Tech universe: Monday 12 December

Take a jetski and attach a massive hose to it. At the other end of the hose add a Flyboard with boots and nozzles. Now start the engine, step into the boots and start flying through the air, courtesy of your jet-powered boots. The video shows the rider flying in the air, diving into and out of the water and even doing somersaults. Start practising your deep breathing. More details at the Zapata Racing and video here.

The Australians will soon be testing a wave energy generator off the coast of Victoria. The bioWAVE generator sways back and forth beneath the waves like kelp. As it does so it pressurises hydraulic fluid to create electricity that's sent ashore via undersea cable. If the swells are too large the unit lies flat against the sea floor for protection. It's a pity we can't just tap directly into kelp. Bio Power Systems has details.

SLEEK SWIMMERS: Swimming can be a real drag — the water clings to a swimmer's body and drag forces slow them down. With the 20012 Olympics coming up Speedo have released their Fastskin3 line of swimwear that claims to reduce full body passive drag by about 16%.

Suits feature compression zones designed to flatten the body to create a straight line. One drawback: it takes a swimmer between 15 and 60 minutes to actually put the suit on. The Olympic swimmers will just need to suit up in the morning and stay in the suit all day.

Wave pools aren't specially new, but their running costs are a problem. Wavegarden, high in the Basque Pyrenees mountains, uses a special underwater hydrodynamic mould that resembles a plane wing, to push a wave ahead of it, creating an inland spot for surfers. To counter the problem of energy reflecting off the sides of the pool and interfering with the main wave they've made sure the sides of the pool are angled away. Pro surfers rank the shape of the waves at Wavegarden as a 10, even though they'd like the waves to be bigger and more powerful. The designers say more power is simply a matter of money. It's always a matter of money. Popular Science has more.

When the massive earthquake off Japan struck this year it did more than just cause a catastrophic tsunami. It actually changed Earth's gravitational field enough to affect the orbits of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites 500 Km above Earth. Researchers can use changes in the orbits of those satellites to estimate the magnitude and location of huge earthquakes. Their calculations suggest that the Japan earthquake was a little stronger and deeper than ground-based scientists had determined. That was a quake with truly far-reaching effects. New Scientist.