http://www.pcworld.com/article/152850/article.html?tk=nl_dnxnws
NEC will later this week unveil new electronic paper displays that are said
to offer higher visibility than newspapers.
The screens were developed by its NEC LCD Technologies subsidiary and are
the equivalent size to A3 (297 millimeters by 420mm) and A4 (210mm by
297mm) sheets of paper, NEC said Monday. They'll be unveiled at the FPD
International exhibition that gets underway in Japan on Wednesday.
Based on the microcapsule electrophoresis system developed by U.S.-company
E-Ink, the screens include an NEC-developed TFT (thin-film transistor)
active matrix that allows for a 16-step grey scale rather than just
monochrome.
Electronic paper is often lauded for its high contrast that makes it appear
close to that of real paper. It also boasts low power consumption because
electricity is only required when the screen is refreshed and the image
changed. At other times the image remains without power being required.
Under development for many years, the technology is now being used in
commercially available displays such as those in Amazon.com's Kindle e-book
reader, Motorola's F3 cell phone and numerous in-store advertising
displays. Most recently the technology gained attention when it was
integrated into the cover of an issue of "Vanity Fair" magazine in the U.S.
FPD International will be held from Wednesday to Friday at the Pacifico
Yokohama exhibition center in Yokohama, Japan.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Pod Cars - private public transport
Sci-Tech Article - http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=11100BKTRO7R
With the oil crisis reaching a zenith and lawmakers ready to begin fashioning a new national transportation bill for 2010, Jacob Roberts, president of Connect Ithaca, a group of planning and building professionals, thinks the future is now for podcars -- electric, automated, lightweight vehicles that ride on a network separate from traffic.
The thought of a driverless, computer-guided car transporting people where they want to go on demand is a futuristic notion to some.
With the oil crisis reaching a zenith and lawmakers ready to begin fashioning a new national transportation bill for 2010, Jacob Roberts, president of Connect Ithaca, a group of planning and building professionals, thinks the future is now for podcars -- electric, automated, lightweight vehicles that ride on a network separate from traffic.
The thought of a driverless, computer-guided car transporting people where they want to go on demand is a futuristic notion to some.
To Jacob Roberts, podcars -- or PRTs, for personal rapid transit -- represent an important component in the here-and-now of transportation.
"It's time we design cities for the human, not for the automobile," said Roberts, president of Connect Ithaca, a group of planning and building professionals, activists and students committed to making this upstate New York college town the first podcar community in the United States.
"In the podcar ... it creates the perfect blend between the privacy and autonomy of the automobile with the public transportation aspect and, of course, it uses clean energy 
With the oil crisis reaching a zenith and federal lawmakers ready to begin fashioning a new national transportation bill for 2010, Roberts and his colleagues think the future is now for podcars -- electric, automated, lightweight vehicles that ride on their own network separate from other traffic.
Unlike mass transit, podcars carry two to 10 passengers, giving travelers the freedom and privacy of their own car while reducing the use of fossil fuels, reducing traffic congestion and freeing up space now monopolized by parking.
At stations located every block or every half-mile, depending on the need, a rider enters a destination on a computerized pad, and a car would take the person nonstop to the location. Stations would have slanted pull-in bays so that some cars could stop for passengers, while others could continue unimpeded on the main course.
"It works almost like an elevator, but horizontally," said Roberts, adding podcar travel would be safer than automobile travel.
The podcar is not entirely new. A limited version with larger cars carrying up to 15 passengers was built in 1975 in Morgantown, W.Va., and still transports West Virginia University students.
Next year, Heathrow Airport outside London will unveil a pilot podcar system to ferry air travelers on the ground. Companies in Sweden, Poland and Korea are already operating full-scale test tracks to demonstrate the feasibility. Designers are planning a podcar network for Masdar City, outside Abu Dhabi, which is being built as the world's first zero-carbon, zero-waste city.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen cities in Sweden are planning podcar systems as part of the country's commitment to be fossil-fuel-free by 2020, said Hans Lindqvist, a councilman from Varmdo, Sweden, and chairman of Kompass, an association of groups and municipalities behind the Swedish initiative...Monday, October 20, 2008
New ideas for wind power - The Wind Belt
http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=10000AFIPDA4&page=1
As an MIT engineering undergraduate visiting the rural fishing village of
Petite Anse, Haiti, in 2004, Shawn Frayne hoped to devise a way to convert
abundant agricultural waste into cheap fuel. But the budding engineer soon
found that the community's mainly poor residents faced an altogether more
immediate need. Unconnected to the local power (Embedded image moved to
file: pic18038.jpg)grid, they relied heavily on dirty kerosene lamps, which
are not only costly to operate but also unhealthy and dangerous. He decided
to devise an alternative -- a small, safe, and renewable power generator
that could be used to power LED lights and small household electronics,
such as radios.
The result is the Windbelt, a miniaturized wind-harvesting power generator
that has absolutely nothing in common with the traditional, towering wind
turbines that dot the fields and shorelines of developed countries. The
simple device was awarded $10,000 in late September as a finalist for the
Curry Stone Design Award, a charitable prize that aims to boost design and
innovation projects for developing countries. Frayne, now 27, also won a
Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award last fall, earning him a coveted spot
on that magazine's annual list of up-and-coming scientists and engineers.
Now Frayne and his five-man startup, Humdinger Wind Energy in Honolulu,
Hawaii, are working on turning a promising prototype into reality.
Exploiting Vibrations
"Wind power has pretty much looked the same for the past 80 years," says
Frayne over the crackle of a Skype phone call from Xela, Guatemala, where
Humdinger is working in rural locations to develop production-ready
versions of the Windbelt. After his initial prototypes proved too expensive
or inefficient [or both], Frayne took a different tack, eschewing a
propeller-type design for an entirely different idea. About the size of a
cell phone, the final Windbelt prototype employs a taut membrane that, when
air passes over it, vibrates between metal coils to generate electricity.
Frayne claims it is the first wind device of any size not to employ
turbines.
Indeed, the roots of his innovation are unexpected: Frayne says he was
inspired by studying the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State, which
dramatically collapsed in 1940 due to powerful vibrations caused by the
wind. The Windbelt harnesses those same dynamics to generate power.
Adaptable to Developed Economies
Frayne's device joins a growing array (Embedded image moved to file:
pic04360.jpg)of simple, inexpensive technologies created for developing
countries that have also garnered considerable attention in the U.S. and
Europe. "Innovations arising from problems in developing economies should
meet the challenges of developed economies, too," says Frayne emphatically.
With that in mind, Humdinger is taking "a market-oriented approach," he
says. That means pitching Windbelt technology as a green way to power
air-quality sensors or WiFi transmitters in new buildings in the developed
world, for instance. "People are realizing that smartly designed
micro-installations can have a big impact," says James Brew, a principal
architect with the Rocky Mountain Institute, a green think tank in Aspen,
Colo. The Windbelt's small size and negligible cost, adds Brew, make it
potentially applicable in developed settings -- such as new skyscrapers --
as well as the more rugged conditions of the world's rural villages.
Though he won't reveal how much funding the group has received to date,
Frayne says it would cost upwards of $30 million in venture capital to
expand the company so it could manufacture Windbelts itself. More likely,
Humdinger will end up licensing the technology to other manufacturers,
which would assume development costs.
Undeterred by the obvious challenges of marketing an entirely new type of
wind power generator, and even though wide distribution is still some years
off, Humdinger is forging ahead. In the past year, the group has
established pilot programs in Guatemala and Haiti as well as
rapid-prototyping facilities in Hong Kong. They are also working on larger
versions that could generate significantly more power. The Windbelt may
have started with personal curiosity, but Frayne's mission has changed
dramatically. "We're really trying to develop the new building blocks of
wind energy (Embedded image moved to file: pic05471.jpg)," he says.
As an MIT engineering undergraduate visiting the rural fishing village of
Petite Anse, Haiti, in 2004, Shawn Frayne hoped to devise a way to convert
abundant agricultural waste into cheap fuel. But the budding engineer soon
found that the community's mainly poor residents faced an altogether more
immediate need. Unconnected to the local power (Embedded image moved to
file: pic18038.jpg)grid, they relied heavily on dirty kerosene lamps, which
are not only costly to operate but also unhealthy and dangerous. He decided
to devise an alternative -- a small, safe, and renewable power generator
that could be used to power LED lights and small household electronics,
such as radios.
The result is the Windbelt, a miniaturized wind-harvesting power generator
that has absolutely nothing in common with the traditional, towering wind
turbines that dot the fields and shorelines of developed countries. The
simple device was awarded $10,000 in late September as a finalist for the
Curry Stone Design Award, a charitable prize that aims to boost design and
innovation projects for developing countries. Frayne, now 27, also won a
Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award last fall, earning him a coveted spot
on that magazine's annual list of up-and-coming scientists and engineers.
Now Frayne and his five-man startup, Humdinger Wind Energy in Honolulu,
Hawaii, are working on turning a promising prototype into reality.
Exploiting Vibrations
"Wind power has pretty much looked the same for the past 80 years," says
Frayne over the crackle of a Skype phone call from Xela, Guatemala, where
Humdinger is working in rural locations to develop production-ready
versions of the Windbelt. After his initial prototypes proved too expensive
or inefficient [or both], Frayne took a different tack, eschewing a
propeller-type design for an entirely different idea. About the size of a
cell phone, the final Windbelt prototype employs a taut membrane that, when
air passes over it, vibrates between metal coils to generate electricity.
Frayne claims it is the first wind device of any size not to employ
turbines.
Indeed, the roots of his innovation are unexpected: Frayne says he was
inspired by studying the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State, which
dramatically collapsed in 1940 due to powerful vibrations caused by the
wind. The Windbelt harnesses those same dynamics to generate power.
Adaptable to Developed Economies
Frayne's device joins a growing array (Embedded image moved to file:
pic04360.jpg)of simple, inexpensive technologies created for developing
countries that have also garnered considerable attention in the U.S. and
Europe. "Innovations arising from problems in developing economies should
meet the challenges of developed economies, too," says Frayne emphatically.
With that in mind, Humdinger is taking "a market-oriented approach," he
says. That means pitching Windbelt technology as a green way to power
air-quality sensors or WiFi transmitters in new buildings in the developed
world, for instance. "People are realizing that smartly designed
micro-installations can have a big impact," says James Brew, a principal
architect with the Rocky Mountain Institute, a green think tank in Aspen,
Colo. The Windbelt's small size and negligible cost, adds Brew, make it
potentially applicable in developed settings -- such as new skyscrapers --
as well as the more rugged conditions of the world's rural villages.
Though he won't reveal how much funding the group has received to date,
Frayne says it would cost upwards of $30 million in venture capital to
expand the company so it could manufacture Windbelts itself. More likely,
Humdinger will end up licensing the technology to other manufacturers,
which would assume development costs.
Undeterred by the obvious challenges of marketing an entirely new type of
wind power generator, and even though wide distribution is still some years
off, Humdinger is forging ahead. In the past year, the group has
established pilot programs in Guatemala and Haiti as well as
rapid-prototyping facilities in Hong Kong. They are also working on larger
versions that could generate significantly more power. The Windbelt may
have started with personal curiosity, but Frayne's mission has changed
dramatically. "We're really trying to develop the new building blocks of
wind energy (Embedded image moved to file: pic05471.jpg)," he says.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
3 wheel trike / car / bike - Peugot HYmotion3
Riding in the Rain: Peugeot HYmotion3 Compressor Concept
Peugeot looks toward a future of fuel-efficient, all-weather scooters replacing cars for short, urban jaunts.
Posted 10.09.2008 at 11:30 am 0 Comments
Peugeot Hymotion3 Compressor Concept: The Peugeot Hymotion3 Compressor Concept combines hybrid technology, advanced scooter suspension developments and protection from the elements. It's also three-wheel drive? Peugeot
Quick, name a car with three-wheel drive. Okay, trick question; this isn't quite a car, but Peugeot's idea of a fuel-efficient all-weather runabout. The HYmotion3 Compressor Concept foresees a hybrid vehicle in more ways than one: part gasoline-, part electric-powered; part car, part scooter. The French automaker says it offers the stability of a trike with the protection of a safety cell similar to that which supports occupants of a Smart car.
Like a Toyota Prius, it can run in electric-only mode at low speeds, by way of front-mounted, in-wheel hub motors, each producing up to four horsepower. The main power source is a supercharged 125cc engine producing 20 horsepower. In total, the powerplants could provide the performance equivalent of a 400cc motorcycle. Traditional hybrid-drive accoutrements include regenerative braking, a stop-start engine function, and a mileage boost, in this case a projected maximum of 118 mpg. But will Peugeot, one of the largest scooter makers in Europe, build it for mass consumption? Ask someone from the future.
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