energy Archive

  • New solar cells printed on paper

    New solar cells printed on paper

    Posted on May 5, 2010 | No Comments
    Everyone loves the idea of solar energy. The three big challenges are that solar cells are expensive to produce, they're not very efficient, and you need some means to store the energy collected. I'd heard of solar shingles before, which are basically roofing shingles with solar cells in them, but now word is coming out of solar cells printed on paper. As usual, the technology is still years away from a marketable product, but it's an interesting development.

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  • Intel reaches for the ’smartphone zone’ with Moorestown-based Atom Z6, comes up shorthanded

    Intel reaches for the ’smartphone zone’ with Moorestown-based Atom Z6, comes up shorthanded

    Posted on May 5, 2010 | No Comments
    We've seen the future of Intel's mobile platform, and it isn't all roses and sunshine. Three years after the chipmaker told us Moorestown would reduce Atom's energy consumption by a factor of 20, company execs told us earlier today that they've more than reached that goal with the new Z6xx series. Problem is, in the smartphone realm Intel's competitors haven't been sitting idle; according to one of Chipzilla's cantaloupe-and-magenta bar charts, it seems the company has merely caught up in terms of battery life. That's not to say the chips aren't worlds better than previous Atoms -- Intel sees 1.5GHz smartphone processors that slay Snapdragons and up to 1.9GHz in a tablet PC variety -- but 5 hours of web browsing is most decidedly not the 24 hours of productivity Intel previously promised. Besides, who knows: Qualcomm also has a 1.5GHz SoC in the works, though it may not be available by the time Intel's chips ship in the second half of the year.

    None of this is to say that Intel won't continue to dominate in the netbook marketplace -- we shudder to think at the potential when combining a nice, chunky battery with Intel's nearly leakproof new chips, and perhaps a small serving of switchable graphics while we're at it. But without a single new MID or smartphone to show us this morning -- Aava Mobile and OpenPeak's offerings seemed unchanged from our previous encounters -- we're not sure if the company's other mobile ambitions have any sway. Not technical enough of a discussion for you? Peruse our gallery for the nitty-gritty.

    Intel reaches for the 'smartphone zone' with Moorestown-based Atom Z6, comes up shorthanded originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 May 2010 02:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Aquafairy FC Stick: Efficient mini fuel cell for gadget fans (video)

    Aquafairy FC Stick: Efficient mini fuel cell for gadget fans (video)

    Posted on March 11, 2010 | No Comments
    Fuel cells are on their way into the mainstream, even though the commercially available models are still pretty pricey. But there are companies like Kyoto-based Aquafairy [JP], for example, preparing affordable fuel cells, too. Their four new fuel cells are intended to make gadget fans in particular happy: the micro FC Stick (0.8W), the FC-Stick (2W), the FC-Cube (3W) and the FC-Cube Dual (6W).

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  • Walking and jumping and generating energy, oh my

    Walking and jumping and generating energy, oh my

    Posted on February 22, 2010 | No Comments
    Sometimes I'm assigned stories and I'm like, "Really? If you insist, boss." This is one of those stories. It's a collection of sidewalks, or derivatives, that "work while you wait." Yup.

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  • Steorn to show off overunity Saturday: Where will you be when we discover limitless free energy?

    Steorn to show off overunity Saturday: Where will you be when we discover limitless free energy?

    Posted on January 25, 2010 | No Comments
    This Saturday I’m probably going to wake up a little later (we have kids so that means like 8am) and maybe make some breakfast. Then maybe we’ll go for a walk in town here or the wife will take the kids to the Children’s Museum and I’ll do some writing. Then I’ll eat lunch with [...]

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  • RCA Airnergy promises usable power generated from Wi-Fi signals. Possible?

    RCA Airnergy promises usable power generated from Wi-Fi signals. Possible?

    Posted on January 13, 2010 | No Comments
    I’m a simple man. I understand certain things. How ambient Wi-Fi signals could be converted into enough energy to charge a BlackBerry is something I do NOT understand. However, RCA not only showed off the technology at CES but the device will apparently be available by the summer and it’ll only cost $40. OhGizmo! tells us [...]

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  • Privacy versus power: smart grids are the new battlefield

    Privacy versus power: smart grids are the new battlefield

    Posted on November 19, 2009 | No Comments
    I think we can all agree that protecting our own personal privacy is a generally good idea. There are an enormous number of ways that our privacy can be encroached in a given day. Some of them are "for our own good", or "just the cost of doing business" in the modern age. Some of the ways our privacy may be violated are extremely esoteric and not very likely (hard drive activity LEDs, for example! PDF: Information Leakage from Optical Emanations). Generally speaking, what I do in my own home is largely my own business, and not the business of anyone else. But the technology behind so-called "smart grids" for delivering electricity to appliances in a way that maximizes efficiency may leak a lot of personal information about you and your domestic habits.

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  • LED lightbulb puts out equivalent of 60 watt bulb, uses only 6 watts

    LED lightbulb puts out equivalent of 60 watt bulb, uses only 6 watts

    Posted on October 2, 2009 | No Comments
    Oh man, I thought those compact florescent lightbulbs (CFLs) were expensive at around five bucks a pop. Say hello to the $40 LED light bulb -- and that's an introductory price. It'll apparently cost $50 later.

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