Trying to lower your utility bill? Maybe it's time you talked to a motor company -- Ford is on the warpath to reduce energy consumption. In a collaborative effort with SunPower Eaton and Whirlpool Ford is trying to show the world how it can drastically lower its electricity bills through the use of technology. The effort is called MyEnergi Lifestyle, and according to a model cooked up by the Georgia Institute of Technology, its energy-saving tricks could reduce the energy costs of an average single family home by as much as 60-percent. If every home in the U.S. got with the program, Ford explains, it would be like taking every home in California, New York and Texas off the grid.

The team's ideas incorporate a wide range of technology -- though much of it works around using utilities during off-peak hours. Dishwashers and water heaters that are programmed to do most of their high energy tasks at night, for instance, or Ford's Value charging system, which leverages a cloud database to charge electric vehicles when utility rates are at their lowest. Solar power and other renewable energy sources can augment off-peak use too, further reducing energy costs.

For now, it's a lot of talk and computer models -- but the companies involved are ready to put their money where their mouths are. In order to create a real-world model, MyEnergi Lifestyle is planning to launch a contest awarding one lucky family an energy efficient home makeover. Details on the promotion haven't been announced yet, but winners would presumably be outfit with enough technology to recreate the Georgia Institute of Technology's model on a real power bill. The team plans to showcase some of its ideas at CES throughout the week, but you can get the gist of it now by skimming the press release after the break.

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One of the last times we saw the concept of a self-recharging battery, it was part of a high-minded Nokia patent whose ideas still haven't seen the light of day. Researchers at Georgia Tech are more inclined to put theory into practice. Starting from a regular lithium-ion coin battery, the team has replaced the usual divider between electrodes with a polyvinylidene difluoride film whose piezoelectric nature produces a charging action inside that gap through just a little pressure, with no outside voltage required to make the magic happen. The developers have even thumbed their noses at skeptics by very literally walking the walk -- slipping the test battery under a shoe sole gives it a proper dose of energy with every footstep. At this stage, the challenge mostly involves ramping up the maximum power through upgrades such as more squeezable piezoelectrics. Georgia Tech hasn't progressed so far as to have production plans in mind; it's nonetheless close enough that we could see future forms of wearable computing that rarely need an electrical pick-me-up.

Filed under: Wearables, Science

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The nanobot war is escalating. Not content to let Penn State's nanospiders win the day, Georgia Tech has answered back with a noticeably less creepy blood-swimming robot model of its own, whose look is more that of a fish than any arachnid this time around. It still uses material changes to exert movement -- here exposing hydrogels to electricity, heat, light or magnetism -- but Georgia Tech's method steers the 10-micron trooper to its destination through far more innocuous-sounding flaps. Researchers' goals are still as benign as ever, with the goal either to deliver drugs or to build minuscule structures piece-by-piece. The catch is that rather important mention of a "model" from earlier: Georgia Tech only has a scientifically viable design to work from and needs someone to build it. Should someone step up, there's a world of potential from schools of tiny swimmers targeting exactly what ails us.

Filed under: Science

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We've seen a good number of electronic gloves before, and now researchers at Georgia Tech have devised one to rehabilitate patients who suffer from paralyzing spinal cord injuries while teaching them how to tickle the ivories. Christened Mobile Music Touch, the black mitt pairs with a keyboard and cues individual fingers with vibrations to play notes. The handgear also buzzes constantly for several hours to stimulate recovery while users go about their day, similar to another yellowjacket-developed solution. After treatment, some patients could pick up objects and feel textures they hadn't been able to -- especially remarkable since, according to the university, little improvement is typically seen a year after injuries are sustained. Folks who learned to play the piano with the device also experienced better results than those who did without it. Project leader Dr. Tanya Markow believes that the rehab's success could be caused by renewed brain activity that sometimes lies dormant. For the full skinny, head past the break for the press release and a video of the gauntlet in action.

[Thanks, Timothy]

Filed under: Science

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For years, atomic clocks have been considered the most accurate devices for tracking the slow march towards obsolescence, a subatomic particle vibrating a given number of times per second with relatively few issues. Now the reliability crown might be passed to the nuclear clock, which in addition to sounding gnarly, could prove to be less susceptible to errors from outside stimuli. It goes like this: although an atomic clock will measure a certain number of vibrations per second, external forces such as ambient electric and magnetic fields affect the electrons used in atomic clocks, causing mishaps. The particles used in nuclear clocks that are measured for vibrations -- and thus timekeeping -- can be excited with a relatively low-energy ultraviolet light, allowing for fewer variations from the aforementioned fields. To wit, Corey Campbell and colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta have devised a scheme that uses lasers to carefully control the spatial orientation of the electron orbits in atoms. A nuclear clock containing a thorium nucleus controlled in this way would drift by just one second in 200 billion years, the team claims. Before nuclear clocks become a reality, researchers must identify the precise frequency of light needed to excite thorium nuclei; but this is what grad students are for, right?

[Image credit: University of Colorado / Science Daily]

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