Category Archives: Gadgets and Tech
Besides grabbing a lot of curious glances from visitors to your home, this little power outlet adapter could help you save a load of cash too! This one sure is a fascinating little object to have at home, especially if you go “Ooh! What does this button do” every time you see a gadget of its type. On a more serious note, this device, the Belkin Conserve Insight, gives you an insight on just how much energy your home is sucking out of the grid. The power-outlet adapter is equipped with a screen too, to display the energy consumption of a home.
Continue reading 
Microsoft has come up with a way to control your computers energy sucking computers thirst, and have recently developed an application for the purpose. Desktop computers are known energy suckers and IT equipment consume 50-80% of a modern building’s electricity. Last year, someone stumbled on an astonishing fact that leaving PCs on caused a $2.8 billion of electricity wastage. And yes, most offices and firms don’t really encourage the shut-down-your-PC policy today. Microsoft has an answer though, as always, in the form of its Sleep Proxy system that can cut energy consumption by a sweet 60-80%, without obstructing office work.
Continue reading
The Gulf of Mexico has been hit by a tragedy, turning the lovely blue waters into a bitter black greasy slime. Yes, we’re talking about the oil-spill. The oil spilt in the water has had its adverse effects and is continuing to do so, on marine life as well as birds. Well, the issue requires an immediate to be taken and people everywhere are thinking hard to do so. Well, a small company based in Lincoln, Mobius Technologies Inc. has stumbled upon a way to clean up the oil using its ground-up recycled polyurethane powder.
Continue reading
The world’s finally realizing the need to save itself, with people turning to renewable energy sources, slowly but surely. We hope for a future with greener energy resources that do not pollute, or squeeze the earth of its resources. Solar power, wind energy, tidal energy and a few others are being used today. Well, solar power is sure having its share of attention, with more and more applicability being discovered everyday. And so, Sanyo have realized the need to improve their technology to harness solar power and have come up with a new solar module, the HIT-N230.
Continue reading
We’ve seen quite a few on-the-go chargers that can power up your little electric I-make-your-life-easier gadgets. Some are juiced by the sun, most actually, while we’ve seen a few use stored electricity and wind power too! Well, here’s a new one of its kind. A fuel-cell powered personal charger. Now don’t try fueling your car with this one. It’s powerful enough to juice up electric gadgets like cell phones and mp3 players in the outdoors.
Continue reading
The Ikaros has left ground and has set off on its journey to the heavens above. And this time, it wasn’t the Greeks sending up a mythological creature, it’s the Japanese with a solar-powered idea that was eagerly waited upon to be executed. The Ikaros solar-sail has been successfully deployed by Japanese scientists, with a 200-sq-m (2,100-sq-ft) membrane is attached to a small disc-shaped spacecraft. This was launched into space using an H-IIA rocket last month. Unlike its peers, this space-craft can turn its head away from chemical fuels and use alternative energy instead.
Continue reading
Electricity lines that run from pillar to pillar around our neighborhood require regular checks and maintenance. Now, owing to the high voltage of power they transmit, working near these lines can be potentially risky to people. Usually, helicopters do the rounds inspecting these. There is however an answer to all these problems, a flying inspection robot. This one, developed by researchers at the Electric Power Research Institute, USA, is powered up using energy from the sun. using a robot makes this task much easier, cheaper and safer too.
Continue reading
Transporting and storing medications like vaccines in far flung areas where electricity hasn’t yet been discovered can be a pretty difficult and challenging task. So, to take the cheery old syringes and vaccines to areas like these and tend to the sick, Appropriate Technology Collaborative (ATC) has come up with refrigerator that power up using solar power, that will aide in storing these vaccines. And yes, it can be built locally, which pushes out the need to ship equipment to these areas. Without using any electricity, these refrigerators provide the required cooling to store vaccines.
Continue reading
Well, apart from all the technology used in this one, it’s sure to raise a few eyebrows too, taken that it seems at first like a magic trick. Imagine pulling out a bulb from a socket and still have it glowing. You’d probably see David Blaine do that. It’s an old trick; now that Lite-On’s Mobile Lamp is here. Now we all love traditional shapes, it comes to the same for bulbs too. So, manufacturers pop in some LEDs into a bulb for that good old light bulb look, with energy saving LEDs inside. This leaves a lot of space for an additional battery in the bulb, which alternatively lights it up for around two hours when the power is turned off.
Continue reading
So you’ve got a huge front lawn, but have your kids tripping on stuff regularly in the dark. Well, save the injuries and the wailing that follows and simply opt for some outdoor lighting. Well, outdoor lighting is a great way to keep your out-of-home space lighted up; giving your garden a nicer and warmer feel to it. If your outdoors have a breezy atmosphere and require lighting, the pinwheel concept would work just great for you.
Continue reading