According to Nanoarchitecture.net, Scientists at Texas A&M have made significant discovery in “Power Harvesting“. Nanotechnology now explains:

Specifically, Cagin and his partners from the University of Houston have found that a certain type of piezoelectric material can covert energy at a 100 percent increase when manufactured at a very small size - in this case, around 21 nanometers in thickness.

His findings, which are detailed in an article published this fall in “Physical Review B,” the scientific journal of the American Physical Society, could have potentially profound effects for low-powered electronic devices such as cell phones, laptops, personal communicators and a host of other computer-related devices used by everyone from the average consumer to law enforcement officers and even soldiers in the battlefield.

[…] Key to this technology, Cagin explained, are piezoelectrics. Derived from the Greek word “piezein,” which means “to press,” piezoelectrics are materials (usually crystals or ceramics) that generate voltage when a form of mechanical stress is applied. Conversely, they demonstrate a change in their physical properties when an electric field is applied.

Discovered by French scientists in the 1880s, piezoelectrics aren’t a new concept. They were first used in sonar devices during World War I. Today they can be found in microphones and quartz watches. Cigarette lighters in automobiles also contain piezoelectrics. Pressing down the lighter button causes impact on a piezoelectric crystal that in turn produces enough voltage to create a spark and ignite the gas.

On a grander scale, some night clubs in Europe feature dance floors built with piezoelectrics that absorb and convert the energy from footsteps in order to help power lights in the club. And it’s been reported that a Hong Kong gym is using the technology to convert energy from exercisers to help power its lights and music.

Seen at Mobile Monday (The theme was on Traffic & Mobility) organized by Crossroads Copenhagen… The owner of the heaviest phone received a Nokia E71 :). This motorola 3200 dates from 1994 I have been told.

Signce, a Strategic Design Consultancy, has developed my-way©, a tool enabling a two-way navigation experience – target or cruise, according to the time one has at hand to explore the city…

The crate project by Jack Brandsma. An office in a box that can be moved in the instant:

Mobile unit for RestRuimte [sparespace]

“SpareSpace transforms empty shop- and office buildings into mobile offices. SpareSpace offers beginning entrepreneurs in creative industries affordable and representative offices in an inspiring environment. As soon as the empty space is put up to let or for sale, the entrepreneurs will move to a new building.

Using specially designed crate furniture by designer Jack Brandsma, SpareSpace gives substance to the term Mobile Office. Work spaces can be folded and transported in no time, as can the bar, the meeting table and the foldable wall (in progress).

SpareSpace expects the temporary reshaping/redecoration of the buildings to give a new impulse to creative industry. Additionally, SpareSpace expects a positive outcome for real estate owners since unused space is given a representative goal.”

Talking about moving… I want that:

Casulo: Mobile Living Furniture.

Excerpt from the article: Device Gives New Meaning to “Power Walking” | By Devin Powell | Science NOW Daily News | 7 February 2008

“The latest fad in self-powered wrist wear is the kinetic watch, a device that converts the momentum of a swinging arm into milliwatts. But researchers have unveiled a new accessory for your knees that puts the trendy timepiece to shame. Generating more than 1000 times more energy, the “Biomechanical Energy Harvester” may provide a green way to power the portable devices of the future.

Every time you take a step, you use two different groups of powerful muscles connected to the knee. The first group pushes to kick the lower leg out. Just before full extension, the second group pulls to put the brakes on. But for Max Donelan, director of the Simon Fraser University Locomotion Laboratory in Burnaby, Canada, and his colleagues, this braking process is just useful energy going to waste. His team has created a modified knee brace with a drive train that converts the mechanical energy into electricity. “A similar principle is used in hybrid cars to make electricity when you press the brakes; it’s called generative braking,” says Donelan.”

Info via inhabitat

Via Yanko Design… An inflatable mouse for ultra portability! Mais où va le monde? :)

Pictures from website

“The Jelly Click takes mouse portability to the extreme. All the electronic circuity lives on a small flexible board. The body itself is just soft plastic. Whenever you need a mouse, blow up the Jelly Click, attach the USB cable and you’re good to go. As a bonus, it’s a total floaty for you swimming challenged people.

Designers: Bongkun Shin, Heungkyo Seo, Jiwoong Hwang & Wooteik Lim”

I am drooling. MacBook Air:

My friend Jan, who will go to Gengis’ land in January to distribute the One Laptop per Child sends me the note below. Funny that a generation of traditionnal nomads will transform into neo-nomads via a green looking device :) Well… they already are modern… check this picture (sorry for the reflection :( of an image taken by Titouan Lamazou when in Mongolia… (In the background in very small, you would notice a Mongolian yurt). A modern nomad in Mongolia…

From now through November 26, the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) non-profit association is offering a unique opportunity to help provide connected laptops to the poorest and most remote children of the world, while receiving an XO laptop for your own child. Please look at www.laptopgiving.org. You have the opportunity to Give One Get One for $399, or give many, if you wish. By popular demand, there are ways to direct 60 or more to your favorite school, as well.

OLPC is an education project, not a laptop project. Children are a mission, not a market. After 30+ years of research at the MIT Media Lab, based on Seymour Papert’s theories of constructionism, we have had three years to pilot in primary schools around the world, in Cambodia, India, Nigeria, Brazil, Peru and other places. The XO laptop is now in mass production. It was reviewed recently by the NY Times. If you have a chance, I urge you glance at David Pogue’s video as well.

Our goal is to reach the poorest and most remote children, in countries where as many as 50% do not even go to school. The long term purpose is to eliminate poverty.

The reason you are getting this e-mail is that at some time over the past ten years, you received or sent an e-mail from or to me, or were on a cc list. I know, this is a kind of spam and, in some cases the recipient will be somebody I wrote this week, in other cases the recipient may not even be alive. I did not try to edit the 30,000+ e-mail addresses. But more than anything, whether you join Give One Get One or not, please tell your friends and family. This really could change the world.

PS: If you participate in Give One Get One, your donation comes with one year of complimentary access to T-Mobile HotSpot locations throughout the United States (a $350 value). Details are on www.laptopgiving.org.

Article in the Economist, Nov. 15, 2007: A bank in Every Pocket (p. 18 in the print edition).

An excerpt:

These “branchless” schemes typically allow customers to deposit and withdraw cash through a mobile operator’s airtime-resale agents, and send money to other people via text messages that can be exchanged for cash by visiting an agent. Workers can then be paid by phone; taxi-drivers and delivery-drivers can accept payments without carrying cash around; money can be easily sent to friends and family. A popular use is to deposit money before making a long journey and then withdraw it at the other end, which is safer than carrying lots of cash.

The article’s background:

The growth in the number of mobile-phone users is nothing short of spectacular. In 1990 there were just over 11m of them worldwide. Today almost 2.5 billion consumers own mobile phones. Some see their spread as the key to bridging the digital divide and boosting development in poor countries. Marketers hail the mobile phone as advertising’s promised land. They are also changing politics, generally for the better.

Competition among telecoms operators and handset-makers is fierce. In Europe, the former racked up huge debts around the turn of the millennium while bidding wildly for third-generation (3G) network licenses. To their disappointment, consumer interest in 3G has been lacklustre. Worse yet, whizzy new services (like mobile TV and wireless broadband) are likely to be carried on other networks in future. Still, the state of play is fluid and speculation remains fevered as to where the phone will go next.