Marin Soljačić couldn't
sleep. The problem was his wife's Nokia cell phone. The tyrannical
device beeped on the bedside table when it needed to be plugged in. It
could not be disabled.
Instead of taking a hammer to the phone,
Soljačić marveled at the fact that this device, and billions of others
like it, was sitting a few feet away from all the electricity it could
ever need. Why couldn't it receive power wirelessly, just as laptops
get Wi-Fi?
A physics professor, Soljačić dug into the problem
and learned that if you could get two magnetic fields to resonate -- to
sing the same note, in effect -- they could transfer an electric
current. With two large magnetic coils, he found a way to throw 60
watts across a room, powering a lightbulb. MIT, his employer, quickly
patented the technology and encouraged Soljačićto start a company.
Posted by moderator on Monday, December 14 @ 05:26:20 EST (82 reads)
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Breaking the sound barrier
Anonymous writes "Emo Labs Waltham, Mass.
As DEMOfall in September,
before an audience of sleepy journalists and venture capitalists, Emo
Labs CEO Jason Carlson took the stage with a TV and a giant set of
speakers playing the Beach Boys.
Then he whipped off the
speaker box to reveal the real source of the sound: a sheet of clear
plastic. There were audible gasps. Dozens of digital cameras flashed at
once. Emo had invented invisible speakers.
"I can't tell you
how many times we've sat in front of engineers, and they keep asking,
'Where's the sound coming from again?'" says Carlson. "It's like their
minds don't want them to believe it." Emo went on to win $500,000 and
the conference's DEMOgod title.
Posted by moderator on Monday, December 14 @ 05:25:54 EST (68 reads)
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Forest of 100,000 Artificial Carbon-Capturing Trees Proposed in UK
Anonymous writes " Carbon-capturing artificial trees have been getting some due attention lately, and for good reason: each fake tree can suck down CO2 thousands of times faster
than their leafy, organic brethren--giving them intriguing potential as
part of the solution to global climate change. Now, scientists have
taken the idea a step further--they're proposing that one of the most
practical ways to cut greenhouse gases on a large scale is to build a
forest of 100,000 artificial trees over the next 10-20 years.
Posted by moderator on Wednesday, November 18 @ 15:17:01 EST (83 reads)
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Potentially Our Cheapest Energy Source
Anonymous writes "Many engineers and scientists have concluded that high altitude wind
energy can play a substantial role in addressing the world's energy and
global warming problems.
TIME Magazine recently named
Sky WindPower's flying electric generator one of the 50 top inventions
of 2008. It is item #35 on their list as Airborne Wind Power and is
shown in a simulation near the beginning of TIME's video. Two
alternative links may be found on our Links page.
Posted by moderator on Wednesday, October 07 @ 13:29:05 EST (110 reads)
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Israeli scientists generate electricity from road traffic
Anonymous writes "Start-up Innowwattech says vehicles can produce electricity from generators placed beneath the asphalt surface.
Shira Horesh5 Oct 09 15:37 Israeli scientists have achieved a breakthrough in alternative energy, by generating electricity from road traffic. The technology was developed by Ra'anana-based start up Innowwattech Ltd., and Israel National Roads Company Ltd. and the Technion Israel Institute of Technology participated in the trial.
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