Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

New solar cell cuts out the middle man, harvests hydrogen from water

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/237005071/

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Transportation

Some Penn State researchers are taking a cue from nature and have built the first solar cell that can effectively split water to harvest the hydrogen. While the technology and efficiency of electricity-gathering solar cells has been humming on nicely, cells that can pull hydrogen out of water directly (instead of using solar-harvested electricity to do it) have found that the catalysts conducive to separating hydrogen and oxygen are usually pretty good at putting the two gases right back together again. The folks at Penn State have now developed a process that more closely mimics the photosynthesis process in plants, and while we won't pretend to understand all the nitty gritty of dye usage and other such nonsense, we do know that such a system could eventually attain 15% or so efficiency, providing a nice and clean way to gather power for that fuel cell car of the future.

[Image courtesy of MTU.edu]

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Mtron announces a 1.8-inch 128GB SSD

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/237209423/

Filed under: Storage

We've already seen a couple 2.5-inch SSDs hit 128GB, but Mtron, our new favorite crazy storage vendor, has just announced a 1.8-inch 128GB SSD. That's the same size as the drives in the MacBook Air, Latitude XT, and Lenovo X300 -- and since drive height isn't as closely related to storage capacity for SSDs, look for 1.8-inch SSDs to become the new standard in most new laptops as capacities increase and prices fall. Of course, "prices fall" is the operative phrase here -- Mtron's 1.8-inch 128GB disk will probably set you back some $1600 when it ships in April. Yeah, we'll stick with the platters for now.

[Via jkOnTheRun]

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Friday, February 15, 2008

Can photographers be plagiarists?

The father-and-son photography team of Horst and Daniel Zielske caused a stir in September when their show, "Megalopolis Shanghai," opened at MKG, a museum in Hamburg, Germany. But it wasn't the sort of stir any artist could relish. Another German photographer, Peter Bialobrzeski, accused the pair of ripping off two images from his highly acclaimed series "Neon Tigers"—right down to the luminous, Blade Runner-like glow that was the "Neon Tigers" signature.

Top: Peter Bialobrzeski, Shanghai, 2001 (#57). Image from www.pdnonline.com. Bottom: H. & D. Zielske, Nanpu Bridge, Shanghai, 2002. Image from zielske.de.

Tefal Quick Cup Boils Water Faster Than You Can Read This Abnormally Long Headline That We Are Stretching Out OK Done [Gadgets]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/235157723/tefal-quick-cup-boils-water-faster-than-you-can-read-this-abnormally-long-headline-that-we-are-stretching-out-ok-done

Does the ability to heat eight ounces of water in three seconds interest you? Then take a look at this Teal quick Cup, which produces hot (we're not sure if it's near boiling) water by spinning the cold water you pour in around the spiral heating element. Not only is it fast, it's supposedly more efficient than a standard kettle or hot water heater because it only needs to be "on" for those three-ish seconds. Useful for your instant cups of tea or filling up a bathtub the dumb way. [Quickcup via Giz Mag via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Self-reconfigurable Matrix-style camera array soon to be self-aware

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/235019764/

Filed under: Digital Cameras

We're pretty sure this camera setup won't be putting the Wachowski Brothers out of a job any time soon, but some folks at Carnegie Mellon slapped this Matrix-style rig together for a "mere" $22,000. The cameras are mounted on linear guides, making them self-reconfigurable, and each can shoot 640 x 480 video at 30 fps. Their purported aims are "Image-based rendering," creating 3D objects with little scene geometry info, but we're sure they're doing plenty of bullet time scenarios in their free time. Coming to a YouTube near you: Matrix Restitutions.

[Via MAKE]

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