Gadgets

One of my readers recently asked me to write about flying cars. I have looked at this technology in the past and considered it of little value as a common mode of transportation. Cars drive on roads. Airplanes take off from private or commercial airports. When you fly you file a fligh

If you ever have used a salad spinner to dry out your lettuce then you know the principle behind the GiraDora, loosely meaning “spinning washing machine” in Spanish. GiraDora both washes and spin dries clothes placed in it, and it does it without electricity, just pedal po

Imagine never having to change the battery in your watch or calculator. You no longer have to. Move over batteries, a new nano-based source of energy is about to enter the marketplace. The device is called the BOLT (one can be seen next to the U.S. quarter in the image below). It is a

I don’t know how I missed this gadget which one a design award back in 2010. It is called the DewBank and it is biomimetic device that collects and channels water into a bottle even in a desert climate. Simply place the stainless steel device on a flat, windless area in the even

Introducing the Window Socket, a solar charger that adheres to windows with suction and acts like an electrical socket converting energy from the Sun. Its inventors are Kyuho Song and Boa Oh, two industrial designers. Each Window Socket contains a 1,000 milliamp- hour battery, equival

Here’s an interesting fact. Greater than half of the population of this planet prepares meals each day using indoor open fires or cook stoves. There are enormous health implications for those families, and in particular infants, who breathe in the toxic smoke that includes carbo

Quebec-based Lito Green Motion has developed an all-electric motor bike that comes with a 12 Kilowatt lithium-polymer battery. Called the Sora which means “sky” in Japanese, the bike has a range of 300 kilometers (185 miles) per charge. Using a conventional outlet it takes

A veritable cornucopia of gadgets can be found at Open Source Technology, featuring the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS), a modular, low-cost technology platform from which you can manufacture 50 different types of machines including: 3D printer 3D scanner 50 Kilowatt wind turbi

The Velkess Flexible Flywheel promises energy storage technology at a “radically lower cost.” Think of a house with solar panels on the roof. During the day the house receives enough energy from the Sun to power the lights, heat, air conditioning and appliances in the hous