Category Archives: Gadgets and Tech
And all along, we thought the sun was the most powerful when it came to burning objects to smithereens. 19-year-old Eric Jacqmain from Indiana though has come up with a Death Ray that has the power of 5,000 suns! And we don’t really need to remind you how hot this one is. Well, it’s powerful enough to burn up just about everything that includes rocks. And to burn up a non-flammable object like a rock, you sure as hell need a lot of energy concentrated in one place. So, Eric used some 5,800 mirrors on his death ray, that when focused on a spot for a few seconds, just burns it up! The death ray cost him just under $100 to build and measures 5’9”. The designer is now busy drawing up plans for yet another more powerful death ray, this time with 30,000 mirrors.
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A new solar cell will show up this year, by Honda Soltec, an enhanced thin film model with a compact design, more than the one currently on store shelves. The new solar cell is expected to boast module conversion efficiency of 13.0% and above, making it one of the world’s most efficient CIGS-based thin-film solar cells. With an improved performance of the photosensitive CIGS layer and with reductions in surface area of the surrounding frame and other non-photosensitive portions, this one has a 10% increase in module conversion efficiency with more power generation capabilities than the model currently available. The new model takes two-thirds the amount of space than the current model allowing more of these to be fitted into a given amount
of space.
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Panasonic has pulled the veil of some new LED and bulbs lamps recently, shedding light in an eco-friendly way. The bulbs by Panasonic boast a light distribution angle of a sweet 300 degrees. The bulbs are available in two different models, the daylight color model and the incandescent model. The center of this light bulb is raised and does not heat up much, having heat sensitive electronic components arranged in it with the LED packages arranged around it. The bulb is expected to cost ¥3,500 (approx US$43) and the company is busy
planning to develop a 60 watt equivalent LED bulb.
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The keyboards and other peripherals we hook on to our computers today usually end up sitting at landfill sites for the rest of their lives. Fujitsu, a company that manufactures peripherals however has developed a keyboard mouse made completely with biodegradable bio- or wood-based substitutes. And this isn’t the first from Fijitsu! Last year, the company unveiled a keyboard made out of the same substitutes.
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You might be a couch potato. You might hate getting off your couch during TV time. You might just simply hate changing the batteries of your remote control. That shouldn’t stop you from having your own solar powered DIY remote control though! Well, maybe you’ll save up the energy of walking around while switching batteries and put on a few extra pounds with that. You do save the environment though! The Solar TV Remote project lets you do the environment a favor and do some green, from you couch! Also, if this one has left you itching for
more similar projects, you could simply use the same technique to power up other AA and AAA powered devices around.
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Telecommunication towers in India are destined to go green, with Vihaan Networks Limited (VNL) and lithium ion battery maker Boston Power having developed small-scale telecom stations powered by the sun that will show up next year. The stations called WorldGSM will operate from a bunch of solar panels, without hooking on to the grid. The batteries are capable of powering up these towers for a whole three days without sunlight. This one sure will help spread the mobile phone network to places that are far-fetched and have no connections to electrical grids whatsoever, particularly in rural areas, making communication an easier task.
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Art installations are set up to add a graceful touch to the aesthetics of a place. Some of them are functional too, and help spread a load of information, like this Living Light installation in Seoul. Located in Peace Park across the World Cup Stadium, this canopy has blocks that represent different parts of the city. Each of these city parts have an air-monitoring system that keeps the installation informed about air quality, city-wide. A use can also send this interactive installation a text machine, with which the specified block lights up. The canopy is designed as a map of the city and according to air quality, lights up in different ways.
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Park benches have mostly stuck to being simple, really simple, until now. Here’s a park bench that might just intimidate you at first, taken that it looks just great and seems more like an art sculpture than a piece of park furniture. Designed by Yi-Miao Chen, Je shin Wang, Ssu chen Liu, Yun Chang, Yu jay Chen, Ching-Chang Chuang, Shaio-Chung Cha &Yu-Hung Chien, the bench christened the Fresh Chair soaks in the sun from that enourmous disk atop, that also shades you from the sun’s rays. The energy harnessed is then used to power up some ambient LED lighting at night. That’s not all. The bench also produces a cooling mist during summer to cool your nerves.
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They started off by powering up with gas, and then came the electricity. Shortly afterwards, streetlamps began powering up with solar energy too, using energy-efficient LEDs instead of those old bulbs. And now, the street lamp turns greener with the Biolamp. A never thought of or heard of before concept; the Biolamp does a lot more than just shed light. It uses the ever-present city smog to create car fuel! Designed by Hungarian designer Peter Horvath, the Biolamp makes breathing in city air a lot easier and keeps our lungs from harm. Sucking in harmful carbon dioxide generated from pollution and converting it into useful biofuel for eco-friendly cars, these lamps use a liquid called alga, when mixed with water that transforms the carbon dioxide into oxygen.
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We’ve seen some pretty green billboards before that unlike their energy sucking counterparts use up renewable energy to power up, like the one in Times Square New York. This time it’s the Bulgarians busy rolling out eco-friendly billboards. The southeastern European nation will now unveil the world’s first LED screen with an integrated solar panel, a technology that could just change the way billboards work and function forever. And these aren’t those puny little LED screens you might’ve come across before. These are seriously huge, big enough to integrate a solar panel that generates as much as 5 kilowatts of solar energy. The best part is, this self powered screen can be used in areas with no grid connections whatsoever, like for example, highways.
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