We’ve come across a load of products and initiatives being put into place in order to aide developing countries surface and grow stronger economies, including disposable toilets and eco-friendly netbooks. Now, a team of researchers from Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences are busy developing a mobile phone that charges up using microbes from the soil. Using a device called the microbial fuel cell-based charger, phone sin the near future will charge up with soil! For now, the technology is being tested with simple LEDs lights and has proved satisfying.
Relaxing in the outdoors now gets a lot more productive, with the MIT Soft Rocker outdoor seating arrangement. These cleverly and ingeniously designed seats use the human power of balance to create an interactive 1.5 axis 35 watt solar tracking system that juices up electronics that you connect to the seat, including mobile phones, laptops, media players etc. the seat also stores solar energy generated during the daytime and power up the soft integrated ambient lighting during the darker hours!
We’ve known lanterns to shed light. We’ve never seen one that grows a little plant inside, until now. Designer Franklin Gaw’s design, the Eco-Lantern, does just that. Besides serving the primary purpose of lighting your path ahead, the Eco-Lantern also works as a complete bio-environment for a little plant that grows in its belly. The top of the lantern comes apart, enabling you to reach inside and set up the plant with pebbles for water retention, moist soil, moss and finally the plant itself. The light from the lantern provides for the plant inside and lights up the surroundings as well, encouraging you to grow greenery in a subtle way.
It’s about time you give up on that Rubik’s cube you’ve been twisting and turning all along. Now spend your free time playing around with a cube that’s a lot more worth-while and a lot less brain-scratching. Called the B-Squares, this cube comes apart with each side boasting a solar panel and little magnets at the edge allowing you to snap on the sides and form different shapes. That’s not all. This solar modular electronics kit also boasts optional panels like an Arduino computer module, a rechargeable battery panel and such, and snapping on different panels generates different voltages of energy.
It seems like the iPhone will never run out of accessories. The newest one on the block, an iPhone dock, uses solar energy to trickle juice into your Apple. Called the Eton Soulra XL Solar Dock, this one uses a retractable solar panel, efficient enough to have your iPhone juiced up in a few hours time. The solar panel also powers on the dock’s speakers, allowing for 5 hours of playback on a full charge. The 72 sq inch solar panel soaks in enough sunrays to power on the speakers that boast an output of 22W, enough to play aloud your favorite tunes out in the outdoors.
We’ve all screamed and shouted our lungs out at our mobile phones at times. This could probably do you some good in future, much to the annoyance of those standing around you though. Researchers and scientists recently have developed a gadget that hooks on to mobile phones and generates energy by converting sound energy into usable electricity. With Dr Sang-Woo Kim at the Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea at the lead, the project involves the use of tiny strands of the zinc oxide pressed between two electrodes that react to soundwaves, generating electricity and juicing up the mobile phone’s battery!
At times, the things you really wish for seem the farthest out of reach, like the Lifebook Leaf for example. This impressive gadget will never hit store shelves and will always remain a concept design, and we can’t stop wishing for it to be mass produced. And this hunger for this gadget has sprouted up, owing to the fact that it’s one of the greenest ways to computing we’ve come across till date. Essentially a touch screen that folds in half, giving it the shape of a traditional laptop, with the lower end turning into a touch-keyboard, the Lifebook Leaf sports a large solar panel on its back that soaks in energy from the sun to power on this device. A dedicated OLED screen gives information regarding level of charge too and new messages and such just like the outer screen of a flap mobile phone.
Enerconcept Technologies has pulled the veil off what will be the world’s most efficient solar air heater. This efficient heating system uses energy from the sun and boasts a wall-mounted solar collector that, when set up, gives the illusion of a glass-façade, making this one ideal for office and commercial buildings. With an 80.7-percent peak heating efficiency, this system sports the highest efficiency ever recorded for any solar air technology. Each measuring 900 x 320-mm, these polycarbonate panels have 906 perforations and are 18 – 58% more efficient than the solar collecting systems available today.
Power-bricks have never been so smart before. Well, we’ve seen a few that automatically cut-off energy flow to unused devices and appliances when unused, in an attempt to decrease energy consumption and stuff. Here’s a power brick that does a lot more than just that! Called the iRemoTap, this power brick boasts a microcomputer and a wireless LAN module sending the power consumption information of each outlet regularly to a cloud server, allowing for real-time graphs on the energy consumption of your appliances. Built by Ubiquitous Corp, a Japan-based firm that deals with middleware for embedded devices, this one will help users keep a vigilant eye on their power consumption.
The Charlotte Motor Speedway at Concord so a race, a paradigm shift from any that has ever been organized there before, take place on Tuesday. Solar-powered cars designed and built by seventh-graders purred around the racetrack, trying to cross the finish line, completely powered by green energy, before their peers did. Cars made by students from Metrolina Regional Scholars’ Academy participated at the Solar Sprint with eight teams competing for the checkered flag. The work on these solar-powered cars began about two months ago with the students being provided with a motor, solar panel, set of gears and battery packs.
