Techie Tuesday: Particles and Waves

Alx Cahiz — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:30:13 +0000

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND (Team Geared Up) - When you are packing a bag for an extended outdoor trip what is one of the main things you remember to bring? A flashlight. And when does that flashlight suddenly run out of juice? Exactly when you need it most! So how would you like to have a flashlight that lasts pretty much your entire lifetime without ever needing to be recharged? Sounds like a fairytale? Well it may not be. Newly developed micro LEDs will last up to 80 years on a single charge!!! William Henry is applications specialist at Ireland’s Tyndall National Institute who is the brains behind the project. One of the researchers on the project had one running constantly for two-and-a-half years on his desk. Now this is still a ways away from consumer level application and larger hand/head torch level lights would last only 5 years on one charge but the technology does exist. If this were applied to home lighting you could say goodbye to more than half of your electrical bill right there! via New Launches

Next up we have a Japanese inventor who found a way to use the raw kinetic energy of the ocean to to provide means of powering a boat. Yutaka Terao has developed the latest in a long running series of vessels that use the eco friendly propulsion of waves.

The Suntory Mermaid II uses a pair of movable fins mounted under the bow to generate forward propulsion using dolphin like kicks. While the maximum speed is a modest 5 knots, this shouldn’t bother the Mermaid II’s 69 year old skipper Kenichi Horie, as he attempts to sail 4,350 miles from Hawaii to Japan later this month. Let’s just hope that he remembers to turn off the left turn signal after pulling out of port.

Although the vessel isn’t breaking any speed records having this system equipped on a boat with an engine or sail could be handy if they main method of propusion is somehow damaged or lost. It would be interesting if this could also be applied to large scale vessels like yachts or even tankers. via Treehugger

-Alx-

Princeton Tec FUEL Headlamp: Light Grafitti

Robin Blandford — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:41:37 +0000

SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - I got an email today from Princeton Tec. ~~It has the look of a mass-mail~~ (It was a direct mail), but I figured it’s worth posting as it’s a cool advertisement for their new Headlamp the FUEL. They have a blog at LivingOnTheDash.com.

Hi guys,

Love the blogâ€¦ we (Princeton Tec and our friends) had some fun with a lite graffiti video for our little FUEL headlamp. Really â€“ just thought you guys might get a kick out of itâ€¦

Anyway â€“ keep up the good work.

Thank â€“ Gerard

How’d they do that with just their headlamp?

â€œThe method used is known as light grafitti. Itâ€™s basically stop motion animation using flashlights, headlamps, a still camera, a camera flash, and some extremely patient friends. To say itâ€™s time consuming is an understatement.â€

Bascially, long exposures and individual shots peiced together to get to the end result - really - pretty amazing stuff.

Princeton - send us over a ‘Princeton Tec FUEL’ headlamp and we’ll get a review up.

-Robin-

Team Geared Up » headtorch

Techie Tuesday: Particles and Waves

Princeton Tec FUEL Headlamp: Light Grafitti