generator

Design

Democratic Ecology: Philippe Starck’s Cheap Designer Wind Turbine For Your Home

6:30AM Brian Lam | Famous designer Philippe Starck recently revealed he felt a certain shame that all the things he’d designed were not essential for living. This turbine which he designed with the help of generator company Pramac, can theoretically provide a single home with 20-60% of all the electricity it needs. The name, which needs work, or at least the prefix “turbo” in front of it, is “Democratic Ecology.” If the performance is indeed true, at US$633, it’s actually a steal and I’d order one right now. [inhabitat via Boingboing] More »
Gadgets

DIY Alphanumeric Password Generator. Verdict: Pretty 4UC387G Useful

12:04AM Gizmodo US Edition | How secure are your passwords? Probably not very. The guys over at Popsci have a neat partial solution to that problem: a DIY alphanumeric random password generator. Made with an Olimex AVR development board and some custom software, the gizmo produces 16-character passcodes on its LCD at the press of a button. No dictionary words, no girlfriends’ names. Just nice, secure random letters and special characters. All it takes is $43 worth of stuff, and some soldering. The only problem: in the published version, passcode saving isn’t enabled, so you’ll have to write those secure beasties down somewhere. If you make one, give it a post-1988 case won’t you? [PopSci] More »
Gadgets

Fluxxlab Revolution Door is Eco-Friendly, People-Powered Power Station

12:25AM Gizmodo US Edition | The Revolution Door is a concept from New York designers Fluxxlab that puts otherwise-wasted kinetic energy from a revolving office door to good use—generating power. Fluxxlab’s rationale is that humans exert a chunk of their own energy when pushing a revolving door around, and it may as well be captured via gears and an electricity generator. If you think about the thousands of doors across the country spinning around all day, everyday, then maybe they’ve got a point. Obligatory design diagram, and a schematic showing how the idea turns your breakfast into green lightbulb-lighting power after the jump. More »
Gadgets

Pick Up Line Generator: Worry Not Awkward Geeks, Gadgets Can Get You Laid

11:00AM Sean Fallon | As you know, nothing gets a woman hotter than a really cheesy pick-up line. Or better yet, a really cheesy and wildly inappropriate line—”Oh, I’m sorry, I thought that was a Braille name tag” for example. Fortunately, even the shy awkward geek can get in on the action thanks to our good old friend the gadget. More »
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Lightning Power For Energy, Time Travel Another Story

10:18AM Sean Fallon | Lightning. It just goes about it’s business – mocking us. We have always known there is potential there for an alternative energy source, but harnessing that power has proven difficult. However, an inventor names Steve LeRoy may be on the brink of changing all that with a device that generates lightning then harvests the resulting energy. The prototype can generate bolts almost metre-long in length, but that is only enough electricity to illuminate a 60-watt light bulb for 20 minutes. However, LeRoy notes that a full-scale version has the potential to power 30,000 homes for a day with just one lightning bolt. Impressive. With that kind of juice you could easily get a Delorean up to 141kph. [Buisnessweek via Sci Fi Tech] More »