So I'm trying to figure out how to best de-wire my technology. I am considering a bluetooth mouse and keyboard, am looking for a bluetooth printer (not a lot out there), and stumbled on this cool technology - http://splashpower.com/prod1.html Another Cambridge based brainy idea company!

Any thoughts on all this? Bluetooth is dead? Wires are sexy? Don't waste your cash? That technology is dumb?

- Jon

There's at least one other company doing something similar; I did some research around August or so when I wanted a wireless way to charge things like a lawnmower or a vacuum. I decided to not care then.

Now I want a wireless way to charge a car. Dream on...

The really annoying thing from my point of view is that I had that idea in about 1994, but didn't know who to take it to and couldn't have afforded to do anything with it anyway

Actually, my idea was a little more complete, since I was thinking of a lowish frequency as an inductive power coupling for charging purposes, and a much higher frequency on top of it as a very short range high bandwidth comms layer. The idea was that one could have a device which was like a very powerful PDA with lots of storage, which when dropped on the pad became effectively a desktop machine. IE the video card, monitor, keyboard, mouse, networking, sound, etc were in a base station with a standardised interface, and the portable unit was the storage (which after all is the core of any machine when you get right down to it).

One could forget about lugging an entire machine around, just have a pocket-sized databank with enough OS and CPU to be used for PDA-like purposes, but enough storage to hold all your work, data, applications, etc. At home or at work, drop it on the standard IO console interface and instant PC.

Rob would remember this, we talked about the idea extensively when we were supposed to be working.

Oh well. Perhaps one day, when I'm rich

pca

Now I want a wireless way to charge a car.

That's been available for more than 100 years. It's called gasoline.

tanstaafl.

That's been available for more than 100 years. It's called gasoline.

It's unclear how much of the next hundred you can have it for.

Which reminds me...

...my latest pet hate is news stories that go out about how fuel cells in cars are going to save the planet without going into the question of where the power is going to come from to produce the hydrogen to run them on.

I fear most of the public that have seen the fuel cells stories think they create no carbon dioxide or polution

my latest pet hate is news stories that go out about how fuel cells in cars are going to save the planet without going into the question of where the power is going to come from to produce the hydrogen to run them on.

Oh, that's easy. You just use a fuel cell to electrolyse water and use the hydrogen from that to run more fuel cells...

pca

> Any thoughts on all this? Bluetooth is dead? Wires are sexy?
> Don't waste your cash? That technology is dumb?

I like the tech...assuming they actually bother to get some products out there...

A full sweep of the site indicates "er, we're working with some OEMs...check back soon..."

-brendan

Bluetooth is dead?

I certainly hope so. I've had two negative experiences with Bluetooth so far, and considering that counts for 100% of my interaction with it, I'm not thrilled. Yes, one of those was with Microsoft products, but the other was not, and it's very annoying.

My bluetooth experiences:

1. SE T610 & Parrot CK3000: works 100% of the time. Hell, I even had in-car speakerphone calls with my phone buried deep in the drivers seat to the point where I couldn't find it.

2. SE T610, BT<->serial bridge, Zaurus: something's not quite right, they tend to forget to relink up sometimes. I suspect it's the firmware in the phone (fixable) or the bridge dongle (not fixable).

So, 50/50 so far.

-brendan

Fuel cells are a real load of crap. They've had plenty of time to mature as a technology, but haven't. All of the battery chemistries are recent compared to the life of the fuel cell.

There's supposed to be an advance in solar cells coming this year (like, it was developed and is going into production). Maybe that will be the answer for where power comes from.

Now, all this said, someone pointed me at a new idea which looks interesting.
http://www.theaircar.com

In reply to:

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Now, all this said, someone pointed me at a new idea which looks interesting.
http://www.theaircar.com

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Yeah I saw a presentation on that about 18 months ago now.

Very nice idea.

The other point is that the cars themselves are all solid-colour plastic panels, so if you scrape the car, the colour stays the same. And if the panel is too badly scratched or otherwise damaged you just replace it and recyle the old one - and being plastic it never rusts - just gets brittle and fades due to increased UV from the ozone hole :-(.

Only thing I noticed about it is that the engine note sounds funny, kind of like a sick 2-stroke lawnmower. The only emissions though are air from the exhaust pipe.

According to the info I saw the "energy density" [Watts per kg] of compressed air is pretty high, coming close to that of carbon fuels.

I like the idea too that you recharge it by either filling up with compressed air at a service station [like with natural gas or petrol] or by plugging it into the mains and run the things "in reverse" while parked to compress air back into compressed air "fuel".

Of course it had better be quiet doing that [recharging from the mains] or no-one will plug their car in at home or work due to the noise if makes.

Of course, its not like fossil fuels were you get energy/something "for nothing".

You have to make the energy to run the compressor or make the compressed air some other way.

Which it seems they have thought about - turning motion directly back into compressed air removes wastage involved in making electricty then running a compressor to make the compressed air.

And of course, if the car crashes, the compressed air won't catch fire or explode like other compressed fuesl can do.
I'm sure if the cylinder ruptured the nett effect would be like a small bomb, but thats a danger with any compressed fuel being stored at high pressure.

I'd buy one tomorrow if they were available down here.

Another advantage would be you would be in a cold place the compressing of air natuarly gives you wasted energy in the form of heat which could be usd for heating.

I always thought that a compressed air car would be the way to go. But like electric cars it doesn't slove the problem it moves the problem.

Now Bio diesel which is basically vegtable oil now that does seem better to me due to basically zero Co2 emissions. Bio diesel is basically chemicaly treated vegtable oil which reduces the viscosity but if you increase the temp it also reduces viscosity to the point where you get reliable atomisation. The diesel engine was designed to run on basically anything and they do. On ships we run on what is basically a slightly thiner verson of road tar but i have heard of diesels running on coal dust and dryed aglae If you can get it into a burnble powder or fluid a diesel can problably run on it.

Oh yeah the original point about wireless keyboards, Why i never move my keyboard if the wire bothers you drill a hole under the keyboard and drop the cable through it. I do have a bluetooth mouse and keyboard but only for the laptop which i put down next to the two of them and bingo instant desktop.

Hmmmmm....BioDiesel.
I love that stuff, I run it in my 5 gallons of it in every tank in VW Golf. The car runs quieter and the exhaust smells much nicer.
Add in the fact that it can be made from and vegetable oil - even after it's been used by McD's to make your lunch.

It would be nice to have it more available, as it is I head 90 miles north to fill eight 5 gallon tanks which will last me 4 months or between 5600 & 6400 miles (depends how heavy on the go-fats pedal I press).

There was a paper on this site http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/index.html that compared the cost of Hydrogen and Biodiesel. It estimated that it's going to cost ~$170billion to put in place the infrastructure to distribute (no mention of production) hydrogen.
While for the same money it would be possible to put in place infrastructure to produce sufficient BioDiesel to supply the American transport industry. This is done using Algae ponds at wastewater treatment plants and not farm land. Note BioDiesel would be using the existing gas/diesel distribution network.

It estimated that it's going to cost ~$170billion to put in place the infrastructure to distribute (no mention of production) hydrogen.

At the moment Hydrogen does seem a bit pointless, but that's where we're all headed. I'm sure the EC must have a rapeseed oil lake sitting somewhere.

someone pointed me at...theaircar.com

I'd much rather have a skycar

I'd much rather have a skycar

Oh, God, not that again...

I thought I was pretty definitive about it the last time it came up for discussion.

tanstaafl.

The diesel-electric Dodge Intrepid ESX-3 that never went production, plus biodiesel, seemed like a good candidate for an efficient car.

It estimated that it's going to cost ~$170billion to put in place the infrastructure to distribute (no mention of production) hydrogen.
While for the same money it would be possible to put in place infrastructure to produce sufficient BioDiesel to supply the American transport industry.

But BMW doesn't make any money on the latter!

BMWCCA #191241