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Green House's lantern runs on salt and water, powers your gadgets via USB
Japanese company Green House Co Ltd has quite an eclectic product portfolio, what with its women-only camcorder and peripherals like a PCI Express interface card with USB 3.0 support. Its latest device falls under another category entirely: the rivetingly named GH-LED10WBW is an LED lantern that runs on just water and salt; no batteries required. The light source provides eight hours of electricity per dose of saline water, and the lantern comes with a dedicated water bag for mixing the solution. The salt / water combo acts as an electrolyte with the magnesium (negative electrode) and carbon (positive electrode) rods inside the lantern. Users can get about 120 hours of power with the Mg rod before they'll need to buy a replacement (the rod is sold separately to begin with). More than just supplying a battery-free source of light, though, the lantern can function as a charger, thanks to a USB port built into the casing. Pricing has yet to be announced, but the GH-LED10WBW will be available by mid-September.
GE concocts battery-free RFID sensing platform, possibilities abound
Remember when RFID was the next big thing? When the world couldn't wait to have their luggage easily tracked at every airport? And when supply chain managers were all set to kick back and let these little tags do all the dirty work? Outside of a few exceptions, the wireless tags haven't really lived up to the hype thus far, but GE Global Research is doing its darnedest to change that by eliminating a few of the biggest drawbacks. Reportedly, the outfit has developed a battery-free RFID sensing platform -- one that can provide a highly selective response to multiple chemicals under variable conditions -- which could enable a "wide range of low-cost wireless sensing products in industries like healthcare, security, food packaging, etc." Put simply, the tags get their power from the sensor reader, which activates the tag's antenna and the RFID chip to collect meaningful data. There's no word on when these will leave the lab, but the sooner the better, we say.[Via Gizmag]
