of flight systems: fixed-wing and rotor-based. Fixed-wing drones (think miniature airplanes) generate lift through forward motion. Air flows over the wings, creating pressure differences that keep the aircraft aloft. Most defense drones fall under this category.

Some of the world's best skis and snowboards are made from a combination of materials, including wood at the core for its strength, low weight, and shape retention. They're usually bonded together with additional layers using adhesives – but what if we stitched them together instead? Researchers at Austria's Graz University of Technology explored this wild idea while thinking about ways to prevent layers of wood veneers from peeling off each other when they were forced apart with regular use.

Technology these days is all about making life easier, especially when it comes to chores we don’t enjoy – such as cleaning a cat’s litter box. Hong Kong-based company Petalas is trying to address this with its self-flushing litter box, which also monitors the feline's urinary health. Self-flushing litter boxes aren’t new , but Petalas adds an extra smart feature: an AI layer on top of the existing technology. It's currently the subject of a Kickstarter campaign.

When a couple with two children approached the Amsterdam-based architecture and design firm Studioninedots to design a home that would foster their connection, the company reimagined what a family home could be by throwing out the trasitional floor plan entirely. Most houses try to cram as much as possible into the ground floor, with bedrooms stacked above. To solve the couple's particular design puzzle, the studio came up with Light House, a vertical home that places each of the family’s major activities in its own dedicated box and playfully stacks them on top of one another. It was built in Amsterdam’s new Centrumeiland artificial island neighborhood, where the couple lives.