Vacuum Tube

In what feels like news straight out of 2016, a Hyperloop testing facility in Europe has completed the longest-ever vacuum capsule journey. The milestone could bring this oft-forgotten promise of high-speed transport one step closer to reality.

China's biggest missile manufacturer is working on a hyperloop. CASIC claims it's clocked the fastest speed ever for a superconducting maglev vehicle – over 623 km/h – during tests in a low-vacuum tube just 2 km long.

LG's experimental marketing platform is teasing a retro-modern reworking of the jukebox ahead of CES 2024. Dubbed the DukeBox, the concept fronts a stylish speaker unit driven by valve amp technology with a thoroughly modern transparent OLED panel.

Faster than a jet plane and about half the price. Yes, it's another hyperloop-style vacuum-tube train – this time from Canada. TransPod says it's started preliminary construction on a tube that'll fire you from Calgary to Edmonton in 45 minutes.

McIntosh Labs has reworked the iconic monoblock amplifier that powered the sound system at the 1969 Woodstock music and art fair. Rocking the spirit of the original, the MC3500 Mk II boasts a similar look but benefits from a host of modern upgrades.

Startup Amonito has launched an all-in-one guitar amplification package shaped roughly like an ammonite that offers analog tube-driven sounds and digital effects. And there's a lot to like here, apart from the rather high price of entry.

Even without that striking logo, audio gear from McIntosh Labs has a look all its own. The latest addition to the company's high-end catalog is a versatile 2-channel vacuum tube headphone amplifier named the MHA200.

​New York's high-end audio company McIntosh has announced its first hybrid integrated amplifier, the MA252. The all analog amp's retro looks are a design nod to the company's iconic MC275 Vacuum Tube Amplifier, but only the preamp stage uses tubes – the output stage rocks solid-state circuitry.​

Martin Young of IMS Electronics has launched a hybrid tube amp on Kickstarter that's undoubtedly something of a looker. But the Desktop Valve Amplifier – housed in an enclosure machined from a single block of aluminum, with a viewing window up top – is promised to deliver top notch sonics, too.

An innovative self-service sexual health clinic has opened in Soho, London, where anyone can be screened free of charge six days a week, while only waiting six hours to get their results back.

He may be the man behind PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX, but Elon Musk has been garnering more attention lately for his proposed Hyperloop. He has now revealed the design and details of his proposed Hyperloop transit system.

Ultra-fast, high efficiency ground transport is technologically within reach - so why isn't anybody building it?