Could viruses be put to a better use, instead devising plots to ransack the usable? What about using them to fashion microscopic batteries?
Continue reading… “Battery That’s Assembled With Viruses Thanks to Nanotechnology”
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Smoon Ombrella Lamp
Hanging there like a halo, this lamp renders some saintly illumination to your den. Dubbed as Smoon Ombrella, I think the Smoon stands for moon-like and Ombrella for umbrella.
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Toyota’s New Winglet in Action
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VqV2z7dq3M[/youtube]
Toyota unveiled the Winglet.
Winglet is a “Personal Transport Assistants” similar to the Segway, balance on two wheels using internal sensors and gyroscopes to stay upright. The Winglet comes in three sizes, consists of the large (L), medium (M) and small (S) versions, the latter two of which don’t have handlebars and instead are gripped by the calves. Winglet’s body has a 10.4 x 18-inch footprint and stands 1.5-, 2.2-, or 3.7-feet tall (depending upon the S, M, or L model chosen). More videos after the jump.
Continue reading… “Toyota’s New Winglet in Action”
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The Freewheeler Speaker
The Freewheeler Speaker
The Freewheeler speaker features a frequency response of 52 – 21,000 Hz, a 112dB output, a built-in FM receiver, a battery life of 8 hours and a wireless range of 656 feet- but I’m having trouble figuring out what makes it worth $21,000.
Continue reading… “The Freewheeler Speaker”
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SunTable – The Outdoor Workstation
For the rich geek with conscience this $2,200 SunTable could be the perfect outdoor workstation which will enable you to simultaneously charge your laptops, cellphones, stereos and other gadgetry that occupies your workstation space.
Continue reading… “SunTable – The Outdoor Workstation”
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Pressure-Sensing Contact Lenses To Monitor Glaucoma
A new contact-lens prototype senses changes in pressure, which may one day provide continuous monitoring for patients with glaucoma. Each lens (pictured) consists of a transparent polymer with tiny, opaque electrical circuits (gold).
A tiny electrical circuit built into contact lenses may provide 24-hour monitoring for glaucoma. Currently, the only way for patients with glaucoma to keep tabs on the disease is to go to the doctor’s office. There, a clinician administers one of several tests to measure glaucoma’s main risk factor, intraocular pressure (IOP), and prescribes medication accordingly. But such visits normally occur two or three times a year, and there’s no take-home monitoring device for patients who may experience pressure spikes between visits.
Continue reading… “Pressure-Sensing Contact Lenses To Monitor Glaucoma”
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Super Solar Energy
SolarCraft
has just completed a 35.4 kilowatt solar energy system at the new Hamilton Marketplace Complex in Novato, California. The system will enable the new shopping center to generate enough clean electricity to spare the air nearly 31 tons of harmful greenhouse gases annually, equivalent to the air filtering of 6.2 acres of trees.
Hamilton Marketplace is built on the former site of Nave Lanes and all commons areas, certain parking lot areas and walkways will be powered by 100% solar energy. The 94,000-square-foot center now supports 165 high efficiency SunPower solar modules and the new system is expected to generate 44,950 kilowatt hours annually and spans 2,210 square feet. There is potential for each tenant to purchase individual solar energy systems to power their space with renewable energy, clean power.
Continue reading… “Super Solar Energy”
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Solar Powered Bug Bots
Meet Gonzo, the solar-powered wing-flapping robot. Put it anywhere where there’s sun and its solar cell will charge a battery, and its wings will start flapping furiously.
Continue reading… “Solar Powered Bug Bots”
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The $300 Million Battery Prize
Next generation car batteries could power a car for days without recharging
John McCain hopes to solve the country’s energy crisis with cold hard cash.The presumed Republican nominee is proposing a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, “a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency,” McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery Monday at Fresno State University in California.
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A Revolution in Lithium-ion Battery Technology
A123’s battery is made from nanoparticles of lithium iron phosphate modified with trace metals
A123’s batteries will make lithium-ion technology practical for the auto industry. Instead of cobalt oxide, they use an electrode material made from nanoparticles of lithium iron phosphate modified with trace metals. The resulting batteries are unlikely to catch fire, even if crushed in an accident. They are also much hardier than conventional lithium-ion batteries: A123 predicts that they will last longer than the typical lifetime of a car.
Video after the jump:
Continue reading… “A Revolution in Lithium-ion Battery Technology”
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The Search For The Perfect Battery
The Economist has an interesting article on the next big thing in automotive industry: the quest in search of the perfect battery.
Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, which helped to make the mobile-phone revolution possible in the past decade, are now expected to power the increasing electrification of the car. “They are clearly the next step,” says Mary Ann Wright, the boss of Johnson Controls-Saft Advanced Power Solutions, a joint venture that recently opened a factory in France to produce lithium-ion batteries for hybrid vehicles.
Continue reading… “The Search For The Perfect Battery”
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The Battery-Powered Battery Charger
The P970 can be charged and then taken on the road as a second battery for gadgets with a USB input .
It sounds like a solution waiting for a problem, but Motorola’s P970 battery-powered battery recharger began shipping, four months after the curved, PEBL-like gagdet was announced at the Singapore-hosted CommunicAsia 2006 show. UPDATE (2009): Motorola’s P970 was Zen-like in its simplicity – a rechargeable battery that recharged your cell phone’s battery via a mini USB port. Too bad it’s no longer on the Motorola Web site.
Continue reading… “The Battery-Powered Battery Charger”
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