Audi’s Skateboard-like e-tron Electric Scooter

With a range of 12.5 miles and a max speed of 12.5mph, Audi’s concept electric scooter, the e-tron, rides like a skateboard—with users controlling the 26-pound vehicle by shifting their weight. That said, a handlebar grants one-handed use and also solves a problem with scooters: user inability to deliver hand signals. It will be priced at €2,000 upon release in 2020 and comes with several …

AlterEgo Listens to the Voices in Your Head

24-year-old inventor Arnav Kapur’s wearable device AlterEgo, which we previewed during this year’s Ted Fellows announcement, aims to assist people with communication problems by reading the voices in their head. According to Smithsonian Magazine, the technology does so through “a system of sensors that detects the minuscule neuromuscular signals sent by the brain to the vocal cords and muscles of the throat and tongue.” These …

Reflecting on Toni Morrison’s Life, From Her Point of View

The first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer prize winner for penning Beloved and a mentor to millions, among many other things, Toni Morrison lived unapologetically but with unmatched empathy, intelligence and insightfulness. She famously told Terry Gross (of NPR’s Fresh Air) that she “regret[s] everything” about her life. She explained in a 2015 interview, “Now that I’m 84, I remember everything …