Fuel cells on the water
Been a lot in the press about hydrogen fuel cells in future autos, but there are a couple of companies, Hydrogenics and HaveBlue, that are getting the technology on the high seas. The two are putting together a 42-foot prototype scheduled to hit the high seas this summer. Read a story on Wired about other ocean-going fuel cell technology.

One other interesting story we found on Wired today involves the NHL playoffs...One enterprising team is using digital video recording and a tablet PC to monitor plays and tweak the game plan on the fly...
- posted by Paula Porter @ 8:49 AM

 
Lord of the LED wins Lemelson-MIT Prize
You may have never heard of Nick Holonyak Jr., but you probably see his invention in action all day long and into the night. Holonyak worked for Bell Labs and General Electric in the '50s and '60s and is credited with inventing the LED and the dimmer switch. On Friday, he gets a cool half mil for his work.

The second news item that caught our interest was a credit card that only works when you talk to it...Sister publication of Design News, New Scientist, notes that a prototype built by engineers at Beepcard in Santa Monica, California, represents one of the first known attempts to implant a microphone, a loudspeaker, a battery and a voice-recognition chip into a standard VISA/MasterCard.


Finally, a way to prove the space-time continum and all those weird Star Trek shows where the crew mysteriously goes back in time...NASA has launched aDelta 2 rocket carrying the Gravity Probe-B spacecraft to test =Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. Francis Everitt has worked on this project for 40 years - talk about a life-long mission!


- posted by Paula Porter @ 7:21 AM

 
Robotic cat herders
There's an old saying, "It's as easy as herding cats." Well, that may really come true. Researchers from 3 universities - University of Minnesota, University of Pennsylvania, and the California Institute of Technology -- are working on software that will allow multiple robots to work as a team. Funded by a Information Technology Research award from the National Science Foundation, this project, while not really herding cats, could be used as search robots, each with a different function.

Are disposable cars on the horizon? They are if you consider the extremely high costs of repair as noted in this article in the Christian Science Monitor. Airbags are the number one expense after an accident. Before the advent of airbags only 8% of cars in an accident were totaled. Now it's 20%. Sounds like a design problem waiting for a solution!


- posted by Paula Porter @ 9:12 AM

 
Back again
We're not too consistent right now...could it be spring fever (or in this neck of New England, Sox Fever after a great series where the boys from Bauston beat the Yanks 3 out of 4 games!??? Dreams of Cubs-Red Sox series???)

Anyway, some findings lately on my web browsing...Read about new robots coming online to help emergency responders on sciencedaily.com. Also in today's stories, a new plastic developed that are made of tiny bits of material that possess a conducting center and two, non-conducting end pieces.

Since the Bruins are out of Stanley Cup running, we have one less sport to keep track of ... which could mean more time to surf engineering sites...Of course, the Celts may be done in a week or so, leaving us even more time...they are a young team and were darn lucky to make the playoffs.
- posted by Paula Porter @ 8:38 AM