ANBARASUASOKAN

 The crowning glory is a 14-ft boat which has been left whole and inverted to form the roof. A 20-W solar panel powers the creature comforts inside. To create the shed's frame, the boat was fixed atop four telegraph poles plonked judiciously on a hillside amid Wales' Cambrian Mountains. (The views aren't at all bad, either). Aluminum-framed windows were salvaged from a 1940s caravan, and others were "borrowed" from Holland's farmhouse. Walls are a mixture of corrugated metal and, for a taste of the Neolithic, wattle and daub. Inside things take a turn for the high tech. The shed's PV panel feeds a battery which provides power to LED lighting and a 12-V sound system – the only new item in the construction. The shed also boasts a plumbed Belfast sink (the generous, cuboid-shaped ones), and a 19th century wood burning stove for heat fitted with a chimney fashioned from the queen pole of an old circus big top.Where sheds end and (sometimes pretentious) ...

A team of researchers at MIT has devised a technique to create solar cells that are just two molecules thick. Though the resultant solar cell can offer conversion efficiency of just 1-2 per cent, on placing multiple cells on top of the other, it is possible to increase the overall capacity, as compared to the conventional cells.  The latest trend in solar cell research has been on enhancing the conversion efficiency of solar cells. As a result, most solar cells can now generate 15 -20 per cent of the solar energy they get into electricity and the most efficient modules operate at 30 per cent efficiency level. Researchers at MIT are now planning to turn their research into a new direction. They are now working on making the solar cells much thinner and use fewer materials. In their research paper titled “Extraordinary Sunlight Absorption and 1 nm-Thick Photovoltaics using Two-Dimensional Monolayer Materials” they have explained how they have developed a technique to create sola...

SRIHARIKOTA: In a landmark late night journey into a new era of space application, India today successfully launched its first dedicated  navigation satellite  using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle which blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here. Precisely at 11.41 pm, India's workhorse PSLV C22 lifted off in a perfect text book launch, carrying IRNSS-1A satellite, painting a dense golden flame in the dark canvas of the sky. About 20 minutes after its launch, the rocket placed into the IRNSS-1A into its orbit. An elated  ISRO  chairman K Radhakrishnan said the IRNSS-1A satellite was precisely injected into its intended orbit. "This only proves that PSLV is an extremely reliable vehicle and with this flight, we are also entering into a new era of space application in the country that is the beginning of satellite navigation programme." The data from the satellite would help the country in a range of fields including disaster management, vehicle tracki...

Almost two-thirds of the world does not have access to high-speed internet, but Google is determined to change that. Unfortunately, setting up an affordable infrastructure in remote areas is beyond even a huge multinational corporation's capabilities, which is why the company had to devise a completely out-of-the-box solution called Project Loon. As part of the project, Google recently launched a series of internet-enabled balloons into the stratosphere over New Zealand to provide broadband connectivity to rural areas. The idea is to create a floating network about 20 km (12.4 miles) above the Earth's surface, high enough to avoid any adverse weather or airplane traffic. At that altitude, the winds are more mild, only 5 to 20 mph (8 to 32.2 km/h), but still strong enough to carry the balloons to other areas. If they need to go in a different direction, they can also be raised or lowered to catch a wind current heading on an alternative course. Each balloon's envelope i...

Although various  alternative technologies  are being developed, the large-scale desalination of seawater typically involves forcing it through a membrane that allows the water to pass through, but that traps the salt. These membranes can be costly, they can get fouled, and powerful pumps are required to push the water through. Now, however, scientists from the University of Texas at Austin and Germany’s University of Marburg are taking another approach. They’ve developed a chip that separates salt from water.

Solar power may provide a clean, abundant source of energy, but we know the sun's rays are capable of much, much more. Aside from generating electricity, we've seen solar energy harnessed to produce  drinkable water as well, so why not combine the two processes into one system? That's what IBM and its collaborators are hoping to do with an affordable High Concentration Photovoltaic Thermal (HCPVT) system that uses cooling technology from supercomputers to harvest solar energy more efficiently, and produce purified water at the same time.The current prototype consists of a large parabolic dish made up of several mirrors, connected to a sun-tracking system. The majority of the sunlight hitting the dish is reflected and focused onto hundreds of triple-junction photovoltaic chips, all fitted to microchannel-liquid cooled receivers. Individually, each chip measures just 1 cm x 1 cm and can generates an average of 200–250 watts over an eight-hour period on a sunny day, at an ...

For astronomers, a well-lit city means a sky unavailable for study. Worse, light pollution is blamed for affecting bird migration, sea turtle hatching, and wildlife mating and feeding routines. Researchers at National Central University, Taiwan, and Unidad Academica de Fisica, Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas, Mexico, have attacked the problem with a new LED street lamp designed to shine only where needed, without splashing into unwanted areas, as a way to reduce light pollution while providing better lighting. Current street lights often use high-pressure sodium or mercury lamps, and can spill light in unwanted directions, resulting in glare, non-uniform light patterns, upward-reflected light, and wasted energy. In some cases, nearly nearly half the light is lost by the light flooding horizontally and vertically, and conventional street lamp design has trouble adapting to different street lighting layouts, whether the lamps are set in the middle of the road, above it or in a zigzag...

While it still remains to be seen exactly how many people will be willing to get about town with a wearable computer strapped to their heads, the market looks set to be a competitive one. Google got the ball rolling with the announcement of  Google Glass , then reports surfaced that Chinese search company  Baidu  and Microsoft were getting in on the act with their own devices. Now Japanese designer and self-described augmented reality entrepreneur Takahito Iguchi is throwing his hat into the ring with Telepathy One. Unveiled in prototype form at South By Southwest (SXSW) – where  Google Glass  also made an appearance – and recently presented to the press in New York, the Telepathy One is a slim, lightweight number that wraps around the user’s head like a futuristic techno halo. The device is designed to connect to the wearer’s smartphone via Bluetooth to enable photos and video to be streamed from the phone to the unit's projection display, or from the dev...

Robots made for kids tend to move in a way that can only be described as lurching. The 14-in-1 Educational Solar Robot Kit puts that expectation to good use with its shambling Zombie-Bot model, but with thirteen other forms, it can also mimic several animals, wheeled transportation, robots, and even multiple seafaring contraptions. As it's equipped with a solar panel you'll never have to have to find a battery charger. The fourteen models are divided into two skill levels. Level one consists of a Turtle-bot, Beetle-bot, Quadru-bot, Boat-bot, Walker-bot, Dog-bot, and Wheel-bot. Level two adds the Roly Poly-bot, Auto-bot, Slither-bot, Surf-bot, Zombie-bot, Crab-bot, and Row-bot. Conceivably you could design a new configuration as well. The kit allows the user to change the direction of the motor, pack the robot head away in the body, and install the head in different orientations on the gearbox. It also has transparent housing which exposes the gears, as is nearly required in...

At CES in January, Microsoft Research teased its  IllumiRoom  concept, which involves projecting an image around a TV screen to enhance video games with additional visuals. Unfortunately, the company didn't offer much info beyond a short video that briefly showed it in action. But the team behind the project recently showed up at the CHI 2013 conference in Paris with some more in-depth details about how Illumiroom will not only expand the game screen, but completely alter the appearance of your living room The team's initial prototype consists of a widescreen InFocus IN126ST projector and a Kinect for Windows sensor mounted above and behind the user, though they hope to create a future version that sits on a coffee table between the player and the television. The device is able to calibrate itself to any room, with the Kinect detecting the colors and layout in front of it, while the projector uses that data to properly align the image displayed around the TV. We've seen...

While cop shows have shown us that it's easy for service providers to track a person's location via their mobile phone, researchers at the University of Minnesota have revealed it's also an easy task for hackers. Using a cheap phone and open source software, the researchers were able to track the location of mobile phone users without their knowledge on the GSM network, which is estimated to serve 80 percent of the global mobile market. According to the new research by computer scientists in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering, a third party could easily track the location of a mobile phone user without their knowledge because cellular mobile phone networks "leak" the locations of mobile phone users. "Cell phone towers have to track cell phone subscribers to provide service efficiently," Foo Kune explained. "For example, an incoming voice call requires the network to locate that device so it can allocate the ...

Connectify, a company known for software that can turn your computer into a wireless hotspot, is at work on a new project called Dispatch that will turn all internet connections available to your device into one glorious (and hopefully faster and more stable) stream of high-speed bandwidth. The project appears to take some of its cues from live video broadcasting companies like  LiveU , which sells custom made backpacks wired up with 3G/4G and Wi-Fi transceivers. These backpacks then spread the traffic load over whatever available networks it can connect to in order to maximize bandwidth, which is obviously a major plus if you're streaming live video. Dispatch, however, is planned as a software-only solution for the masses – no special backpack required. It will dynamically manage the traffic based on which networks provide the greatest bandwidth and have the clearest signal, which also means that even if one of the networks drops out entirely, you'll still have interne...

A team of researchers working through Australia’s Centre for Ultrahigh Bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) has developed data encoding technology that increases the efficiency of existing fiber optic cable networks. The researchers claim their invention increases the data capacity of optical networks to the point that all of the world’s internet traffic could be transmitted via a single fiber. Compatible with existing networks, the data encoding technology involves making more efficient use of available data channels. Where existing networks transmit data with gaps between the channels, the new approach packs the data channels closer together, thereby allowing more lanes on the same super-highway. To demonstrate the system, the researchers re-programmed a LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS) to make more efficient use of available data channels. A WWS is a network component that uses different wavelengths of laser light to combine (or mul...

Lockheed Martin has been getting its feet wet in the renewable energy game for some time. In the 1970s it helped build the world’s first successful floating Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) system that generated net power, and in 2009 it was awarded a contract to develop an  OTEC pilot plant in Hawaii . That project has apparently been canceled but the company has now shifted its OTEC sights westward by teaming up with Hong Kong-based Reignwood Group to co-develop a pilot plant that will be built off the coast of southern China. OTEC uses the natural difference in temperatures between the cool deep water and warm surface water to produce electricity. There are different cycle types of OTEC systems, but the prototype plant is likely to be a closed-cycle system. This sees warm surface seawater pumped through a heat exchanger to vaporize a fluid with a low boiling point, such as ammonia. This expanding vapor is used to drive a turbine to generate electricity with cold seawater...

The architects responsible for the Panorama House have made a staircase of epic proportions that acts as a functional centerpiece of the house. The staircase serves as a multifunctional hub, not only providing a way to get from downstairs A to upstairs B, but forming a central element of the house's library, cinema, and play area. Designed by Moon Hoon, the Panorama House is located in Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea, and while the whole building is magnificent, it's the staircase that really stands out. It is gargantuan, with the stairs themselves representing just a small part of the structure (as can be seen in the gallery). Those heading down to the lower floors can take the stairs or use the slide instead, with kids and adults alike invited to experience the latter. The individual steps provide storage space for books, while the space underneath the staircase itself is used as an office, with plenty of room for a desk and chair. Last but not least in this staircase's ...

Since humans are responsible for much of the damage to coral reefs, it makes sense that we should try and help repair them. That’s exactly what a team from the Herriot-Watt University’s Centre for Marine Biodiversity and Biotechnology is attempting to do with the development of underwater “ coralbots .” Now anyone can add their support to this worthy effort with the launch of a Kickstarter campaign that will help make the robots a reality. The research team has already built a couple of prototype coralbots that can be equipped with onboard camera, computer, and flexible arms and grippers. These would come together to allow the robot to reattach healthy pieces of coral back onto a reef to help speed up the healing process. This time-consuming task is currently performed by scuba divers – or not at all. It also makes repairing reefs at greater depths difficult or impossible. The team’s plan is to develop a swarm of robots that would autonomously navigate across a damaged coral ...

When you have plenty of bicycle to work with, such as is the case with a mountain bike, it’s not such a big deal to design it with front and rear suspension. When the bicycle in question is a diminutive folding city bike, however, it gets a bit trickier. That’s why UK industrial designer Sam Pearce has created Loopwheels. Instead of relying on a suspension fork and rear shock, it lets the bike’s 20-inch wheels absorb the bumps. Each wheel incorporates a regular hub, with a hub brake and hub gearing. Instead of spokes, however, three looped carbon composite springs run from the hub to the rim. Whenever the wheel hits a bump in the road, the energy is absorbed by those springs. This causes the hub to momentarily dip down within the wheel by up to 45 millimeters, so it’s actually a bit off-center until the springs flex back into their regular state. For this reason, the wheels will only work on bikes that already have sufficient space between the fork/frame and the tire – otherwise th...

While the prospect of 3D printers pumping out  biological tissues  and replacement organs  has many justifiably excited, researchers at Oxford University have gone in a slightly different direction with the creation of a custom 3D printer capable of producing synthetic materials that have some of the properties of living tissues. Rather than being intended for supplying spare parts for damaged replicants, the new materials could be used for drug delivery or replacing or interfacing with damaged tissues inside the human body. The new 3D-printed materials take the form of “droplet networks,” which are made up of thousands of connected water droplets that are encapsulated within lipid films. Lipids are naturally occurring molecules whose main biological function is energy storage, signaling and as structural components of cell membranes. The researchers say that, because the droplet networks don’t contain a genome and don’t replicate, they don’t have some of the proble...

UK-based tent manufacturer Tentsile has unveiled an all-new suspended tent, dubbed “Stingray,” which the company bills as an ideal combination of hammock and tent. Employing three tree straps, two poles, and a polyester fly sheet, Stingray allows up to four campers to sleep suspended in the air, thus avoiding ground frost and errant rocks – not to mention all those creepy-crawlies which tend to live on the forest floor. Stingray's more streamlined and compact design is a departure from the large eponymous tent we  previously reported on , and has been created in a bid to make a tent more suited to mass-market production. Stingray weighs 13 lbs (6 kg) and can reportedly be assembled or disassembled in just 5 minutes, so should be more suitable for campers who like to travel light. When suspended, access to the interior of the tent is afforded via its collapsible ladder to either a floor hatch or side door. Additional accessories are also available, including a shoe drying rack, lu...

Treehouses are one of those childhood obsessions that never lose their appeal for many people, even after making their way into adulthood. Unfortunately, society frowns upon grown-ups messing around in treehouses, but Cacoon could possibly make the form factor acceptable for everyone, regardless of their age or level of maturity. In truth, Cacoon is more than just a treehouse substitute, with elements of swing chair, hammock, and hanging garden seat thrown in for good measure. Originally designed to be a part of the luxury spa at the Scarlet Hotel in Cornwall, U.K., Cacoon has now been given a life of its own thanks to a team of professional sail makers. The Cacoon design was influenced by the weaver bird's hanging nest, which provides the bird with a safe and secure bolt hole away from predators. Similarly, Cacoon offers a secluded personal space allowing individuals to get away from everything while still being aware of their immediate surroundings. Cacoon is designed to ...