Solar Wind Powered Vehicle - First Energy Autonomous Production Car

Every car company in America, and most of the rest of the world, thinks they are going "green". This is the first sample I've seen of a car company truly producing an environmentally friendly car. The French company, Venturi, produce three vehicles; a completely electric sports car, a solar electric hybrid, and this, the first autonomous energy vehicle. It's capable of running exclusively on solar and wind energy. Solar energy is actually captured as vehicle drives. While parked the vehicle can capture wind energy and solar. In emergencies, you can plug in the vehicle and obtain a full charge in only five hours.

While it certainly isn't the solution for all of our energy concerns, and frankly, it isn't sexy, it is the first production car that could run completely exclusive of fossil fuel. Additionally, the company is carbon neutral so even the production of the vehicle is offset.

They are currently producing 20 units as demonstrators. Starting in March of 2008 they will produce 200 more units.

Here's some information borrowed from their website, along with a fancy little slideshow I made.

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Of decidedly original design, this is a vehicle that has no desire to look like other cars which depend on “black gold” : priority has been given to integration of the photovoltaic cells which compose its translucid roof.

Eclectic thus does not pass unnoticed in traffic: its elevated central driving position offers exceptional panoramic vision and considerable space, for both driver and passengers.

Eclectic’s message is loud and clear: this is not an ordinary car, but an avant-garde way of getting around. Owning an Eclectic is also a personal commitment : it means changing one’s way of getting from one place to another by exchanging one’s role as a “consumer” for that of a “producer” and this, in the general interest.

Its designer Sacha Lakic describes Eclectic as : “a modern, autonomous and intelligent automobile. The energy that drives it exists all around it : it simply has to deploy its wind turbine, expose its solar cells or, if necessary, find a simple electric plug. It is usual practice to “stylise” a car. In the case of Eclectic, its contours were born of an approach to design. Its appearance reflects its function. Its silhouette pays homage to certain icon-cars such as the Lunar Rover, Mini-Moke and Méhari. Though its technology positions it clearly in the present and, above all, the future”.


Venturi marks a new era in technological history by launching the production of Eclectic, an urban 3-seater electro-solar vehicle which goes well beyond anything offered so far by car manufacturers of today :

• 1st vehicle powered by renewable energies ;


• 1st solar production vehicle (2.5 m2 of photovoltaic cells) ;


• 1st vehicle that can be directly recharged with a personal wind turbine ;

Eclectic is thus the vehicle with the least possible impact on the environment.

Unlike other vehicles which are not used for over 90% of the time, Eclectic takes advantage of moments of immobilization to store energy in its batteries; contrary to a petrol tank, this energy reserve remains available for other uses. It’s well worth betting that one day, and at national level, this could comprise a considerable reserve of energy which could compensate for breakdowns in the production of electricity as already seen, for example, in California.

Available as an option with last-generation NiMH (NIV-7) batteries (liquid cooled), Eclectic offers a range up to 50 km at a speed of 50 km/hr (electronically restricted), which suffices largely to cover daily movements in urban areas.

The share of solar recharging is approximately 7 km per day of exposure.

When using electricity, a full recharge requires 5 hrs using a standard connection (16 A) or 3 hrs with 2 onboard chargers (optional).

Finally, as an option, Eclectic can be recharged with a wind turbine, set up on the ground next to the car. It is small and light enough to be carried easily. In this case, the share of recharging is approximately 15 km per day in windy areas.

Sources: verturi.fr

Toyota's New Concept Car Looks like a Futuristic Wheelchair

"Toyota Motor's concept car "i-REAL" during a pre-event for the upcoming Tokyo Motor Show in Tokyo, 11 October 2007. The one-seat electric vehicle runs at a maximum speed of 30 kph in high-speed mode and moves slowly among pedestrians at similar eyesight in low-speed mode. " Source: AFP

My Two Cents: I think Toyota's new concept car isn't a car at all. Take a look, it's a futuristic wheelchair. Granted, it's a wicked cool wheelchair, but it's still a wheelchair. It goes only 20 miles an hour, so it won't be hitting the freeways anytime soon.

Why can't wheelchair companies create this thing? Wheelchairs are built by people who can walk... and they're afraid of getting sued. So because of that, they don't build cool wheelchairs.

Here are the things that would make this a terrific wheelchair!

• First, this woman is seated at nearly standing height... something wheelchair users would want.
• The wheelchair looks cool, and easily could be painted or customize on the outside to fit the user's personality.
• Big ass wheels. It looks like it could handle small bumps, and maybe even small curbs with ease.
• Cool microphone... I'm assuming that microphone has something to do with the wheelchair. Maybe not, but I'll soon so.
• I'm sure there is USB port and a hard drive in there somewhere. It probably plays iTunes.
• It's wicked fast 20 miles an hour is about 3X faster than the fastest wheelchair on the market.
• If the price tag is less than $25,000, it would be cheaper than a typical wheelchair.

Things that could suck about this futuristic wheelchair:

• Three wheels mean it will tip over on extremely uneven pavement or when colliding with a fat guy at the mall.
• You're going to have to raise your desk up on blocks.
• Too fat for doorways.
• Optional "hot Japanese girl" isn't covered by insurance.

I hope the Toyota power wheelchair will be on the market soon!
UPDATE: Video Added

Tokyo Motor Show -- Japanese Carmakers Vie to be Greenest [pic]

Toyota, Honda, and Nissan unveiled new concepts in environmentally friendly technology. The hybrid isn't the only game out there, and it may not even be our best option for the future.

read more | digg story

Wheelchair-bound teenager going hunting

A disabled Arkansas teenager is setting his sights on bagging an elk in Saskatchewan.

Joe Parsons will be aiming for an elk from his wheelchair because the 16-year-old has a severe form of Muscular Dystrophy.

"I just thought it'd be really incredible to go hunting in Canada and shoot a big bull elk," he said from his home in Searcy, Ark., on Wednesday.

Joe's dream trip became a reality after his mother applied to Hunt of a Lifetime, a non-profit organization that grants hunting and fishing wishes for children under the age of 21 who have life-threatening illnesses.

"Joe has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and also has cardiac and respiratory failure that he takes medications for," his mother, Christy, said. "It's a disease that there's no cure for and it affects all of the muscles in the entire body. He's been in a wheelchair since he was 10."

Joe's three-day hunt, which begins today, will be at a game preserve, increasing his odds of bagging a big one.

Joe's wheelchair is outfitted with a battery-operated rifle mount that moves side to side or up and down so he can get a bead on his game.

Since Joe's arms have limited mobility, a straw-like tube attaches to the trigger mechanism, so when he's ready to fire, all he does is sip on the straw to pull the trigger.

"I just enjoy hunting with my dad and having a good time," Joe said.

Sources: Regina Leader-Post, canada.com

My two cents: This is the first time I've ever seen assistive technology designed to kill something. It's terrific. Assistive technology should be designed with the end user in mind. I've never had the desire to hunt, but I'm glad Joe is getting the opportunity.

Assistive technology usually is focused around the home environment, and occasionally around a work environment. We see far too little assistive tech developed for recreational purposes.

Here's a small list of assistive technology I'd like to see developed to enhance my life.

• The robot backrub... a life-size robot woman with extra soft hands!
• The robot kitty litter scooper... I would be a hero in my house if I could scoop the poop.
• The printer paper fetcher... my assistant wouldn't have to jump every time I hit print. Better yet, it could fetch the paper, then wad it up into a ball and throw it in the trash. It would save a step.
• The kid spanker... I can't beat my children, but I could let a robot do it.
• The kid anti-drowning device... it would be a large net in the bottom of my pool. If I hear a large splash, I wouldn't have to panic, call for help, or dial 911. I'll just push a button and a giant net will scoop my kid of the pool. I'd purchase a second button that would blow him dry and send him to his room.
• The wife mute button... enough said.

If you can invent any of these things... let me know, I'll make you a millionaire.

Vocal Joystick for Surfing the Web

Researchers at the University of Washington have created a vocal joystick for surfing the web. It uses vowel sounds to navigate the mouse. It uses the "K" sound and the "CH" sound to click and to click and drag.

Here's a video to the vocal joystick with a demonstration.

I'm having increasing difficulty navigating using my mouse. Because of this I'm intrigued, but not sold. I've been reading a little bit about brain-interface computers that literally use your thought processes to navigate a computer environment. This seems to be a much more effective way, especially with the increased likelihood that we will be in a three-dimensional computerized environment in the future.

Until that happens, however this could be a good intermediate step.

My biggest concern is that, aside from disabled users, there are many applications. My experience is that whenever a technology is only applicable to the disabled, the price tag is extremely high and the technology advances extremely slowly.

Voice recognition has been around since the early 90s, but the technology didn't advance until recently when it could be used to navigate telephone menus, for hands-free dialing, and soon you'll be able to order your McDonald's takeout without the expense of a 15-year-old.

There's much more potential for brain-interface navigation in the mass market. Imagine being able to navigate a map projected onto your windshield while driving your car, without ever taking your eyes off the road. He would simply think about where you wanted to go and a map would adjust to place directions directly in front of your eyes. Better yet, imagine driving your car simply by thinking about the controls rather than being required to use your hands.

Check out the video, and let me know what you think.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2007 to Gerhard Ertl

...for groundbreaking studies in surface chemistry. This science can help us to understand such varied processes as why iron rusts, how fuel cells function, how the catalysts in our cars work, production of artificial fertilizers, and can even explain the destruction of the ozone layer.

read more | digg story

Person of the Week at Full Warp

People drive science, technology, and business. Society improves because of visionaries, not inventions. Our world grows because of explorers, not discoveries. It's in this spirit, that Full Warp began accepting nominations for Person of the Week.

read more | digg story

Brain Computer Interface

Imagine navigating your computer mouse without your hands. Simply thinking, and having your computer respond. Perhaps you'd like to drive down the street and simply think about where you want to be, and your car would drive there. Would you like to use all your concentration and willpower to climb Mount Everest, yet never leave your home, let alone worrying about frostbite.

If so, then you may be interested in new brain computer interfaces. A group of European scientists are currently working on interfaces that work with electroencephalogram (EEG) equipment to track brain waves and interpret them in a way meaningful to a computer.

Persons with disabilities should be the first to benefit from this new technology. An article on the New Scientist magazine website describes how the first generation of this technology is being used. In its simplest form, an individual with quadriplegia uses the technology to navigate through a virtual environment.



Check out the entire article: Virtual world sharpens mind-control

Robert Alder, Inventor of the Remote Control, Dies

Ever since I read the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, I wanted to be an inventor. To this day Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison are my heroes. I didn't want to become rich and famous. I didn't want to invent everything and anything like Edison. I simply wanted to say "I created that" about something that influences everyone's lives.

Robert Alder did that. Imagine the world without the remote control. There's an entire generation of people who have never stood up and walked across the room to switch channels. But let's look at the bigger picture. Remote controls allow me to personally navigate my life far better. But does that with all of us, but for someone in a wheelchair remote controls are essential.

They're useful for far more than switching between House, 24, and American Idol. They allow my mother-in-law to switch the channel during an unexpected nude scene on HBO, even though no one in the room is under the age of 30. Remote controls allow us to dim the lights, turn on soft music, and have a romantic interlude without ever leaving the sofa. The same technology allows me to use a portable doorbell so I can get the attention of my caregivers and my family when I need it, even from the opposite end of my long house.

Robert Alder you are a hero, at least to me. And until today, I didn't even know your name.

Below are some excerpts from an obituary, courtesy of the Associated Press.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- Hit the mute button for a moment of silence: The co-inventor of the TV remote, Robert Adler, has died.

Adler, who won an Emmy Award along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device that made the couch potato possible, died Thursday of heart failure at a Boise nursing home at 93, Zenith Electronics Corp. said Friday.

In his six-decade career with Zenith, Adler was a prolific inventor, earning more than 180 U.S. patents. He was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, which helped make TV a truly sedentary pastime.

In a May 2004 interview with The Associated Press, Adler recalled being among two dozen engineers at Zenith given the mission to find a new way for television viewers to change channels without getting out of their chairs or tripping over a cable.

But he downplayed his role when asked if he felt his invention helped raise a new generation of couch potatoes. "People ask me all the time -- 'Don't you feel guilty for it?' And I say that's ridiculous," he said. "It seems reasonable and rational to control the TV from where you normally sit and watch television."

Various sources have credited either Polley, another Zenith engineer, or Adler as the inventor of the device. Polley created the "Flashmatic," a wireless remote introduced in 1955 that operated on photo cells. Adler introduced ultrasonics, or high-frequency sound, to make the device more efficient in 1956.

Zenith credits them as co-inventors, and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded both Adler and Polley an Emmy in 1997 for the landmark invention.

"He was part of a project that changed the world," Polley said from his home in Lombard, Illinois.

Adler joined Zenith's research division in 1941 after earning a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna. He retired as research vice president in 1979, and served as a technical consultant until 1999, when Zenith merged with LG Electronics Inc.

During World War II, Adler specialized in military communications equipment. He later helped develop sensitive amplifiers for ultra high frequency signals used by radio astronomers and by the U.S. Air Force for long-range missile detection.

Adler also was considered a pioneer in SAW technology, or surface acoustic waves, in color television sets and touch screens. The technology has also been used in cellular telephones.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published his most recent patent application, for advances in touch screen technology, on February 1.

His wife, Ingrid, said Adler wouldn't have chosen the remote control as his favorite invention. In fact, he didn't even watch much television.

"He was more of a reader," she said. "He was a man who would dream in the night and wake up and say, 'I just solved a problem.' He was always thinking science."

Adler wished he had been recognized for more of his broad-ranging applications that were useful in the war and in space and were building blocks of other technology, she said, "but then the remote control changed the life of every man."

The incredible shrinking world

I read an interesting article the other day. It was about family values. Specifically it was disputing the rhetoric put forth by many groups that Americans values are actively deteriorating when it comes to family life.

In an era when the Ten Commandments, Nativity displays and menorahs are banned in every school or government building, church attendance is on the rise. In the era of Brittney Spears and Gangster Rap, album sales are plummeting and there are far more faith-based cable networks than music stations.

Okay, okay. My head isn’t buried in the sand completely. We live in a world that pummels us with messages that challenge us. What I’m suggesting is that we are living up to the task. Why? Well, my belief is that we owe some of our success to the fact that technology is shrinking our world faster than ever.

People perceived automobiles and airplanes as world shrinking, but that wasn’t true. In fact, those devices expanded our world. As little as 100 years ago, most families never ventured more than a few miles from their birthplace. The automobile became affordable and an industry was created in the air, suddenly children lived along different oceans than their parents. Environment played a larger role than families all too frequently.

In the past decade the world started shrinking. We can send messages instantly and virtually free. The concept of “long distance” telephone calls is virtually extinct. Telephones ring in our pockets, and family photos travel around the world in seconds.

My family is spread over four states from Kentucky to New Jersey. I’m in touch with my brother, sisters and mother at least weekly, far more often than when I was in college in the ‘80s, only an hour’s drive away. My father and I talk almost daily. He began consulting, and traveling extensively, while I was in high school. I am able to communicate with him more frequently today than when we lived in the same home.

The opportunity for families to communicate values is stronger than ever during the past fifty years or so, when Elvis’ pelvis started the destruction of society.