BodyHeat
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The PowerWatch is a body heat-powered smartwatch that does very little
One of the biggest problems with smartwatches is avoiding a dead battery. Whether it's forgetting to plug them in in time or having to fiddle with the unwieldy magnetic disk chargers, keeping a wearable juiced up is not as convenient as it should be. With that in mind, startup Matrix Industries devised a way to harness our body heat to power smartwatches, and its technology is making its debut in the PowerWatch. I had a chance to try out an early prototype of the device, and though it did indeed work, it only offered very basic functions.
This tiny generator can power wearable devices using your body heat
Many wearables have decent enough battery life, but you know what'll make them even better? If we never have to recharge them at all. That's why researchers have been developing small power sources that can generate electricity using body heat, including a team from the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. This particular group has designed a new light and flexible generator made out of thermoelectric (TE) substances printed on glass fabric. It's far from being the first TE generator out there, but it's a huge departure from the usual bulky and rigid ones. As team leader Byung Jin Cho said: This is quite a revolutionary approach to design a generator. In so doing, we were able to significantly reduce the weight of our generator, which is an essential element for wearable electronics.
Airbus' plane of the future will harvest energy from passengers, earn Agent Smith's approval (video)
Airbus has been consulting its crystal ball recently and its findings have now been shared with the world in the shape of a new concept plane. Looking entirely detached from the economic and physical realities we know today, this futuristic people carrier includes auto-morphing seats that adjust to your size and shape and also harvest excess heat you produce. How is this achieved? Smart materials is all we're told, leaving us to use our imagination to fill in the gaping blanks. Eschewing the usual class system, this Airbus concept instead offers three functionally distinct areas: a Smart Tech Zone at the back is the closest to what we're used to today, an Interaction Zone in the middle uses holograms to help you relax or conduct some mission-critical meetings in flight, and a Vitalising Zone up front is where more "bio-morphing" seats will provide you with massage or acupuncture treatments. The ceiling in that front part of the plane can also be turned transparent, letting you soak up the panorama (and get a good tan while you're at it). You can see and hear more about it in the videos after the break.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: robot cars, solar winds and the DeLorean EV
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. In case you missed it yesterday, the big green tech news of the week rolled in last night with the announcement of Google's top-secret robot car project, which has been deploying and testing self-driving robot cars on the streets of California over the past several months! (Engadget covered it here). It's also been a big week in general for green transportation announcements, as several supercharged electric vehicles hit the streets last week: the Delorean EV took us back to the future and SiGNa Chemistry unveiled an electric bike that runs on water. Finally, from the realm of tomorrow we brought you the future of moving house: strapping your home to an enormous balloon and lifting off for the skies. This week solar power also lit up the newswires as President Obama announced plans to deck out the White House with photovoltaics this coming spring and scientists proclaimed that interstellar solar winds could provide 100 billion times the Earth's energy needs. We were also wowed by a dog park powered by poo in Cambridge, and we can't wait to get our hands on this new copper-covered Nokia phone that recharges its battery using body heat. Speaking of eco gadgetry, we also showcased a set of gorgeous wooden wristwatches, and the world's first iPhone 4 cover made of plants. Green lighting was also a hot topic this week as scientists created a new type of glowing nano LED and we spotted an array of luminous lamps made from salt at the London Design Festival. We also learned how a wireless router scored a date for one lucky Inhabitat writer, and how Inhabitat editor Jill's solar-powered backpack has been a real conversation starter. See, green gadgets can help you make friends and influence people!
Inhabitat's Week in Green: nuclear power, body heat electronics, and Greener Gadgets
The Week in Green is a new item from our friends at Inhabitat, recapping the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us. The past week saw several big developments in the energy industry as President Obama announced $8 Billion in loan guarantees for the construction of the first new nuclear plants in 30 years. Nuclear energy is basically emission free, which is a good thing - but what about all of that radioactive waste? Enter GE Hitachi, who announced a system capable of transforming nuclear waste into fuel. Meanwhile our friends in Norway are charging ahead with plans to build the world's largest wind turbine, and we're feeling a bit jealous of those forward-thinking Scandinavians. We also saw signs of the inevitable cyborg uprising as researchers unveiled energy generating gadgets that may one day be implanted within our bodies. MIT is working on a range of heat harvesting electronics that could power biomedical devices such as heart rate and blood sugar monitors. Meanwhile, the University of Michigan has developed an energy recycling prosthetic foot that makes walking easier for amputees. Even the planet is getting wired, as HP gets set to roll out its Central Nervous System for the Earth -- an array of billions of sensors that are paving the way for smarter cities, healthier humans, and the "Internet of Things". Finally we took a look at two more entries from the Greener Gadgets Design Competition that will be taking the stage next Thursday for live judging: an energy generating glider lounge for public spaces and bass-kicking subwoofer made from recycled car tires.
Researchers hope to charge up gadgetry with body heat
We've heard of firms tinkering with the idea of converting excess heat directly to energy, and apparently, a team of scientists from the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have done just that. Oddly enough, the researchers admit that they're still unclear on how their findings actually work, but they've nevertheless discovered how to increase the conversion efficiency of converting waste heat to energy "by a factor of 100." The authors of the report suggest that clothing constructed of material embedded with thermoelectric modules could one day "recharge mobile electronic devices off the heat of one's body," and while we're certainly stoked about the idea, we're already conjuring up awful images in our minds about what this garb will actually look like.[Via textually, image courtesy of FourEyesJokeShop]
IMEC reveals wireless EEG headband, Geordi La Forge approves
Make no mistake about it, if Geordi La Forge ever needed a wireless EEG system, this would be atop his list. Developed by IMEC, the same folks who brought us the wireless ECG patch, this wearable contraption enables brain wave monitoring sans the use of batteries. Rather, it relies on body heat dissipated naturally from the forehead for power, which allows it to "operate completely autonomous and maintenance-free." The entire rig consumes just 0.8mW of energy, and it utilizes the company's proprietary biopotential readout ASIC to extract EEG signals, which are then encoded and beamed to a PC via a 2.4GHz wireless radio. As for applications, IMEC is apparently hoping that this creation can be used to detect certain kinds of brain trauma, monitor brain activity and draw all kinds of unwanted attention.[Via MedGadget]
