| Wednesday, March 22, 2006 |  |
| Smart Cars: Still Coming to America | 1 comment |
 22 Mar 2006 @ 02:39 from Tree Huggers Collin Dunn, Durham, North Carolina TreeHugger first reported that Smart Cars would be availabe in the US about 10 months ago, yet a story in PCmag.com quotes parent-company Smart-Automobile LLC as announcing last week that they would begin making their way in the States. After a bit of digging, we discovered that there was a Smart Car sold stateside in May of last year, but it appeared that the lucky husband & wife in Reno, NV received the first (and only, at the time) model imported into the US via an auction on eBay. In any event, according to a much newer ZAP (Zero Air Pollution, the company responsible for Americanizing and distributing the cars) press release, there are now more of the diminuitive ForTwo models on their way. 85 units will be made available to select dealerships across the country; we can only hope that more will soon follow as there are still about $750 million in advance orders waiting to be filled. Once they arrive, prices will range from $15,000 to $25,000 More > |
| Monday, February 13, 2006 | |
| “Wolfenstein Radio Station” PC | 0 comments |
 13 Feb 2006 @ 10:43Relax, wipe the drool off your mouth, and gaze your eyes at this beauty. This is a “Wolfenstein Radio Station” PC mod. The specs are mediocre with an AMD Athlon 2200+ processor, and an ATI Radeon 9600 graphics card, but who cares how it performs when it is this sexy. The Wolfenstein PC has a custom paint job, a built on receiver and antenna, gauges and meters, and authentic-looking decals. Sorry folks, not for sale. |
| Some New Tech Toys | 1 comment |
 13 Feb 2006 @ 10:33This is all from Gizmodo MIT Working on Nanotube Batteries, Could Be a Breakthrough In the search for that holy grail, the everlasting battery, not much has been accomplished over the 200 years since old man Volta rolled out the first crude battery back in the dark ages. Now those whiz kids at MIT are using nanotube structures to create new super batteries by using energy storage doodads called ultracapacitors. These devices do their magic by storing electrical fields at the atomic level. Bear in mind that ultracapacitors are nothing new, but what is new is making them small enough to put into regular-sized batteries. Best of all, the MIT researchers are saying these nanotube batteries can be made using ordinary manufacturing methods. No word on how much more energy storage capacity these whiz-bang batteries will have than the conventional ones we know and love to hate. If these scientists can pull this off, standby world—you’re about to be changed forever. --------------------------------------- You’ve Been Slimed. Now Get Back on the Road The company that should consider a new name for itself, Slime, is offering Mini Smart Spair, a palm-sized microcompressor that can pump up your tire after you’ve sealed it with Slime, a special substance that the company says is made of “environmentally friendly fibers, binders, polymers and proprietary congealing agents that inter-twine and clot to seal punctures up to 1/4 of an inch.” The micro-compressor plugs into your 12-volt car battery. Once you perform that roadside repair, then you can make your way to a place where you can fix that tire properly. The kit includes eight ounces of the legendary Slime, ready to seal up anything More >  |
| Monday, February 6, 2006 | |
| LAPD’s Real Life Homing Beacon | 0 comments |
 6 Feb 2006 @ 17:34LAPD’s Real Life Homing Beacon The Los Angeles Police Department plans to install “dart-like” GPS devices from Starchase, LLC, that will be propelled from officers’ cars and attach to fleeing vehicles. Once attached, a GPS sensor kicks, from which officers can monitor the vehicle’s movements via a secure website, as the homing beacon transmits all pertinent data via a wireless transmitter. |
| Teeny Tiny Hitachi RFID Chip | 0 comments |
 6 Feb 2006 @ 17:31Teeny Tiny Hitachi RFID Chip: Smaller than a grain of salt, Hitachi’s newest RFID chip measures .005 x .005 inches and is 7.5 micrometers thin. Using Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology, it uses an external antenna to receive radio waves (2.45 GHz), and transforms it to energy to wirelessly transmit a 128 bit unique ID number for a high level of authenticity. But most importantly for Hitachi, it can make more of these chips on one single wafer, increasing production by 4 times. Most importantly for you, expect to see more and more embedded RFID in nearly every product you purchase. |
| Saturday, January 28, 2006 | |
| Hydropolis - The World's First Underwater Hotel | 19 comments |
  28 Jan 2006 @ 08:10 Hydropolis - The World's First Underwater Hotel Posted on Friday, January 20 @ 22:50:47 CST Currently under construction in Dubai, Hydropolis is the world's first luxury underwater hotel. It will include three elements: the land station, where guests will be welcomed, the connecting tunnel, which will transport people by train to the main area of the hotel, and the 220 suites within the submarine leisure complex. Great photos. It is one of the largest contemporary construction projects in the world, covering an area of 260 hectares, about the size of London's Hyde Park. "Hydropolis is not a project; it's a passion," enthuses Joachim Hauser, the developer and designer of the hotel. His futuristic vision is about to take shape 20m below the surface of the Arabian Gulf, just off the Jumeirah Beach coastline in Dubai. The £300 million, 220-suite hotel is due to open at the end of 2007 and will incorporate a host of innovations that will take it far beyond the original blueprint for an underwater complex worthy of Jules Verne. There are only a few locations in the world where such a grandiose dream could be realised. A high proportion of today's architectural marvels are materialising like fanciful mirages from the desert sands. We have come to expect extravagant enterprises to be mounted in the Middle East, and especially in Dubai. "This venture could only be born here in Dubai," says Hauser. "It [has] a very open-minded, international community - and that's what makes it so special." The land on which Hydropolis is being built belongs to His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai. It was his last free beach property on this stretch of coast. The project is a fantastic one, yet Sheikh Mohammed's success record with comparable schemes instils confidence that science fiction can become fact. With his support, several companies have been formed to kick-start this phenomenal project, and around 150 firms are currently involved. "There have been many visions of colonising the sea - Jules Verne, Jean Gusto and several Japanese architects - but no one has ever managed to realise this dream," says Hauser. "That was the most challenging factor, and that's what makes it so fascinating. Despite being a dream of mankind for centuries, nobody has ever been able to make living underwater possible." UNDERWATER HOTEL DESIGN The original idea for Hydropolis developed out of Hauser's passion for water and the sea, and goes much deeper than just building a hotel underwater. More than just curiosity, it is a commitment to a more far-reaching philosophy. "Once you start digging deeper and deeper into the subject, you can't help being fascinated and you start caring about all the associated issues," he explains. "Humans consist of 80% water, the earth consists of 80% water; without water there is no life." Hydropolis reproduces the human organism in an architectural design. There is a direct analogy between the physiology of man and the architecture. The geometrical element is a figure eight lying on its side and inscribed in a circle. The spaces created in the basin will contain function areas, such as restaurants, bars, meeting rooms and theme suites. These can be compared to the components of the human organism: the motor functions and the nervous and cardiovascular systems, with the central sinus knot representing the pulse of all life. READ MORE More > |
| Saturday, January 21, 2006 | |
| Aptera—to achieve up to 330 MPG | 1 comment |
 21 Jan 2006 @ 08:18Accelerated Composites, a San Diego, California-area startup, has designed a two-seat, three-wheel parallel hybrid—the Aptera—to achieve up to 330 MPG and sell for less than $20,000. [...] The production powertrain will consist of a 12 hp (9 kW) diesel engine with a 25 hp (19 kW) permanent magnet DC motor. (Accelerated Composites is designing the prototype with a gasoline engine for cost.) The electric motor is coupled through a Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT); when the engine is off the car can run on the electric motor alone. [...] The Aptera weighs 850 lbs and is made almost entirely of lightweight composites, based on Accelerated Composites’ Panelized Automated Composite Construction (PAC2) process. It accelerates from 0–60 mph in 11 seconds, and has a top speed of 95 mph. More > |
| Tuesday, January 17, 2006 | |
| Foldable Solar Battery Charger | 3 comments |
 17 Jan 2006 @ 08:02Foldable Solar Battery Charger Hot on the heels of the world's only pocket-sized solar lighter comes the worlds lightest and most compact solar charger. Weighing in at just nine ounces, this foldable charger fits in most backpacks and laptop bags and is powerful enough to charge most personal electronic accessories. Laptops, cell phones, iPods and PDAs all fit the bill, and it'll even charge NiMh, NiCd or Lithium ion batteries with an accessory charger. Each charger provides 10 watts of power (operating at 15.6 Volts) and can be daisy-chained together for anyone who needs solar mega-charging. It's pretty spendy, at US $299, but seems like a great fit for anyone who's doing some serious off-the-grid living or traveling and needs heavy-duty charging capacity Thanks to Peter who looked it up and found the link to purchase this. More > |
| Wednesday, January 11, 2006 | |
| GMC PAD- The Mobile Loft | 1 comment |
 11 Jan 2006 @ 07:28 GMC PAD- The Mobile Loft January 10, 2006 08:09 AM - Lloyd Alter, Toronto In a recent competition among car design teams, GMC came up with this fantasy:"The GMC PAD, an urban loft with mobility, a concept for living in the ever-changing cultural landscape of Southern California or, quite simply, a modern alternative for those priced out of Southern California’s escalating housing market. It’s a home ownership concept that enables cultural & geographic freedom for the modern city dweller. It’s a concept that represents a reasoned solution to the problems of urban sprawl, development, and it’s damaging effects on the region’s environment." We suspect there would be a small parking problem. Why Commute? With the PAD, your LA Adventure is your next stop. It’s where you live, where you work, or merely where you want to be. Whether located in walking distance from your job @ TBWA\Chiat\Day, spending a couple evenings along PCH, or wintering at Mammoth, with the GMC PAD, home is where you want it. And commuting is what other people do. Sensible? The GMC PAD features a Diesel-Electric hybrid system, which acts as a generator for the onboard power grid as well as propulsion for DriveMode. With the PAD’s resource management technology, onboard fuel & water supplies would last for weeks or even months on end. During daylight hours, the PAD’s SkyDeck features 6 M-Sq of photovoltaic cells that collect and store the sun’s natural energy. An electromagnetic suspension aids in leveling & stabilization when the PAD is being used in the LifeMode as well as remarkably easy handling while in DriveMode. More >  |
| Sunday, January 8, 2006 | |
| Get Past the Machines to a Human Voice | 0 comments |
| 8 Jan 2006 @ 03:54 A friend of a friend sent me this. It is probably because I work for an organization that delivers such a high level of service that I get so frustrated with computers on the other end of the phone line. I found a list of instructions to get past the machines and to a human for a large number of companies that you may find helpful. http://paulenglish.com/ivr/ |
| Tuesday, December 20, 2005 | |
| Allternative Fuel Vehicles | 0 comments |
| 20 Dec 2005 @ 20:47 Top stories about alternative fuel vehicles and other green machines. Maybe someday we won't have to call them alternative. |
| Tuesday, December 6, 2005 | |
| Solar Projector Will Help Teach Reading | 0 comments |
 6 Dec 2005 @ 04:04Solar Projector Will Help Teach Reading December 5, 2005 12:45 PM - Justin Thomas, Virginia Dec. 12, 2005 issue - Most adults in Mali can't read. The adult illiteracy rate is 80 percent, and for women in rural areas the rate jumps to 90 percent. But now, engineering students with Design that Matters, an MIT-based nonprofit, are literally shedding light on the issue with something they call Kinkajou, a solar-powered projector that can shoot an image up to three yards onto any flat surface. "There is a lot of excitement about it," says Jill Harmsworth, vice president of the Africa program for World Education, a nonprofit running literacy classes in Mali, where the product's been tested throughout the year. "Often there would only be a single light bulb and the women could barely see their books. [Kinkajou] has made people eager to come to class." The U.S. Agency for International Development has noticed. It's bankrolling an effort to take Kinkajous (named after an animal with exceptional night vision) to 1,500 more classes worldwide by the end of the year—and to 15,000 more by 2009. On this scale, it costs just $50 to make the projector and $12 to make a spool of film, which can store up to 10,000 pages of text. Entire reference libraries can now be transported cheaply and easily. In designing the product, the MIT students had an unlikely inspiration: Fisher-Price's toy projector, which they found to be the most battle-tested model around. "When you design things for kids, they have to be bombproof," says Tim Prestero, cofounder of Design that Matters. To withstand the conditions of the Sahara, the Kinkajou, like the toy projector, has seven plastic lenses instead of a single fragile one. The final product is tough—and it's lightening the load for thousands worldwide. |
| Monday, December 5, 2005 | |
| The Ecomobile | 1 comment |
  5 Dec 2005 @ 01:28The Ecomobile is the brainchild of former airline pilot Arnold Wagner. He took the old idea of an enclosed motorcycle and applied his aviation expertise and glider manufacturing facilities to develop the Ecomobile. In the last twenty years, he has built and sold over a hundred of the fuel-efficient road rockets. The use of extremely light materials such as Kevlar for the housing keeps efficiency high. The aerodynamics of a high performance aircraft and the power of the BMW K1200RS engine ensure a fun ride. And the full enclosure provides safety and comfort, as well as noise damping, so your roadtrip CD (...er, ah...I mean stimulating conversation with your spouse) rounds out the pleasure. The real break-through though, is achieving stability on two wheels when you can't put your feet down. The trick is the "training wheels" that automatically deploy at low speeds and retract upon acceleration. The Ecomobile does require a motorcycle license, but no helmet. They are now approved and distributed in the USA in addition to the original Swiss headquarters for European sales. And a hand-operated version with special door geometry and wheel-chair stowage is available for drivers with special needs. More > |
| CLEVER Car Milestone: Crash Test | 4 comments |
 5 Dec 2005 @ 01:20CLEVER Car Milestone: Crash Test December 3, 2005 12:04 AM - Christine Lepisto, Berlin In Europe, where automobile producers have committed to reduce the CO2 emissions of their fleets from today's average of 200 grams/km to 140, this EU-wide project has been on the radar since the CLEVER press release in April 2004. Now, CLEVER--for Compact Low-Emission VEhicle for uRban transport--has passed its first big test. In a head-on crash test, the innovative three-wheeler demonstrated very satisfactory performance, similar to a normal small car. Side-crash tests are planned. Further novelties include a natural gas engine with fuel-cartridge concept so the car can be used where a NatGas network is not yet complete. And unique software will manage the roll in the one-wheel passenger compartment while the two-wheeled luggage and motor compartment keeps both wheels on the ground; this should ensure CLEVER is FUN (see image on next page). The project goal is to create a production vehicle for under 10,000 euros (12,000 US$). A project report is due in March 2006, but big questions remain about the CLEVER's future. BMW, one of the main partners in the development of the prototype, is still silent about whether they will take the vehicle into production. Speculation that the vehicle will be authorized as a motorcycle, requiring special driver licensing, could scare BMW away after the experience with the C1, which failed quickly after annual sales couldn't top 10,000 of the unique caged bikes in spite of the helmet-free approval. Which is the Big Question: will the consumer find the CLEVER clever? If fun-to-drive meets green, it could be the answer many a lead-blooded sports driver with a conscience has been looking for, and expand the niche for mod city minis that Daimler-Chrysler opened with its smartcar. More >  |
| SmartWay: EPA Updates Green Vehicle Guide | 0 comments |
| 5 Dec 2005 @ 01:14 SmartWay: EPA Updates Green Vehicle Guide December 4, 2005 06:51 PM - Michael G. Richard, Ottawa The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has updated its Green Vehicle Guide (which is actually a guide of all vehicles, and not just the greener ones) with new categories they call SmartWay and SmartWay Elite. "SmartWay is earned by those vehicles that score 6 or better on both the Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gas Scores and achieve a combined score of at least 13 when added together [...] SmartWay Elite is given to those vehicles that score 9 or better on both the Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Scores." You can see a list of all the SmartWay rated vehicles here. Not surprisingly, at the top are the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic hybrid. We're not quite sure where the EPA is going with this branding-wise, but at least it makes it a bit easier to find less polluting cars. Thanks to Ben McCarthy for the tip |
| Saturday, December 3, 2005 | |
| Push-Button House by Adam Kalkin | 0 comments |
 3 Dec 2005 @ 02:59Push-Button House by Adam Kalkin December 2, 2005 12:56 PM - Collin Dunn, Durham, North Carolina Shipping container prefab houses certainly aren't anything new (we featured them some time ago, here) but the latest incarnation from architect/artist Adam Kalkin is pretty darn slick, so we had to mention it. The Push Button House is exactly that: it starts as a shipping container until a button is pushed, and it turns into a house. Motorized walls unfold like a flower, revealing a fully functionaly house, complete with refined, understated furnishings. Kalkin is unveiling the house (in more ways than one) at Art Basel Miami Beach, a renowned art show that started yesterday and runs through the weekend. Fitting that the house's debut is at an art show; Kalkin fancies himself a fushion of artist and architect: "I'm not into the container per se. It's what I can do with it emotionally; transforming a commodity into poetry." No word yet on pricing or production schedules; his Quik House will go into production next month and will be priced between US $150,000 and $175,000. |
| Monday, November 28, 2005 | |
| Goodyear and Novamont Present BioTRED Tires | 0 comments |
 28 Nov 2005 @ 17:30Goodyear and Novamont Present BioTRED Tires November 28, 2005 08:35 AM - Collin Dunn, Durham, North Carolina Tire giant Goodyear and Italian eco-bio-chemical firm Novamont have collaborated to produce bio-tires. Using their non-GMO corn starch called Mater Bi (which we've featured before, in this spork), Novamont produced an additive, or biofiller, which replaces part of the lampblack and silica normally contained in the tire mixture. Tires made with Novamont's additive reduces rolling resistance, noise and emissions while increasing fuel efficiency and reducing the energy needed in the production process. BioTRED was first introduced in Europe in 2001, and have been approved by both Ford and BMW to be used on their new cars, though information on availability and cost is very spotty |
| Tuesday, November 22, 2005 | |
| The Evocatively Named Subaru B5-TPH | 0 comments |
 22 Nov 2005 @ 14:35 :: The Evocatively Named Subaru B5-TPH November 22, 2005 09:11 AM - Warren McLaren, Sydney At the recent Tokyo Motor Show, Subaru showcased a vehicle a tad more sporty than the very cute R1e, which we mentioned before. The B5 TPH Concept (this middle bit means‘Turbo Parallel Hybrid’) is a ‘crossover’ hatchback with the ground clearance of a 4WD. But the bit that interests us here is that it’s a hybrid, There’s an electric generator/motor mounted twixt the 2.0 litre engine and the transmission. “The electric motor itself produces 10 kW and 150 Nm torque while the petrol engine has a 191 kW output with 343 Nm torque.” An unlike most hybrids where the electric elements kick in just for city driving, the B5 TPH’s are capable of operating at cruising speeds too. And its “manganese lithium ion battery charges to 95 per cent capacity in five minutes.” The hybrid engine itself might one day find itself on the road, but the car as shown here is not expected to have a commercial release |
| Saturday, November 19, 2005 | |
| World's first working $100 laptop | 0 comments |
 19 Nov 2005 @ 00:24Okay, well some of the considerations I have are piles of e-waste. Just because it can be built does it need to be. Are they using all recycled or vegetable fiber in the casing and other parts, is there no led in it anywhere etc. This smells of somewhat of a throwaway environmental disaster. --------------------------------------------------- World's first working $100 laptop Tech evangelist Nicholas Negroponte wants to outfit the world's children to improve education. November 16, 2005: 5:23 PM EST By David Kirkpatrick, FORTUNE senior editor The laptop, powered with a crank, is intended for students. NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - Nick Negroponte would like to sell you a $100 laptop, especially if you're head of state in a large developing country. That's why he is at the World Summit on the Information Society, the giant UN-sponsored gathering that starts Wednesday in Tunis. Negroponte plans to show for the first time a working prototype of his new device, intended for hundreds of millions of mostly-poor students worldwide. The techies and government ministers in Tunis are his ideal target market. At the Media Lab at MIT, which Negroponte founded 20 years ago, researchers are working not only on the engineering to make such an inexpensive product possible, but on computer interfaces to enable kids to learn without teachers, and on a curriculum to teach them every sort of subject. Negroponte's message has a seductive simplicity. As he puts it in an interview: "One laptop per child: Children are your most precious resource, and they can do a lot of self-learning and peer-to-peer teaching. Bingo. End of story." He's seeking orders in lots of a million. So far, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva has agreed to buy a million, Negroponte says, and Chile, Argentina and Thailand are lining up. Negroponte hopes to start production next year, ramping up to tens of millions in 2007. The device is a stripped-down affair, with an electricity-generating crank and a swiveling seven-inch screen, for basic word-processing, Internet and communications. It has no hard drive, instead using flash memory like that in a digital camera. The processor, from AMD, runs at a pokey 500 megahertz. Each laptop will include a Wi-Fi radio transmitter designed to knit machines into a wireless "mesh" so they can share a Net connection, passing it from one computer to the next. Though there is a power cord, that cool crank can provide roughly ten minutes of juice for each minute of turning. The key to chopping the price to $100: reducing the cost of the screen. Negroponte's chief technology officer Mary Lou Jepsen, who used to work at Intel, has invented a display she thinks could be built for $35 or less (compared with the typical $100 or more). Negroponte's nonprofit One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), which will distribute the device, has raised a total of $10 million, with more on the way. Says Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. contributed $2 million: "Nick's endeavor has the prospect of potentially transforming the lives of millions of children in the developing world." Google also chipped in $2 million. Even tech titans like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Michael Dell are talking to Negroponte about his plans. Jobs initially dismissed the laptop as a "science project" but is now contributing ideas. Dell had his staff vet the cost of the device's components. And Gates would like Negroponte to use Microsoft software rather than the free open-source alternatives that Negroponte currently favors. The impediments, needless to say, are numerous and daunting. "Most schools in the developing world don't even have textbooks," says Allen Hammond of the World Resources Institute. "How the heck are they going to pay for Internet access?" Even Hector Ruiz, CEO of AMD, which gave $2 million to OLPC, says success will require "developing larger ecosystems around ... tech support, application development, training and business models for the Internet service providers." Those elements aren't close to being in place, and Ruiz thinks the laptop's price won't drop to $100 for two to three years. Yet even skeptics are loath to pooh-pooh Negroponte's activism: "If he can pull it off," Hammond says, "my hat's off to him." Negroponte is currently talking to hardware companies about marketing a pricier version that will subsidize the nonprofit model. His stop in Tunis is just one on a long mission he seems unlikely to give up. "What if we fail?" he asks. "Failure means it's $142.07 and six months late. Failure doesn't mean it doesn't happen or it's a bad idea." |
| Friday, November 11, 2005 | |
| Portable Energy Source: FreeCharge Weza | 0 comments |
 11 Nov 2005 @ 00:06 Portable Energy Source: FreeCharge Weza November 10, 2005 08:30 AM - Justin Thomas, Virginia This is one gadget I might actually have to buy as soon as it's available. The FreeCharge is a portable power supply that outputs 12V DC through a standard "cigarette lighter" style plug. It has enough power to jump-start a car or boat, but it can also recharge most portable devices. When you have no access to electricity, can you can always step on the treadle to generate power yourself. This device shines in emergency situations, such as when your car needs a jump start on a deserted road. The FreeCharge's 7Ah sealed lead acid battery can also be charged with solar panels, wind-powered turbines, or via standard AC power. To run AC devices, you'll need an inverter of some kind, since it only outputs DC directly. Available from CCrane for $294.95, but not in stock until March 2006, so unfortunately there's no chance to give it as a gift |
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Older entries >>