RSS Feeds
|
BR DE ES FR IT JP NL UK US
Babblebaby
|
Defamer
|
Gizmodo
|
Kotaku
|
Lifehacker
Choiix, and its parent company Cooler Master have released their cleverly titled "Ergonomic Metal Sleeve for Heat Dissipation & Screen Protection" to...protect your laptop and dissipate heat I suppose.
Don't be fooled. Pedalling around on a bike that chills your beers probably won't result in much weight loss. In fact, you may actually pack on a few as you enjoy the beechwood aged fruits of your labour. The bike has a heat pump attached to the pedals so the more you pedal the cooler the beer set inside the copper coil will get. It is just the incentive the lazy couch potato needs to get up and start moving. Next up, tackling the fresh air of the great outdoors. [PEGE via Treehugger via DVICE]
If you're planning on a long distance ski trip or a mountain climb this winter, check out Ardica's new power and heat platform for outerwear. Not only will Ardica-enabled jackets charge your gadgets (up to 11 full charges on your mobile phone and 20 on your iPod), it'll also keep you nice and warm for either nine hours on low heat or three hours on high. If you'll be in the cold for even longer than that, just bring along a second battery.
Yes, DARPA does have a reputation for coming up with some seriously far-fetched gadgets, but their Super-Resolution Vision System (SRVS) is not one of them. This project challenges designers to come up with an optics system that utilises heat haze to see further and clearer than ever before. Basically, it takes advantage of an atmospheric phenomenon that occurs whereby images can be magnified for fleeting moments behind the haze.
With gas prices approaching "damn, I'm going to have to start walking more" levels here in the States, everyone's doing their part to increase efficiency and reduce energy consumption, and that includes the genius farm MIT. The institute already produces 80% of its own energy, courtesy of its on campus "cogeneration plant," but a few students have found a way to make the system even more self-sufficient using a new thermoelectric prototype. The great thing is the device has the potential for applications beyond the walls of MIT, and already the students are examining ways to apply it to the home heating industry in general.
Scientists at Ohio State University have taken a thermoelectric material that's been used for decades to power deep-space probes, and worked out how to double its efficiency. That's good news: thermoelectrics convert heat directly into electrical energy. By catching exhaust heat, the new material may allow car alternators to be replaced... and that'll push up the efficiency of car engines. The team doped lead telluride with tiny amounts of thallium, which adjusts the crystal structure and increases its heat-electricity conversion efficiency from around 6% to over 10%. Even better, since engineers have years of experience of working with lead telluride, it should be easy to commercialise the product. Environmentalists will have to be pleased, and relax about the high toxicity of thallium, though. [Technology Review]
Dallas' Southern Methodist University is now recycling energy with one of the first commercial electricity generators that use thermoelectricity—the act of drawing power from waste heat. The machine operates by using heat given off by other processes (such as manufacturing) to boil liquids, which then turn into steam, which then turns an electricity-generating turbine.
There's clearly something going on with the Swiss and hot water: first "extreme jacuzzi-ing" on top of Mont Blanc, and now they're going to use waste energy kicked out by servers to warm a swimming pool. It's a simple concept: take the heat from the server room air-conditioners at a new data centre, and direct it through heat exchangers to the water in the town pool. The town, Uitikon, will get a hot pool and all they had to pay for was some of the connecting gear since the heat would otherwise have been vented. Cool! ... or rather, hot! Darn eco-friendly too. [Sydney Morning Herald]
In honour of the upcoming Tahoe reader meetup on April 5th at Alpine Meadows, I'm going to be doing end of season reviews of some outdoor gadgetry that's been floating around the cabin. First up, these electric socks originally designed to keep North Atlantic fishermen warm.
The idea: Wool/Poly blend Socks with wiring and thin resistors that run from the D cells mounted in the top of the sock liner to under the ball of the foot. Sweaty feeling, and any activity causes sock droop as the batteries overpower the elastic. Yet, warmish. And US$22.
Remember the US Military ray gun that makes people feel like they're on fire? Well, 60 Minutes sent out a reporter to see if he could take the heat. Standing in plain view of the ray gun made his body feel like "scalding water," so David Martin attempted, with little success, to hide behind a piece of plywood and later a mattress. Some claim they can only take the heat ray 4 - 5 seconds, so when David tried it we think he only made it 2 seconds, even if he did say, "ONE ONE THOUSAND TWO ONE THOUSAND THREE ONEEEAAHHHHRRHHR" [CBS via TechEBlog]
