Hey, That's a Great Idea » Technologies

How to Harvest Heat in a Home

the idea collector — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:09:43 +0000

Six sources of heat you probably didn’t know you had can help with your electric bill and maybe even help you burn less wood (if you’re fortunate enough to have a wood-burning stove).

Step 3 is clever:

Run your dishwasher during the early evening (rather than after everyone has gone to bed). Some heat will escape while the dishes are being washed, and if you open the dishwasher door after the dishes have been washed, you’ll have another source of heat and moisture.

How to Harvest Heat in a Home

No related posts.

Scientists Make Fuel from CO2 Emissions and Sunlight

the idea collector — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:46:09 +0000

Scientists Make Fuel from CO2 Emissions and Sunlight : Gas 2.0.

The device is called the Counter-Rotating-Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator or the CR5 for short. I think we’ll stick to that shorter title for now. This method of forced-photosynthesis was initially designed for creating cheap abundant hydrogen fuel.

“In the short term we see this as an alternative to sequestration,” SNL Advanced Materials Laboratory chemical engineer James Miller, who has also been part of the research, adds.

This type of CO₂recycling could take trapped carbon waste from power plants and then returned for production, instead of releasing it to the air. Though, the resulting syngas does just burn right back into CO₂–not exactly ideal.

{image: Gas 2.0]

Peepoo This is the coolest product I’ve seen in a long...

First Augmented Reality App on iPhone: Yelp!

the idea collector — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:01:14 +0000

I’ve been avoiding iPhone deliberately. It’s just too easy. However, with all of the talk of augmented reality lately, I had to post this:

EASTER EGG: Yelp Is the iPhone’s First Augmented Reality App.

No related posts.

Nearest Tube – Augmented Reality for iPhone

the idea collector — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:47:57 +0000

It was only a matter of time before augmented reality apps started showing up on the iTunes app store. Nearest Tube from acrossair displays information on London Tube station locations over a live view from the camera. Check out the video:

First Augmented Reality App on iPhone: Yelp! I’ve been avoiding iPhone deliberately. It’s just too easy. However,...

Realtime Data Overlay

the idea collector — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:45:50 +0000

Augmented reality is old news in academic circles, but a new application called Layar may well the tipping point, bringing really useful information to the mobile-device-carrying masses.

The app uses a mobile device’s built-in camera, magentometer, GPS, and data connection to determine where the user is at and what they are looking at. Then it gathers relevant geographic information and displays it over the camera image. Just watch the video.

First Augmented Reality App on iPhone: Yelp! I’ve been avoiding iPhone deliberately. It’s just too easy. However,...

Spherical Robot

the idea collector — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 14:19:22 +0000

Inventor/Mechanical genius Greg Schroll’s take on an all-terrain robot – put the robot inside of a big ball:

No related posts.

Nature Podcast – More on Flexible Electronics

the idea collector — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 22:06:33 +0000

More discussion on the organic transistors enabling the flexible electronics I wrote about yesterday on the Nature Podcast this week:

Download this episode of the Podcast
Nature Podcast on iTunes

No related posts.

Flexible Thin-film Electronics

the idea collector — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:12:10 +0000

The New York Times is running a story about a new flexible electronics technology.

Graphene is a single-layer sheet of carbon atoms (the building block, in fact, of the graphite used in pencils) and has properties that make electronics engineers swoon.

…

In addition to being nearly transparent and having excellent electrical characteristics, the films are unaffected by bending or stretching.

This will make product design engineers swoon as well. Flexible electronics could mean the end of the single-plane constraint on PCBs that we have been designing around.

The NYT story is here: With an Ultrathin Film, a Big Step Forward for Flexible Electronics

Originally published in Nature.

No related posts.