Hasta La Gadget!

Okay, so maybe the headline is a tad on the sensational side, but seriously, this has sensational written all over it. A team of brilliant MIT engineers have conjured up a beltway of sorts that allows for “rapid transit of electrical energy through a well-known battery material,” something that could usher in smaller and lighter cells that could recharge in moments versus hours. There’s even talk that this technology could be adapted for use in automobiles, and honestly, it doesn’t take an electrical engineer to understand how rapid charge / discharge batteries could “induce lifestyle changes.” Hey, laptop battery makers — could you guys look into getting these ready to go in machines by CES 2010? That’d be swell, thanks.

[Via BBC, thanks Simon]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

MIT’s quick charging batteries could revolutionize the world, maybe originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s a struggle we all face. There’s the urge to bike to work each day, and then there’s the realization that you’re too huge / lazy / tired to make it on your own. Brilliant minds at MIT understand your frustration, and rather than asking you to drop a few grand on a bona fide electric bike, they’re developing an apparatus that can convert any standard bicycle into one that’s juiced. The GreenWheel contains an electric generator, batteries and an electric motor, all of which only need a wheel to be respoked in order to fit in. Under its current configuration, a single GreenWheel (yes, one can be added to each wheel) can propel a bike and your faineant derriere for around 25 miles; start peddling and that range doubles. There’s no clear indication of when these things will splash down at your local bike shop, but word has it that Copenhagen and South Africa are already looking to add it to their public transportation systems by 2010.

[Via DVICE, thanks Scott]

Continue reading GreenWheel converts any Huffy 10-speed into an electric bicycle

Filed under: Transportation

GreenWheel converts any Huffy 10-speed into an electric bicycle originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We were captivated when we first came across David Merrill’s brilliantly simple Siftables idea last year, and though some time has passed us by, we’re no less amazed this go ’round. The MIT graduate student has hosted up a few more videos and images of his pet project, which aims to utilize computerized tiles to initiate learning and allow Earthlings to “interact with information and media in physical, natural ways that approach interactions with physical objects in our everyday lives.” Call us crazy, but we’re betting Art Lebedev would totally take these commercial. Check out a music sequencer vid just past the break, and catch the rest of the media in the read link.

[Via TED, thanks Kaptix]

Continue reading Intelligent Siftables blocks get even more face time

Filed under: Displays, Peripherals

Intelligent Siftables blocks get even more face time originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It sounds more like something you’d see in X-Men than on an actual operating table in real life, but a team at Massachusetts General Hospital has developed a way to heal surgical incisions with laser light. Christened laser-bonded healing, the methodology has been studied for years, but up until now, scientists have found it impossible to find the perfect balance of heat required to coax tissue into healing itself back together. Irene Kochevar described the process as “nano suturing,” as diminutive collagen fibers are woven together in a way that the old-fashioned needle-and-thread method simply can’t match. The benefits, as you can likely imagine, are numerous: less scarring, faster recovery, the potential for fewer infections and bragging rights that you were struck with lasers and survived. Still, the procedure is far from becoming commonplace in ORs, given that the dermatological procedure hasn’t even been submitted to the FDA yet. ‘Til then, it’s up to you and Wolverine to figure things out.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Laser-bonded healing could replace needle and thread originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 15 Feb 2009 01:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve got ourselves some video of MIT’s new “sixth sense” project, which really helps explain the concept. MIT basically plans to augment reality with a pendant picoprojector: hold up an object at the store and the device blasts relevant information onto it (like environmental stats, for instance), which can be browsed and manipulated with hand gestures. The “sixth sense” in question is the internet, which naturally supplies the data, and that can be just about anything — MIT has shown off the device projecting information about a person you meet at a party on that actual person (pictured), projecting flight status on a boarding pass, along with an entire non-contextual interface for reading email or making calls. It’s pretty interesting technology, that, like many MIT Media Lab projects, makes the wearer look like a complete dork — if the projector doesn’t give it away, the colored finger bands the device uses to detect finger motion certainly might. There are patents already in the works for the technology, which the MIT folks have been working on “night and day” for the past four months, and we’re guessing (and hoping) this isn’t the last we’ll see of this stuff. Video is after the break.

Continue reading MIT’s “sixth sense” augmented reality device demonstrated on video

Filed under: Displays, Wearables

MIT’s “sixth sense” augmented reality device demonstrated on video originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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