Daily Tech News

Researchers in Norway have succeeded in getting bacteria to power a fuel cell. The "fuel" used is wastewater, and the products of the process are purified water droplets and electricity. This is an environmentally-friendly process for the purification of water derived from industrial processes and suchlike. It also generates small amounts of electricity -- in practice enough to drive a small fan, a sensor or a light-emitting diode. In the future, the researchers hope to scale up this energy generation to enable the same energy to be used to power the water purification process , which commonly consists of many stages, often involving mechanical and energy-demanding decontamination steps at its outset. Nature's own generator The biological fuel cell is powered by entirely natural processes -- with the help of living microorganisms. "In simple terms, this type of fuel cell works because the bacteria consume the waste materials found in the water," explains SINTEF...

Water is an essential to any human being on this planet, while having clean water is unfortunately not something we all have access to. But a new invention developed by a team of researchers at Alexandria University in Egypt could change that. The technology uses a desalination technique called pervaporation. Salt is removed from sea water using specifically designed synthetic membranes which filter out large salt particles and impurities so they can be evaporated away. The remaining salt is heated, vapourised, and condensed back into clean water.  In developing countries, spending time and money on water filtration is important, but there aren’t always enough resources to properly explore the field. So when it comes to water cleaning in those countries, it’s important for technology to be affordable and easily replicable. Thankfully, the membranes involved in this new invention can be made in any lab using cheap materials that are avail...

It's the kind of simple yet brilliant invention that would have the tycoons of Dragons' Den salivating with excitement. Not only is the fridge solar powered, it can also be built from household materials  -  making it ideal for the Third World. Emily Cummins, 21, came up with the idea while working on a school project in her grandfather's potting shed. The fridge is now improving the lives of thousands of poverty-stricken Africans. Emily Cummins holds the portable eco-fridge. It can keep perishable goods, such as milk or meat, cool for days at a temperature of around 6C And Miss Cummins hopes to patent a more sophisticated portable model for use in transporting medical supplies around hot countries. From the age of four, when she was given a hammer as a gift, Miss Cummins has spent much of her spare time making things out of ordinary materials. She has won awards for a toothpaste squeezer for arthritis sufferers and for a water-carrying device, again for Third World ...

The U.S. Air Force is offering $2 million to whoever can design a new and improved engine to power its airplanes. The competition, known as the Air Force Prize, is open to American citizens and permanent U.S. residents age 18 and older, as well as corporations and research institutions in the United States. The goal of the contest is to speed up the development of a lightweight, fuel-efficient turbine engine, or jet engine, to power the aircraft of the future. This is the first time the Air Force, or any other branch of the U.S. military, is offering a prize to stir up technological innovation among the general public, said Lt. Col. Aaron Tucker, deputy chief of the turbine engine division at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). [Supersonic! The 10 Fastest Military Airplanes] "The secretary of the Air Force is really looking for innovative ways to acquire systems and technology," Tucker told Live Science. Even though the AFRL is chock-full of "really smart p...

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry show that large wind farms with a high density of installed capacity slow down the wind and generate less electricity than previously thought. Less energy can be withdrawn from wind than was assumed up to now. For example, a previous prediction from a 2013 study by the German Federal Environmental Agency concluded that almost seven watts of electrical power per square meter could be generated from wind energy. However, an international research team led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena has now shown that the amount of energy actually possible from wind power is considerably lower. These researchers calculated that a maximum of 1.1 watts of electricity could be generated per square meter over a large (10 5 km 2 ) wind farm in the windy state of Kansas (USA). The correlation between the amount of energy generated and the number of wind turbines is not linear, as more turbines increasingly...

1. TurlyTag   Before you leave on your next business trip, sign up for some Turly Tags. The idea is simple: the tags use a private code and do not display your full name and address. The company has versions that tie onto your bag or that you can apply as a sticker. If you lose your bag"”or laptop, or smartphone"”the finder can tap in the code at TurlyTag.com and send you a note. You can then arrange terms for the finder to send your bag. What I like about Turly Tag is the anonymity. Criminals who find bags would never return your belongings anyway, so you might as well protect your identity when you travel. Prices range from about $5 per month for 14 tags up to $12 per month for 96 tags. 2. Wall St. Scanner   One of the great challenges of owning a business is understanding the economic climate; few of us have the time to study the markets every day. The free Wall St. Scanner app for iPhone uses proprietary algorithms to scan social networks, corporate sites, and th...

Each time a new, higher-resolution sensor is introduced, there is speculation that we’ve reached the theoretical limit of what is possible with today’s technology. As pixels get smaller, image quality suffers. In particular, smaller pixels mean a lower native ISO, and in turn a decrease in low-light image quality. Small pixels also start to be effected by the diffraction of light as it passes through the camera’s aperture. Pushing these two constraints to the limit, Canon has created a stunning 250-megapixel sensor prototype that could be used in a DSLR. It is an APS-H-size sensor, about 80% of the length and width of a full-frame sensor, and slightly larger than the popular APS-C format. Given its 19,580 x 12,600 pixel resolution, that means each pixel is about 1.5 microns — almost the same as in an iPhone 6. So you could imagine the new sensor as an array of 30 perfectly-aligned, very-high-speed smartphone sensors. It shows its high speed by being able to w...

A prefabricated modular block of apartments has been opened in London, to provide accommodation for the homeless. The Y:Cube concept was  announced earlier this year  and its method of construction means that rent can be kept low. Residents will pay just 65 percent of the local market rate. Y:Cube was developed for the international YMCA youth charity, which, among its activities, offers accommodation for young homeless people in the UK. Designed by architecture firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Y:Cube is conceived as "move-on accommodation" for people leaving homeless hostels, such as those run by YMCA. Based in the Mitcham area of south west London, this first deployment of the concept has 36 one-bed studios, each with an area of 26 sq m (280 sq ft). The units are made from "high quality, eco-efficient materials," such as renewable timber, and are said to be so well insulated as to require little or no heating, even during the winter. The affordabi...

If you want a smartpen – which digitizes your handwriting and transmits it to a computer or mobile device – you currently have your choice of models including the Neo Smartpen N2, the LiveScribe Sky or the Orée Stylograph. All of those pens, however, require you to use special paper that's unique to that particular product. By contrast, Wacom's just-announced Bamboo Spark system works with a non-electronic pen and whatever A5-sized paper you've got on hand. The three earlier-mentioned smartpens all have tiny cameras located by the nib, that are able to gauge the pen's position on the page by imaging patterns printed on the paper. Bamboo Spark instead utilizes a smart folio, which the paper is laid upon. That folio contains an electro-magnetic resonance board, which is able to sense the location of the tip of the included Bamboo Spark ballpoint pen. This allows it to record pen strokes (it doesn't matter if it's text or drawings), and their position rela...

  A while back I made dozens of robots which were in large part inspired by BEAM Robotics . For those unfamiliar, BEAM is basically a special method of robot building with an emphasis on biology, electronics, aesthetics, and mechanics (hence the acronym BEAM). One thing that sets BEAM apart from other approaches to robotics is its insistence on using radiant energy (predominantly solar power) and its tendency towards reuse and minimalism. While I heavily borrowed from the BEAM ethos and aesthetics, the robots that I built were not quite the same (they were all battery powered for starters). Since BEAM robotics was such a large source of inspiration, I always wanted to try my hand at building a solar robot. However, rather than simply building another BEAM robot, I decided to incorporate solar into my own style of robot building. Instead of having it be powered entirely off the sun, I decided to incorporate rechargeable batteries. This means that at any given time the motors ca...