Building An Elevator Into Space - The Next Challenge

For a space elevator to function, a cable with one end attached to the Earth's surface stretches upwards, reaching beyond geosynchronous orbit, at 21,700 miles (35,000-kilometer altitude). After that, simple physics takes charge. Interesting; read all about it.

Space Elevators - the next futuristic challenge

The prizes, announced on Wednesday evening, are the first in a series called "Centennial Challenges", modelled on the $10 million X Prize recently awarded to the first privately developed spacecraft. Winning teams will receive $50,000 in 2005 for either building the strongest strand of material or for using light to power a wireless robot up a cable. Read about it.

Ice Cream

Ice Cream
Originally uploaded by carovatom.
Liquid nitrogen is cold. Very cold. So cold that if a drop falls on your hand, it feels like fire. So cold that it can turn a fresh flower into a thousand shards of broken glass. So cold that it can make half a gallon of ice cream in 30 seconds flat. Read more...

The New Light Bulb

The lightbulb has remained virtually unchallenged since Edison invented it more than a century ago, but now scientists believe that zinc oxide—the same chemical that keeps diaper rash at bay—could provide a much-needed alternative to the inefficient lights that dominate our homes. In its crystalline form, zinc oxide can be used to make a light-emitting diode (LED) that could convert electricity to light 10 times as efficiently as the tungsten filaments used in today’s incandescent bulbs. It also lasts 10 times as long.

Tungsten shines white only when heated to 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit, an energy-sucking process that converts just 5 percent of electricity to visible light. “A zinc-oxide-based bulb, on the other hand, doesn’t require heat to produce light,” explains physicist David Look of Wright State University. And it glows brighter and more efficiently than other LEDs, because it emits mostly ultraviolet light, which is easily converted to visible light. Switching from tungsten to light sources like zinc oxide could reduce global electricity consumption for lighting by more than 50 percent.

The catch? The conversion will require expansive infrastructure changes, which the industry may be slow to embrace. But the long-term financial incentives, Look says, will be hard to ignore. Upgrading to zinc-oxide LEDs could help save Americans more than $35 billion a year.

Spinach

A house powered by spinach

10:44 AM architecture + green

Seattle architecture/design firm Mithun won first place in the C2C Home Competition with their design for a house powered by spinach. The house will be built this summer in Roanoke, Virginia, along with other contest winners.

The competition asked designers to work on work on cradle-to-cradle design principles and create objects and processes that replenish communities, using materials that can be recycled indefinitely.

Mithun's house takes energy from the sun and uses spinach protein to generate electricity for neighbouring homes and street lighting infrastructure.

The house's skylight brings in the sun's rays, and the heat sink stabilizes temperatures, while a highly conductive material produces photosynthetic energy generated from the protein in spinach. The spinach proteins are sandwiched between the core's glass walls; their chlorophyll converts the sun's rays to fuel the home. Besides, a vegetated roof system collects and filters stormwater into the building core

Spinach
Originally uploaded by carovatom.

Google Map (WinCE)

Google Map (WinCE)
Originally uploaded by carovatom.

I saw this post by Jon Udell, in which he does a screencast of an annotated walking tour through Keene, NH. Screencast goodness aside, I wanted to figure out how he made the map and how to simplify the process so that the non-web geek could attempt it without too much trouble. The geekiest bit will be where we edit our XML file, but you can essentially think of it just like editing a plain old text file it looks like garbledy-gook, but it's not actually rocket science. If you are new to web development or new to XML, don't worry all we will walk you through it as best we can.

Learn how Jon Udell created this video, and create your own.
Learn how to!

New Hydrogen Bike

The world's first purpose-built hydrogen-powered bike could be fitted with an artificial "vroom" because of worries its silence might be dangerous. A prototype of the motorbike, which could cost more than $8,300 (£4,500), was unveiled in London on Tuesday. The problem with the "fuel cell" bike, which produces no polluting emissions, is that it is too quiet. Read More

Shoppers Pay For Their Products With Their Finger Prints

A German supermarket chain has introduced a new way of allowing customers to pay using just their fingerprints. Shoppers have to run a finger over a scanner at the cash desk to confirm their purchases, and receive the goods. Customers have to register for the service by signing an agreement allowing Edeka to debit unpaid purchases from their bank accounts. Edeka spokesman, Gert Duschan, said that a trial will be conducted in Ruelzheim, near the Belgian border. If it proves successful the system will be made available for all branches. Read More

Blu-Ray Maybe the Death of DVD

Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD) is the name of a next-generation optical disc format jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), a group of leading consumer electronics and PC companies (including Apple, Dell, Hitachi, HP, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK and Thomson). The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data. A single-layer Blu-ray Disc can hold 25GB, which can be used to record over 2 hours of HDTV or more than 13 hours of standard-definition TV. There are also dual-layer versions of the discs that can hold 50GB. Read More.

Spys Among Us

TOKYO (AFP) - The mannequin moving in the store window is no longer a fantasy. A Japanese firm has developed a mannequin robot that can strike a pose for customers -- and spy on who they are and what they're buying. Read More

Electronic Reusable Paper

"It stores an image, is viewed in reflective light, has a wide viewing angle, is flexible, and is relatively inexpensive. Unlike conventional paper, however, it is electrically writeable and erasable. " There are many applications for this electronic paper. Read More.

Escher Web Sketch

Escher Web Sketch allows you to draw repeating patterns. You can select the symmetry of the patterns by clicking on one of the icons in the bar above the drawing area. The drawing tools are selected from the icon bar under the drawing area. You can also change the pattern size and placement with the Modify cell button. The right hand side of the drawing area is reserved for each drawing tool's usage. Typically it changes the pen size and color. Play It Now!

HYDROGEN CAR IN ARMY TEST

If you believe the hype out of Detroit, we'll all be driving ultra-clean cars running on hydrogen fuel cells one day, instead of today's gas-chuggers. Read More!

General Motors reported Monday it has made a breakthrough that brings hydrogen-powered vehicles a bit closer to reality. Hydrogen Cars in our future

Flying Low

The Hoverwing is our best of the best. A fully operational and ready to fly Wing in Ground Effect (WIG) craft that carries two people from 5 to 10 feet above all terrain or water, and is easily and quickly convertible into a 4 to 6 person hovercraft that can go anywhere in any season with style and comfort. No pilot’s license required, it’s just the ticket for any watercraft enthusiast who wants to go to the next level of excitement and still stay near the water. Watch the Video! Read more about it.

A Lie - It Is Written All Over Your Face

Lie detection has been around for centuries in various forms, based on the belief that liars and cheats betray themselves through their physiology. In ancient China suspects were given rice to chew, the idea being that liars would be too nervous to salivate so the rice would remain dry. The polygraph may be somewhat more sophisticated than the rice test, but scientists have had a field day pointing out problems with it. For starters, fear, anger and nerves all produce similar physiological responses to lying. Just taking the test can upset truthful people to the point where they appear dishonest, while practised liars can learn to outwit the machine by remaining calm.

Read More

Smart Water

SmartWater is a clear liquid containing microscopic particles encoded with a unique forensic signature that, when found coated on stolen property, provides a precise trace back to the owner and, when detected on a suspect, can conclusively implicate a felon.

Typing Test

Take the typing test and see how really fast and accurate you really are. Also, compare your results to the very fastest. - Can't cheat on this one, but you will know. Take the test!