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Legendary Havana bar ‘Sloppy Joe’s’ reopens

“Mythic Cuban bar Sloppy Joe’s, a watering hole for a who’s who of Hollywood stars during Prohibition, reopens its doors Friday in Havana. The revived bar is in the center of old Havana, just steps away from Central Park and some of the city’s grand hotels. Founded in 1920 by Spanish immigrant Jose Garcia, Sloppy Joe’s was restored exactly the way it once stood, down to its long, black mahogany bar, which was immortalized in the 1959 British film ‘Our Man in Havana’ with Alec Guinness and Maureen O’Hara. In its heyday, it was frequented by Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Spencer Tracy and even Clark Gable.” Continue reading →

‘World’s greatest chef’ building massive recipe and gastronomic database

“Two years after closing the beachside Spanish restaurant — repeatedly lauded as the world’s best by those lucky enough to have dined there — Adria says he is now focused on preserving its legacy for future generations. Widely regarded as the world’s best chef and credited with having changed culinary history by reworking familiar ingredients into unfamiliar dining experiences, Adria, 50, is now turning his attention to cyberspace. He plans to impose a sense of chronology to food online with his ‘La Bullipedia’ project, a curated database into which he aims to incorporate every piece of gastronomic knowledge available.” Continue reading →

3D technology brings medieval books to life

“Precious mediaeval books, usually displayed in glass cases and touchable only with gloves, can now be read in glorious 3D, thanks to a system unveiled Tuesday at the world’s top tech fair. With the 3D interactive book explorer, users browse through the sinewy Latin text and colourful illustrations penned centuries ago but in a distinctly up-to-date manner. The text is scanned in and displayed on a flat-screen display and readers, standing a couple of metres (feet) back from the screen, scroll through the pages just by waving their hands in the air to operate motion sensor cameras. The reader can flip the book through 360 degrees and in 3D.” Continue reading →

New demolition technique shrinks Tokyo hotel ‘in a clean manner’

“Passers-by in Tokyo’s busy Akasaka district have started to notice something odd about a 40-floor hotel — it has shrunk to about half its original height. Slowly but surely, and with none of the explosions or dust normally associated with the demolition of skyscrapers, the hotel is being torn down. Engineers reinforced the top floor with steel beams and then effectively lopped it off, keeping it in place to be used as an adjustable lid that can be lowered down the building on an external support frame. Workers at the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka have brought in 15 hydraulic jacks on which this ‘lid’ now sits as they remove one floor at a time.” Continue reading →

World’s first successful uterus transplant recipient is pregnant via in vitro fertilization

“The first woman ever to receive a uterus from a deceased donor, is two-weeks pregnant following a successful embryo transplant, her doctors said on Friday. The 22-year-old Derya Sert was revealed to be almost two-weeks pregnant in preliminary results after in vitro fertilisation at Akdeniz University Hospital in Turkey’s southern province of Antalya, her doctor Mustafa Unal said in a written statement. Sert was described as a ‘medical miracle’ when she became the first woman in the world to have a successful womb transplant from a dead donor in August 2011 at the same Antalya hospital.” Continue reading →

WikiHouse allows people to build their own homes with 3-D printers

“WikiHouse is putting a new spin on old-time barn-raising with a free online resource that lets people put homes together the same way they might a giant jigsaw puzzle. WikiHouse.cc was designed as an open-source construction kit that lets people create and share home designs and then ‘print’ pieces using machines available for as little as a few thousand dollars. It is part of the effort by the WikiHouse collective of professionals who volunteer to give consumers information and tools about home design and construction. ‘Two or three people working together can build a small house in about a day,’ said Alastair Parvin, a British architect.” Continue reading →

3-D printer wows world’s top tech fair

“The machine, developed by German company ‘fabbster’, melts plastic and then builds up incredibly fine ‘layer’ just 88 microns (0.088 millimetres) thick, eventually producing a solid physical object with impressive detail. The system is currently being used mainly by small businesses, architects, designers and engineers, explained Fabian Grupp, project manager. ‘You can really make anything you can think of,’ he enthused. Coming soon is the ability to create multi-coloured objects and use different materials within the same ‘print-out’.” Continue reading →

New iPad app allows users to virtually try on glasses in 3-D

“Jonathan Coon turned heads Wednesday with iPad software that lets people try on sunglasses by manipulating 3-D images of themselves from the neck up. The founder of discount prescription lens company 1-800 Contacts introduced a service intended to let shoppers see themselves in eyewear using smartphones, tablets or computers with cameras built into screens. ‘One of the great ironies of glasses is that people who wear them usually can’t see themselves when they are shopping for glasses because they need to be wearing prescription lenses,’ Coon said. ‘For the first time, you can see yourself trying on glasses.'” Continue reading →