Talk about going green with the Bicycle Powered Mobile Phone Center. This transporting phone center does not need any AC power in order to juice up exhausted batteries, and the best part is the battery can also be charged whilst the unit is stationary. Here’s an excerpt on how it works.

The one essential thing that a cell phone has that a call shop doesn’t is a battery, so using parts found in a junk yard we created a constantly recharging battery by pedal power. Electricity is generated as the person is traveling to his destination, if the battery runs low at the destination he can drop the kick stand and start cycling in place. Generating electricity from pedaling allows us to travel to the central park, a remote town or a big festival increasing access to inexpensive telephony anywhere. Because this bike is built for the developing world we had to use parts that could be easily found. To generate the electricity we used an old car alternator that sends the electricity generated to a car battery. The electricity stored in the battery is accessed by an old computer UPS to convert the electricity to 110V.

Source: Hacked Gadgets

You know you’ve been there. You’ve been traveling and all you want is a nice hot espresso. You head to a national chain coffee shop (rhymes with Car Ducks) to get your fix. But wait! They burn the crap out of it! Now your espresso fix is ruined. Or what if you’re miles and miles away from any civilized place with an espresso machine - what do you do then?

The Handpresso is an innovative gadget that allows you (with the purchase of their specialized coffee pods) to brew a nice cup of espresso with just hot water! The description from the website:

Handpresso Wild is at the core of the NOMADIC ESPRESSO. Simple, light, elegant and compact, it works without electricity. It has all the basic qualities to make a premium quality coffee anywhere.

Handpresso Wild prepares a tasty espresso of outstanding quality (according to the manufacturer) obtained by a high-pressure extraction, a patented Handpresso system. The coffee is listed as “a fine and smooth crema, subtle aromas, a structured body, a lengthy finish: a ‘vintage’ coffee!” How do you brew such tasty cup of espresso? Just pump the machine to 16 bar (of pressure, I’m assuming), add hot water from a kettle or a thermo insulated bottle and an Easy Serving Espresso (E.S.E.) pod. Then, serve the espresso in the cup of your choice by pushing the button. Read the rest of this entry »

Everything this year seems to be all about being “eco-friendly” and “green”. Well, in the mobile electronics industry, this trend is nothing new.

Nokia had announced their Eco Sensor Concept phone a while back, and at this year’s CES, they have a non-working prototype on display. From the official website:

The concept consists of two parts – a wearable sensor unit which can sense and analyze your environment, health, and local weather conditions, and a dedicated mobile phone.

The sensor unit will be worn on a wrist or neck strap made from solar cells that provide power to the sensors. NFC (near field communication) technology will relay information by touch from the sensors to the phone or to or to other devices that support NFC technology.

Both the phone and the sensor unit will be as compact as possible to minimize material use, and those materials used in the design will be renewable and/or reclaimed. Technologies used inside the phone and sensor unit will also help save energy.

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Now here’s a green solution that is practical to use at the same time. The STRIDA folding bicycle boasts a special form factor described as the “first completely new bicycle geometry in 95 years”, comprising of a light-weight aluminum triangular frame that folds into a compact, stowable form. All this can be done in just half a dozen seconds, with power transfer to the rear wheels courtesy of a silent, clean Kevlar belt. This translates to low maintenance and no grease no matter where you are going. The STRIDA is currently available in a couple of models - the 22lbs (10kg) “3.2″ and the 19.4lbs (9kg) “5.0″, with the latter featuring disc brakes, alloy rims and hubs. They retail for $499 and $799 respectively.

Source: Gizmag

Normally, I do not report on cars on this site. However, this one really got my attention. The Aptera Super-MPG Electric Typ-1 is quite a cool little number with its ability to achieve 300 miles to the gallon.

That’s right, you heard me, 300 miles to the gallon. It must have something to do with its 3 wheels or something. There are two innovative models that are already pretty much production ready, and could be open as early as next year!

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When I first heard that Pacific Gas & Electric has signed a power purchase agreement with Finavera Renewables for 2 megawatts of electricity that will come from a wave farm, I couldn’t help but wonder what a wave farm is.

I mean, is there some barn where waves are raised to their maximum height? Do the wave farmers drive surfboards and not tractors?

Actually, wave power by Finavera makes a device called an Aquabuoy, that is connected to a long underwater piston. The buoy bobs up and down on the waves, then it pushes the piston, which pressurizes a chamber filled with seawater.

Somehow all of this makes electricity. Not only that, just one Aquabuoy is capable of generating 250 kilowatts, which is enough to power 80 homes. The best part is it can also save us a lot of money in the longrun.

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What do you normally do with your leftover food? The Japanese don’t waste anything as they have recently developed a way to use leftover school lunches to create energy - approximately 200 kilograms of collected waste from half a dozen local schools are used to create biofuels, and the ethanol collected will then be used as a teaching aid for alcohol lamps while the methane has been targeted to generate electricity inside the experiment facility. While the amount of energy collected isn’t much, it is still better than letting it waste away.

Source: Far East Gizmos

When selecting their gadgets, some people will go all-out to make sure that the product they purchase is “green.” Unfortunately, what this means a good deal of the time that they pay a hefty premium, and the wonderful gadget is actually more of a pain to use than the other power-hungry options. This new Spin N Snap camera from Sony definitely falls into the “pain to use” category.

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