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The UK wants every new home to come with an EV charger
The UK has big plans to eliminate sales of new gasoline- and diesel-powered cars by 2040. Electric vehicles (EVs) are the key to making that work, but the required chargers are few and far between. Today, the government is unveiling a proposal requiring new homes, street light posts and businesses to have charging points. It will reportedly boost that with a £400 million ($530 million) fund for companies that produce and install EV chargers.
Nissan is using recycled Leaf batteries to power street lights
Nissan is using old Leaf batteries in a very meta way: To power streetlights that will make roads safer for vehicles and pedestrians. Called "The Light Reborn," it uses a solar panel that charges up a battery, which can then power the LED at night with no external connection required. Nissan is testing the product today in Namie, Japan -- a city that was abandoned after the Fukushima nuclear disaster -- and plans to do a full-scale installation in the town later this year.
AT&T's smart streetlights can smooth traffic, detect gunshots
AT&T first unveiled its ambitious "Smart Cities" program at CES 2017 in Las Vegas, but now we have an idea as to how it's going to work. The telecom has signed a deal with GE to install its Current CityIQ sensors into streetlights in various cities and municipalities around the US, starting with San Diego. The aim is to not just provide more intelligent lighting, but also monitor things like traffic circulation, parking spots, air quality, weather emergencies and even gunshots
BMW's new street lights will charge your electric car
Street lights are already brimming with electricity, so it stands to reason that they'd make great charging points for electric cars, doesn't it? BMW certainly thinks so. It has developed Light and Charge LED street lights that could keep your EV topped up (Beemer or otherwise) using existing urban infrastructure instead of dedicated power outlets and charging stations. It should be cheaper for cities to implement, of course, but it could also take a lot of the anxiety out of driving a gas-free vehicle -- you could theoretically park on any street knowing that your car will have more energy when you come back.
Your eco-friendly LED lights are drawing an awful lot more moths
Blue-light emitting LED bulbs have taken off with consumers because they have few downsides -- they're bright, use far less energy and last much longer than other types. In fact, the inventors just won a Nobel Prize, proving their huge benefit to consumers and society. But it now appears there's a teeny issue: flying insects. Scientists in New Zealand tested blue-light LEDs (which look white due to a phosphor coating) against regular yellow-hued sodium-vapor streetlights. The result? The LEDs attracted nearly 50 percent more insects, regardless of the brand and type used. While that could be a pain for your next porch party, there's a more serious downside. The researchers said that when used on city street lamps, the bulbs could interfere with the food chain and even draw invasive species like gypsy moths. [Image credit: swburdine/Flickr]
ARM forms UK group to foster an Internet of Things, put 50 billion devices online by 2020
ARM isn't content with dominating the mobile space. It's been by the far the most vocal about an Internet of Things where everything is connected -- and to make that happen, it just established an industry forum in the UK that it hopes will establish common ground for all those internet-linked light bulbs, refrigerators and thermostats. Home energy firm Alertme, cloud-aware sensing outfit AquaMW, lighting maker EnLight and white space wireless guru Neul will start meeting with ARM from August 24th onwards to hash out our automated, eco-friendly future. There's a certain urgency in this for the chip designer: it expects 50 billion devices on the grid by 2020. With IDC estimating a billion new connected devices just in 2011, the clock on that connected device transition is ticking very loudly.
Luxim wants to brighten your block with ultra-powerful plasma lightbulbs
Sure, we all enjoy a Tic Tac from time to time, but what if that minty Tic Tac were also able to generate the same amount of light as an industrial LED? You probably wouldn't want to ingest that, though according to the company Luxim -- known to us for its work in the A/V world -- you might want to stick it in a streetlight. Apparently, the company has created a micro-sized bulb that uses 250 watts of power, but outperforms a 400 watt LED. Gas inside the tiny bulb is electrified by a component called a puck, which heats the gas into plasma and produces light, allowing a sizable chunk of energy to become light rather than heat -- thus the ultra-bright performance. Inside the mint-sized bulb the gas reaches 6000-degrees Kelvin -- or about the surface temperature of the Sun -- producing 140 lumens per watt, or roughly ten times that of a standard lightbulb. Really, it's quite bright. Still, a Tic Tac would probably be more refreshing.[Via CNET]
