Technology, Innovation & Outdoor News

New Balance's 3-in-1 hiking boot zips and strips down to camp slippers

July 14, 2026 | C.C. Weiss
Just in time for the heart of summer, New Balance has released one of the most versatile shoes you'll ever see. The new Niobium Concept 1 bridges the huge gap between waterproof boot and cozy slipper ... with another stop along the way.

Fixed-wing drone looks like Baymax from Big Hero 6 and flies 10+ hours

July 13, 2026 | Malcolm Azania
French firm Celeste Ecoflyers’ inflatable dAS10 aims to inspect energy grids, pipelines, and maritime security. As a new class of flat-storage deflatable, long-range aircraft, the vehicle will support logistics at a fraction of legacy aircraft costs.

Titanium modular multitool puts the power in pen form

July 14, 2026 | Ben Coxworth
The humble pen offers a very handy, easy-to-carry form factor for writing, so why not use it for other tasks, too? That's the thinking behind the VeroLite, a modular titanium multitool that's currently on Kickstarter.

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Tiny houses don't come much smaller or simpler than this 48-sq-ft model. Designed by Tiny Tiny Homes, it's conceived as emergency accommodation and provides a basic shelter for people experiencing homelessness.
Two humanoid robots just performed live surgery for the first time in history, hinting at a future where compact, affordable machines bring advanced surgical care to rural hospitals, battlefields, and other resource-strapped settings.
With its substantial size and lack of wheels or trailer, the Evergreen XL isn't a good fit for nomads. It trades portability for a remarkably spacious interior that's closer to an apartment than a traditional tiny house.
Ariel Rider's latest creation is purpose-built for blasting through unforgiving terrain. The Mudd 72V ebike packs enough power to rank it among the fastest ebikes you can buy – and it's got off-road cred to boot.
Volkswagen has been adding small but impactful camper van upgrades the past couple months. Now it turns its attention to its largest camper. Electrical upgrades give the updated Grand California more self-sufficient roaming capability than ever before.
Earlier in 2026, Airstream debuted a trailer it called the lightest, most aerodynamic in its class, the 22-ft World Traveler. Now it's back with an even lighter variant: a 17-footer with the same style of streamlined exterior and pared-back design

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Health and Science news from our sister site: Refractor
A recent study builds on previous findings, discovering that people who had experienced a serious heart attack also had higher levels of MNPs than healthy volunteers and patients with chronic ischemic heart disease.
Daddy longlegs, also called harvestmen, have been documented catching and consuming living frogs larger than themselves in South American rainforests. All without the use of venom.
Ten months on from the huge news that a chlamydia vaccine had been approved for Australia's koalas, a young female has become the first to receive the groundbreaking medicine in a new dose-and-implant format that makes large-scale treatment possible.
About a kilometer deep beneath the ocean surface, where sunlight disappears and food becomes scarce, lives a giant creature that can wait out starvation and survive more than five years without eating.
The ancient marine creature Spriggina floundersi didn’t have hands. It barely had a head. And yet we now know it also had a dominant side of its body – an early sign of the development of behavioral handedness.
Around one in three people worldwide have been infected with a microscopic parasite called Toxoplasma gondii, which can cause toxoplasmosis. After the initial infection, toxo settles into our muscles and brain, where it can remain for life.

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Editor's Picks

Who could possibly compare to Superman, the Man of Steel? Definitely not a man of plastic! Right? Wrong. Scientists have discovered that unconventionally shaped plastics may rival steel bars as reinforcement materials in construction concrete.
When we first caught wind of Thule's new Widesky rooftop tent, we took the model name to imply a large, clear stargazing skylight. Instead, Thule's latest tent encourages panoramic viewing in a different way, one we haven't seen on any other RTT.
This month marks 80 years since one of the most influential yet underrated inventions burst onto the market in New York on October 29, 1945. The Biro may seem unremarkable, but it fast became part of our everyday lives and revolutionized communications.
Despite the headlines, there’s limited evidence that using large language models – like Claude and ChatGPT – is rotting the brain. But there’s enough cause for concern.
The all-new Urbanoid Booba is an impossibly cute, tiny acorn of a trailer designed to provide a stylish, carefree way of instantly escaping the urban grind. The towable clamshell unfolds and inflates into a cozy base camp in a matter of minutes.
In the South China Sea, the aqua-colored waters of an expansive shallow reef platform suddenly gives way to a near vertical shaft of vast darkness – an ocean sinkhole almost entirely devoid of oxygen and, in turn, marine life as we know it.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries has pulled the covers off perhaps the most outrageous concept vehicle we've ever seen. The Corleo is a two-seater quadruped robot you steer with your body, capable of picking its way through rough terrain thanks to AI vision.
Dragon Tiny Homes' Fairfax model is one of the most affordable tiny houses on the market. With a length of just 16 ft, it won't suit a large family, but it could be a good fit for a vacation home, or as a guest house.