You’re not the only one who sweats during a heat wave. The power company feels the burn too—in the form of skyrocketing demand from those air conditioners, fans, and stressed out refrigerators. Not to mention all the TVs clicking on as we cower in front of our media stacks to escape the cruel, cruel sun. More »
Hidden away at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory‘s National Ignition Facility is a terrifying 10-story laser. Recently scientists have finally started using it in anger, and now they’ve even smashed previous records to fire the most powerful laser shot ever recorded. More »
Wondering where Apple stands environmentally after the recent withdrawal (and subsequent return) of its laptops and desktops from the EPEAT rating system? Greenpeace has issued a well-timed report, outlining the company’s broader back-end energy policies. According to the organization, “Apple’s clean energy policies have significantly improved, but the company still gets low scores for its energy choices when compared with sector leaders.” Greenpeace applauds Cupertino’s commitment to goal coal-free by next year, but wonders aloud how the company will get there, noting that while it has invested in solar and other renewable energy sources, it still buys power from outlets that rely on coal. The organization also took the time to admonish Apple’s lack of transparency on its environmental plans.
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Greenpeace: Apple’s energy policy has improved, still needs to remove the coal smoke from iCloud originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 20:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Drive west on US Route 50 through a stretch of Nevada highway known as “The Loneliest Road in America” and you’ll eventually find yourself in the rural county of Churchill. Once a solitary leg in the Pony Express route, irrigation transformed swaths of Churchill’s high desert areas into thriving agricultural communities more than a century ago. Fast forward to today and Churchill finds itself playing host to yet another interesting dichotomy — a first-of-its-kind power plant that generates electricity by harvesting renewable resources from both earth and sky.
Continue reading First solar-geo plant blooms in Nevada’s high desert
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
First solar-geo plant blooms in Nevada’s high desert originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
If you’ve seen the action flick Act of Valor, you may remember the small handheld UAV that was used to keep an eye on enemy placement. Lockheed Martin makes a little UAV called the Stalker Unmanned Ariel System that is similar to the UAV used in that movie. Typically, the little Stalker is powered by a battery and has a relatively short usable time before the battery runs out of power.
Lockheed Martin has announced that in cooperation with a company called LaserMotive, the Stalker has been able to fly with no stops for over 48 hours. The way Lockheed Martin and LaserMotive pulled this off is very cool. The Stalker was fitted with proprietary equipment to be able to gather power from a laser beam as it flew.
The test was conducted indoors in a wind tunnel and the Stalker flew him for over 48 hours. Lockheed says that the test could have continued and was only stopped because the aircraft had passed the endurance goals the team set. In fact, at the end of the test, the little aerial vehicle had more power in its battery than it did when the test started.
Working with wireless power specialists LaserMotive, Lockheed Martin has successfully completed preliminary tests of a new laser refueling system that extended the flight time of its Stalker unmanned aerial drone to over 48 hours. More »
Carrying around a charging cable is a fact of life if you use your smartphone for more than just the occasional call. But instead of packing the bulky cables that came with your iPhone or Android handset, just slip this tiny USB adapter onto your keychain for emergency battery top-offs. More »
We’ve seen a number of different devices that can harvest energy from various sources, but none quite like this new chip developed by a team of MIT researchers. It’s able to harvest energy from three different sources simultaneously: light, heat and vibrations. The key to that is a sophisticated control system that’s able to rapidly switch between the three sources at all times to prevent any of that energy from going to waste (and not draw too much power itself), with energy from the secondary sources stored in capacitors to be picked up later — as opposed to existing systems that simply switch between sources based on what’s most plentiful. As doctoral student Saurav Bandyopadhyay explains, efficiently managing those disparate sources could be a “big advantage since many of these sources are intermittent and unpredictable,” and it could in turn lead to the chip being used in a range of different applications where batteries or existing energy harvesting methods just aren’t enough: everything from environmental sensors in remote locations to biomedical devices.
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Science
MIT researchers develop chip that can harvest energy from multiple sources originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget inquiry is coming to us from Is from Martin, who is looking for a hyper-efficient media streamer for his retro caravan. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.
“My partner and I are renovating a small ’70s caravan and would like a power-efficient media center/PC purely to watch our library of movies and TV shows. We’re in Australia, so getting hold of kit like the Raspberry Pi would be difficult, we’re looking for something that’s equally power efficient, even up to $300 AUD (around $310 USD). Cheers!””
That’s this week’s challenge, Engadgeteers — do you feel up for it? Can you help our southern hemisphere friends find a power-efficient HTPC for under $310 that won’t drain a retro-caravan’s batteries? Can we help these people turn the temporary home into a rockin’ media-streamin’ paradise? Hit us up in the comments if you’ve got some expertise to share.
Ask Engadget: Best sub-$310 power-efficient HTPC for a caravan? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Jul 2012 22:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The decision to invest in an electric vehicle would be much easier to justify if the car in question offered unlimited range. That appears to be the concept behind a Toyohashi University research group’s wireless power prototype, which can successfully transmit electricity through a 10 centimeter-thick concrete block. During a demonstration in Yokohama, Japan, the team sent between 50 and 60 watts of power through a pair of concrete blocks to two tires, which then juiced up a light bulb (you can see the rig just above). The project is called EVER (Electric Vehicle on Electrified Roadway), and could someday be used to keep cars moving along a highway without any need to pull over for a recharge, thanks to a constant stream of electricity coming from below the road. There are some serious obstacles to overcome before EVER can get some wheels turning — namely, a need to pump nearly 100 times the current maximum load through concrete that’s twice as thick as what they’ve managed today, not to mention improving undisclosed efficiency levels — but the group reportedly said that it’s up to the task, making us fairly optimistic that such a solution could one day get us from A to B without petrol. Until then, you’ll probably want to plan out a pit stop or two before you leave the garage.
Japanese group transmits electricity through 4-inch concrete block, could power cars on roads originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Jul 2012 00:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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