Monday, December 17, 2007

Technology


如果你把手合在一起，然后朝你的姆指使劲吹，你大概就知道新的风能动力是怎么回事，利用少量的空气刮过一个类似薄带钢的材料可以制造频率，也可以转化为声波，或者转化为能源。 这是由Shawn Frayne发明的Windbelt，能够提高能源10至30倍以上的效率，Shawn Frayne因此获得大众机械师突破奖（Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award），而Shawn Frayne才29岁。 下面就是Shawn Frayne讲解日常生活如何利用微风产生新清洁能源的原理视频。

http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1233395616

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The Innovators (with Video)

Amory Lovins: The Prophet of Efficiency

There was a time when resources were plentiful, and people scarce. Now the opposite is true—and PM's Breakthrough Leadership Award winner sees that as an opportunity for creative engineering.

Jefferson Y. Han: The Hands-on Computer

If a screen is large enough, four or five people can work at it together, rearranging blueprints, say, or editing photos—but not with a mouse. The answer, which Han demonstrates on his 3 x 8-ft. Media Wall, is multitouch input.

Hod Lipson and Team: The Make-Anything Machine

Picture a 3D inkjet printer that deposits droplets of plastic, layer by layer, gradually building up an object of any shape. Scientists at Cornell developed the low-cost, open-source Fab at Home and encouraged experimentation online.

Farhan Gandhi: The Length-Morphing Helicopter Rotor

Helicopter performance depends on the length of the rotor blades: For heavy lifting, a large rotor works best, but short blades allow for higher maximum speeds. Now there's a simple way to achieve both configurations in the same aircraft.

Shawn Frayne: The Nonturbine Wind Alternative

In a conventional wind generator, gears help transfer the motion of blades to a turbine where an electric current is induced. The Windbelt is simple and efficient in light breezes—a magnet mounted on a vibrating membrane simply oscillates between wire coils.

Stuart Harshbarger and Team: The Responsive Arm

Proto 2, the prosthetic arm being developed by Harshbarger and a team of 30 partners, may not be as good as the real thing, but it’s narrowing the gap. The nerve-powered robo-limb allows for 27 different kinds of movement—and you can feel.

Ashok Gadgil, Christina Galitsky: The High-Efficiency Cookstove

In Darfur, some 2.2 million refugees cook their meals over inefficient wood fires in camps, with plenty of risks to refuel off-site. There’s nothing high-tech about this stove, but it slashes the time refugees need to spend in heightened danger.

Kelydra Elizabeth Welcker: The DIY Water Cleaner

As debate raged about health effects from a DuPont plant's pollution, our 18-year-old Next Generation Award winner took action. Using hand-me-down chemistry equipment in a trailer, Welcker developed combined the stuff that cleans fish tanks and electrosorption.

The Products

Microsoft Surface: Interface Marriage

This tabletop computer uses "multitouch" technology to let several users, employing their fingers, manipulate images and other data right on the screen—no keyboard or mouse needed.

Dow SafeTouch Fiberglass-Free Insulation: Lofty Design

This is a plastic fiber batt insulation that has the same R-value as fiberglass without any of the dust and itching problems. You can cut the material with a utility knife—no goggles, work gloves or face mask required.

Samsung Solid State Drive: Beyond Spin

These drives are essentially big bundles of flash memory—up to 64GB—that replace traditional hard drives. Laptops using SSDs are lighter, faster and quieter than those with conventional drives.

Ford Sync: Car, Connected

The Detroit automaker has elegantly and inexpensively leap-frogged the competition when it comes to in-car infotainment systems. Ford’s $395 Sync is essentially a small computer running the Microsoft Auto operating system that wirelessly integrates all of your mobile gadgets.

Zonbu Zonbox: No-Risk Computer Shopping

It isn't the technology that makes the Zonbox revolutionary, it's the idea. Borrowing a page from the cellphone industry, Zonbu offers its compact Zonbox PC for $99 with a two-year, $15 per month plan, which includes 50GB of online storage.

GM, Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz, BMW Two-Mode Hybrid: Heavy-Duty Powerplant

The three giants joined forces to develop a scalable hybrid system that brings the fuel-saving technology to the masses of cars and trucks that each manufacturer produces. The fuel savings, over such large volumes of traditionally thirsty vehicles, should be impressive.

Nintendo Wii Fit: Heart-Pumping Gaming

This soon-to-be-released suite of games that uses a $70 weight- and balance-sensing Balance Board, does everything from analyzing posture to revealing how bad you actually are at yoga. It turns fitness into a game, instead of a chore.

Hitachi Power Tools CR13VBY Reciprocating Saw: Smooth Cutter

This $159 saw uses a counterweight mechanism that dampens vibration, reportedly by more than 65 percent. Hitachi calls it User Vibration Protection, and in PM testing, it dramatically reduced operator fatigue—and arguably improved safety.

Apple iPhone: The Smartest Phone

Of course, you’ve heard about this phone. But have you used it? The best way to understand why Apple’s iPhone has sent shockwaves through the cellphone industry is simply to check your voice mail with it.

LG Super Blu Player: Format Neutral Zone

As the hi-def disc-format war rages on, wary HDTV enthusiasts are inclined to wait on the sidelines until the dust has settled. But LG has created a safe haven for early adopters. The Super Blu Player plays both HD DVDs and Blu-ray discs, and it upscales regular DVDs to hi-def resolutions.

The Conference

Green Guru: Wal-Mart, Pentagon, Detroit on Verge of Big Eco-Cash

If Wal-Mart can go green, so can the Pentagon. That was how energy pioneer and PM Breakthrough Leadership Award winner Amory Lovins drove home his message that when big business executes efficiently, it’s not just about eco-image. It’s about money.

Big Tech Companies Can’t Forget Simple Gadgets, Inventors Say

The tech world is misunderstanding appropriate technology for developing nations as “low-tech,” leaders in the growing field of practical invention said at the 2007 PM Breakthrough Conference. In fact, it might be tougher to design them for rich countries.

Educator Panel: U.S. Science Needs a Sputnik-ian Wakeup Call

With American high school seniors performing below international averages, top students and educators agreed today that even another Sputnik doesn’t come along, there needs to be an ambitious plan to increase awareness of scientific education.

Third-World Tech, Oil-Free Business and Next-Gen Scientists: Podcast

A sit down with efficiency guru Amory Lovins to find how Wal-Mart can teach Detroit and the Pentagon how to go green, more of America's top innovators talk technology for developing nations and how to save American science education.

The History

Where Are They Now? Checking In With America’s Top Innovators

The Breakthrough Awards have celebrated 20 bold ideas set to change the world—maybe not at the exact moment their inventors accepted a trophy, but shortly thereafter. We tracked down nine of the most ambitious breakthroughs to see how close they’ve come.

2006 Breakthrough Awards

Between the man who's building the first DIY rocket to sub-orbital space, the guy who's selling the first electric sports car and a team who sent a road trip to Jupiter, we almost had more top minds than we could handle last year.

2005 Breakthrough Awards

Whether it was the leading mind in next-gen prosthetics or advances in Mars exploration and Middle East combat, the first annual innovation celebration still holds up.
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