Category Archives: Gadgets and Tech
You might be a couch potato. You might hate getting off your couch during TV time. You might just simply hate changing the batteries of your remote control. That shouldn’t stop you from having your own solar powered DIY remote control though! Well, maybe you’ll save up the energy of walking around while switching batteries and put on a few extra pounds with that. You do save the environment though! The Solar TV Remote project lets you do the environment a favor and do some green, from you couch! Also, if this one has left you itching for
more similar projects, you could simply use the same technique to power up other AA and AAA powered devices around.
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Telecommunication towers in India are destined to go green, with Vihaan Networks Limited (VNL) and lithium ion battery maker Boston Power having developed small-scale telecom stations powered by the sun that will show up next year. The stations called WorldGSM will operate from a bunch of solar panels, without hooking on to the grid. The batteries are capable of powering up these towers for a whole three days without sunlight. This one sure will help spread the mobile phone network to places that are far-fetched and have no connections to electrical grids whatsoever, particularly in rural areas, making communication an easier task.
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Art installations are set up to add a graceful touch to the aesthetics of a place. Some of them are functional too, and help spread a load of information, like this Living Light installation in Seoul. Located in Peace Park across the World Cup Stadium, this canopy has blocks that represent different parts of the city. Each of these city parts have an air-monitoring system that keeps the installation informed about air quality, city-wide. A use can also send this interactive installation a text machine, with which the specified block lights up. The canopy is designed as a map of the city and according to air quality, lights up in different ways.
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Park benches have mostly stuck to being simple, really simple, until now. Here’s a park bench that might just intimidate you at first, taken that it looks just great and seems more like an art sculpture than a piece of park furniture. Designed by Yi-Miao Chen, Je shin Wang, Ssu chen Liu, Yun Chang, Yu jay Chen, Ching-Chang Chuang, Shaio-Chung Cha &Yu-Hung Chien, the bench christened the Fresh Chair soaks in the sun from that enourmous disk atop, that also shades you from the sun’s rays. The energy harnessed is then used to power up some ambient LED lighting at night. That’s not all. The bench also produces a cooling mist during summer to cool your nerves.
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They started off by powering up with gas, and then came the electricity. Shortly afterwards, streetlamps began powering up with solar energy too, using energy-efficient LEDs instead of those old bulbs. And now, the street lamp turns greener with the Biolamp. A never thought of or heard of before concept; the Biolamp does a lot more than just shed light. It uses the ever-present city smog to create car fuel! Designed by Hungarian designer Peter Horvath, the Biolamp makes breathing in city air a lot easier and keeps our lungs from harm. Sucking in harmful carbon dioxide generated from pollution and converting it into useful biofuel for eco-friendly cars, these lamps use a liquid called alga, when mixed with water that transforms the carbon dioxide into oxygen.
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We’ve seen some pretty green billboards before that unlike their energy sucking counterparts use up renewable energy to power up, like the one in Times Square New York. This time it’s the Bulgarians busy rolling out eco-friendly billboards. The southeastern European nation will now unveil the world’s first LED screen with an integrated solar panel, a technology that could just change the way billboards work and function forever. And these aren’t those puny little LED screens you might’ve come across before. These are seriously huge, big enough to integrate a solar panel that generates as much as 5 kilowatts of solar energy. The best part is, this self powered screen can be used in areas with no grid connections whatsoever, like for example, highways.
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We all carry around some sort of data storage device at work, school or college. Here’s an innovative touch given to the usual USB data storage drive by designer Wonchul Hwang. Now Hwang thought a USB drive could do a lot more than just store our data. It could perhaps store energy too, for use in emergency situations. And with that thought in mind, the designer came up with the AA USB. This one, when hooked on to a computer, begins to charge up via USB and fulfills all the uses of an AA battery when required. Using a lithium-ion battery and equipped with an electricity indicator, the AA USB makes sure your camera clicks the right pictures and keeps your torch light shining bright when your disposable batteries run out.
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Nothing gets better than a machine that spouts out money, powered by renewable energy! Well, actually it’s your own money that this machine pops out, so don’t expect it to be a solar-powered pot of gold really. The technology used though sure makes us smile. The first of its kind by the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, this ATM machine at the Al Bateen Branch will help the bank reduce its solar footprint to a noticeable extent and is powered by solar panels installed on the branch’s roof. These panels sun bathe and are hooked on to a circuit breaker board that in turn operates a power controller. The system also has a energy storage system to power up the machine at night.
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Your phones out of charge and you can’t spot a power outlet a mile away. Well, you need not worry about losing out on communication anymore, not with the nPower PEG around. This one makes sure that all your hand-held portable devices remain charged up and ready to use, on the go. Here’s how it works. The nPower PEG simply needs to be placed in a briefcase or backpack or just about any bag that you carry along. The nPower PEG continuously top-off its internal battery, constantly providing power. The world’s first passive kinetic energy charger for hand-held electronics, this one also generates energy by simply shaking it.
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We keep coming across energy saving power bricks and adapters time and again, like the Enviroplug and the Belkin Conserve Insight. Here’s yet another one to add up to the line-up of gadgets that help you plug in your devices and save energy at the same time, by Crystal Acoustics. The company has brought out two shiny new multi-socket power saving adapters that, according to claims, saves up to 30% of energy. These work by cutting of power supply when the gadget isn’t in use, the same as the other adapters we’ve had. Besides that, they also equip a load learning function that helps them learn standby power levels of devices connected.
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