Gadzooki

WTF lamp

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wtflampjpegjpg

Well… I honestly said that. What could you do if you find something that’s made for “opposite day”. It sure is fun to see your friend’s eyes to roll up when he switches this lamp on and find the base light up!

This is still in its design stage… by John Nouanesing. Have a look at his website and you’d see a lot of promising stuff all waiting to roll out. I just love it when engineering designers think out of the box. There’s no predicting what the world will see next.

While it may be a little “blinding” to use, I guess in a sense it will give a sensible solution for more light? Anyway. 🙂 At least if you get two to three of these you may pull up a room design concept you’d be happy with.

A Marvel In Engineering

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If you’re a gadget geek then you’re probably like me: you live for those moments when humans achieve exquisite and enormous engineering feats.

Channel Bridge

Well, it took over six years and about 642 million dollars but the channel bridge over the River Elbe (a river that partially split East and West Germany) has been completed. Basically what you have here is water route engineered to go overtop another river and connect two canals on either side. Previously, boats would have to actually enter the River Elbe to cross from one canal to the next, creating a water intersection. This channel-bridge eliminates that intersection.

Now I wonder how thick the designers of this water bridge had to make the bottom to ensure a long life of no leaks. Double, triple fail-safe? Erosion? Double, triple safe? And what about the boats coming by? What if one of those guys ran into the side? Double, triple safe?

Regardless, the thing is quite cool and even serves a symbolic purpose to signify the re-unification of Germany.

New Foundation Accelerates Growth In Zero Emission Driving

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Consumers and businesses are increasingly more concerned about global warming and climate change, and market demand for zero emission electric cars is developing rapidly. As a result, a whole new technology base needs to emerge quickly, to keep pace with social and legislative change.

Liberty Electric Cars recognises that a significant challenge to turn innovative zero emission ideas into volume production rests with the industry’s first tier of component suppliers. The purpose of the Liberty Zero Emission Vehicle Foundation is to raise awareness, and attract funds and investment into this sector from private and public sources. It will accelerate the market introduction of zero emission vehicle technologies, over what can be achieved by global market forces alone.

Barry Shrier, CEO, Liberty Electric Cars, says: “There is a great wealth of UK automotive engineering ingenuity and innovation that can lead the world in the newly emerging zero emission vehicle space. However, a major and rapid ‘environmental technology’ shift across the entire industry is a significant challenge for suppliers looking to develop prototypes into volume production – made even more difficult in the current credit crunch climate. The Zero Emission Vehicle Foundation is the catalyst that will enable the leading technology innovators to get the support they need.”

The Foundation’s board is chaired by Lord Anthony St John of Bletso, and will include other prominent figures from the automotive industry, the sciences, Government and the private sector.

It brings component suppliers and vehicle manufacturers together, to create the right connections, through its quarterly meetings. The Foundation is attracting funding from large corporations that have a vested interest in the earliest possible arrival of zero emission driving. It will also co ordinate with the Technology Strategy Board, which is set to launch the Low Carbon Vehicles Integrated Delivery Programme, backed by £70 million of Government investment.

Hykinesys Europe Limited is a company that is leading its field in innovative power beam technology, and that the Liberty Zero Emission Vehicle Foundation will assist. Liberty Electric Cars Ltd is investing £30 million in the re engineering of large luxury cars and 4 x 4’s into emission-free, high performance electric vehicles.

The company is designing and manufacturing a unique electric drive-train platform to power a wide range of large vehicles, which also have the flexibility to incorporate emerging technologies. Annual vehicle production plans, which include the world’s first zero emission, electrically powered Range Rover, are in tens of thousands and, creating around 250 new technology and manufacturing jobs.

The Liberty Electric Range Rover drives cleanly and quietly around roads and cities, free of tax, congestion and parking charges, making less environmental impact than even the smallest, most fuel efficient petrol car, yet still offering the comfort and security of a luxury 4 x 4.

Electric vehicles have 80 per cent lower running costs than petrol cars. Electrical power is also a more efficient source of power, and enhances a car’s dynamic performance because of its instantly available torque.

Banana Power Baby!

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Banana PowerAt Gadzooki we think that the biggest tech innovations over the next century will be directly tied to energy. That may be wishful thinking, but we love the prospect of there being a decentralization of energy.

Ultimately there are two goals we’d like to see reached regarding energy innovation. First we’d like to see control of energy put into the hands of the individual citizen! Empower the citizen to create his own (clean) energy. Second, we’d like to see the emergence and dominance of alternative, renewable energy sources.

One of the great things about alternative, renewable energies is that they allow for the development and decentralization of small-footprint plants near the renewable source. As an example, ethanol plants are popping up near large corn farms. One of the benefits of the decentralization of energy is that less energy gets wasted in the transport.

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Radical Innovation: Self-Healing Material

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self-healing materialAt Gadzooki, the thing that drives us the most is excitement about future technology. Sure gadgets are nice, and we love our tech, but deep down, we love innovation and thinking about the future.

Just the other day I encountered one of those few stories that bring me to say “Hey, that just might change our future in radical ways.”

NewScientist reports on a self-healing material that is able to identify the exact location of damage with exquisitely high-resolution. The material uses epoxy sealant to make any minor repairs – think about small cuts on your skin (as opposed to gashes to your tendons). One could imagine this material being used to immediately repair things as diverse as the tires on your car, the pipes in your house or even leaks in the roof.

The epoxy in this self-healing material is located just below the outer polymer surface (the equivalent of a machine’s epidermis). When the polymer surface is penetrated, the epoxy flows into any damage that might occur.

What makes this material even more amazing is the fact that is has embedded circuitry that allows human beings to pinpoint damage that the automated epoxy system can’t fix. Thing about how useful that could be. Say that there is a leak somewhere in your home piping system that no one can locate: a piping system designed with this material would be able to help identify the precise location.

And that just scratches the surface.

Tesla Roadster – 130mph of pure battery power

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Tesla RoadsterWired has given us the first glimpse of the new Tesla Roadster which runs on 6,800 lithium-ion batteries. In other words, the Roadster will be a high performance, electric car – quiet engine, no more gasoline.

Instead of filling this guy with gasoline, you’ll charge it from home (and presumably at charging stations in the middle of the Nevada desert). The Tesla Roadster will come with a home-charging kit that will allow a 3.5 hour recharge. The bigger question: how long does each charge last?

No matter. I’m a big fan of a new energy technologies. We all know that technology improves over time, so even if I have to be inconvenienced at the beginning, the sacrifice is worth the march of progress for energy innovation. Especially as we ween ourselves off the fossil fuels coming out of the crazy, crazy Middle East.

battery charger

Notice that in the image above the car charger is located in the same spot as a typical gasoline refill tank.

[tags]electric car,battery powered car,tesla roadster[/tags]

Tech In Review – 6/14/06

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In an earlier post, Jack gave us a glimpse of real technological advance in mobile energy. The dream (…er, nightmare) of limitless energy is fast becoming a reality. The main problem, of course, with “quick charge” technology is the need for a power source. But what if you don’t have a power source? What we need are self-charging systems that constantly pull in energy from the environment around them to avoid the need for dedicated charging times. Turns out, that a new cell phone technology aims to do just that…using solar.

Speaking of energy, researchers at Tufts seem to have overcome a major hurdle for Fuel Cell technology. In fact, they think that high powered fuel cells may be powering whole cities in the not so distant future. While everyone has been predicting that the 21st century will be the biotech century, I’ve thought for a long time that it will be the century of energy revolution. It will be a revolution with great benefits (limitless supplies and unrestrained mobility) and great dangers (imagine what terrorists could do with no energy limitations). Watch the energy revolution happen, right here at Gadzooki.

But if the US is going to be part of that revolution, it’s going to need some bright young techies to lead the charge. Unfortunately, our school systems just aren’t training students for the tech economy. Our schools still emphasize how to analyze War & Peace or a Shakespearean play over how to analyze a piece of code or an engineering problem. Spelling doesn’t matter anymore. Just look at all the bloggers;-) Let’s update the curriculum already!

Bet you didn’t know that one of your neighbors isn’t really a neighbor. Huh? Did that make sense? Well, an electrical company in Toronto has been building electrical substations disguised as houses. Who knows how widespread this type of thing is? So, for all we know (now how many of us actually know our neighbors?) one of your neighbors might be a secret Microsoft Vista development team or maybe even a Google cluster;-)

In the world gaming, Nintendo’s latest handheld (is it their ninth or their tenth?) the DS Lite managed to outsell the PSP by 10 times in its first week of sales in Japan. Remember, the DS Lite is just a slicker, slightly better, repackaged DS. Nothing radically new. But the flocks came.

Speaking of the big N, looks like the Wii might be launcing late October. The word is that Nintendo wants to beat Sony to the release of its PS3. 3rd party release dates seem to confirm this speculation. Does this lend credence to the idea that Sony will come in 3rd place after two generations of dominance?

Looking for future tech? Check out this video of a guy’s Ph.D. project developing multi modal table top control. Don’t know what multi modal table top control is? Well, I suspect you’ll know about it soon enough. Not only can you control things by gesture and voice command, but you can integrate the two to acheive new control mechanics previously unavailable. Plus, whereas with a mouse you can only use one cursor at a time, with the table tob you can effectively use two cursors for spreading techniques, etc. Very, very nice.

Weekend Tech In Review

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Do you do Moto? Motorola, that is. Enjoying that Slvr L6 lately? Getting your daily dose of radiation? Erh? What?

Moto Slvr L6Well, CNet is reporting that of all the cellphones in the United States, the top eight phones, as far as radiation goes, are Motorola phones. So go ahead kids, start bragging to your friends. Maybe you’ll be one of those X-Men mutants in need of a cure;-)

Just as you need to protect yourself from cell phone radiation, you may also need to protect your crotch from a motorcycle accident. Yamaha has unleashed an airbag for your crotch. Protect the family jewels at all costs.

Good news for those of you who follow developments in future energy technologies. For the first time ever, US farmers expect to sell as much corn for domestic ethanol production as they will sell overseas. Hey, I’m all for putting American money into American agriculture and technology instead of whacked out freaks in the Middle East. Let’s keep it going.

Speaking of energy. You want your home to become completely energy indpendent? Why not build your own wind turbine. I guess that’s not an option for most of us on the East Coast.

On the gaming front, make sure to check out this excellent article in the NY Times on Nintendo’s plan to make games simple and expand the gaming market. Sony, in the meantime continues to take the defensive posture and making completely absurd statements.

To finish things off, Gadzooki is a gadget blog, and as such we couldn’t overlook TechWeb’s Ultimate Summer Gadget Guide which included, among other things, a DLP projector for showing your own drive in movies outdoors! Now that kicks some major gadget ass.