Hypersonic Sound

This is by far the coolest technology I have found yet! To start, lets talk about the light bulb. At the beginning of its life the light went where ever it wanted. As time went on, people added reflectors and were able to completely focus that light. Now imagine sound, what if sound could be focused. This could be used everywhere!!! Advertisers could use this at supermarkets to play ads or people could use it in their cars to listen to different things at the same time just to name a few. To get all the details on how this works and hear the inventor talk about this creation go to the following link:

http://www.ted.com/talks/woody_norris_invents_amazing_things.html

Giving Power Outlets a Brain?

John La Grou unveils an ingenious new technology that will smarten up the electrical outlets in our homes, using microprocessors and RFID tags. The invention, Safeplug, promises to prevent deadly accidents like house fires -- and to conserve energy. By adding a data tag inside the plug and a wireless data reader inside the receptacle. This would create an intelligent receptacle that would always be off unless it sensed an intelligent plug in the outlet. This would prevent fires and save energy. This is really cool but my one question is, how expensive would this technology be to implement? Would all appliance come standard with this smart plug? Or would a user be able to add the data tag to the plug themselves? When we are living in such a complex world, these are things to consider. There are a countless number of things in a home that use power drawn from outlets and I would guess probably able 15 outlets in my small apartment. 


http://www.ted.com/talks/john_la_grou_plugs_smart_power_outlets_1.html

What's wrong with our food system

I came across a video of an 11 year old boy, Birke Baehr, talks about what is wrong with our food industry. it is a really interesting video. Not only does he talk about what is wrong, but he talks about what HE can do! It is amazing that a little boy educated himself about this issue. The video really speaks for itself.

I like his quote, "Some people say organic or local food is more expensive. But is it really? With all these things I've been learning about the food system, it seems to me that we can either pay the farmer or pay the hospital."

I can relate to his talk because I stopped eating meat for the same cause. I thought it would be to expensive for me to buy organic meat, so I just cut it out of my diet all together. Since I have learned about the genetically altering of food, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, and irradiation of food to make it last long so it can travel thousands of miles from where it is grown to the supermarkets, I have completely changes my eating habits. I try and buy local as often as possible, utilizing the State College farmers market.

Watch the video to learn all about what Birke Baehr has to say.


http://www.ted.com/talks/birke_baehr_what_s_wrong_with_our_food_system.html

Revolutionary 360 degrees 3D camera

Researchers from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have been working on the development of a strange-looking camera that snaps 360 degrees of simultaneous images and then reconstructs the images in 3D. This is different from the 3D cameras that exist today, only really create an illusion of depth. What the people at EPFL are hoping to do is change the way 3D picture taking is viewed. The design was inspired by the shape of a fly's eye.

They say this would be good for a wide array of people/situations including navigating, gaming, media production, sporting events, and concerts.

Now, I understand how they are planning on capturing the images, but who about reproducing them? I can't imagine a way to do this that would be  easily accessible to the typical household. This is something I may keep my eye on because I just don't see how a 3 dimensional view can be recreated. 

Follow this link to see an informative video about the product.

World's First Solar Powered Christmas Tree Lot

Check out the below link to hear about what they are doing in San Diego this holiday season:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsCqScZF_08&feature=player_embedded

Purdy Farm (Christmas tree lots) is using The Mobile Solar Station. What is this Mobile Solar Station you ask? Well it is it is being used to power the compact fluorescent lights (CFL) on the lot perimeter and the electric chain saws used to trim customer's trees. Talk about green energy!

Wash Your Clothes Without Water.. or at least 90% less water

Now here is an invention worth blogging about; a washing system that cleans your clothes using 90% less water than a normal washer! This would not only conserve water, but potentially eliminate or minimize drying needs leading to reductions in energy consumption.

The product was actually created by a team of students at the University of Leeds in the UK. The team formed a company called Xeros and hopes to conquer the American market with this hot new invention.

How does it work? While this product is this in the development phases, essentially what it will do is use little nylon beads (to the right) to capture and lock in stains in the molecular structure of the nylon. This product is said to use less detergent and 90% less water, potentially eliminating the need for dryers. These little beads can even be recycled.

What does this mean? Well the company claims this machine would save 1.2 BILLION TONS of water each year, enough to fill 17 million swimming pools. They also claim "if all US homes converted to the Xeros cleaning system, the reduction in carbon footprint is equivalent to taking 5 million cars off American roads."

If you haven't notices, with these new technologies, I have been focusing on costs. Now how much will this product cost you? Well, since it is still in the development phase, there isn't much about the costs of this new system for washing. However, according to the company website this product, should save some $$, 30% of direct operating costs to be specific (according to the company website). I think the image to the left does a great job at displaying the savings. Not only would this save us as consumers money, but it would save the environment as well which is a pretty sexy thing to be doing these days.

Its hard to see a downside in saving water, energy and money. However, who knows how well these will even work? Considering they are still in the testing phases, it is hard to tell. We'll just have to wait and see.

If you want to learn more about these products visit the Xeros' website.

Powermat: the crazy charger that lets you go cordless

Back to my Technical Entrepreneurship project my group kept telling me about some mat that charges everything without a need to plug in those devices. Having never heard of this, I decided I was going to figure out what all the fuss was about. Essentially, when you plug in this mat that acts as a charging station (with a small price tag of around $75) you can set any device on it to charge, providing you have purchased a Powermat receiver (about $25 on Amazon.com). So for about $100 you will never need to plug  your phone in again? This sounds like the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of. I guess you would never have to worry about loosing your charger but really.. 100 bucks to charge a device?? Obviously someone thinks this thing is worth it because the company is still in business but we will see for how long.

Another concern I have is how much energy do these things take to 1)power themselves-since they are always plugged in and 2) power other devices? I couldn't find much online about their energy consumption but it would seem like this thing could be a power eating machine. What have you guys heard about these things?

To watch a video about what this can do follow this link.