Sorry for the lack of posting here, but I have been learning how to move a website form Drupal to Word Press
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If you know me, you should know I am not a fan of anything Apple (iPod, iPhone, iAnything).
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Technology Review is reporting that new Flexible Sheets Capture Energy from Movement – Material could charge portable electronics with every step.
Researchers at Princeton University have created a flexible material that harvests record amounts of energy when stressed. The researchers say the material could be incorporated into the soles of shoes to power portable electronics, or even placed on a heart patient’s lungs to recharge a pacemaker as he breathes.
Flex your power: A Princeton researcher holds a square of silicone embedded with a ribbon of a crystalline material that generates an electrical current when flexed.
Credit: Frank WojciechowskiThe energy-harvesting rubber sandwiches ribbons of a piezoelectric material called PZT between pieces of silicone. When mechanically stressed, a piezoelectric material generates a voltage that can be used to produce electrical current; a current can also be converted back into mechanical movement.
The rubber material can harness 80 percent of the energy applied when it is flexed–four times more than existing flexible piezoelectric materials.
Flexibility could prove vital if energy-harvesting technology is to take off. For example, the military tested stiff-soled piezoelectric shoes as a power source, but soldiers complained of foot pain. And previous flexible energy harvesters–based on piezoelectric polymers, nanowires, or other types of crystal–put out little electrical current.
PZT is the most efficient piezoelectric material known, but its crystalline structure means that it must be grown at high temperatures, which normally melt a flexible substrate. The Princeton researchers, led by mechanical engineering professor Michael McAlpine, got around this by making PZT at high temperatures and then transferring thin ribbons of the material onto silicone.
The possibilities of charging your electronic devises or as used in medical patients with this material is truly astounding.
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Ford provided some good news on the earnings front today. The only one of Detroit’s fabled Big Three that managed to avoid bankruptcy, the company earned $2.7 billion in 2009. This is quite an achievement during one of the most turbulent economic environments in US history. The company also picked up market share for the first time since 1995, during the era of the fabled Taurus.
While its $34 billion debt load remains a concern, Ford is looking at a favorable market environment. Rivals GM and Chrysler must deal with the shrinkage that is inextricably linked to bankruptcy, while rival Toyota is dealing with bad publicity and potentially damaging lawsuits on product recalls.
Check out more on this story at
DailyFinance.com
Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPad as the company’s “latest creation,” saying the tablet-style device is more intimate than laptop
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As I have said before I have hadno problems with my Nexus One. Well, I have found a bug and so has a few others.
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One of the factors in GM’s storied decline was the car giant’s use of rebates to boost its sales numbers during periods of sluggish demand. Now discounts have their place in any marketing plan. But GM’s use of them, quarter after quarter, year after year, was very counterproductive. To be sure, the rebates drew people into showrooms and spurred sales. But the perpetual rebate policy morphed into a device that sucked future demand into the present, postponing the need for the company to face up to the challenge of properly forecasting demand properly and selling cars at a profit in response to it.
The financial markets are abuzz this week with news of the sluggish demand for housing. Sales dropped almost 17% as the expiration date for the government’s tax credit for first time buyers draws closer. The government is playing the role of GM here, as with all the other stimulus expenditures: goosing short term demand by shifting it from future periods, while the economic fundamentals stagnate or get worse.
Here’s a hint for the government mandarins. The cure for the housing market is a recovering economy, especially jobs growth. You can’t play GM forever. Even if you now own it.
See the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the housing numbers.
Which Chat Client do you like the best
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Some people using the Nexus One have been having trouble connecting to 3G
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Here is a video of the differences between the N1 and the DROID in the sun.
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