Dispensing almost 4,500 loaves of bread in July, French baker Jean-Louis Hecht's baguette vending machine strives to become the "bakery of tomorrow." This 24-hour baguette dispenser partially bakes precooked loaves for 90p. After spending a decade of planning and designing, Hecht now has two machines in France: one in Paris and another in Hombourg-Haut. Hecht's inspiration stems from customer demand; Essentially, Hecht's customers kept requesting baguettes when his shop was closed...

Recently, a company called Made in Space successfully completed a testing period of two 3D printers on numerous zero-gravity NASA flights. As a result, a scaled-down wrench has become the first tool ever printed in partial zero-gravity... 

Google Chrome keeps pushing the limits of browser speed. Chrome 13 was released yesterday (Tuesday, August 2, 2011) and it has some pretty sweet new features. One of the major ones is the Print Preview that Google Chrome now brings up before printing the requested page. Check below for a couple screenshots. One is the black and white default settings, and the other is an optional color print preview. But the best new feature is “Instant Pages”. This new feature preloads the page that it thinks you will click once the search results load. This allows for “Instant Pages” when opening a search link through Google... at least if it’s the one they thought you would click. Check out the video after the break for a visual explanation.


Written by: Andy G.

Google Voice has gotten a small face lift. Instead of chat bubbles for text messages (below), the site now sports a flatter, smoother chat box (above). The chat bubble is removed and the chat text is now flush with the contact info, and the whole box is the gray the bubbles used to be, if the text is “old”. A new/newer text appears with a white box. A subtle color change, but noticeable none the less. 

The way the left side bar is handled is similar to the new Gmail theme, "Preview". Whichever category you are in is highlighted. Quite a subtle change overall actually, but I like it. I must admit though, I’m not a big fan of the yellow color the box changes when you select it via the check box near the contact picture. It seems that Google is trying to roll out similar feel across all their web apps. Looks good so far.

Written by: Andy G.
Picture: CNET

Google+ and Facebook. Currently, these seem to be the two social networks everyone is talking about. Has Facebook truly become the immovable wall many people believe it to be? Or will Google+ make a David and Goliath story out of the social networking industry? These seem to be the questions that everyone is asking. A lot of people, myself included, have one major example of why taking down a giant is not impossible.

MySpace. MySpace was the original king of the social networking world, but it fell to Facebook without much of a fight. So even MySpace has been mentioned in these conversations. However, there’s something missing, and that something is Twitter...

Google+ was exciting for us here at HTP. We plan on using it to collaborate about the website and new ideas we have. It seems easier to be exclusively social than Facebook, and for us tech geeks, it has the allure of still being in the underground/testing phase (Google is calling it their field trial). Therefore, we’ve decided to do our own review. Keep in mind, however, that each section was written separately, which means there may be some overlap and ideas may vary greatly. With no further adieu, head past the break for our review.

Okay, let's face it, most of the cell phone industry is still trying to play catch up to Apples' iPhone. Android is catching up quickly, with a new device coming out about, oh, every eight seconds or so. Some people will argue that it has caught up to iOS, but not this guy. 

Apparently, Google had already submitted its Google+ iOS app to the Apple App Store not too long ago. This is what a Google employee posted on her personal Google+ account. 

Samsung seems to be working on flexible AMOLED displays. Now, if that doesn't sound sexy, then I don't know what does... that's a lie, but still, it sounds sexy. 

Imagine your full electric vehicle running on some black crude fluid, or black blood. Your beautiful, elegant, environment friendly cruiser running on a crude black substance. Sounds familiar right? Sounds like something that, oooh, you tried to move away from by going all electric? Well, MIT says otherwise.