Nick Smith

Classic Project: VW Beetle

The car we know as the Volkswagen Beetle was quite unattractive to the average buyer as well as too ugly and noisy.

Book Interview: Lifting the lid on deception in the food industry

Cases of food fraud are frighteningly common. In fact, theyre on an epidemic scale says Richard Evershed, co-author of a book that uncovers how were being duped and the resulting battle between scientists and fraudsters.

Interview: Jeff Paterson

A new money-changing machine is set to make currency exchange for travellers a much more equitable and far less frustrating business. Co-founder of Fourex, Jeff Paterson, explains why.

Interview [Interview David Wood]

He may have been a main player in developing smartphone software at Psion, but David Wood is not concerned with the past. His mission is to ensure society acts smart and doesnt squander a future thats there for the taking.

Interview: Marc Goodman

Former Los Angeles policeman and FBI futurologist Marc Goodman has spent the past 20 years on the techno-crime fault line. Here he explains why technological villainy will always outstrip the lawmakers. Words and portrait by Nick Smith.

Interview - Andrew Hodges [Alan Turing Interview]

The Imitation Game biopic is based on the classic biograph Alan Turing: the Enigma. Its author is Andrew Hodges, Fellow and tutor of Mathematics at Wadham College, University of Oxford. He talks to us from the dreaming spires to reveal more.

Classic project: Medical stethoscope

THERE CAN be no single image that immediately conjures up the medical profession with more powerful effect than that of a stethoscope around the neck of a doctor. Invented in 1816, the instrument has been with us for almost two centuries, its purpose – listening to sounds inside the body – never changing.

Old-school ice truckers

IT TOOK 99 days to complete the 2,158-mile (3,473km) crossing but finally, on 2 March 1958, leader of the Commonwealth Trans Antarctic Expedition (TAE) Vivian Bunny Fuchs could claim to be the first person to cross the White Continent. It was an expedition that at the time was considered to be one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century and prefigured the attainments of the Apollo missions of the decade that was to follow.

007 Lotus Esprit 'submarine car' [Classic Projects]

AFICIONADOS of the James Bond movie franchise will recognise the vehicle in the blueprint as the modified Lotus Esprit S1 from The Spy Who Loved Me. The car takes centre stage in an exhilarating car chase, during which it converts into a submarine to make its escape underwater. The 007 Lotus Esprit is routinely voted the best movie car of all time and, as with so many of Bonds gadgets, it comes armed to the teeth with all kinds of explosives, weaponry and other fiendish devices to assist with the defence of Queen and country. Known as Wet Nellie, the wet-sub was named after the Wallis WA-116 Agile gyrocopter Little Nellie in You Only Live Twice, that had in turn been named after the music hall star and actress Nellie Wallace.

Classic project [Timeout Blueprint]

WESTLAND BIPLANES first shot to fame in 1933 when a prototype of their Wallace model became the first aircraft to fly over the summit of Mount Everest.