The 355 volt Lawless Electric Rocket Bike was built by Lawless Industries and Orange County Choppers. Rider Larry “Spiderman” McBride hit a top speed of 201.37MPH in just 6.94 seconds on this incredible bike. Not only is that an amazing feat for an electric vehicle, but just think about the acceleration there – 0 to 200 in under 7 seconds. That’s face-peeling-off speed. Check out the video below for Larry’s record run:

What’s really cool is not just how fast he goes, but just how quiet the bike is going from a dead stop to over 200mph. I wonder how far the bike can run at that speed before it needs to be plugged back in for a recharge.

[via Geekosystem]

Within the next 8 years, computer experts expect supercomputers to push into the exaFLOP range. It’s hard to wrap your mind around just how fast that is. An exaFLOP system could run a billion, billion operations every second, which is more operations per second than 50 million laptops can muster. The fastest supercomputers today are in the petaFLOP range.

The fastest current supercomputer is Fujitsu’s K computer (pictured above) and is installed in Japan. That machine is good for 10 petaFLOPs. Based on estimates, supercomputers expected to go online by 2020 will be about 1000 times faster than that machine, which should be a boon for research scientists who have to crunch massive amounts of data on a regular basis.

[via CNN]

This beats the 1989 legged robot speed record of 13.1 miles per hour. The bot is part of DARPA’s Maximum Mobility and Manipulation program, and was created by Boston Dynamics. To put things in perspective, a real flesh and blood cheetah can reach speeds up to 75 miles per hour. I’m not sure about Chester Cheetah. Thank God this robot hasn’t reached those speeds yet. However, they did use some real Cheetah tricks in making this one run.

The key was to get the coordination between the flexing of the back and the swinging of legs just right, so that the system is stable. Then they had to adjust the separation between the legs for the gallop and the pace. They also flex the robot’s back for better speed. Now imagine this thing running and chasing you down the street. This is our future. Thanks DARPA.

[DARPA via Geekosystem]

Baumgartner will be placed inside a capsule to attached to a gigantic helium filled balloon which will carry him to about 120,000 feet in altitude. The air temperature at that altitude is -70°F and there isn’t enough oxygen to sustain life. The daredevil plans on wearing a custom-made pressure suit that is designed to handle the velocities he will attain on his return trip. It will take him roughly 3 hours to get to 120,000 feet while it will take him only 5 1/2 minutes to freefall to 5,000 feet, at which point he will pull his parachute ripcord.

Baumgartner says that from the time he steps out of the capsule and begins his freefall, it’ll only take 30 seconds for him to break the sound barrier. He claims that testing has been completed and the jump window is set for July. The stunt will be performed somewhere over New Mexico. I hope he has a camera that can survive the jump. I want to see some first-person video.

[via Fox News]

This is a high-speed rail train, so it’s not a MagLev train. This is good because this train will probably be operational soon, since it doesn’t require the costly and time-consuming buildout of MagLev tracks. Based on CSR’s CRH 380A, this train has been streamlined, uses lighter materials, and uses a lot more power in order to get over 300 mph. The standard CRH380 has a maximum drawing power of 9600 kilowatts, while this souped-up version can draw as much as 22,800 kilowatts.

There are several other competing high-speed trains being built, but since this train is basically a refinement of an existing platform, it might be produced a lot faster.

[China Daily via DVice]

It’s being developed by Dr. Russ Tedrake’s team at MIT alongside that of Dr. Jerry Pratt of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IMHC.) The team is working on a new robot that’s called FastRunner, and it looks like it should be pretty speedy. In fact, faster than any other robot that we know of. In their computer simulations, FastRunner can already hit 30 mph and they think that it can reach 50 mph without any problems. The main reason why it’s so fast is the spring-loaded articulated leg design, which only needs one motor to operate.

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This means that FastRunner would be light and dexterous, allowing it to jump over obstacles, making it an all terrain robot. The project is part of a DARPA challenge to create a robot that can run more than 25 miles per hour.

[via Plasticpals]

The Min7 is the first 4-wheeled robot Ng has created, which I suppose says a lot about his skill. It weighs 90 grams and measures just 10 x 7.5 x 2.5cm, with a straight line speed of 3.5m/s. It’s brain is a 20MHz Hitachi 2633R processor. Initially, the robot first enters the maze and do some recon, slowly mapping it out.

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Then comes the timed run where they navigate the maze as quickly as possible:

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Boy, these things sure can move!

[via Geek]

I can only imagine it’s a flaming death trap waiting to kill anyone that sits on it. I can also imagine it will cook your legs all the way through before it blows up and kills you. The special bike was created by Robert Maddox with the goal of hitting 200mph.

I can’t imagine going on a motorcycle at 200mph, much less on a bike with a pair of jet engines under your butt. Still, death on wheels never looked so cool. This is one serious cool bit of kit and it just sold to one lucky buyer on eBay for a whopping $25,000 (USD).

[via Autoblog & The Kneeslider via Bornrich]

The couch you see pictured above has been fitted with an internal combustion engine to propel the normally stationary piece of furniture to speeds of 101 miles/hour. I think that’s even faster than the speed most people drive their cars at (specifically, me.)

The front of the couch has been fitted with a sawed down coffee table of some sort, for aerodynamics, I suppose. Check out the video below to see just how fast a couch can be made to go:

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And just in case you’re wondering–yes, the couch you see above broke the previous record and now holds the title as the World’s Fastest Couch. Way to go!

[via Autoblog]

The ioDrive2 is available in multiple capacities with up to 2.4TB of storage available. The device has almost symmetrical read and write access according to Fusion-io. It has 15 microsecond latency and 3 GB/s of bandwidth with 700,000 read IOPS and 900,000 write IOPS.

The drive also has a new self-healing feature that will rewrite data lost if one or more chips fails, the data can be written to other chips without interrupting use. With super fast performance comes a huge price. The 365GB version starts at $5,950 (USD). It comes in 785GB, 1205GB, and 2.4TB. I can only imagine that the high-end capacity would be super expensive.

In fact, the creator goes so far as to say that when OnLive servers were co-located with DIDO servers the latency was only about a millisecond. That is less latency than the same game playing on a console next to your TV according to the company. DIDO is able to kill latency by replacing some of the processing that needs to take place in your access point or router with processing done on the cloud.

The DIDO server knows what PC on the network is going to get what data on it sends that data directly to the computer that needs it. That means that the computer on the other end doesn’t have to search one big stream of all user data for its own stuff. How cool is that? I hope the service will work as well in the real world as it sounds on paper. Speaking of paper, you can read the detailed DIDO whitepaper for more details on how it works.

[via PCMag]

This LEGO computer not only looks cool and runs fast, it’s being used as a folding farm to help with medical research.

Mike Schropp built this awesome beast of a machine using about 2000 individual LEGO bricks, but it’s what’s on the inside that’s equally as impressive. Under the hood of this machine are a trio of overclocked quad-core Sandy Bridge 2600k CPUs, mounted into ASUS P8P67 Micro ATX mobos, and chilled by Thermaltake Frio CPU coolers.

So basically, what you’re looking at here are three complete computers in a single box. In addition to the CPU coolers, it’s got 8 Aerocool fans to keep the temp under control. Amazingly, the whole 12 core system runs on a single Antec 1200 high current power supply. It’s really an impressive rig, even if it weren’t made from LEGO bricks.

While it’s primarily used for the medical research, Mike admits that he also uses the computers inside for use in his own home as well.

To read more about the build and to see more pictures showing how Mike’s LEGO folding farm PC came together, head over to Total Geekdom.

The plane is supposed to be twice as fast as the Concorde, but the commercial version isn’t expected to be finished until 2025, so that’s a letdown. With a top speed of 2,664mph, that’s Mach 3.6, it will fly at 62,000 ft allowing passengers to see the curvature of the Earth. Expected travel times are about 2 hours to get from New York to London or 5 hours to get from New York to Sydney. That’s 25% of the time it usually takes via commercial airliners.

This is still future tech, because HyperMach’s S-MAGJET plasma fuel engines needed to power this aren’t yet in existence, but should be completely by 2020.  Then it will take another 5 years to get this jet built.

HyperMach plans to fly their first test flight sometime in 2021. That’s a long time, and I’m sure that between now and then, other companies will be working on their own their speed-defying jets.

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[via Daily Mail]

Less resistance allows the train to go much faster than a normal train can. While 150 MPH is fast, Japan has just approved a new maglev train route that is under construction now that will be able to hit a whopping 313 MPH. The train system and its required tunnels will cost 9 trillion yen (~$112 billion USD). Apparently, 60% of that massive budget is to make the tunnels needed to connect the three cities the lines will operate between.

The cities include Tokyo to Nagoya and Tokyo to Osaka. The first line will be finished in 2027 and the second in 2045. A lot of the route is already built, it’s the tunnels that will take so long to complete. The high speed of the train will cut the 317 mile trip from Tokyo to Osaka to just over an hour travel time.

[via Inhabitat]

The video from Tokyo’s Ishikawa Oku laboratory explains all of the science and technology behind this incredible robot hand. It uses a hand with only three fingers to perform its feats. This coupled with high-speed sensors allow it to perform stuff that were previously hard for robots to do. I like how it can actually throw a ball onto a target. With that dexterity and accuracy, I’m sure we’ll soon have robot soldiers.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

It makes you wonder what else this project will create, once it comes to fruition.

[via Kottke]

Case spent six months and over $4,000 (USD) building the Schumacher Mi3. It has a carbon fiber chassis, an 11hp motor and a 12-cell battery pack. Here’s the Schumacher Mi3′s record-setting run at the Rockingham Dragway:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Wow. I wonder if the guy driving it can actually steer that thing it or even see it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the remote only had two buttons, one to stop and one to go. As you’d expect from someone as driven as he is, Case is already looking forward. He’s been working on the Streamliner, a toy car that he wants to have a top speed of 200mph.

[via TopSpeed & Gencept]

Eurocopter has unveiled an awesome helicopter called the X3 Hybrid that combines the elements of a helicopter with elements of a fixed wing aircraft for the best of both worlds. The US Osprey used tilting rotors to take of vertically and then fly at faster speeds. The X3 Hybrid has no complex tilting rotors, this copter has little winglets with propellers on them that pull the helicopter along with lift provided by a conventional rotor.

Another big difference is that this helicopter has no tail rotor. The demonstrator model of the X3 Hybrid helicopter hit a true airspeed of 232 knots or 430 km/hr in straight and level flight for several minutes in testing. The faster helicopter is perfect for search and rescue missions. The characteristics of the helicopter are said to be on par with those of conventional helicopters on the market already.

The researchers have constructed a robotic machine that is a ground-effect train. The vehicle floats on a cushion of air, and the prototype is set for a demonstration soon to see how things work out for the design. The vehicle is sort of like a cross between a maglev train and a low flying aircraft.

When I say low, I mean really low, too. It will float only a few inches over the ground, but that is enough to eliminate friction allowing the vehicle to be more efficient and faster.

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The prototype unmanned vehicle will go around a “U” shaped track at up to 125 mph. One day trains might be replaced with vehicles using propellers and wings only meant to fly a few inches off the ground.

[via ieee Spectrum via PopSci]

The Vertex 3 line includes the normal drive and the Vertex 3 Pro. Both of the drives are able to connect to SATA 6Gbps ports, and the both use the Sandforce SF-2200 processor to control the action. That processor gives the SSDs performance of 550MB/s write and 500MB/s read.

The Pro SSD has additional tweaks for enterprise use for better reliability and it uses MLC NAND memory inside. The standard Vertex 3 will ship in 120GB and 240GB capacities with the Pro version in 100GB, 200GB, and 400GB versions. Pricing has not been announced at this time.

The TrimSlice has got a NVIDIA Tegra 2 Dual-Core GPU, 1GB of RAM, up to 64 GB of SSD storage, four USB ports, as well as a serial port, full-size SD slot and a micro SD slot. It comes with WiFi and is encased in metal. It doesn’t need a fan and uses only 3W of power.

So what will it be used for? Powering the guts of HTPCs, gaming consoles, and other things. It’s going to be available this April and should cost less than a tablet.

[via Gizmag]