2. Automatic Book Maker. Select a book, feed the machine, and it will automatically print, bind, glue and even laminate with a printed cover the book of your choice in seven minutes, while you wait. Now THAT is convenience.
4. Advanced wave energy capturing. Small (comparatively) buoyies out in the sea will funnel energy back to the mainland in an efficient manner, on par with what an equivilant coal fired plant would cost, with the potential to increase in efficiency and decrease in cost. It's estimated that if .2% of the ocean's power were harnessed, we could power the world with it. This opens doors to feasible desalinization technology, and a way to produce hydrogen for cars without producing pollution (that would negate the benefits). By 2010, the guy who invented them hopes to have a 100 ton buoy that can create 500kilowatts of energy. 40 of those would be much cheaper than a coal fired plant, and incredibly cheaper than natural gas. The future might not be as far away as we think.
6. Filters installed in drain vents absorb oils and other contaminates from rain water before they can be dumped into rivers and lakes. Federal law mandates that it be filtered, this is cheaper, more efficient, and can be recycled or thrown away without contaminating anything.
10. Tide power capturing in rivers helps to power local cities. They're underwater, don't disturb marine life, and don't pollute, and most importantly these days for consumers, aren't eyesores.
Fun stuff
edited to add: check the bottom of the thread for a new link
quote:2. Automatic Book Maker. Select a book, feed the machine, and it will automatically print, bind, glue and even laminate with a printed cover the book of your choice in seven minutes, while you wait. Now THAT is convenience.
I was actually thinking of this when at Barnes and Noble the other day. There is a series of books that is just over six months out of date, and I was thinking how great it could be if printing technology was such that you could print the books as you need them, allowing corrections and updates to happen instantly.
The more I thought of it, the more I realized how close we were to having that sort of technology. It's pretty cool that I was right .
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
| IP: Logged |
On the tidal/current power generators, has anyone studied the effect decreased ocean currents will have on ocean ecology? I know lots of river systems are highly dependent on the tide cleaning out the bottom and bringing in new nutrients each tide cycle. Do the power plants use enough of the energy to noticeably dampen the tidal effects?
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm interested to see studies on that. The wave generators don't seem to have any effect, they bob with the waves. I can't imagine they take out any more power from the ocean than the world's cruise ships or aircraft carriers disrupt by driving willy nilly around the ocean.
The article in CNN says that the wave generators have no effect on the ecosystem. The tide generators I wonder about, but, they don't look that big, and I suppose if they used less of them, spread out, with a maximum allowed per river system, it'd be fine.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Let's just keep in mind that the tides are ultimately powered by the Moon (and the Sun). These are big systems, and they move a lot of water.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I really want #2. That would be amazing for college students - as long as they didn't try to rip us off still
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Gerald Prolman, 47, founded Organic Bouquet with the belief that a growing number of consumers want their flowers to deliver two messages: "I care about you, and I care about the earth too."
Yes, my love. I care so much about the earth that I'm paying through the nose to buy you a throw away gift that requires 3 times the industry standard of resources to grow, package, and deliver. But they're grown organically so they must be good.
posted
Imagine what the automatic book maker could do for publishing! You could actually release betas of your books (lulu.com is already helping in this respect), or print long-forgotten material on demand with a binding of your choice.
quote:Neller predicts that within about five years On Demand Books will be able to reproduce every volume ever printed.
Can't wait. But it sounds like a major legal undertaking as well.
And hopefully the money we pay will still finds its way to the authors.
Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged |
Has anyone used a DVD ATM like this before? We recently got a couple in our student union building, but I haven't tried them yet.
I'm assuming that the machine simply stores DVDs in a rack and removes/deposits them as necessary. I guess the next logical step would be to have a server with a ridiculously large selection of films and music, which burns DVDs and labels them at a high speed. Perhaps by the time such a system is developed though, Internet vendors will be too popular to make it financially viable.
Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by KarlEd: #1 is 6 foot tall roses?
quote:Gerald Prolman, 47, founded Organic Bouquet with the belief that a growing number of consumers want their flowers to deliver two messages: "I care about you, and I care about the earth too."
Yes, my love. I care so much about the earth that I'm paying through the nose to buy you a throw away gift that requires 3 times the industry standard of resources to grow, package, and deliver. But they're grown organically so they must be good.
Perhaps we could save on flowers by opting for ikebana over extravagant bouquets?
Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
In the same vein of thought that got me to start the thread, here's 15 big things in 2007.
Of particular interest:
quote:1. India and China race to the moon Thought NASA was the only government body planning to tread those dusty lunar craters? Wrong. The world's most populous nations are eyeing them hungrily. "The moon has tremendous commercial potential," says Indian president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the former head of his nation's 44-year-old space program. Indeed, the moon is full of minerals and helium-3, a possible future energy source. That's why India's Chandrayaan-1, a robotic spaceship, is scheduled to pay it a flying visit in September. The United States is so impressed with the mission, it's hitching a ride with a radar device that will scan for lunar ice. Not to be outdone, China's $2.6 billion space agency will launch the Chang'E-1 lunar orbiter next year too, part of its plan to put a taikonaut on the moon by 2017 - a year ahead of NASA.
quote:2. A $100 PC hits the third world If all goes according to Nicholas Negroponte's plan, there will be 10 million PCs in the hands of the planet's poorest children by the end of 2007. The $100 laptop, which technologist Negroponte and his MIT team have been working on for the better part of a decade, goes on sale in the spring. (Initially, the price will be $150.) Out of necessity, its various versions boast the most sophisticated low-energy computer tech ever seen - like a hand-crank power source and a chipset that consumes 13 percent of the normal wattage - and mesh networking so kids can share files without a server. Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria, and Thailand are lining up to buy them.
quote:3. USB cuts the cable There are more than 2 billion USB peripherals in the world - including, most likely, your printer, mouse, keyboard, and just about anything else attached to your computer. But what if they didn't have to be attached? That's the promise of Wireless USB, or WUSB, a new global standard that PC manufacturers will begin incorporating into their machines next year. Faster, easier to connect, and less power-consuming than Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, WUSB's ultra-wideband radio technology can deliver data at a hyperfast 480 megabits per second - the same as USB 2.0 - at a range of up to 10 meters. And WUSB-enabled machines can support as many as 127 connected devices simultaneously. That makes for a lot fewer cables on your desktop.
quote:5. Solar panels slim down With help from massive VC funding and subsidies from the state of California, the solar power industry is taking off. But as it scales up, solar is running into a problem: a shortage of silicon, also used for that other California commodity, computer chips. Enter thin-film solar panels, a technology that uses 1 percent of the silicon of regular panels - and is flexible enough to be printed on sheets that can be layered on top of, or sandwiched between, glass without being visible. Thin film has been around for a while, but production is expected to ramp up by 70 percent next year. Honda, Sharp, and Energy Conversion Devices (pictured) have all built production facilities to churn out the film. It's going to be a very sunny year.
quote:7. TV gets a better choice For an activity that Americans spent $30 billion on this year, buying a new television offers lousy choices. Cathode-ray tubes look sharp but are too big and boxy. LCDs are kind of fuzzy and hard to see from an angle, and run the risk of dead pixels. Plasma screens are too pricey and heavy. That's why the market is wide-open for the arrival of SED TV in July. SED, or surface-conduction electron-emitter display - a technology developed jointly by Toshiba and Canon - combines the sharpness of a CRT (by firing electrons at a screen) with the slim form of an LCD or plasma. The Japanese companies have been working on SED TVs for a while, garnering plenty of buzz with prototypes at trade shows and waiting until the price came down enough for mass production. Early SEDs are expected to cost $10,000.
quote:Big-city Wi-Fi If all goes well, EarthLink will have blanketed two major U.S. cities with wireless Internet by the end of 2007: San Francisco (with Google's help) and Philadelphia.
I love that uses for solar panels are really taking off in a big way, and it's amusing that we already have a newer, better TV format before the last new thing even had a chance to really permeate.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
