The power of 1,000 suns? Pfft. That ain’t nuthin’. A recent breakthrough in solar panel connections has allowed scientists to create arrays of solar cells that can stand strong under the blazing glare of 70,000 suns. Not that they’d ever have to, but still.
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Here is a question that a hundred years ago, no one would have been able to answer – how does one move a ship that weighs 100 tonnes without any kind of fuel, sail, or slave labor? Well, thankfully technology has advanced to such a degree in this day and age, that a pioneering group of Swiss investors and German engineers have decided to harness the power of the sun, in the form of the MS Turanor PlanetSolar.
Basically, the solar-powered boat known as the MS Turanor PlanetSolar happens to be the largest boat of its kind, and it does allow us to get a glimpse into what the future of marine travel would look like. The whole idea when creating the MS Turanor PlanetSolar was to go around the globe, according to Rachel Bros de Puechredon from PlanetSolar who said, “The idea was to demonstrate the enormous potential of solar power by circumnavigating the globe.”
Of course, the team managed to do so successfully after navigating some 60,000km. Just how many solar panels are required to move such a behemoth? The Turanor relies on over 500 sq m of solar panels in order to power its pair of 60kW electric engines, which will in turn individually drive a standard propeller. With those electric engines, they can push the 35m catamaran to hit a maximum speed of 14 knots.
MS Turanor PlanetSolar Is A Solar Powered Boat original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Consistent electricity is more guideline than rule in South Africa, even on the outskirts for the capital city of Johannesburg. This ambiguity leaves residents either living in the dark or at the mercy of expensive and hazardous kerosene- or coal-based fuels. One social entrepreneur however, has a plan to provide clean, safe, nearly free energy to even Johannesburg’s poorest citizens.
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Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.
As if the Hyperloop and Tesla weren’t enough to keep him busy, real-life Tony Stark Elon Musk revealed this week that he felt the futuristic hologram UI from Iron Man could be built and that he might just be the one to do it. Over in Denmark, Inhabitat was on the scene covering the 2013 INDEX: Awards honoring groundbreaking inventions that make life better. Get the scoop on all of the winners — from a life-saving smart highway that wirelessly charges cars to a birth simulator that could save millions of babies a year to Copenhagen’s comprehensive Climate Adaption Plan to reduce flooding.
But Copenhagen wasn’t the only city that had rising tides on the mind as the world reflected on the eight-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. While catastrophic flooding may have seemed like an isolated incident at that time, the threat of future storms is now matter-of-fact and ideas on how to protect against them, like this dam that uses the power of floodwater itself to inflate, have been popping up left and right.
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.
Does the idea of driverless cars make you queasy? Better get used to it: Researchers are predicting that more than 95 million autonomous cars could hit the road by 2035. But, speaking of cars we actually want to drive, Tesla Motors continued its banner year, as the Model S earned the highest safety score of any car ever tested. In other green transportation news, KAIST unveiled a new folding, electric micro car that can fit into just about any parking space. Copenhagen announced plans to launch the world’s most high-tech bike-sharing program, which will include bikes with GPS-enabled Android tablets. A grad student at the Royal College of Art recently produced plans for a 3D-printed car concept that actually assembles itself. But the form of urban transportation that looks like the most fun to ride is the Scrooser, a foot-powered scooter with an electric motor that zips around town at speeds of up to 15 MPH. And Vanmoof is set to release a new electric bike in 2014 that is already being billed as the world’s most intelligent commuter bike.
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk wowed the tech and business worlds this week when he unveiled plans for a 700MPH solar-powered Hyperloop train that could catapult people from San Francisco to LA in just over half an hour. Although the plan is highly conceptual, nothing associated with Musk can be written off as fantasy these days. The news somehow managed to overshadow all other futuristic transportation stories, like Martin Aircraft’s unveiling of a “practical” jetpack that can travel at speeds of up to 60MPH and reach an altitude of 8,000 feet. Meanwhile, German designer Andreas Blazunaj unveiled a sleek hybrid concept vehicle that looks more like a spaceship than a car. An Australian high school student designed a solar-powered car that could be used to transport pregnant Zimbabwean women to hospitals. And the team behind the Bloodhound Supersonic Car announced that it will use a 3D-printed nose cone in its attempt break the 1,000MPH speed record in summer 2015.
Canadian telecommunications company WeWi will soon be launching a solar-powered notebook called the SOL Laptop. While it’s not the first of its kind, it has at least one impressive feature that makes it one to watch: WeWi claims that the built-in solar panels can charge the laptop in just 2 hours.
I got in touch with WeWi Founder & CEO David Snir to find out more about the SOL Laptop. David said that they were motivated to make their own solar-powered laptop partly because of their projects in Ghana, where weekly outages frequently left them with no access to electricity.
David is still keeping his cards close to his chest with regards to the laptop’s solar panels, but he did say that they’re currently getting about 16.08% efficiency. Pair that with the laptop’s entry level guts – an Intel Atom D2500 1.86GHz dual-core CPU and Intel GMA 3600 integrated graphics – and you get a 2-hour charge time. The laptop’s battery can store enough energy to power the laptop for up to 10 hours, but David said that the laptop can run “directly by sunlight”: as long as its solar panels are exposed to sunlight, you can use the laptop even if the battery is nearly empty. It’s like plugging into the sun.
The SOL Laptop’s solar panels will also be detachable; you’ll be able to work in the shade while the panels soak up the sun. WeWi is also working on an accessory that will let you charge other devices using the laptop’s solar panels.
Like its power-sipping CPU and integrated graphics, the rest of the SOL Laptop will only excite people stuck in 2010. It has a 13.3″ 1366 x 768 LCD screen, a 320GB HDD, 2-4GB DDR3 RAM, a 3MP webcam, 3 USB ports and a card reader. But it does have Ethernet and HDMI ports, as well as support for modern wireless standards: GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0. It even has a cellular modem that supports 3G & LTE.
David also said that the laptop’s case is made of a “special polymer with unique treatment for strength.” Finally, the laptop will come with an unspecified version of Ubuntu installed. I guess by now you can see what all of those bullet points are describing: an affordable netbook that’s at home outdoors.
The SOL Laptop will be released at the end of 2013 in African and Middle Eastern countries, with U.S. and Canada soon to follow. It will have two variants, a $350 (USD) standard model and a $400 Marine model that’s water-resistant.
Assuming that the 2-hour charge time claim holds up in real world usage, what’s most disappointing about the SOL Laptop is that it’s actually a SOL Netbook. But David also said they’re working on other solar-powered devices; perhaps a high-end version of the laptop is in the works as well.
Laptop battery life is something that we all can’t seem to be happy with. No matter how long the battery is able to last, there are always times when we curse into the wind when we get that dreaded battery warning while on the road. However, a new Ubuntu laptop looks to solve those problems […]
A blazing sun and the outdoors don’t exactly make for an ideal computing environment — unless you’re toting a ruggedized laptop that harnesses energy from sunlight like the Ubuntu-running Sol. Created mainly for use in developing countries with intermittent (or non-existent) electricity, it’s equipped with solar panels that soak up the sun when unfolded. According to OMG Ubuntu, its creators from Canadian company WeWi Telecommunications claim Sol’s battery, which can last for up to ten hours, only takes two hours to charge via solar energy.
The device’s official website reveals little else, but according to the nuggets of information we’ve stumbled upon, Sol will pack an Intel processor, WiFi connectivity and an HD display, with an optional satellite module for internet connectivity. While full availability details have yet to be announced, a countdown timer on its website hints at more info in just under two days. Ghana will reportedly see the hardware arrive first with an accompanying $300 price tag. Though the notebook isn’t exactly wildly affordable, it’s at least a bit cheaper than Samsung’s 2011 take on a sunbeam-fueled laptop.
Filed under: Laptops
Via: OMG! Ubuntu
Source: Sol
Seeing the sunlight stream through the windows in the early mornings can be quite a tranquil setting, but come mid-day when the sun is at its hottest, maybe then you might be wishing for some curtains. However in Harvard in a bid to lower air-conditioning bills but keeping their windows open, they have developed self-cooling windows which not only let in the light, but also ensures that the heat associated with the light does not come through as well! (more…)
Harvard Researchers Develop Self-Cooling Windows original content from Ubergizmo. 
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