ANBARASUASOKAN

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...