Lifeboat Foundation

What is ideally needed is a bulk electricity storage device which is scalable to gig watt, which is reliable, efficient and economically viable, but more importantly, it should be environmentally friendly. One such promising technology on the horizon with a capability to compete with pumped hydro and gas turbines for peaking and immediate power generation is storing energy by gravity.

A gravity storage system consist of a pair of two deep shafts one large, and the other smaller in diameter connected at the top and bottom, forming a closed formed circuit via a reversible pumpturbine, as seen in Figure 1. The shafts are filled with water, which acts as a medium for energy transfer, and the bigger shaft is fitted with a huge steel piston filled with reinforced rock and concrete. The whole device operates on the simple action of vertical motion of piston.

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“Solve is a cross-disciplinary program led by MIT to convene the people and organizations that are addressing the world’s most pressing challenges in healthcare, energy, the environment, education, food & water, civil infrastructure and the economy.”

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A British tech company has come up with a new way of powering wearables and smart home devices: a device called the Freevolt, which can harvest the ambient energy from radio waves and turn it into a small amount of electricity for low-energy gadgets to tap into.

As CNET reports, this level of energy can’t keep a smartphone running, but it could be enough to power that remote sensor on your garden gate. If sensors and beacons have a wireless energy source plus wireless connectivity, it opens up more possibilities for kitting out our homes and gardens with these kind of devices.

“Companies have been researching how to harvest energy from Wi-Fi, cellular, and broadcast networks for many years,” Drayton Technologies CEO and chairman, Lord Drayson, said in a press statement. “But it is difficult, because there is only a small amount of energy to harvest and achieving the right level of rectifying efficiency has been the issue — up until now. For the first time, we have solved the problem of harvesting usable energy from a small radio frequency signal.”

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“A living being, but not alive.” The Dutchman artist Theo Jansen creates these structures which move through the strength of the winds. He uses wood, PET bottles and rags to transform wind energy in a synchronized motion that looks like their creations have a life of its own! Sensational!

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Advance could make flow batteries cheaper and easier to build.

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Calculations show that if the wormhole’s throat is orders of magnitude longer then the width of its mouth, it does indeed create Casimir energy at its centre.

Cambridge Physicists Find Wormhole Proof:-Physicists at the University of Cambridge have established a theoretical groundwork for the reality of wormholes, which are pipes that join two different points in space-time. If a part of information or physical object could pass through the wormhole, it might open the door to time travel or immediate communication through huge distances. “But there’s a problem: Einstein’s wormholes are extremely unsteady, and they don’t stay open long enough for something to pass over.” In 1988, physicists reached the deduction that a type of negative energy called Casimir energy might keep wormholes open.

The hypothetical solution established at Cambridge has to do with the properties of quantum energy, which conveys that even vacuums are teaming by means of waves of energy. If you visualize two metal plates in a vacuum, some waves of energy would be excessively big enogh to fit between the plates, meaning that the space-time among the plates would have negative energy. “Under the right circumstances, could the tube-like shape of the wormhole itself generate Casimir energy? Calculations show that if the wormhole’s throat is orders of magnitude longer then the width of its mouth, it does indeed create Casimir energy at its centre.”

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Sick of waiting an hour for your phone to charge before you leave the house? Researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have come up with the best solution yet — a lithium ion battery that charges to 70 percent in just two minutes.

Even better, it also lasts for 20 years, and will reportedly be available to the public within two years.

Rechargeable lithium ion batteries are already common in our mobile phones, tablets and laptops — but most only last around 500 recharge cycles, which is around two to three years of typical use. And at the moment batteries take around two hours to fully charge.

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While many companies are tinkering with lasers, ultrasound and even arm muscles for touchless gesture control on portable devices and desktop PCs, Japan’s 16Lab just wants to put a pretty ring on you. The yet-to-be-named titanium wearable is designed by the award-winning Manabu Tago, and it features ALPS Electric’s tiny module (5.05 × 5.65 × 2.5 mm) that somehow manages to pack Bluetooth Smart radio, movement sensor, environment sensor plus antennas — there’s a video demo after the break. Despite its custom-made 10mAh lithium polymer cell, 16Lab is aiming for at least 20 hours of battery life. This is possible mainly because you have to place your thumb on the top pad (with the ring’s wedge pointing away from the user) to enable the sensors — upon which point the ring vibrates to confirm that it’s active. It’s then just a matter of waving and tilting your hand until you’re done.

Gallery | 13 Photos.

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Touchless gestures powered by ultrasound has become a mark of distinction for Elliptic Labs. The company has new “Multi Layer Interaction” technology designed to bring users intuitive device interactions.

Without touching the device, the person’s hand moves towards the smartphone, the screen lights up and information is displayed. As the person continues moving the hand closer, different information is revealed. With users constantly, frequently, eagerly reaching for their devices throughout the day, Elliptic Labs aims to make a difference in its easy and fast way to get information, from playing games to navigating maps, to using social media, to watching videos. A promotional video says the user can interact above, in front, underneath, double-tapping anywhere around the device, easily turning the device on and off as well. There is an SDK kit for applications. How it works: Ultrasound signals sent through the air from speakers integrated in smartphones and tablets bounce against the hand and are recorded by microphones integrated in the devices. As such, the technology recognizes hand gestures and uses them to move objects on the screen, similar to how bats use echolocation to navigate.

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