Robot lawnmowers and digital unicycles: Five insane vehicles you never knew Honda made

 

Honda’s got a new wheeled machine to show off today. But it’s not a new hatchback or an electric taxi to rival Nissan’s new black cab. It’s a robot lawnmower that cuts the grass for you and never needs maintenance.

Sounds bizarre? For the Japanese auto-giant, it’s anything but. The company has a rich heritage of quirky cars and robot servants and everything that blurs the boundaries between them. Remember Asimo, the plucky robot spotted doing everything from playing football to conducting an orchestra? He’s just the start. We’ve picked five of the best Honda creations you’ll never see stuck in traffic on the M1.

The robot lawnmower

Meet the Honda Miimo, the Roomba for your garden. This critter roams around using three sensors, charting a random route to avoid wearing your precious lawn out. It can get round gardens of up to 3,000 square metres – about one half of a football pitch – every few days, and returns to its docking station every night to charge up.

It can’t be stolen – you need to punch in a PIN code every time you pick it up – but best of all, it never needs emptying. Because it trims the grass just a few millimetres at a time, every few days, the tiny trimmings are left in the turf to decompose, not that you’ll see them. It’s just been launched today in Europe, and goes on sale early next year. Honda doesn’t give a price, but hey, if you have to ask…

The intelligent unicycle

Unlike the Miimo, the Honda Uni-Cub isn’t commercially available, but then having this much fun might not be legal anyway. It’s a Segway-style unicycle that balances itself, and can be turned with a simple tilt to the side – plus you can pack it up and pull out a handle so it’s easy to carry, and needs no case. With a cruising speed of 3.7mph it’s not designed to get you about in a hurry, but with an aging population, Honda’s hoping it could be a next generation mobility solution.

The motorized Zimmer frame

Speaking of which, Honda’s got another great vehicle for those who find walking difficult or impossible. Weighing just 2.4kg, the Honda Stride Management Assist is a pair of robot leg braces that can help you walk at a brisk pace of up to 2.8mph for more than an hour on a charge. It’s not commercially available just yet, but earlier this month, Honda announced that Japan’s National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology was carrying out trials with 40 patients.The real life Tron bike

OK, it’s actually a tricycle. But still, Honda’s quirky single passenger vehicle looks like a light cycle. The Honda 3R-C is glimpse into a future where we all get around busy cities in nippy little solo vehicles, cutting down on congestion and fumes – it’s electric of course. Dreamt up for the 2010 Geneva Motor Show by Honda’s Italian design team in Miln, it’s sadly not going on sale anytime soon.

The car from the future

But what about those times when you really do need to fit another person in the car with you? Honda’s P-NUT car (Personal-Neo Urban Transport, for those in the know) will get at least two people from A to B in the future. Even if it’s just a prototype, it’s how Honda sees most of us getting around in the future: it’s spacious and leggy on the inside, with a modular engine so you can use clean electricity nipping around town, and petrol for those long distance journeys. Cleverly, the windscreen also acts as a screen, displaying a feed from the rear view camera straight on to the glass.

www.tell-me-first.com

Goodbye HD TV, hello UHD TV, but what is it?

 

Ever wondered where we will go from HDTV? It seems the next step up from high definition is, wait for it – Ultra High Definition. Or UHDTV for short. The name for the new television standard was agreed by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). So, when will we begin seeing these UHDTVs then? More details this way…



The recommendation comes via a report by the ITU that suggests UHDTV is the term given to new televisions that will have a resolution of 8-megapixels resolution of 3840×2160 pixels, going up to “the next level” with an equivalent of 32-megapixels, or 7680×4320 pixels. To put that into perspective, today’s pictures are between 1-2-megapixels, the ITU says.

The “4K” and “8K” UHDTV systems will benefit from “improved colour fidelity: and have options for higher numbers of pictures per second than for today’s television systems.”

The difference in quality will be such that each of these steps is described as being similar to the switch from old standard definition television to the high definition television pictures we currently enjoy.

David Wood, Chairman of the ITU Working Party 6C hailed it as the “dawn of a new age for television” that will bring “unprecedented levels of realism and viewer enjoyment,” he said.

“It’s a historic moment.  Some years will pass before we see these systems in our homes, but come they will.”

In the meantime high definition televisions continue to wow our eyeballs as they become more affordable amid the rise of 3D TV in the home. Although some, like the Toshiba 55LZ2 are glasses-free, but come at a high cost.

Just like HDTV and 3D TVs, prices are sure to begin on the steep side, but still, we can’t wait to see for ourselves the next step in the evolution of television. Your next television could be a UHDTV.

www.tell-me-first.com

Toshiba 55ZL2 glasses-free 3D TV out this Monday

 

Monday 12th March Toshiba will finally launch its monstrous 55-inch glasses-free 3D TV in the UK. The Toshiba 55ZL2 will make its debut exclusively at department stores John Lewis and Harrods. Both stores will be taking orders for what Toshiba is calling the world’s first large screen glasses-free TV for the UK. However, it comes at a price.

The stores in question will be John Lewis’ Oxford Street branch and, Harrods, both in London. The Toshiba 55ZL2 55-inch glasses-free 3D TV has what is called a Quad Full HD 3840 x 2160 resolution display, backlight dimming, and uses picture processing technology to display images at the highest quality, even on a screen so large.

The 55ZL2 also features built-in Wi-Fi and DLNA compatibility, os that you can stream your media collection to it, and a Freeview HD tuner. Smart TV features apps such as YouTube, BBC iPlayer and more.

Four HDMI ports and two USB connections allow plenty of room to connect a Blu-ray player and a a few of your games consoles. Like we said, the Toshiba 55ZL2 does come at a price.

That price being a whopping £6,999. We’ll be paying a visit to at least one of the stores next week, so keep an eye out for more, and some eyes-on impressions.