Clinton Advises Turning Black Rooftops White to Reduce Energy Use and Unemployment
Houses having a white rooftop may seem too mediterranean to some, but I guess the Greeks knew what they were doing when they painted them so. A recently published article in Newsweek shares Bill Clinton's advices on how to reduce unemployment in America. One of them is painting black rooftops in white.
New Low-Speed Wi-Fi Technology Could Help Smart Grids Evolve Faster
A company called On-Ramp Wireless invented a technology that uses the same frequencies Wi-Fi network cards use, but modulates the signal in such a manner that it doesn't get distorted by noise, such as the surrounding networks. On the contrary, the Ultra-Link Processing technology can send signals to up to 45 miles and even uses much less power to do that, enabling savings in what concerns both energy and equipment deployed on the field by utilities.
Delft Student Invents Presence-Triggered Street Lighting System, Saves Power
A simple energy saving tip for everyone would be to turn off anything they don't use - the first thing that comes to mind are the lights. A student from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has invented a street presence sensor system that dims street lights down to 20 percent when nobody's around.
Light Harvesting Nanoantennas Made With Plant DNA and Artificial Molecules
A University of Toronto research team has reported the first time construction of what they call "artificial molecules." These molecules have been inspired by photosynthesis and use nanotechnology to harvest sunlight.
New Inkjet-Printed Antenna Harnesses Energy of Wideband Radio Frequencies
Manos Tentzeris, a researcher from the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering has invented a new type of antenna that could make harnessing the energy of otherwise wasted radio waves more easy and could yield a higher efficiency on a broader range of frequencies.
NASA Forward Osmosis Bag Transforms Urine Into Drinking Water
If you ever saw Bear Grylls and his gross pee-drinking desert adventure, then you know you shouldn't drink that liquid (mostly when it's hot like soup and stinks like nothing else on Earth). NASA has nevertheless discovered a solution to this "problem" by inventing a bag that filters anything, from pee to dirty water and transforms it into a drinkable liquid.
Microsoft Hohm and Google PowerMeter Closing Their Power Saving Services
It looks like the world doesn't care much about saving electricity, when gasoline is way more expensive and companies like Google or Microsoft are even thinking of charging their users for saving that power. The conclusion: Microsoft and Google have both decided that it's time to end their Hohm and Power Meter services, reasoning that they didn't have much success on the market, even if offered as free.
Grad Student Finds Better WiFi Management That Could Save Power
Since its appearance on mobile devices, the Wi-Fi technology has been draining the battery of Windows Mobile, iOS and Android phones continuously. The drain is due to the fact that the more wireless devices are within an area, the more they need to be awake to make data transfers, since so-called "collisions" between them appear all the time.
New Graphite-Coated "Super Sand" Filters Water Much More Efficiently
With much of the world still lacking access to safe drinking water, the need for more efficient filtration systems is higher than ever. Wei Gao, from Rice University in Texas, has however invented a graphite-coated type of sand that is cheap to produce and much more effective at filtering water.
Voltaic Spark: 8-Watt Solar Powered Carrying Case for iPads and Other Gadgets
I've been writing about Nokia testing a solar powered version of one of their cellphones just the other day, and thought it's a pretty stupid idea to apply solar cells on phones since they're kept mostly inside pockets, and they aren't transparent. Today I found out that a company called Voltaic is releasing a solar powered carrying case for tablets - the Spark.
