Hasta La Gadget!

MIT’s electric vehicle prototype may be a long way off from being completed, but if we let that stop us from discussing EVs, we might never talk about them. The headline ambition of this project is a full recharge within 10 minutes, which would eliminate somewhere between four and ten hours of waiting. Speedwise, the Electric Vehicle Team is aiming for a 100 mph top speed from a 250-horsepower / 187 kilowatt AC induction motor, and a not unheard of 200-mile cruising range. To achieve their rapid juicing aim, the students will strap 7,905 lithium iron-phosphate cell batteries from A123Systems to a gutted 2010 Mercury Milan Hybrid body. The batteries’ low internal resistance is what makes things possible, but further hurdles, such as finding a sufficiently powerful energy source, would have to be overcome before any sort of widespread use may occur. Video after the break.

[Via PC World]

Continue reading Video: MIT working on rapid recharging for electric vehicles

Filed under: Transportation

Video: MIT working on rapid recharging for electric vehicles originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Earlier this week there was something of a brouhaha when some iPhone 3.0 users started receiving random instant messages seemingly intended for other folks. Push notifications were one of the big additions in this release and so naturally a lot of people claimed the feature was broken. They were partially right, but wrong in blaming Apple, as it was they who had themselves broken it. The iPhone generates unique public/private keys upon activation that identify handsets to secure those pushed IMs, and it should come as no surprise that unlocking tools use duplicated keys to facilitate illicit use. You know what happens when you share dirty keys, right? With single identifiers registered to multiple phones instant messages are getting zinged all over the place rather than to their intended destination, a feature we’re guessing spammers will start exploiting in three… two…

Filed under: Cellphones

iPhone 3.0’s ‘broken’ push messaging caused by unlockers, dirty keys originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The high definition-helmetcam wars are heating up. We recently tested the VholdR’s sleek ContourHD 720p goggle-mounted shooter and definitely enjoyed it… but you know us: always looking for more. More is what the GoPro HD Hero Wide looks set to offer, with full 1080p recording at 30fps; a first in the extreme camera segment and not something frequently found in a device this small. Just as impressive is a 720p at 60fps recording mode, perfect for catching every detail of your aerials and varials — and subsequent faceplants. We’re still not particularly fond of the “cube on the head” look of the thing, but that cube will at least now contain an 1100mAh battery, said to offer a solid two to three hours of battery life. Quite a package, and while the expected package price of $299 is $100 more than the company’s current offerings, it’s still solid value. No word on when this will be showing up at the supercross scene.

[Photo courtesy of Freeskier Magazine, thanks Chad]

Filed under: Digital Cameras

GoPro offers 1080p high-def in a little helmetcam with the HD Hero Wide originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Time Switch is a design which has its purpose fully 180º backwards. The designer, Ryan Harc, conceived the switch to stop time when the poor chap was up against a deadline (aside: if designing a new kind of light switch is his response to looming deadlines, we suggest some procrastination counselling, starting tomorrow).

The idea is that flipping it will “stop” time. In fact, hitting the off switch just, erm, switches the thing off, just like every other device.

What Harc should have done was simply reverse the wiring, hook the back-projected switch up to an actual light, and have the time actually stop when the lamp is fired up. That way, the display would freeze when you switched on the light, perhaps guilting people into turning it off a little earlier.

Of course, this wouldn’t work with everyone. John Brownlee, for instance, gadget blogger extraordinaire, still can’t shake his wasteful US upbringing despite several years spent in eco-fanatic Berlin. He recently spent a week as a house-guest in my home and would regularly run into a room, switch on all the lights and then leave, closing the door behind him. In the daytime. True story.

Product page [7760 via Noquedanblogs]

What if you could take the almost infinite re-configurability of a touch-screen and marry it to the tactile, no-looking-needed interface of the old-fashioned button? Researchers at Carnegie Mellon university have done just that, using what at first looks like a big, flat balloon:

The display is made up of several layers, the topmost of which is a latex sheet. Below that lies a sheet of acrylic with holes cut in it where the buttons are to go. Pumping air in and out of the device causes the buttons to expand and stick out (or get sucked in, like an inny belly-button). And because the latex is translucent, images can be rear-projected onto these “buttons”.

It’s not quite as configurable as a touch-screen, as the design is limited to where you place the button-holes (ha!). But the rear projection offers a fair degree of on-the-fly customization and the moving buttons could prove very helpful in, say, a car where you don’t want to take your eyes from the road. Optical sensing tech inside means that there is also multi-touch functionality. Try that with a regular keypad. Finally, the semi-3D images that can be laid onto the buttons, like the global map in the clip, are just plain rad.

Next For Touchscreens: Temporary Pop-Up Buttons? [Pop Mech]