Take My Breath Away...To Charge My Phone

If you think charging devices thanks to the power of footsteps is a good plan to use all that otherwise-wasted energy, how about harnessing electricity from your breathing?

As reported by technotification.com, this could become yet another helping hand (well, lung) in the fight for sustainable energy.  The harnessing device is a notion called the Aire Mask, and if it makes the leap from design to developed gadget, you will be able to charge your phone while looking like Darth Vader.

The Aire Mask would theoretically use small turbines to generate electricity with every exhale.  A USB port would then deliver it to the device of your choice.  Creator Joao Paulo Lammoglia has received a Red Dot outline grant to further this energy source, which he claims could be used when walking, running, or just chilling.

Is having a constant, mindlessly renewable power source worth looking like a robot?  If you jones on your phone, quite possibly.  Or maybe it'll become trendy - look how useful and cool you just became!  Just be sure to take it off for a minute when your new admirers attempt a kiss.

Good for powering small devices, helping the environment, and sexually attracting Bane.

"Aw helllll yeah."

Here Comes The Sunflower: New Device To Provide Solar Power, Heat, & Clean Water

This could be a breakthrough that gets through three major modern human needs at once.  A new invention called the Sunflower could be planted in remote areas to harvest solar power, generate heat, and create drinking water, all in one shiny package.

As reported by newscientist.com, Airlight Energy of Switzerland has crafted an ingenious three-in-one solution to many of the remote world's requirements.  Standing at 10 meters high, the Sunflower is relatively unobtrusive, and can fit neatly into one shipping crate to help out humans anywhere.

Featuring a water-cooled solar panel designed by IBM, the petal-like array reflects light back onto itself, concentrating the light energy two thousand fold.  The water-cooling elements keep the photovoltaic chips at optimum operating temperature, then the sun-heated water can power a desalination station.  In coastal areas, this could use seawater (which is evaporated through a membrane three times for purity), while in other areas it could serve to purify water from lakes, rivers, or rain.  An astonishing 2,500 liters of water a day could possibly be made palatable.

The mirrors themselves are not the traditional heavy-glass variety, but rather are fabricated from, "the same material potato chip and chocolate wrapping is made of," Airlight's Ilaria Besozzi says. The mirrors are in a low-vacuum concave shape that could release to disseminate sunlight and preserve the photovoltaic chips, were the chips to reach a critical melting temperature (in event of water cooling failure.)

While power storage issues are being assessed for the Sunflower, prototypes are expected to enter experimental field tests in 2016, before hitting the market in 2017. The projected output of the Sunflower is slated to provide 12 kilowatts of electricity and 20 kilowatts of heat from 10 hours of sunlight exposure.

Whether its helping far-flung tribesmen or supporting survivalists in style, the Sunflower could light up (and heat, and hydrate) lots of lives.

Radiant!  (Image courtesy inhabitat.com.)

Easy As A Walk In The Park: Footstep-Powered "Kinetic Energy" Charging Stations To Debut

Step right up and harness yourself some energy.  That's what's happening with a new kinetic energy project which aims to install public footstep-powered cellphone charging stations as a stride towards the future.

As reported by citymetric.com, the premise is simple:  accrued footsteps from passersby press into the pavement, triggering small underground turbines with their pressure, forcing out fluid that in turn helps generate electricity.  The result is manifested in a station called "EnGo" - a combination solar/kinetic-powered charging station that can juice up to 14 phones at a time.

The EnGo stations, created by the Volta company, will be appearing in 100 American cities over the next several months, with one already operational in St. Louis.  Volta CEO Peter Mirovic is proud to be able to generate energy harvested from what would otherwise be what he calls a "waste of footsteps." Volta also aims to use this technology to power streetlights kinetically.

Dancing in the streets would be an appropriate and useful reaction.

For express charging, they should create a version powered by "Dance Dance Revolution."

Resonate With Resin: New Eco-Friendly Battery Created From Pine & Alfalfa

While lithium batteries have been the standard as small, portable power sources for decades now, their difficulty to the environment is undeniable.  Now, researchers from Uppsala have used organic materials to create a new and effective battery that requires a great deal less environmental trouble.

According to sciencedaily.com, lithium itself is a rare element on Earth, and the process of extracting it is arduous.  Other chemicals involved in traditional batteries are not only rare but also require toxic chemicals to aid in the extraction process that makes them viable to the battery design.  The premise behind the new batteries, which are constructed in part from pine resin and alfalfa, involves recycling the lithium from older batteries and continuing to utilize it, with help from the more-amenable biomaterials.

An astonishing 99% of power was recovered from the "spent" lithium batteries when used in conjunction with the new biomaterial battery design.  Further developments in the future may even be able to improve on this, making lithium-ion batteries ever-more attractive options for sparking and storing energy in the future.  This could be beneficial in particular for the electric automobile industry, or the storage systems required for implementation of large-scale solar power.

Daniel Brandell, Senior Lecturer of Uppsala University's chemistry department, explained, "The use of organic materials from renewable sources makes it possible to solve several of the problems that would arise from a huge rise in the use of lithium batteries. But above all, it's a major step forward that, to a high degree and in a simple, environment-friendly way, the lithium from these batteries can be recovered. These solutions are also potentially very cost-effective."

Thus, recycling our rare-earth material and mixing it with regular-earth material might just be the perfect way to keep us powered up for years to come.

PINE POWER!

Text On Fire: New "FireChat" Service Connects Phones Under The Radar

While not stirring up a lot of coverage in the Western world, the current pro-Democracy protests in China are benefiting humanity with more than just a shot at free speech. Namely, in conjunction with a new texting service, now they're showing how many people can use their free speech, internet-free.

According to the independent.co.uk, FireChat is an iOS-based text messaging service that is able to operate without cellphone or internet service, making it ideal for revolutionaries in communications-restricted countries. FireChat uses Bluetooth to create "mesh networking" with other phones in the area, strengthening the connection and allowing for discussion.

FireChat does not aim to be the exclusive domain of the repressed, saying it could be useful "on the beach or in the subway, at a big game or a trade show, camping in the wild or at a concert, or even travelling abroad, simply fire up the app with a friend or two and find out who else is there."

Current numbers suggest that already tens of thousands of people are using the FireChat app at any given time, so fire it up and see what's up.

Hear hear.  (Students on the streets of Hong Kong, protesting and pro-texting.  Image courtesy lesechos.fr.)

Snuggle Up To New Hug-Hunting App, "Cuddlr"

Aw, there there. Does someone need a hug? Well, now instead of dealing with the peskiness of generating affection from any conventional source, a new app will help you get held, nicely (but nonsexually.)

According to techanalyzer.net, the new app Cuddlr is "a location-based social-meeting app for cuddling." You read that right. Not relationships, not hookups, just hugs. It requires users to be 17+ (to presumably prevent statutory hugging) and is currently available on iOS (their Android release is set for 2015.)

Creator Charlie Williams feels that he is fulfilling a yet-unexplored social connection gap, explaining, "We don’t have a space for this in our culture...there’s not a way to have physical affection that isn’t tied to sex. I think there should be. Not with any random person on the street, but perhaps with some carefully selected random people? Definitely."

Prospective embracers can try out "test cuddles" to see if they're down with random snugglers, and frequent users can earn "reputation points" for the security and quality of their hugs.

Shh, there there. Feel better now? Oh ok, one more time. That's right, hug it out. It'll be okay.

Don't get so desperate that you end up hugging tigers.  Use Cuddlr instead.

Shrug Off "Atlas", Facebook's New Ad-Stalking Network

You are a target.  Your likes, dislikes, and desires, as manifested via the internet, make you prime material for directed advertising, and social media giant Facebook knows it.  That's why they're stepping in to make their ads follow you around the internet, like a lost dog of consumerism, or perhaps an over-egregious door-to-door salesman inside your screen.

According to mashable.com, the targeted ads will start following you immediately.  You selections and mentions on facebook help them to direct material that they think you will be prone to clicking on, and thus your creepily-pertinent ad distractions will appear if you visit other facebook-affiliated sites (such as Amazon or various news outlets.)

Facebook's new ad network, Atlas, is responsible for this collection and dispersal.  A former Microsoft company which Facebook purchased for $100 million last year, Atlas tracks your verbiage and serves up what it feels is appropriate topical consumer choices.  Atlas CEO Erik Johnson stated this is superior to the logging of your info by your computer's "cookies", stating in a blog post that, "Cookies don’t work on mobile, are becoming less accurate in demographic targeting and can’t easily or accurately measure the customer purchase funnel across browsers and devices or into the offline world."

Now that they've stepped up their game, so can you.  Services like Adblock, Ghostery, NoScript and Disconnect.me can help to combat the ever-encroaching e-eyeballs and protect your privacy.  So if you've ever had the sneaking suspicion that your paper trail needs to be burned, now you know how to fire it up.

You don't want to be on the shoulders of the Atlas that hefts the world wide web.