Electronic devices like cell phones and laptop computers in the future could go a bit lighter and work for hours longer than the one’s we used today, thanks to a super capacitor developed by a team of scientists recently. These are cheap enough and powerful to be used commercially. Also, the capacitor charges in as little as a few seconds and could keep our phones and laptops powered on for days together. Capacitors store energy too, though unlike batteries, that store energy chemically, these store an electrical charge between two conductive plates separated by an electrical insulator. Batteries on the other hand undergo a slow process of converting chemical energy into electricity and last long, though take ages to charge up. Capacitors use no chemical conversion, which is why they charge up a lot quicker and last longer too. Plus, they weigh much less than batteries.

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So your home needs a bit of humidity and you’ve been venting all your weather woes on that silly kitten of yours. Why worry, when you could simply leave your cat to create that required humidity, while you sit back, relax and watch it work! That’s exactly what the Wool Ball Hybrid Humidifier lets you do. All you got to do is, leave the ball shaped concept humidifier in front of your pet, and watch it play while the device creates the required humidity! Designed by Yuan Gu, the Wool Ball Hybrid Humidifier has two operational modes. In one, it connects to the grid to create humidity the normal way. The other mode creates humidity by a roll action. When rolled, it creates a slight sound while the generator juices the battery. The sound entices your pet to play a bit more.

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Id&@le Concepts came up with the GUL Two, a solar powered LED kinetic sculpture which now stands on display at the Elemental Gardens stand at Pacific National. The firm’s name sure looks like a swear word to us, but that apart, this sculpture is just as beautiful as it is green. Standing around 260cms tall, the sculpture made of stainless steel integrates leaves that range from 70cms to a whole 120cms and extend to an overall diameter of around 240cms. This steel flower’s petals are fitted with solar panels measuring 10x5cms that soak in the sun to charge up a 4watt battery during the day time. At night, this energy is then used to power up the GUL Two’s LEDs that illuminates and cast a beautiful glow. The GUL Two automatically recognizes the dark and triggers on its pistils, filaments and stamens that glow bright in the night.

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The University of Leicester has finally realized the need for some green in their computer systems and has spent a whopping $3.3 million on upgrades for the same. The University has recently adopted a clean, green environment-friendly and eco-conscious super computer, ALICE (Advanced Leicester Information and Computational Environment), an energy efficient machine. Though green, this one sure isn’t any less a hard worker than its predecessor. Instead it’s ten times more powerful. The system was created by Hewlett Packard and uses a hoard of central processing units to do the work of several PCs. Using a water cooling system to cool its nerves, this one makes sure it doesn’t have the University spend too much on electricity bills while trying to do away with all the heat it generates.

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Though an e-book is considered to a green alternative to printed newspaper, BenQ intends to make it greener by unveiling a solar powered e-book reader. Unveiled at its 2010 Global Distributors' Meeting, Taiwan, the BenQ K60 e-book reader with a built-in PV power supply will be launched in 2011. Though this product has hit the production stage, the company also lured keen consumers with a solar powered notebook concept. This green notebook is designed with a PV panel built on the external surface of the cover. Hope such a sun-feeding notebook gets a green signal to hit production too!

[DigiTimes]

The next time you enter into a phone booth, you won’t need to pick your pockets for change, that’s if you step into a Google Voice booth. The Google Voice that we’ve heard of from Gmail before now finds its place in phone booths. Designed like those good old phone booths you’d usually step into in Britain, red with squares of glass and wood, the Google Voice phone booths being constructed by Google will be set up in places where phones are most needed, especially college campuses, for people to make calls for free! So what powers up Google’s effort to ease communication? Solar power! Oh yeah, this one’s powered by the sun, with solar panels sunbathing on its outside.

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Oil spills have been creating a mess in our oceans all the while. And its no wonder new technology is being developed to get rid of all the mess. The last time, we came across the SeaSwarm solar powered robots, developed to work as a swarm and clean up oil spills. We came across yet another technology developed for the purpose, also powered up by the sun. The Wave Glider has been put into action by BP too. The brainchild of Liquid Robotics, this one cruises through water on pre-programmed courses for months together. Using a GPS system, weather stations, sensors, the Wave Glider can detect dispersed oil and microscopic phytoplankton too.

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Oil spill disasters like the one we saw a short while ago at the Gulf of Mexico can have some pretty disastrous results on our environment. Well, in future, robots might just do the job of cleaning up after the mess. To clean up BP’s mess, Ocean Therapy Solutions’s devices were used by containment teams in June. This time, the director Carlo Ratti and the associate director Assaf Biderman of M.I.T.’s Senseable City Lab have come up with a prototype device that will help clean up oil spills in the future. The device was unveiled at the Venice Biennale festival of architecture. Known as the SeaSwarm, this one is basically a 16-foot-long, 7-foot-wide solar-powered conveyor belt. Made out of a previously developed, oil-slurping “nanowire mesh”, this paper-like material absorbs up to 20 times its weight in oil.

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We stumbled across the Wave Hub project before, and what will be the world's largest wave farm and also UK’s first Low Carbon Economic Area, is currently being built as planned. Since the 1st of August, the deployment of the Wave Hub has begun, with engineers working hard on the cable ship Nordica to put the system into place. The Wave Hub project basically a four-way socket, installed 50 meters down the seabed 16 kilometers away from the shore. It will be connected using a 50-megawatt-capacity cable, with the other end hooked on to an electricity substation in Hayle. Different wave-powered energy generators will be connected to the Wave Hub, instead of being hooked on individually to the grid. The hub will help up to four wave-energy conversion machines to be plugged into the hub at a time.

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The guys in the military need all the technology to aid them during wars and the like. Technology makes life out there in the battle field a bit simpler, if not completely. One such innovation that helps the men in uniform is rechargeable batteries. The US military has developed a bunch of eco-friendly rechargeable batteries that will ensure that the soldiers stay powered up at all times. These wearable lithium-ion batteries have high performance levels. They can generate enough energy to power up all those small devices that soldiers carry around in their camouflages. These batteries generate energy using common viruses like the M13 bacteriophage virus. Using cathodes made out of iron-fluoride material, these batteries produce low amounts of heat and are eco-friendly.

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The Free Saver is here, an energy saving system that’s as user friendly and sweet as one can get. SMT&C will pull the veil of this system at the ENTECH 2010 to be held from September the 1st to 4th. This efficient power saving system is equipped with a comprehensive controlling remote control that lets you switch on and off the multitap system. The remote control does much more. It also keeps out the unnecessary wastage of energy. The remote control of the Free Saver energy saving system makes sure it saves you from any injuries or the like too by keeping out any excess currents or short circuits.

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Fed up of all those wires, remotes and annoying tit-bits you need to use every time you need your home’s entertainment system switched on? Need a relief from all the technological stress that’s getting to you, even when all you need is a bit of entertainment? Well, switch to the Sony Eclipse! The Eclipse is green too, using photovoltaic cells to soak in the sun and give you hassle free access and control over your entertainments system, wirelessly. Packed with Bluetooth, WiFi, USB connectivity and just about everything you’d need to have all your entertainment devices synchronize, the Eclipse boasts a touch screen interface too. Just incase the sun doesn’t show, you can also jack this on up to the grid.

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Irritated that your Apple iPhone keeps running out of charge every now and then? Need to keep yourself in touch and entertained all the time? Well, you could opt for a solar charger to keep it juiced all the time, if the sun shines in your favor that is. Dexim HQ came up with the solar powered P-Flip charger that soaks in the sun and can power up your iPhone and have you talking for a whole 8 hours! You wouldn’t want a conversation that long, but think of the possibilities! The entertainment! All that charge and there’s just no running out of it! Dexim claims that the charger will take around 10-12 hours of exposure to charge up the battery fully. LED indicators inform on how much charge is left. That’s not all. For the space conscious, this one folds and can be neatly tucked into your bag.

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NASA researches have forever been living in the skies above, forever dreaming about flying past stars and studying them. Well, the guys at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. Have spent their time building the NanoSail-D. This solar sail will help NASA understand just how practical it is to send a fragile spacecraft into space from a compact structure. Unlike the sails our boats have that need the wind to blow them across the oceans, solar sails require juice from the sun to power up vehicles in space. Built from lightweight materials, these huge sails continually capture photons; solar particles that help propel vehicles in space.

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We all know by now that halogen lights strung from ceilings aren’t exactly what we’d call energy efficient. No doubt they use low amounts of voltage; they still tend to produce the same amount of greenhouse gases that a 60 watt incandescent bulb would produce. And so, Sharp came up with these LED ceiling lights. Now when it comes to energy efficiency in lighting, nothing gets better than LED technology. Sharp’s LEDs can change color, brightness and measure 43mm (1.7-inch) at the thickest part and 8mm (0.3-inch) at the thinnest. The company has six models of these lighting systems lined up. Three of which, the DL-C501V, C301V and C302V use a remote controller for color changing and brightness adjustments.

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