Category: Breakthrough Thinking

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Breakthrough Thinking, Green Friendly, Health & Fitness, New Inventions

Hybrid Motoryacht Design Powered By Diesel And Electric Jet Skis

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A hybrid boat?

Hybrid cars have been around for a while, but one German grad student is taking the concept to the water. A new hybrid propulsion motorboat designed by Stefanie Behringer, would reduce drag thanks to its three-hull, or trimaran, form.

A jet ski attaches to either side of the main hull, helping stabilize the boat. While the jet skis are electric-powered, the 49-foot long watercraft is also powered by two diesel engines that use Audi’s turbo-charged injection technology. Audi’s Concept Design team in Munich worked with Behringer on the project…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Great New Product, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, Science & Technology News

Flexible Paper Phone will be the Phone of the Future

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Flexible Paper Phone

Though we saw another paper phone not to long ago, but the latest paper phone we’re seeing is much more high tech. Like the Kindle, it uses an E-Ink display and works by bending the phone into different positions to make calls, use apps, and listen to music.

Created by research teams at Queen’s University in Canada and Arizona State University, the 9.5-centimeter (diagonal) screen is actually a lightweight flexible display. It’s said to feel similar to a bendable piece of plastic.

Its thin body resembles that of a paper document, but, according to the video below, underneath the screen is a “flexible printed circuit with resistive bend circuits,” which are used to identify the bending of the display screen. The user actually chooses the shape for each function…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Green Friendly, Health & Fitness, New Discoveries, Recycling

Generating Electricity with Whisky

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What kind of wattage can we generate with the whisky-making process?

Whisky. Is there anything it can’t do? Here’s what the Scots are going to do with the byproducts of whisky-making process:

It is the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, and now whisky is to be used to create electricity for homes in a new bioenergy venture involving some of Scotland’s best-known distilleries…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Great New Product, Historical Perspectives, New Inventions, Science & Technology News

Raspberry Pi: A $25 Bare-Bones PC That Fits On Your Keychain

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Small and inexpensive technology is always handy.

There are a number of barebones/mass-market low-cost devices out there, many of them aimed at the huge developing world market, hoping to outfit people with basic PC functionality for as little cost as possible. The OLPC is among the most famous, but perhaps the most luxurious: with a cutting-edge screen, built-in keyboard and networking, and so on, it has perhaps aimed too high, resulting in (as we’ve seen) increasing price and limited uptake. India’s “$35″ tablet comes to mind as well.

David Braben, perhaps best known for developing the revolutionary Elite, is now leading a foundation called Raspberry Pi to mass produce this ultra-minimal PC and distribute it where even an OLPC is too much. Their device is as bare-bones as it gets, and they’re hoping to sell it for $25…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Culture, Economy, Food, Green Friendly, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Plant Life

US Missing Out On Agricultural Millions Because The DEA Can’t Distinguish Hemp From Pot

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If this country REALLY wants to get out of debt, legalize hemp!

In case you missed it (and you certainly may have in the midst of other current world affairs) it’s Hemp History Week. The second annual one in fact. I imagine most readers don’t need much convincing that the US ought to legalizeindustrial hemp production–remember, though it’s perfectly legal to important hemp products into the US, it’s illegal under Federal law to grow hemp–so I won’t regale you with all the reasons I think hemp prohibition (alongside marijuana prohibition) is, to be blunt, moronic…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Great New Product, Historical Perspectives, New Discoveries, Science & Technology News

Uranium Could Be The Future of Hard Drives

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The trick is to keep the uranium cold.

If you’d been putting your money on a bet that SSDs will edge out traditional hard drive technology entirely, you might want to rethink your gamble. Traditional high-capacity moving hard drives will be around for a long time, most likely, and researchers at Nottingham University think they have a way to make them even denser: use depleted Uranium.

Depleted uranium, the same material that the military uses for tank shells and gun turret rounds, may one day be used for super-high density storage in hard drives. The trick is to keep the uranium cold…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Ecological Products, Green Friendly, New Inventions, Plant Life, Science & Technology News, Solar Power

First Practical Artificial Leaf Developed

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The first practical artificial leaf shows promise as an inexpensive source of electricity for homes in developing countries.

Scientists debut development of the first practical artificial leaf, one of the milestones in the drive for sustainable energy.  The scientists described an advanced solar cell the size of a poker card at the 241st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society. The solar cell mimics the process, called photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert sunlight and water into energy.

 

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Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Entertainment, Historical Perspectives

The Amazing Origin of Silly Putty

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The ever versatile Silly Putty.

Silly Putty was invented by accident when GE engineer James Wright was working to develop new types of rubber for the US military during World War II.

Wright spent over a year experimenting with different combinations of chemical compounds, hoping to produce a synthetic, “hard rubber” silicone that could withstand the high heat of jet engines or the freezing cold of nights on Navy ships…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, New Discoveries, Science & Technology News

World Record: 109 Terabits Per Second Over Single Optical Fibre

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BLAZING speed over one optical fibre.

Imagine being able to download three-months-worth of HD video in one second. If it sounds implausible, it’s not. Two different research groups have been working on a way to speed up fiber optic technology to record-setting broadband speeds.

When the first commercial fiber-optic communications system was developed in 1975, it operated at a bit rate of 45 Mbps. Today, we have speeds of 109Tb per second which is drastically improved. New Scientist said that the route between New York and Washington D.C., which is one of the highest trafficked routes in the world, outputs “a few terabits per second.” So, relatively speaking, having a way to deliver 100 terabits per second is quite desirable for the future of data communications…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Current Events, Entertainment, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Human Behavior, Internet, Latest News

Finally, You Can Kiss People Over the Internet

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Tactile communications: it may not sound too exciting, but it’s precisely the field of research that produced a device which lets users “transmit the feeling of a kiss” long-distance.

The Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications has created a device which consists of a hardware receptacle which is placed into the mouth, and software that remembers the movements of your tongue and sends them to the other connected device, which moves accordingly.

Of course, there’s more to a kiss than just the movement of the tongue, and the folks from Kajimoto plan to recreate them all…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Corporate Manipulation, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Human Behavior, New Discoveries

Factory Workers Forced to Pledge Not to Commit Suicide

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No suicide allowed!

Factories making Apple iPhones and iPads forced staff to sign pledges not to commit suicide before they were taken on. At least 14 workers at Apple’s Chinese supplier Foxconn have killed themselves in 16 months.

And more have either survived suicide bids or were stopped from trying at plants in Chengdu and Shenzhen.

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