I’m seeing some interesting progress in the industry with harvesting ambient power to drive low-power devices, like wireless sensors. While it still seems to be in the lab stages, it’s quickly advancing and I expect it’ll become a part of our lives in the near future. Texas Instruments has recently introduced a small device (the TPS62736) to help use the minuscule amounts of power harvested from any source really (solar, radio wave, thermoelectric, magnetic, or vibration). We’re talking about microwatts and milliwatts here, but it’ll be cool to see devices that no longer need batteries (not to mention, keeping that battery waste out of the landfills will be good for the environment). Imagine a smoke detector that never needed a new battery, for example. Anyway, cool technology…it’ll be here before you know it!
StickNFind – the evolution of smart ‘things’
There’s a cool project over on Indiegogo now called StickNFind, that creates small bluetooth-enabled ‘tags’ you can attach to objects. A smartphone app can measure signal strength to approximate distance (it cannot tell you what DIRECTION the tag is in, though), which is nice, but what impressed me more was the ‘leash’ function and the ‘find it’ function.
The ‘leash’ will alert you on your phone when a tag has moved a set (approximate) distance away from your phone. I can see this being useful for kids in crowded areas, pets, etc.
The ‘find it’ function is pretty neat too. Imagine a tag out of range. When it is back within range, your phone will alert you. Lots of possible uses for that!
The campaign closes in 11 days, and they’ve already exceeded their funding goal…so time is limited if you want to get in on it. Check it out here.
Review: Tenergy 9V battery charger
In my quest to live a more sustainable life, I’ve transitioned to rechargeable batteries wherever possible (read more here), and have finally tackled the remaining piece of that puzzle – rechargeable 9V batteries. I found these to be surprisingly rare, and settled on one of the few options from Amazon, the charger and batteries from Tenergy.
I suppose there’s not much to say about the batteries…and that’s a good thing! As for the charger, well, it works and charges the batteries, but I was disappointed by the quality. Tenergy used cheap white plastic that lets a lot of the light through, giving this charger a pink glow when charging (as the attached photo shows). It doesn’t cost much more to use a more opaque plastic in manufacturing, yet this is something companies need to really fight for when dealing with Chinese manufacturing, at least from my experience. You can spec out an awesome Lexan from Sabic (formerly GE) that will block like like this, but the factories will want to substitute a cheaper, more readily available one….which I suspect is what happened here. It doesn’t affect the charger performance so it’s not really a big deal, it’s more of an annoyance of mine to see products built less than optimally.
If you’re looking for something like this, you can find the charger here at Amazon, and a 10-pack of the batteries here. Don’t think you need a 10-pack? Take a walk around your house and count the number of smoke detectors you have (should be one per bedroom plus in the common areas of the house), and the CO detectors. You might be surprised at just how many 9V batteries you need!
Intel working on a TV solution, also
It seems every hardware company is working on creating a better TV experience (Apple, Google, and Samsung being the big ones). Intel is now joining the mix with a set top box, but they’re encountering the same problem that has kept Apple’s TV in the labs instead of your living room. Namely, they are up against content owners who like things the way they are and don’t want to change. This ‘head in the sand’ approach is simply not going to work…technology will advance and change is inevitable. This is much like the music companies resisting change to their business model, until file sharing services like Napster came along and forced change. TV will eventually face similar pressure…if the TV content owners act now and partner with the tech companies, they can help shape the future of TV…rather than sit on the sidelines and watch it be shaped for them.
Running gear giveaway!
If you’re into running, especially barefoot/minimalist running, check out the giveaway at Barefoot Inclined. They’re giving away a number of minimalist sandals and other running gear…entries are pretty easy and the odds are good!