Hasta La Gadget!

Amongst the real gadget gems in Sierra Club Green Home’s “50 green Gadgets” list, there are some hilariously under-thought items. For every solar-powered Nintendo Wii system, there’s a Helios Solar Grill (the monstrosity above), which actually pipes heat from its parabolic sun-gatherer through to the grill on the other side, and manages to look like the kind of Jetson-junk “inventions” I drew as a kid.

Our favorite, though, has to be the Wind-Helmet Power Generator, a device so wilfully and impractically green that it is almost like the practice helmet Luke Skywalker wore in Star Wars, blinding the wearer to the obvious before them. The blurb:

The Wind-Helmet has a windmill in your helmet. Wind flows over the helmet, through the propeller in the rear, and stores energy in a set of rechargeable batteries for later use. Although there are a lot of power chargers out there, the Wind-Helmet allows for you generate power with something you will already be using. [emphasis added]

This is extraordinary. Lets take a look at the bike and consider what else “you will already be using”. Spinning wheels, perhaps? Wheels which have been used for decades to power the bike’s lights, or even trickle-charge iPods? Wheels which can generate power either with a dynamo or an almost drag-free rare-earth magnet setup?

But, you know, a giant, Tron-style helmet with a bunch of fans and turbines inside, hooked up to a battery pack via a cable is much more efficient, don’t you think? We have a couple of suggestions ourselves. What about a pump somehow operated by the turning wheels which would squeeze air into a pressure tank. It would then squirt out into a turbine and the energy produced then stored in batteries.

Or what about giant loops of cable buried beneath the road, and bikes loaded with magnets. Bike lanes could be painted in swooping zig-zags to make riders cross and double-cross the subterranean wires and power whole cities. Or perhaps that is a little impractical?

We kid, but there are a bunch of handy little widgets in the gallery, too. Did we mention the solar-powered Wii? Amazing.

50 Green Gadgets You Can Use To Help Save The Planet [Sierra Club. Thanks, Emma!]

On paper (or on-screen), the British Eagle Tulsa Mens Bike looks to be a bargain, especially in over-priced, cash-strapped Blighty. The £70 ($115) bicycle comes from Asda, one of the UK’s cheaper supermarkets, and looks to offer free, healthy transport to anyone who can save up a week’s unemployment benefit.

But the trouble begins… immediately. Helen Pidd from the Guardian’s Bike Blog took one in to her Local Bike Shop (actually my old local shop, too, when I was unlucky enough to live in London), Two Wheels Good in Crouch End. The conclusion of the LBS? The bike is junk.

First, the women’s model was supplied with a men’s saddle. Second, it just doesn’t work properly. The brake calipers are bendy, flexy plastic, the twist-grip gears won’t actually hold in a single speed for more than a couple minutes (or until the next bump in the road) and hills were impossible: “but tackling them on my weighty (18kg), graceless machine felt like I was scaling Pen-y-Ghent on a pedal-powered tractor,” says Pidd. Even the back wheel came supplied already out-of-true.

Worse, this is a self assembly bike. Anyone who knows enough about building and fixing bikes would know enough to avoid this machine, so therefore the only people who might buy it are not qualified to build it. The tools supplied are inadequate, and taking it to your LBS to assemble will cost £20 and up, or an almost 30% increase on the cost price.

It shows us that “low-priced” is not the same as “value”, and that skimping on a good bike is not only dangerous but it spoils you fun. Our advice? Buy second-hand, or, if you are like Wired.com editor Dylan Tweney, dig around in the hedgerow behind your house. You might get lucky.

Product page [Asda]

Bikes: buy cheap, buy twice [Guardian]

Some of the most advanced mobile devices on the market today are built around cores based on ARM’s Cortex A8 architecture, including a couple you may be familiar with: the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3GS. The 3GS, for example, runs a Samsung S5PC100 system-on-chip clipping along at a healthy 600MHz, enough to make it noticeably snappier than the 3G it replaces — but time marches relentlessly forward, as always, and that S5PC100 is suddenly starting to look a little long in the tooth with today’s news. Sammy has partnered up with silicon design firm Intrinsity to develop what it’s billing as the world’s fastest Cortex A8 core, a 1GHz unit codenamed “Hummingbird” that’s based on 45nm manufacturing techniques and can deliver peak performance at a single volt with power consumption characteristics favorable for mobile use. Translation: this thing should be nipping at the heels of Snapdragon once Samsung finishes up work turning this core into a system-on-chip that can be sourced by manufacturers, and it should do so without causing batteries to beg for mercy. Unfortunately, there’s no word just yet on exactly when we’ll see phones running this setup in the market, so Pre, 3GS, you’re safe for now — but the clock’s ticking.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Samsung announces world’s fastest Cortex A8 core, iPhone 3GS frowns a little originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

And here you were thinking Mercedes-Benz’s Attention Assist system was the thing in driver alertness aides. In a rather odd, nearly jocose press release, Nissan has revived our faith in corporate R&D with the glorious introduction of the Forest AC. In short, this new air conditioning system “systematically controls cabin temperature, ventilation, aroma and humidity to create an optimal interior environment.” Still bewildered? It means that the system can tap into an array of sensors in order to find out exactly what environment is best for your current state of mind, and if it needs to, it’ll blast your nostrils with gusts of fresh forest in order to increase alertness while keeping stress levels down. The zaniest part of all, however, isn’t the idea of using various aromas to keep one’s attention; it’s the fact that this system is actually scheduled for installation on a vehicle (the Fuga) that’ll ship this fiscal year in Japan.

Filed under: Transportation

Nissan’s Forest AC blows wild scents through your ride, keeps you alert originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

What happens if you take a vibrator, a bowl with holes drilled in it, a plate, and a bag of freshly microwaved popcorn? You get the Popcorn Sorter, invention number 14 from Zach Snyder’s and his Stupid Inventions buddies.

It’s a simple idea, which would be both quieter and likely quicker done by hand. But it involves electricity and sex-toys, so we love it. Well, I love it. The Lady isn’t so sure, although I think her claims that the guys are “just trying to be funny” are thinly-veiled attempts to stop me from raiding her night stand and pulling out my toolbox.

Product page [Stupid Inventions/YouTube. thanks, Zachary!]