A lot can happen in a week when it comes to tech. The constant onslaught of news makes it nigh impossible for mere mortals with real lives to keep track of everything. That’s why we’ve compiled a quick and dirty list of this week’s top 10 tech stories, from the discovery of seven Earth-sized exoplanets to a chair that helps you work out — it’s all here.
College student turns his Honda Civic into a self-driving car for $700
College students are permanently broke, constantly having to sacrifice the finer things in life (meals) in favor of the bare essentials (beer). By facing those hardships, few students are likely to be able to afford a self-driving car anytime soon. Can those college smarts be put to better use? That was the case for Brevan Jorgenson. A senior at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, Jorgenson is the proud owner of a self-driving Honda Civic — and all it cost him was $700 (plus the cost of the car itself).
Read the full story here.
NASA just discovered 7 Earth-sized exoplanets, 3 in the habitable zone of a dwarf star
Seven Earth-sized planets have been discovered around a star that’s roughy 39 light-years from our solar system. The find comes from the team behind NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Three of these exoplanets are believed to orbit the star’s “Goldilocks zone,” the single largest haul of potentially habitable planets around a single star. The agency made the announcement today in a news conference and published the findings in the journal Nature.
Read the full story here.
Holographic 3D printer uses lasers to print thousands of times faster than its rivals
Fed up with the world-weary, jaded expressions of your additive manufacturing friends, who think they’ve seen it all when it comes to 3D printers? If so, you may be interested in Daqri, an augmented reality startup, which has developed a cutting-edge hologram-powered 3D printer. If you’ve felt that what was missing from 3D printing was green lasers and tubs of goo, this could be the technology you’ve been waiting for!
Read the full story here.
Steve Jobs’ spaceship-like ‘Apple Park’ is finally finished, and it opens in April
For months, we’ve come to call Apple’s next campus “spaceship” because of its UFO-like shape, but Apple had another name in mind. The new 175-acre headquarters in Cupertino will officially be called “Apple Park.” The move-in process from the company’s current facility will begin in April, and it’s expected to take more than six months as it involves moving more than 12,000 people. During this process, construction is scheduled to continue on park lands and various buildings.
Read the full story here.
Sprint will demonstrate gigabit connectivity at the Mobile World Congress
Don’t look now, but Sprint’s joining the gigabit club. On Wednesday, the Now Network announced a collaboration with electronics company Ericsson that will have data transferred at 1Gbps over a 4G LTE connection — fast enough to download an HD movie in about eight seconds. It is scheduled to take place at the upcoming Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona and Sprint says it is an industry first.
Read the full story here.