Engadget RSS Feed

Inhabitat's Week in Green: Bicymple, computer-age fossils and an underground mushroom tunnel

Inhabitat — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 10:00:00 -0400

Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green.

We tend to look to green designers and architects to inspire us and reshape our understanding of what's possible, and this week we've seen plenty of visionary green designs over at Inhabitat. First, JM Schivo & Associati unveiled ambitious plans for "Earth City," a futuristic green city that would be entirely powered by renewable energy. Then, inspired by NYC's High Line, Fletcher Priest won the Green Infrastructure Ideas Competition with his proposal for an underground mushroom tunnel beneath the streets of London. At the World Architecture Festival, Nikken Sekkei took home the sustainable building award for its evaporative cooling bioskin building in Tokyo, and science fans successfully purchased Nikola Tesla's old Long Island workshop to turn it into a museum.

Filed under: Misc, Science

Comments

The Oatmeal does it: $850,000 raised for a Tesla Museum

Daniel Cooper — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 10:26:00 -0400

The Oatmeal's campaign to raise cash helping Tesla Science Center purchase Wardenclyffe has hit its $850,000 target. The property, formerly the home of the scientist's project to create wireless electricity can now be purchased with a matching grant from New York state. The charity is planning to build a museum on its original foundations, in a fitting tribute to the "Greatest Geek who ever lived."

Filed under: Misc, Science, Alt

Comments

Campaign to build Nikola Tesla museum hits $500k in less than 48 hours, hopes to raise $850k

Donald Melanson — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 15:47:00 -0400

Nikola Tesla may not have gotten all the credit he was due in his lifetime, but his stature has grown considerably since, and many of the inventions he dreamed up are now finding new life in today's technology. Now, a new effort is underway to truly cement his place in history -- even moreso than having David Bowie play him in a movie. Two days ago, Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal comic strip launched an Indiegogo campaign to help fund a Tesla museum at the site of Nikola Tesla's laboratory in Shoreham, New York, and it's now already raised over $500,000. That money will go directly to the non-profit Tesla Science Center, which has been attempting to buy the property for $1.6 million, half of which will be covered by a matching grant from the state of New York (meaning the goal for the campaign is $850,000, although anything raised above that will go toward the actual building of the museum). As Inman notes, however, even raising "just" $850k will ensure that the property isn't sold to someone else and demolished, as others have been looking to do. Those interested in contributing can find all the details at the links below.

Filed under: Science, Alt

Comments

MIT researchers demonstrate more efficient wireless power

Donald Melanson — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:13:00 -0400

MIT researchers have been working on wireless power longer than most (Nikola Tesla aside), and it looks like they've now made a somewhat surprising discovery that could lead to more efficient wireless power. In addition to reducing the size of the transmitters and receives used in their system to something approaching practical, the researchers found that the system's efficiency at transmitting energy increased "significantly" if multiple devices are charged at the same time. What's more, while the amount of power transmitted in the latest experiment only amounted to 100 watts, MIT's André Kurs says that is only limited by the amplifier used for the transmitting coil, adding that the system could easily "feed power to a medium-sized room and power a dozen devices."

Comments

D.I.Y. wireless power project unleashes your inner mad scientist

Joseph L. Flatley — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:28:00 -0400

Before he was the patron saint of electric cars and GPUs, Nikola Tesla invented the AC motor, the Tesla coil (or, as he called it, the "coil"), and demonstrated that power could be transferred wirelessly. A hundred-plus years later, companies like Solaren Corp are angling to beam electricity down to earth from outer space -- quite possibly solving our energy crisis with science fiction means that would even make ol' Nicky T. look twice. But why should the big companies have all the fun? You too can experiment with wireless power, albeit on a significantly smaller scale, with merely a square wave generator, some coiled wire, a 60 watt bulb, and a few other low priced thingamabobs. Don't believe us? Hit that read link and see for yourself.

[Via Make]

Filed under: Science

Comments