In the past few decades, humanity has been obsessed with making robots more human: first with voice communication, then AI and now synthetic muscles which is what researchers at Suzumori Endo Robotics Laboratoryat the Tokyo Institute of Technology plans to do.
Rather that use motors or servos which we see in today's robots, the experinment uses bundles of fibers which contract and expand just like human mucles. The robot legs has the same amount of muscle mass as a human leg but the Suzumori Endo humanoid cannot walk on it own yet. This is because unlike human muscular contractions which takes split seconds, the humanoid robots are too slow to self balance now.
So where's all this going? Perhaps a race of tireless factory workers or janitors or the framework of a new generation of cutting edge prothetic limbs. This among others tell us that the human body is a work of fine craftmanship and a blueprint for which robots can be made.
Are you suprised when your smartphone does not last longer than it used to after a full charge? Chances are, it is partially your fault because you have been charging it wrongly all this time.
We have this ingrained notion that charging our phones in small bursts would cause long term damafge to their batteries and we therefore have this preference to charge our devices when they are close to dead. We have been wrong all the time.
A battery company Cadex states that the lithium-ion batteries in our smartphones are sensitive to their own form of stress which could be damaging to the battery's lifespan.
To keep your smartphone in top condition and go adout your day wihout thinking about battery life, you will need to change a few things. First, do not keep your device plugged in when it is fully charged.
Leaving your phone plugged in when it is fully charged overnight is bad for the battery on the long run. This is because it gets trickle charge at 100% keeping the battery in a high stress state which wears the chemistry down. This is like working out in a gym for hours on end until fatigue eventually sets in.
If you are trying to keep you smartphone charged throughout the day, it is best to just plug it whenever you can during the day. Your batteries are happier when you charge them ocassionaly instead of charging them from a near dead state. Please do lug a power bank to acheive this.
This ensures your battery's optimal performance for longer and keepsit topped throughout the day. Periodic topup also ensures that battery dependent features are not lost when the phone goes to the low battery state.
Batteries are sensitive to heat and it is recommended that you remove certain cases that insulate heat during charge. Keeping your phones covered in the sunnt outdoors. Ocassionally I notice that my phone gets warm when plugged to the cigarette phone charger, especially in the low battery state. When this happpens, I simply hold my phone in front of the airconditioner vent till it is cool.
If you spot this vehicle on the road or at an auto show, it might attract your attention for all the wrong reasons, being of an unusual shape and being electric. It would definitely attract your attention if you had seen it from inception in a 3D printer. Meet the Strati (Italian for layers), the world's first 3D printed car.
This is the result of a four and half month process, from design to printing. Timescales could be reduced to six weeks and 3D printing is just 24hrs. Thats a quick turnaround for a car. Imagine paying for a car to have it manufectured to spec in 24hrs? That's amazing!
The key to this is simplification. An average car contains thoudsands of parts compared to the Strati's 49 because it is made from one material. With exception of the engine tyres and suspension, the majority of the car, from the chassis to the seats was created using a carbon-fibre reinforced thermoplastic which is claimed to have the same strength as midgrade aluminium. The manufacturing process is being refined so that parts of varied flexibilities could be produced (softer seats, compression bars for increased saftey).
The makers would in the future like to see localised factories producing cars suited for their environment. For example, a small factory in Alaska could produce vehicles suited for the cold while the other in Neveda would produce for hotter climes. The other advantage would also be from the business angle where vehicle parts dealers do not need the space to store vehicle parts. All they would need id a 3D printer to print replacement sparts for customer collection in 24 hours max.
As 3D printer technology improves, the large scale assembly plant model of vehicle manufacture with their large numbers of shift workers might just become a thing of tthe past. All you might just need is a small piece of land or less to start a factory.
Have you had the bad experience of buying this new shiny smartphone only to be hit by the bad news that the parent company is closing shop, stopped app support of discontinued the phone outright? Did you just buy a phone just because of its camera or speakers and find out that it lags in other features? This has happened to me on two occasions with the Palm phones and most recently Blackberry.
I have for quite some time wondered if we could build our phones like desktop computers (back in the day) and make improvements on its components like installing a better camera, speakers etc which was exactly what the guys at Google thought when they established Project ARA.
The idea from inception was to let you build your phone from scratch choosing all the parts yourself. Ara could have been the last phone you'd ever need as it gives you endless possibilities of swapping out the processor and cellular radios when newer ones come along, and you'd be up to speed. Google would provide the "endoskeleton" -- the equivalent of a PC's motherboard -- and an ecosystem of hardware partners would have done the rest.
Fast forward present day ARA, core components such as the processors are not swappable. So instead of letting you build your own future-proof phone, the new Ara is about giving you a phone with mix-and-match features you can't get anywhere else.
The ARA Developer edition shipping later this year will initially come with four modules: a speaker, camera, E-Ink display and an expanded memory module which are some things high-end smartphones don't do so well. The ARA team believes its modular platform opens the floodgates for third party hardware that never would have made it to smartphones before: from wireless car keys, one use pepper spray, glucometer for diabetics and the list of applications is endless.
The Project Ara team has already modularized the battery technology with hot swappable batteries
Project ARA presents the advantage of future proofing your mobile phone where the user need not replace his/her mobile phone because a hardware became obsolete, only the module needs to be swapped out, ARA procudes very little e-waste making it an environmentally friendly option.
Other phone models have started to adopt this modular model such as the LG G5 as we anticipate this model would definitely be a gamechanger in the smartphone business,
Your laundry does not have to take an entire day to do, as is the case when you let your clothes pile up for weeks. This is the angle Toronto based startup Yirego is utilizing as basis to pitch its unique portable washing machine which uses little water and works off the grid. Putting your foot to work, churning your clothes in water and detergent around in a bowl, the Drumi mixes old school washing with modern-day eco-consciousness. The idea is not to replace bigger washing machines but to rely on them a lot less by reducing the amount of water and energy needed and the volume of clothes per cycle. Drumi is a time saver capable of churning out batches in 10 minutes compared to its bigger on-grid cousin's 30 minute minimum and 50 liter water consumption.
Standing 22inches tall with a 10 liter capacity, the Drumi can handle a maximum of 2.2kg laundry load, which is equivalent to a pair of jeans, 3 sweaters, 6 t-shirts or 8 pairs of boxers. It is portable enough to be stowed away in a corner of the home after use.
Hanergy Holding Group, a Chinese firm known as one of the largest manufacturers of thin-film solar cells has launched four solar-powered electric concept cars set for production in three years. It is also the owner of US based Alta Devices whose AnyLight technology forms the basis for the technology used in the solar panels that cover the Hanergy cars.
The big distinguishing feature of the solar panels used for these vehicles is their relatively high conversion rate - how much solar energy is actually converted by the photovoltaic cells to usable electrical energy. The regular home solar panel conversion rate averages 25% compared to Hanergy's 31.6% in their high end cells. They expect their conversion rates to go up to 38% in 2020 and 42% in 2025 which makes a fully-solar powered car feasible in the foreseeable future.
Harnessing power purely from the sun, these solar vehicles, unlike other electric vehicles, get rid of the need for charging points and can run up to 80 kilometres a day with just 6 hours of sunlight.
The four Hanergy vehicles are basically standard electric cars with solar power functioning as an extra source to extend range, like the original Alta Devices concept. The vehicles store energy in lithium ion batteries and can be charged at any charging station. However, Hanergy has added three crucial new inventions to the technology. Firstly, the vehicles are able to drive on solar power alone. The Hanergy Solar A has a combined range (battery + solar panel) of 350 kilometers and a solar-only range of 80 kilometers.
