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I always thought that last generation fighter combat helmets – like the Eurofighter Typhoon’s Head Equipment Assembly or the F-35 demon helmet – tracked the pilot’s head position using gyroscopes. It turns out that they are more Kinect than Wiimote. More »
In rural Africa, electricity is hard to come by. That’s why Dr. Cedrick Ngalande has developed the Green Erg Generator—a dynamo that produces electricity from friction generated with the ground while walking.
They are secret. They are kinetic. They are made of rubberised rocket fuel. And they fire up destroying absolutely everything they come across, bouncing through bunkers, filling buildings with extremely hot flames, obliterating everyone and anything inside with fierce heat. The Pentagon officially calls them “kinetic fireball incendiaries”. Other people call them kinetic rocket fire balls, and the way they work make them absolutely terrifying weapons.
This isn’t the first time we have seen a mobile phone charger that is powered by kinetic energy, but the difference is that M2E is working on a charger that can produce 300 to 700% more juice than current technologies. They hope this will translate into a full-on replacement for mobile phone batteries somewhere down the line. According to earth2tech, M2E’s short term goal is to develop a charger that will produce an hour of talk time for around six hours of normal movement. Currently, M2E is in talks with major accessories manufacturers about bringing a device to market as early as 2009. [earth2tech via Inhabitat]
Adrienne So over at Slate has used her natural gifts to come up with the most genius idea yet: an energy-generating bra. Instead of just holding her boobs in place and dispelling that excess kinetic energy into, I don’t know, heat, why not use it to power a gadget? According to a breast specialist, a D-cup in a lousy bra moves up to 35-inches up and down during exercise. Professor Wang of Georgia Tech is working on just this problem, using nanowires inside fabric to convert that visual spectacle into something useful. But is it enough to power an average iPod? This Wang says yes. [Slate]
Terry Kenney’s Dragon Power Station prototype works by harnessing the kinetic energy of trucks passing over plates buried in the road and turning that energy into electricity. The system he’s got set up now in the Port of Oakland, with 2,500 trucks passing over it in a day, is enough to power 1,750 homes. It’s a very interesting concept that can be extended to busier streets, harnessing a little bit of the energy that would otherwise be lost.
The EGP-WP88 from Epoq is the first GSM wristphone that actually looks like a watch. Waterproof to 50 metres, the WP88 has a kinetic recharge system, meaning you can charge it just by walking around, and boasts a 1.3-megapixel camera, OLED display, plays MP3 and MP4 files and can transfer data via either USB or Bluetooth. You get between two and two-and-a-half-hours’ talk time, and 70 to 100 hours’ standby. Costing US$530, the Epoq WP88 goes on sale on March 1. [GadgetCraver via UberGizmo]
Stripped down mobile powered by everyday movement? Sounds good. Looks… ahhh…straight out of an overblown late 80s sci-fi novel mutilated by early 90s CGI. The description was even promising.
