Life Alternate » Gadgets

Whats Next for Electronic Readers

Wispa — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 10:20:44 +0000

Portable devices are in common use now and advancements in renewable technology has made steps to make them even better. eReaders are a favorite with travelers who like to catch up on a few chapters of their latest books.

Solar Powered eReaders

The obvious advantage of an eReader is clear when you think of the size of a pile of 1,000 paper books compared to the size of one little tablet. There are two light problems here. The first one is how can you choose a title to read among the massive selection. The solution of that one is down to you. The second is energy. while electronic ink readers are already efficient, the batteries do run out of power just when you want to use them.

The solution here is solar energy. Currently there are many solar chargers on the market and these work well keeping you gadgets topped up while you are on holiday. The next ideal solution is to make the devices and solar charger integrated. There are already eBook readers, like the Biblio leaf, on that market that have this functionality and we can expect many more in the coming years.

Readers with Touch-screen

Now that we have them all charged up how about few extra features. Touch Screen has taken off since the iPhone came on the market. This is now becoming available on many devices and buttons are becoming nearly obsolete. Devices like the Kobo Reader bring this to life.

Electronic Ink screens are of a slight different technology that is used on other touch-screen devices. This means the designers have to come at the problem from a slightly different angle by using infra-red light. Now we can have virtual button and page turns at the stroke of a finger.

The future can only lead to more exciting innovations. Typically I am not a “green” person but anything that reduces my need to be plugged in some how makes me quite pleased. Take a look back a mobile phones since they first appeared, they were the size of a small suitcase. Now they include your massive hi-fi system and record collection, your video came console, Internet connection and sometimes people still use them as phones. All this in something that fits in your pocket.

Massive Samsung Touchscreen LCD Solar Display

Wispa — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 08:51:48 +0000

Sometimes reality does mirror science fiction. A new touch screen display from Samsung may prove that theory right.

If you have been watching the recent remake of the sci-fi show “V” you may have noticed those information displays that appear from nowhere and are able to respond to touch. Well even if the show is not your thing the new technology being developed by Samsung might be.

A demonstration at CeBIT 2011 by the company showed a massive 46-inch Liquid Crystal Display. If your mouth is watering at the size then there is more. The display was touchable just like on the alien space ships.

It does not stop there, the next exciting feature of this display was transparency. Light can pass through the unit. Now this opens up totally new areas of use that I can`t even begin to speculate what designers will make of it.

This brings us to what made our mouth water. The display appeared to be totally powered by solar energy. Not just any solar energy, but ambient solar energy.

Normally to get the most energy conversion from solar energy the device needs to be in direct sunlight and specifically facing the sun. On the other hand ambient solar energy is the type of light you might normally find inside a room or building.

This indicates how efficient Samsung have been in the design of the display making it extremely efficient in its energy use. We should step in and remind that this is just a display and not anything like a fully working television or computer. Devices such as these may require a bit of extra power but we never know.

If the unit can be made cheaply enough then the most obvious use would be interactive information displays which can act just like a pane of glass. Think of airports or train stations for a start.

Overall this is quite an exciting product especially from the aspect of being totally self powered by solar energy.

Solar Backpack For That Clean Energy Boost

Wispa — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 08:50:39 +0000

Walking around in clothes made from solar material might be a few years away. On the other hand our accessories that we carry around are ideal candidates for harnessing solar energy.

Bags and in particular backpacks have a large enough surface area exposed to sunlight to become solar batteries. While the actual materials the backpacks are not receptive to the solar energy it is easy to incorporate solar panels in pockets.

Backpacks are becoming more common in everyday use from being used to carry books for school to lunch and a change of clothes for the businessman. They are idea for cyclists, walkers on a hike and not forgetting those long treks in the wilderness.

No matter what we do we never do it without our personal electronic devices. Just like wearing a pair of shoes we rarely ever go out without a cell phone or music player and even laptops. As we are constantly on the move our electronic devices drain there internal batteries quickly and its not always easy to get a recharge.

Using a backpack integrated with solar panels gives us a portable power source when ever we need. These capture the suns energy whenever they are exposed to light and keep that free power stored in batteries ready for whenever we need.

Typically and this would depend on the size and exposure to light you could get an extra 3 hours play time on a music device or an extra hour talk time on your mobile phone from an hours exposure form your backpack. That extra boost would be free and available anytime you wanted.
Using a backpack is an alternative to solar charger units that need to be places in the sunlight. While these units can perform much better at capturing the suns energy and themselves portable they cannot be charged as you walk around the town or hike up those hills.

If you never want to run out of talk time or need to fire off a quick email then a solar backpack charger is an idea accessory to your greener and busy electronic life.

New Toshiba Solar Powered E-book Reader

Wispa — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 07:13:59 +0000

E-books have been around in some form for many years now, mostly being used on desktops. With the introduction of the Kindle and Amazon they became more portable and popular.

There is still some resistance from paper print which still has a feel all of it’s own that any electronic device can’t replicate. Still the electronic reader has allowed publishing to be much easier and cheaper for the writer.

Readers like the Kindle and iPad are friendly to the environment by not having the need to chop down forests of trees to make paper. They can still go further with the devices being powered by renewable energy.

This is probably a smaller step than saving trees but reducing energy consumption is becoming more important in the 21 century.

Solar power is the obvious choice here, especially for the low energy use eInk devices. You would have thought companies would have been quick to produce a product like this. Sadly not many products have seen the light of day but this may change soon.

Toshiba seems to be taking the first steps with the introduction of the “biblio Leaf”

A solar powered E-book reader that should never run out of power. The biblio Leaf can hold as many as 3,000 eBooks that is probably more than many people have read. Read more!

These are displayed on a 6 inch electronic Ink display. Also included in the device is WiFi and 3G connections. The selling feature for life alternate is the front mounted solar panel.

This can be seen as a first generation solar powered reader. The obvious next step is to take advantage of new materials that will make the case itself a solar panel. Toshiba have made the first steps but it might be a few years before we seen the next big leap.

Cooling With Solar Powered Air Conditioners

Wispa — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 08:36:17 +0000

Air-conditioning is an energy hungry machine and offers itself for an ideal candidate for being solar powered. Now there is a chance to cool down with the heat of the sun thanks to the worlds largest manufacture of air condition units.

Using solar power to power our devices has already taken a strong foothold in our every day lives. Most of the practical applications have taken place in small electronic devices that do not have many moving parts.

Now Gree Electrical Appliances, a Chinese Company, will start to mass produce Solar Powered Air Conditioning Units initially aimed at the American Market. The first design will be duel powered, taking energy from the sun and being able to switch to your utility supply when the Solar output is not enough.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that we most need cooling when the sun is shines brightly in the summer months. This also happen to be the time when using solar energy works as it’s most efficient.

Energy costs go up when there is more demand and what ever you can do to reduce that dependence is going to save you a bit of money on your bills. Depending on your location, up to 10% of your energy usage could be down to cooling the air in your home. If your Air conditioning using can use free solar energy then that is a big saving.

nPower Kinetic Charger For your Gadgets

Wispa — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 10:53:52 +0000

A charger with a difference here. The nPower PEG Kinetic charger virtually powers up by itself, the sun is not needed.

Most battery charger devices on the market use solar energy to get those little electrons captured ready to power our mobile phones or MP3 Players. The PEG, which stands for Personal Energy Generator, uses Kinetic energy to juice itself up.

Kinetic Energy to you and me is movement and the PEG is designed to use the movement of walking. Have this packed away in your rucksack and it doesn’t matter if the sun is behind a cloud and start moving. The tiny movements up and down generate the power gradually as you walk and after about a nice 5 minute stroll the gadget will have generated enough power to give you a quick 1 minute call on your cell phone.

Not a lot of time there, but over the length of a day, 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon would give over an hours worth of mobile phone use. Different devices have varying power requirements and the charge in the PEG will last longer or shorter accordingly.

Like all charging devices that use some form of cleaner renewable energy the power generation is low compared to the 100’s of volts coming out the wall sockets. The comparison should not be made, like solar chargers, the PEG is aims to charge devices from with renewable energy and more importantly portability. Try finding a wall socket when your are 5,000 feet up a mountain or simply just having a walk in the park.

It would be silly for any modern charging device to restrict the types of devices it can power up. The nPower PEG is versatile in this aspect and can energize over 3,000 devices. If you already have a MP3 player, Camera, Mobile phone the most likely the PEG will be a good charging partner to your device.

It should not just be restricted to walking. Possibly any movement where some form of oscillation occurs should provide some energy. Don’t expect to pack it in your suitcase and have a full charge after a transatlantic flight. That is really the wrong type of movement, he journey would be too smooth. But the baggage handlers might add some energy as they toss your luggage around. Bike riding, especially off road action would generate more action as the rider navigates the turns and bumps of the track.

The casing is made from the space age material, Titanium, with is has the property of being light weight but still strong. Cylindrical in shape like a relay baton with a length of 9 inches and a 1 inch diameter, (230 mm x 25 mm). Internally it has a lithium battery which when fully charged has a capacity of 1000 mHa. That would be enough to keep most devices working for more than a days normal use.

Using Titanium help the PEG shed some weight but it still come in at 12 oz, that us just under a pound (500 grams). This is about the same weight as my midsize digital camera and about 3 times as heavy as an iPhone4.

We think this is a good alternative to a solar charger and ideal for those who are are a little more active and green.

Xpal Egg Solar Charger

Wispa — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 06:25:11 +0000

Yep, Another Solar Charger, but not all chargers are created equally. The Xpal Solar Egg comes in as one of the lightweights with a specific purpose.

The egg name needs no explanation once you have seen the shape of the device. It features technology called SunBoost, developed by Intivation , that allows the solar charger to perform better in lower light levels.

Using the new charging technology lets the Xpal perform adequately without the actual need to deliberately place the egg out in direct sunlight an wait for a full charge.

Look at this more as an accessory to be carried on perhaps your keychain or bag and capturing solar energy whenever it can. It’s a reserve tank of energy with just enough power to get you to the next station.

This has advantages, you do not need to carry much larger and bulkier solar chargers around when your just popping down for some shopping or commuting home after work. These are times when we might use our phone,music player or any other portable device and it just happens to run out of energy. The Egg will come to your rescue and juice your device up with more then enough energy to get you home.

The stated specifications say that with just 4 hours of sunlight the device can be charged up to 90% of capacity. This is stored in an inbuilt 500mAh battery which while quite a low capacity should give a boost to any portable device hungry for some energy.

Making the batteries have more capacity would add to the weight of the egg and make it more obtrusive and less useful as a light weight energy backup.

You might ask why not carry an extra battery? Many of us might have more than one portable device and this mean lots of spare batteries in our pockets. In addition each of those batteries are not continually charged with solar energy as we walk around. The Xpal Egg removed all that unnecessary extra weigh in something that is quite usable.

Solar Powered Speakers From Japan

Wispa — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 05:54:50 +0000

This is what every “green” party needs, A set of solar powered speakers to blast out those tunes while trying the save the world.

For the rest of use who just want to save a little bit of energy and cash and have a good time then these solar powered speakers could be a nice accessory. Most of us have some sort of personal portable music player and sometimes we just want to take the plugs out of our ears or maybe share a bit of soft music while sitting on the beach with friends.

The “Solar Sound” from Landport allows you to just do that. Extension speakers are not new but this set is totally solar powered. The now familiar pairing of photovoltaic solar panel and Lithium Ion rechargeable battery are present here. With the device fully charged you can enjoy up to 8 hours of stereo sound blasting out at 2 watts from each speaker.

Small enough to slip in your bag measuring just 19.5×11.2×5cm and weighing a light weighing 290g. On the rear side are the controls., including the on off switch and socket for plugging in your music source.

In these sort of devices I always thing that a FM radio would be a nice extra. Sure it would add a little bit to the cost but that would make the unit more useful and self contained.

As it stands the Solar Sound is another nice free energy powered device that can constantly recharge itself just buy the power of the sun.

Mobile Phone Chargers have become Novelties

Wispa — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 09:11:07 +0000

We are gradually moving away from having our mobile phones being charged by plugging in to the mains power with alternate forms of topping up the batteries.

Using solar energy is the obvious and most practical choice for getting that extra bit of talk time. Solar Powered Chargers are not quite common and can happily sit on a window or attached to a rucksack and suck up the energy from the sun ready for when ever you need it. These chargers and be used to power all manner of portable electronic devices not just your cell phone. The next generation chargers will be part of the device themselves and this will remove the need to carry around anything extra in your pockets.

In the meantime, there are other forms of charging to keep you occupied while you wait. These can sometimes fall into novelty or specialist devices. Shoes are a good example. Every step taken can be converted into a thousands of tiny electrical impulses that over the length of a day can amount to something usable in the evening.

If walking is not your thing then how about playing with a YoYo. Having some fun and producing energy at the same time or if your really lazy, let the kids play all day and you can steal the stored energy at once they have fell asleep.

These ideas do work but you will get bored attempting tricks with your Yo-Yo and you’ll occasionally want to wear a different pair of shoes. They do use movement rather than solar power and this idea has not gone unnoticed for more sustainable energy production.

The phone maker Nokia has already patented the idea of powering a mobile phone with energy produced by movement. More scientifically called Kinetic Energy and using Piezoelectric Crystals. When pressure is applied to the crystals they emit a burst of electricity. Nokia plans to use the movement of your mobile phone as you carry it around all day to gently put pressure on the crystals and keep your phone charged. I`m not sure it would be a good idea to give your phone a hood hard shake to power it up.

The novelty toys are just that but the concept behind them, like in Nokia’s phone, can only bring the totally self powered device a step closer.

Solar Charger Freeloader Pico

Wispa — Fri, 21 May 2010 03:37:55 +0000

Freeloader come out again with another solar energy powered device, The Pico is enables you to keep your mobile devices powered up without the restrictions of having to be near a utility outlet.

The Freeloader Pico is essentially a Lithium Ion battery that is charged up with a photovoltaic solar panel add in a few connectors and wrap it all up in a nice portable hand sized case. This could be something the more technically minded could knock up in the garage but with the Pico coming in at around US$20 you`d be hard pressed to match it on price.

The down side of all solar chargers is the length of time needed to convert the suns energy in to usable power. We could use a larger area of solar panels but this would add to the cost and it wouldn’t be as portable. The convenience of the small size which is just 10.5cm x 4.5cm x 1.2cm and weighing just 49 grams is the appealing factor here.

Charging the Pico using the sun will take around 10 hours to full capacity and this will depend on location and cloud cover. So some times it might take a little longer to achieve maximum charge. The internal batter is a Li-ion battery rated at 800mAh and should have a lifespan of around 2 years depending on use.

A fully charged Pico could transfer its power over to your mobile device in around 30 minutes and this could give your around 35 hours use of a mobile phone and about 15 hours if your are an avid music fan on your iPod.

An additional form of charging is via a USB port, this should be somewhat faster than direct solar. USB charging should be really used as a backup and its quite hard to find a suitable USB port when you are miles from home.

The time needed to get these backup energy storage devices powered up may seem too long but this is just something we need to get our mindset accustomed too. Remembering to expose our chargers to sunlight long before we need to use them is just like going shopping and having some groceries in the cupboard. We do have to pay for our food but the energy stored in Pico is free.