Page 1 of 20 Next »
Scoot over solar panels, there's a new solar solution in town: cylinders. Developed by California-based alternative energy startup Solyndra, the cylindrical shape of the solar fixtures is said to generate more energy, as well as be easier to mount on roofs and big buildings. Even more important for the latter, as an array of the solar cylinders — spaced out as they are — catch a lot less in the wind.
The cylinders are composed of curved solar panels made from thin semiconductor sheets fixed to a glass tube. The company touts that the panels are far easier to bracket to a structure than conventional panels, which sounds pretty nice. Imagine if every big building could power itself, completely independent of the grid — sounds pretty nice, right?
Solyndra has a video on its website showing how the cylindrical panels are installed.
Solyndra, via Technology Review
The hydrogen breakthroughs just keep on coming. Here's another one, where Greek scientists have figured out how to store more hydrogen-per-liter than ever by using the newfangled carbon nanotubes you see in the illustration above. This is good news, because hydrogen is notoriously difficult to store and transport.
Those H atoms are so teeny-tiny, they tend to escape, even through steel containers. They also take up too much space to store, but this idea lets the hydrogen atoms nestle between nanotubes and a layer of carbon a mere atom thick, storing a lot more hydrogen per liter. In fact, at 41g per liter, its capacity nearly matches the U.S. Department of Energy's wishful thinking of 45g per liter.
Put this discovery together with that breakthrough from August where researchers found a way to produce hydrogen from water using solar energy, and we might be on the way toward someday driving vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Until then, this is all a lot of expensive vapor.
Energy Efficiency News, via Clean Technica
Now you can wander around the house in the middle of the night with confidence, assisted by Two Lamps. This creation by design firm LifeGoods serves as a bedside lamp in its stationary mode, and then you can pluck off the rechargeable flashlight for your late-night jaunts.
For those of us who can't see in the dark and have a tendency to stumble around in the gloom, we (along with our stubbed toes) would be grateful to see this nicely-designed luminaire actually finding its way to the marketplace.
In the middle of the deep woods, electrical outlets are rare. So if you want to apply power to sensors that alert firefighters of an impending conflagration, what do you do? Those smarty-pants scientists at MIT have it all figured out — tapping tree roots for electrical power.
What, are we talking about man-made solar trees? Nope. It sounds like a miracle, but there's a tiny amount of electricity that can be extracted between tree roots and the soil where they grow, because of the "imbalance in pH between a tree and the soil," says Andreas Mershin, one of the scientists working on the project.
That's enough power to slowly charge up a battery that allows the tree to send back temperature and humidity readings four times a day, or one plaintive cry for help immediately. A wireless network of the trees will undergo its first testing next spring.
MIT, via Boing Boing
Just because you serve killer drinks using ice cubes that look exactly like AK-47 machine gun bullets doesn't mean you're a violent person. But we don't recommend serving cocktails with these very special ice cubes on a first date, either. The poor gal might get the wrong idea.
She might appreciate all the trouble you went to, though, filling up the AK Ice Tray that resembles an AK-47 magazine, then carefully placing its other half atop that water so the ice can expand accordingly, resulting in those perfect ammunition replicas. No, you don't worship guns and ammo, you just think these ice cubes are cool. Literally.
Find Me a Gift, via Uber-Review
Attention zillionaires who still have huge wads of cash left: Rolex is having its 100th birthday, and to celebrate, the storied Swiss watch company rolls out an update to its flagship timepiece, calling this exquisite bauble the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Day-Date II.
You get a lot of style and elegance for your $20,000 (and up), including a bigger 41mm dial (up from 38mm on the original Day-Date), and your choice of 18k gold or platinum case with a sold 18k gold or platinum Super-President bracelet to match. Nice.
Go ahead, splurge on a platinum design with 8 diamonds and two baguettes before it's too late — you deserve it. Sure beats telling time on a cell phone.
It's been a holy grail of display technology for a long time: true 3D holograms that you don't need special glasses to see. Think R2-D2's projection of Princess Leia in Star Wars, only not as fuzzy and in full color. The barriers keeping holograms from becoming reality are many, but researchers at the University of Arizona (go Wildcats!) in the Optical Sciences department have broken through one of them. They've created an image that's "updatable," so the hologram can be completely erased and rewritten in minutes. That's not quite fast enough for holographic TV — or even holographic YouTube — since for a hologram to depict motion, it would have to be rewritten several times a second. The researchers think that'll eventually happen, though.
This is a very promising development, but we'll need a lot more (and probably some corporate interest) for holographic TV to become something you can actually buy. It'll also need good execution: while 3D images would be great for many movies, I'm not really dying to see the back of Anderson Cooper's head. The idea of a coffee table that projects holograms upward (shown in the illustration above) has been floated, but I don't see that being much more than a toy for the rich ("Coming Soon: Microsoft Surface in 3D!), and other techs like the Heliodisplay already come pretty close to simulating it.
Still, it would be great to finally see that scene from the first Star Wars finally become reality. Japan's Communications Ministry has set a goal for creating holographic TV by 2020, and perhaps this development is just what they need to jump-start the program. In any case, that plasma screen you just bought probably won't be obsolete for a while yet.
Via CNN
If you want a window into the soul of Japan and its relationship to technology you need look no further than the Bus Buzzer Cell Phone Strap from Strapya. The device's function and operation are simple: if you can't reach the bus' stop signal you simply press the tiny button on the device, which issues the same tone as an average Japanese bus, and like magic the bus will stop in its tracks (check out the company's demonstration video here).
If this seems like a frivolous piece of technology with no real impact, you might want to watch this video which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Japanese citizens are well trained when it comes to mechanical sound prompts. While most of you won't find yourself on a Japanese bus anytime soon, it might be a good test/prank for your local Japanese friend, and for just 880 yen ($8.50) it's an exceedingly affordable, yet uber-geeky mobile phone accessory.
Via Strapya World
Just looking at pictures of the Miniatur Wunderland — a $10 million, 9,600-square-foot train set in Hamburg, Germany — you may mistake it for a living, breathing place. Several places, in fact, including its native Hamburg, and America (complete with an Area 51), Scandinavia and Austria — all painstakingly recreated down to the major landmarks, working traffic and ships and, of course, trains. Soon there will even be an airport. It's all part of an expansion planned for 2014, that will see Miniatur Wunderland add 36,000 feet of track to the almost 30,000 feet already in place, as well as doubling the set's $10 million price tag.
I could go on forever. The Miniatur Wunderland has a pretty darn impressive list of numbers, from track length to the number of traffic signals — see the list for yourself.
Check out the gallery below to get your tour of started (especially that last picture — Miniatur Wunderland has a control room that rivals NORAD).
Nikon has unveiled the latest, and perhaps the best, in Borg wanna-be accessories called the Media Port UP. The multimedia headset allows users to view video (up to 120 minutes of uninterrupted playback), and listen to music (up to 270 minutes of uninterrupted playback) via its 4 gigabyte or 8 gigabyte internal harddrive. Other features include Internet browsing with WiFi access, a rechargeable battery, and embedded motion sensors for hands free operation (operates by moving your head up, down, left and right).
Because the device allows you to do things like use Windows Media Player as well as download other content from the Internet to its harddrive, it's not a stretch to call this a new kind of mobile computer. You can pick up the base model for just 59,800 yen ($580) here.
Via Nikon
The geek nation will never have to worry about Mom throwing out their comic book collections again with the debut of the Remock Lockey. The remote controlled lock is specifically designed to be placed "inside" the door of the room you want to secure and can only be opened via a tiny remote control shaped like a key (up to 16 different remotes can be registered to a single lock).
The unit operates on normal store bought batteries, but don't worry about locking yourself out because of lax battery upkeep because the Remock Lockey will automatically prevent locking if the battery level is too low. Your invisible security is rather affordable at just 198,000 Korean won ($163) here.
Via Funshop Korea
See something funny? Yeah, that's a 2,000-pound armored vehicle and, yep, it's pink — but laugh at it for too long and you're going to get a hot dog upside the head.
Say hello to Vin Marshall's pedal-powered panzer and its pneumatic cannon. He built it from scratch for $3,000 in 11 days with a few of his friends, and it's powered entirely by human muscle — which is why the tank has to settle for wheels instead of treads. It can easily cruise along at 15 miles per hour, and it's cannon can fire both water and the aforementioned hot dogs.
Click Continue to see a video of Marshall pink pedestrian punisher and how it was built.
continue »
Antec is taking the idea of a bare-bones PC to a whole 'nother level with its upcoming Antec Skeleton open-air PC case. It won't wall in your parts like a normal PC tower, which can improve airflow (or, at least, provide more airflow from less fans if intelligently placed). It's the kind of case modders have been building on their own for years. The Skeleton's got a smaller 92 millimeter fan to cool the lower deck, and a honking, three-speed 250 millimeter fan up top. Despite it's looks, it's actually pretty big, too: It's a little over a foot in length, width and depth.
The Skeleton will give you plenty of room to work with, with four drive bays and seven expansion slots that can fit even the larger video cards, and the frame's made with 0.8 millimeter steel and reinforced with hard plastic. No price or release date yet, but it shouldn't be too long now that it's announced.
While the world's stock markets go down in flames, allow us to divert your attention with this trifle: The record for tallest LOGO tower in the world has been broken! Hey, at least something is going up. The honor goes to hundreds of children in Vienna, building a monstrous tower of LEGO measuring 96.7 feet.
This enormous spire, built to commemorate 100 Years of Friends of Children, beats out the former tallest LEGO tower at Legoland Windsor in England by a slim margin — it's just over 7 inches higher. The new tower is so tall, the children assembled the structure in pieces before adults lifted each section to the pinnacle by a crane. Nice work, kiddies!
News.com, via Uber Review
If you thought the Herman Miller Aeron chair was the top-dog place to park you posterior, take a look at this. Now it's 14 years after that ultra-comfortable chair's debut, desk jockeys — time for Herman Miller to top itself with the new Embody.
Check out that high back to rest your noggin, with "flexors" strategically positioned to let your back rest easy. The seat cushion is specially designed, too, with 93 interconnected discs to move with you as you get squirmy. They're so advanced, its designers call them "pixels." Yeah! No wonder it took them over two years to design this throne.
You'll be able to order up an Embody in your choice of 13 colors and three finishes starting early in 2009. Too bad you could get two Aeron chairs for the price of one of these babies — it'll set you back a cool $1595. Ouch. However, sitting in an exquisite Aeron as I type this, I must say that if this Embody is even better than the Aeron, it's well worth it. The desk chair is the most important piece of writing equipment I own.
editor@dvice.com