If flippers aren’t enough for you, check out this handheld underwater jetpack

By Luke Dormehl May 17, 2017

Sublue WhiteShark Mix Underwater Scooter

Propelling yourself through the water by moving your arms and kicking your legs is so 2016. If you really want to channel your inner Aquaman (or, we guess, Namora for the ladies?) you’ll want to pick up Sublue’s new Whiteshark MIX device, a lightweight and powerful underwater booster which means you’ll never have to do anything as strenuous as actually swim again.

“Sublue has developed an underwater device that glides you through the water in an exhilarating, easy, and fun way,” Jiancang Wei, co-founder and CEO of Sublue, told Digital Trends. “It’s equipped with double propellers, which ensures speed and power as well as carefully thought-out safety features. The device is the smallest underwater scooter in the world, which can easily fit it in a backpack. It is the ultimate James Bond-style swimming accessory.”

The Whiteshark MIX boasts a top speed of 3.45 miles per hour, and can survive at depths of up to 130 feet. Its battery lasts up to one hour, and takes 2.5 hours to fully charge. If you’re in the mood for recording your travels, it also includes a built-in GoPro mount, especially positioned to capture underwater images and videos.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

“We spent a lot of time researching to get the right type of blades for the propellers and decided on Kaplan four-leaf blades, which greatly reduced the high speed shock to ensure a smooth but still powerful glide through the water,” Wei continued.

Whether you’re a serious scuba diver or snorkeler who wants to explore the ocean or just a holidaymaker looking to have fun at the pool, the Whiteshark MIX is definitely worth a look. It’s currently available for pre-order on Indiegogo, with a price tag starting at $349 — which represents a 30-percent saving on the $499 it will eventually cost.

Shipping is set to take place in October, just in time for a freezing winter swim.

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I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…

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Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards

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CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
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[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

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AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying

Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Mobile

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The fitness world is littered with opportunities to buy tech aimed at enhancing your physical performance. No matter your sport of choice or personal goals, there's a deep rabbit hole you can go down. It'll cost plenty of money, but the gains can be marginal -- and can honestly just be a distraction from what you should actually be focused on. Running is certainly susceptible to this.

A few months ago, I ran my first-ever marathon. It was an incredible accomplishment I had no idea I'd ever be able to reach, and it's now going to be the first of many I run in my lifetime. And despite my deep-rooted history in tech, and the endless opportunities for being baited into gearing myself up with every last product to help me get through the marathon, I went with a rather simple approach.