SeaSwarm autonomous oil absorbing robot for cleaning up oil spills

Oils spills have becomes a grave problem across the world in recent times. The major one being the Gulf of Mexico Oil spill which has posed a great threat to the surrounding ecosystem nearly destroying it. A lot of skimmers were deployed after the oil spill to clean up but they are not at all efficient as they can only collect 3% of the total oil spilled onto the sea. They are quite primitive in a sense in this high tech world of ours.

So address to such issues in future, Researchers at MIT from the Senseable City Lab have designed a system called the 'SeaSwarm'.

SeaSwarm is a fleet of autonomous vehicles/robot which makes it possible to clean future oil spills in a efficient and less expensive way than exiting skimming methods.

How it works?

The main thing that makes this prototype work so effectively is the use of a thin nanowire mesh fabric to absorb oil. This nano-material fabric selectively absorbs oil from water without collecting any water. The fabric can then be heated to get back oil absorbed by it. This nano fabric can be used over and over again. This fabric patented/ developed by MIT can absorb 20 times its weight in oil.

World's smallest Solid State Drive (iSSD) from SanDisk

Ultra small devices are all making their way into everyone's pockets. People now a days want more from their portable devices than ever before. The ultra portable device market is expected to grow tremendously in coming years. With that we will need more efficient larger and faster storage solutions.  The ordinary flash storage will not keep up to it.

This past week SanDisk announced the world's smallest integrated Solid State Drive (iSSD) which is the size of a postage stamp! The benefits of SSDs are just amazing, they are faster than any other storage solutions, have no moving parts and run cooler and quieter.The SanDisk iSSD drive is the first flash SSD device to support the industry standard SATA interface. Moreover it is an integrable solution package so it can be just soldered on to any mother-board. This makes it possible for OEMs to produce notebooks, tablets and other ultra portable devices with an amazing combination of thin, lightweight form factors with fast performance.

MobileASL to change the way Deaf and Dumb communicate through cell phones

Mobile Phones are used by almost everybody in the world. But there is a certain group of people for whom cell phones are just useless when it comes to talking, they can only send text messages and Emails, obviously they are the Deaf and Dumb. The only alternative is sign language for them, but that requires video telephony (Video Calling). It requires high speed 3G network connections which is not affordable  for everyone. So the only option is to come up with video compression technology which can be used on standard GPRS networks without a significant drop in video quality so the sign language is still understandable to the person on the other side and not just some random pixels moving on the screen.

That's what a team of engineers lead by Eve Riskin, professor of electrical engineering. at The University of Washington are trying to develop. It is the first device to transmit American Sign Language over U.S. cellular networks its named MobileASL. The whole idea behind this project is to Transmit sign language as efficiently as possible to increase affordability, improves reliability on slower networks and extends battery life, even on devices that might have the capacity to deliver higher quality video. 

TVS Gold Bharat is the first keyboard with Rupee symbol

Last month the New Rupee Symbol was announced to the world and now we even have a prototype keyboard with the rupee symbol etched on it from TVS electronics.

TVS electronics unveiled  the first prototype of the TVS Gold Bharat on the 15 August which will sport the new Rupee symbol placed on the left side button besides "1" or the first key in first line which has the  ~  symbol on it.

Unique Air Shutter Helps Chevrolet Cruze get Fuel economy of 40MPG

With growing fuel costs and problems of global warming that are being faced by our planet, automotive industry is trying its best to create cars and engines that are more fuel efficient. In a recent news release Chevrolet unveiled the working of The Air Shutter system which is going to be used in the much awaited Chevrolet Cruze Eco model giving it a decently good fuel economy of  40MPG or 17 kmpl.

Air Shutter System Working

Greg Fadler, aerodynamics engineering group manager at Chevrolet and his team developed The Air Shutter system to make 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco one of the most fuel efficient small cars on the market achieving almost hybrid like fuel economy without the Hybrid cost and maintenance.

This was achieved by using commonly used techniques of reducing overall weight and ride height to provide it the aerodynamic benefit.

Sharpie Liquid Pencil is a Pencil..no a Pen..no a Marker. What?

When it comes to stationary Pens and Pencils are the most basic things we need to write. Pens have their own advantage and  disadvantages so do Pencils. But how about having something to write with, that only has the advantages of both of them.

That's what popular stationary manufacturer Sharpie has recently come up with. 

Although we have similar products in the past, but Sharpie Liquid Pencil has a lot more to offer.

The Liquid Pencil works on what is called liquid graphite so you have the kind of fluidity and smoothness.

 

Ann Arbor gets its Hydraulic Hybrid Garbage Trucks and How they work

Most of you know that hybrid engine use a combination of an engine and an electric motor. They work by charging batteries while braking, through a process called regenerative braking. But another hybrid technology called the Hydraulic Hybrid System uses pressurized fluid instead of batteries to store energy as an alternative power source. It was developed by The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its partners which include Army’s National Automotive Center, Hannifin Corporation, Eaton Corporation and Ford Motor Company back in 2004.

The technology wasn't much in focus for a long time, it has become more refined over the years. Around a weeks ago the city of  Ann Arbor, Michigan got its first four garbage trucks powered by HLA (Hybrid  Launch Assist) which is a type of Parallel Hydraulic Hybrid System developed by Eaton Corporation, it promises to be 30% more fuel efficient than conventional trucks. Ann Arbor was among the first to receive funding through the U.S. Department of Energy's Clean Cities Program for these Hybrid trucks. It's great news for Hydraulic Hybrid Systems and for its future.

It doesn't matter if Google TV never comes to India.

Google TV is set to revolutionize the world by changing the way people view TV but only a few people know that a device/platform similar to Google TV (GTV) is already out there from a long time.

Where did it come from?

Well an Indian Start-up located in Bangalore established in 2005 by the name NextBiT Computing already created what is called  TVeeBox. Vishal Borker, CEO and technical director of TVeeBox says 

"It is a device which is one of the first to be truly convergent says , NextBiT Computing".

NextBiT Computing has created a patented technology  named MODYA video-on-demand server architecture and middle ware technology which allows to deliver video on demand content and services over networks at just  3% of the infrastructure costs and bandwidth, which has been a problem for traditional VOD service providers.

Stanford engineers devolope a new type of solar cell

Solar cells also known as photo voltaic cells have been around for a long time, despite being used on space station programs and satellites to produce energy they never found a substantial application for energy production for our daily life. The major reason is that the energy output from solar cells is very low.

Solar energy actually has two forms of energy light and heat. Solar cells only utilize the light energy leaving a major past of heat energy unused.

No one could figure out how to tap both forms of energy until now. In fact with the current available photovoltaic technology used,  heat actually reduced the efficiency of a solar cell. But now Engineering from Stanford have figured it out! Both light and heat of the sun can be utilized to generate electricity which could make solar power production more than twice as efficient as existing methods and potentially cheap enough to compete with oil.

Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 official release date announced

Microsoft in its latest press release announced the official release of the awaited Microsoft Office for Mac 2011. It is scheduled to hit the shelf by the end of October 2010 later this year. Microsoft office suite will be available internationally in more than 100 countries.

It will be available in two version, Mac Home and Student 2011 and Office for Mac Home and Business 2011. In addition starting 1st August 2010, All customers who purchase Office 2008 for Mac will be given free upgrade to Office 2011 at no additional cost through the Microsoft Office for Mac Technology Guarantee Program.
The office suite will be available in 13 languages which include German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish two new languages Polish and Russian have also been added. More languages will be announced in October.