UCLA creates transparent solar cell, dreams of current generating windows

Transparent photovoltaics have yet to grace the face of your smartphone, but don't give up hope -- UCLA researchers are working on a new see-through solar cell that's showing potential. Using a new type of polymer solar cell, the team has been able to build a device that converts infrared light into electrical current. Current prototypes boast 4 percent energy conversion efficiency at 66 percent transparency -- not crystal clear, but certainly clean enough to peer through. According to a study in ACS Nano, the technology could be used in "building-integrated photovoltaics or integrated photovoltaic chargers for portable electronics." Translation? It could one day be used to build solar windows or better sun collecting smartphones. Don't get too excited though, the technology still has a ways to go before any of these dreams come to fruition. Still, feel free to head past the break for the team's official press release, or skip to the source to take in the full academic study.

For press release click below.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/22/ucla-creates-transparent-solar-cell/

John Deere Tango E5 Autonomous Mower

You have plenty of machines in your life that require more work from you — the coffee machine, your washer and dryer, etc. — so why not spend your money on one that works for you? The John Deere Tango E5 Autonomous Mower ($TBA) is designed to give you back your weekends by keeping your grass a reasonable length automatically, automatically returning to its charging station when it's low on juice and staying out of your koi pond thanks to some help from a preset boundary wire. So go ahead and spend your grass-mowing time perfecting your martini — your secret is safe with us.

When the Zombies take over...

Arming Yourself for the Zombie Apocalypse: How to Build the Ultimate Survival Shotgun

brought to you by Creek Stewart of Willow Haven Outdoor

 

IRIS

Mimi Zou's IRIS is a biometrics enabled camera controlled by your eye. It understands who you are by looking at your iris signature, and lets you capture exactly what you see by tracking your eye.
http://www.dezeen.com/2012/06/21/iris-by-mimi-zou-at-show-rca-2012/

Proaesthetics
Back braces as representative skins

This is the first inspirational publication that present disability artifacts in a new light.
It is a bridge between user and producer aiming to open their eyes to the possibilities and new values that these vital body accessories can bestow upon the user.
Here disability aids become a stage to discuss, understand and cope with disability, illness and human frailty.

Back braces are the first representatives of bodily differences; molded and tailor-made around the body they are a cumbersome second skin.
They are reinterpreted with the aim of transforming them into objects of desire and representative skins.

http://lanzavecchia-wai.com/projects/proaesthetics-back-braces/

 

Compression Suit For Horses

 

For the same reasons athletes need compression leggings, the inventors say. Called Hidez, these suits “are specifically engineered garments [made with] fabric cut in specific ways, then sewn together and strategically placed around the garment to focus in on certain muscle groups.”

According to the inventors, the suit “enhances blood flow and oxygen availability to animal’s muscles and speeds up the removal of waste products—like lactic acids and carbon dioxide—for vital blood supplies.” They say that this helps to “recover injuries faster, help prevent injuries by maintaining muscle temperature and it reduces muscle fatigue and by flushing out bad blood it reduces delayed onset muscle soreness.”

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/03/what-the-fck-is-this-full-body-horse-suit-from-hell/

New Wacom Inkling

 

The whole idea of the device is to record what you draw so that you can import it into image editing programs later, either as a bitmap or (more excitingly) as a vector image. It keeps a track of every stroke, in the order you made them, and records how hard you were pressing on the pen, so the recorded lines vary in thickness with pressure.

http://inkling.wacom.eu/pages/Inkling--en-what_is_inkling-in_three_steps.html