The idea behind small trailers like the one shown here is simple, it’s a gasoline powered generator to extend the range of an electric car, but only for those rare times you actually NEED a range extender. It’s not a completely new concept, but so far, these are mostly still ‘in development’ so I wonder if it’ll ever manifest itself as reality. With battery technologies continuing to improve and Tesla rolling out its free nationwide EV charging network…the market window for devices like these is narrow and if they don’t start selling them soon, they’ll miss their chance.
The cost of solar/PV energy production continues its sharp decline…with the latest advancement being a California company named RSI that has found a way to produce large thin film PV modules at about one third less cost than current technology. This cost target wasn’t expected to be reached by the industry until 2017…and RSI plans to deliver modules in 2014. The industry is seeing lots of steps like this in both energy production and storage…things are changing fast and that bodes well for our future and the future of this planet…the big question is how quickly clean energy can be implemented and CO2 emissions eliminated…
With a surface area of around 360 million square kilometers and a volume of around 1.3 billion cubic kilometers of water, the ocean on Earth is truly massive. This short video below has a bunch of great stats like that, check it out!
The power of corporate greed is such that, even after 4-methylimidazole was found to cause cancer, Pepsi continued to ship product containing it. They removed it from product sold in California after a new law requiring labeling of carcinogens, but it’s taken until now for them to commit to removing it nationwide (and even then, not until around the end of 2013). Well, at least they’re finally taking this step. You’re probably still better off sticking with tap water though!
Prototyping formed sheetmetal parts has never been fast…until now. Rather than building the dies to actually form the part, Ford has developed a computer-controlled system that can do this with just the 3D CAD data. Pretty cool!
A new lithium-sulfer battery technology under development promises to prove around four times the energy storage as current lithium ion batteries. Also, since it doesn’t use a liquid electrolyte, it’s expected to be safer (ie, less flammable) than existing technologies. It’s in the prototype phase, which usually (for stuff like this) means a couple years from production.
All in all, it sounds remarkable, but what’s really cool is that announcements like this are becoming pretty common…there’s often another new fantastic battery technology mentioned in the news. It’s an indication that, overall, battery storage is quickly headed to the kind of levels where it’ll be making a big impact on our lives…first with electric cars, and soon with off-the-grid power supplies for houses and the development of ‘micro grids’. Cool stuff.
Not surprisingly, people are freaking out about the 3D Printed Gun design that was released a few days ago. The US State Department sent a cease and desist letter to the person who posted the plans online, demanding that they be removed. He complied (though has hired a lawyer to fight this), but to even make such a request shows incredible ignorance of the information age we live in. The plans were downloaded around one million times and are available elsewhere online. Governments cannot suppress information…to attempt to do so is futile. Lawmakers in California and other areas of the country are trying to ban 3D printed gun technology. Meanwhile, efforts to implement mandatory background checks for gun purchases have failed in Congress. So, you can’t print your own single-shot gun that might explode in your hands when you try to use it and at has horrible accuracy, but it’s OK to go buy an AR-15 with high capacity magazine, armor piecing rounds, and body armor. Does anyone else see the lunacy in this?
I love the Runkeeper iOS app for tracking all my physical activity…and to make it even better, it finally offers connectivity with the Pebble Smartwatch! This promised functionality is much delayed but greatly appreciated. Check out the video below for more.
With all the advances in 3D printing, it was inevitable that someone, someday, would create a 3D printed gun…and that day is here. The only non-plastic parts are the firing pin, and the bullet. Everything else is plastic, printed on a Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer in ABS…a step above the hobbyist grade 3D printers like the Cube.
As far as firearms go, this one is pretty crude – it’s a single shot device which must be manually loaded, and a test with a larger caliber bullet resulted in destruction of the gun (the successful test used a .380 caliber round).
So, this is very much an immature product, but represents a huge milestone for the technology. There are those who believe that our species can create amazing technology and regulate it to the point where it is safe for society, but the reality is that technology can be used for both good and bad, and attempts to regulate that are eventually futile.
If you want to download the models yourself, head to DefCAD. I wouldn’t recommend it though…this is a marginal design and really more of a proof of concept…be careful. Note that in the test firings, a string was used to actuate the trigger.
Reality is finally catching up with Hollywood; Safe Gun Technology is close to beginning production of guns that use fingerprint recognition to restrict functionality of the weapon to only those users who have been given access. Considering that each weapon can store up to 20,000 fingerprints, potential applications are not limited to just homeowners; this technology could be of interest to military and police forces worldwide. Read more at Smartplanet.
The idea behind small trailers like the one shown here is simple, it’s a gasoline powered generator to extend the range of an electric car, but only for those rare times you actually NEED a range extender. It’s not a completely new concept, but so far, these are mostly still ‘in development’ so I wonder if it’ll ever manifest itself as reality. With battery technologies continuing to improve and Tesla rolling out its free nationwide EV charging network…the market window for devices like these is narrow and if they don’t start selling them soon, they’ll miss their chance.
