Oct
12

Dyson Launches The Bladeless Electric Fan

 Dyson Fan

Who would have thought that after 125 years lacking in innovation for the electric fan that we’d one day have a bladeless fan to keep us cool? From the same folks that brought us the bagless vacuum cleaner we now have a safer, and dare I say, “cooler” fan.

Financial Times is reporting on the $300 device now launching:

The new fan works by drawing air into the base of the machine. The air is forced up into the loop amplifier and accelerated through the 1.3mm annular aperture, creating a jet of air that hugs the airfoil-shaped ramp. While exiting the loop amplifier, the jet pulls air from behind the fan into the airflow (inducement). At the same time, the surrounding air from the front and sides of the machine are forced into the air stream (entrainment), amplifying it 15 times. The result is a constant uninterrupted flow of cooling air.

Oct
11

Get Your Own UAV w/ 10Mega Pixel Camera

This has been out for most of the year so as far as news is considered it’s a old, but this little gadget from Lehmann Aviation is still very cool.
 
Have you ever wanted a birds eye view of your neighborhood without having to rent a plane, or wanted a more up to date set of those local aerial pics than what’s on the Google and Bing Maps? For just 13-19,000 Euros ($19-28k), you can have your own UAV system with a 10 Mega Pixel camera.
 
The battery life allows for a 40 minute flight time so you should be more than able to fully inspect a pretty large territory. It can be manually operated or programmed for GPS-based navigation.
 
You can find more on this at Engadget Español, or you can get it translated to English.
 
Oct
10

Sergey Brin Blows Smoke Up Your A**

Google Book

“Big Money” analyzes Sergey Brin’s NYTimes op-ed piece proclaiming Google has your best interest at heart in the Google Book Search project:

At least it’s an exotic experience. How many times have you had a man worth billions work so hard to whip out his Google, leak on your leg, and swear to God it’s raining? Today, Sergey Brin does his best to sell you the snake-oil that his Google Book Search project is an undiluted good for the world, all those annoying monopoly worries aside.

Or, if you’re a believer, you can read the op-ed piece by Brin and just for yourself.

Oct
07

Out With Solar Panels, In With Solar Shingles

Solar panels

From a Discover Magazine blog:

Forget those bulky rooftop solar panels–the hot new thing in solar energy could be rooftop shingles that convert sunlight into electricity, and that blend in seamlessly with the standard asphalt shingles that top most houses. Dow Chemical has announced that it will begin selling its Powerhouse Solar Shingles in limited quantities in 2010, with a full roll-out the following year.

Yes! I’ve been waiting for this, now all I have to do is convince my friendly neighborhood HOA to modify our CCRs to allow Solar Shingles! :-)

Oct
06

Gizmodo: There’s No Excuse For This

WM65

Windows Mobile 6.5 comes with a new UI, an App Store and a new browser but Gizmodo says “There’s No Excuse For This”. Ouch, not the ringing endorsement we were looking for.

In other WM6.5 news, Sprint joins the Windows Phone party with their new phone called Intrepid which launches Oct 16 with this snazzy new OS. Microsoft has said to expect more than 30 phones running the OS by year’s end

BTW, last weekend I traded up from my Pantech DUO windows mobile phone to the iPhone. This gadget rocks!