Tag: Power
VIDEO: Energy & Efficiency, episode 11
LCD, plasma, CRT, OLED – whatever television technology you currently use, they all have one thing in common – they use loads of electricity. Sure, it’s great having the light and company on these cold winter evenings, but at what price? Too much!
So, here I’ll show you how to watch TV for FREE. You save energy, the world carries on for a bit longer before becoming a burned-out husk full of cockroaches and everyone gets to enjoy guilt-free, environmentally-sound television.
This system works best if you live in a packed area of low-rise housing…
O2 launches universal, enviromental phone charger
This is the ‘Universal Charger’, which O2 will be selling in its high street shops. It kills two birds with one stone – firstly the annoyance of trying to find the right charger on some dodgy market stall if you happen to lose yours, and secondly, the annoyance of not being able to charge your phone in someone else’s house.
O2’s also touting the energy-efficient nature of the device. It consumes 70 percent less power than a standard mobile phone charger, and meets the strict energy efficient guidelines of the US Energy Star rating system. If every single phone in use in the UK was charged with one of these, it would save the country nearly £31.4 million, and cut the carbon emissions of the equivalent of 36,000 cars.
Ardica Portable Power – warmth and charging on the go
This is quite nifty – a company called Ardica have created a combo gadget that simultaneously charges your gadgets and warms your cockles. They’re calling it a “portable power and heating system”. Basically, it’s a wearable power pack.
You’ll need a “compatible” jacket to take advantage of the heating. That’s the first time I’ve ever worried about whether my jacket is “compatible” with anything before. You’ll get 3 hours of high heat out of it, and 8.6 hours of low heat. They reckon the device will provide heat up to 100 degrees, which i’m hoping is Fahrenheit, rather than Celsius. Or Kelvin, for that matter…
IXOS XHP280 AV PowerStation – surge protection for AV enthusiasts
The remarkably colourful IXOS XHP280 AV PowerStation Mains Surge Protector is pictured above. It’s basically insurance. For a one-off payment of £70, your thousands of pounds of audio equipment will survive a lightning strike on your mains with no ill effects…
Powergorilla and Solargorilla juice up your laptop on the move
Powergorilla is a brilliantly named product from Powertraveller. It’s basically a big ol’ battery, which you plug your laptop into, and it’ll charge your laptop’s onboard battery for you. A fully charged Powergorilla will give you two to six extra hours of laptop battery…
Turning roads into solar collectors – why has no-one thought of this before?
Roads get really hot. Really really hot. But 2cm below the surface of the road gets hotter still, and some researchers at Worcester Polytechnic University reckon that we could use that heat in power generation…
Intel demos wireless electricity – magnetism used to avoid frying human flesh
It’s another entry in our occasional Future Made Real series, this time concerning fantasy sci-fi invention #261 – wireless electricity.
For some reason it’s chip-maker Intel that’s the latest company to show off some wireless electric kit, managing to power a 60 Watt light bulb (how energy inefficient of it) from a distance of three feet. That’s 90cm, if you’re reading this in the Benelux regions or France…
The Orange "Dance Charge" – power your mobile through motion
The Orange Dance Charge is a motion-powered kinetic charger full of magnets and weights, designed to keep your phone juiced-up simply from the movement of your arms. How many words do you think we’ll get into this update before resorting to crude references to masturbation?
We’re not particularly excited about what’s clearly a novelty item designed to generate a bit of publicity during the UK’s festival season and help Orange make a token effort to look like it’s a “green” company, but you sort of have to use awesome promotional photographs like this:
It weighs a teeny 180grams…
Titanic builder diversifying WILDLY by setting up world's best tidal electricity system
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Northern Ireland has just surged ahead in the sustainable energy world-saving race, thanks to the efforts of Harland & Wolff – the very same Harland & Wolff of Titanic fame.
The shipbuilder has engineered what it believes is the biggest tidal power system in the world today, with the its SeaGen setup capable of pumping out 1.2 megawatts – enough to keep the PCs and TVs on in around 1000 homes…
Mucking about with the revolving door creates free electricity
Continuing today’s impromptu self-powering theme we have this from Fluxxlab. It’s a method of generating power for your home – or someone else’s office – by fitting a little charger to a revolving door.
So as you and your gerbil-like friends and employees turn the door, a flood of free electricity charges up all your batteries and keeps your stuff switched on for free…
