The Plantbook laptop, designed by Seunggi Baek & Hyerim Kim, is another effort to green the world.
Not exactly what I meant, but you get the picture. This laptop, inspired by trees, uses a form of photosynthesis. Just like leaves, it absorbs sunlight using solar panels and energy from the hydrogen in a simple cup of water (that the battery sits in). Then Voila! your battery is charged and at the same time releases oxygen, helping the environment around it. Though you may think having to change the battery in your computer may be a pain, that’s the price you have to pay to help the environment.
In specific terms, the designers explain:
“The system uses an external water tank, hence the Plantbook continuously absorbs water when soaking it in water and generates electrolysis using power stored in a solar heat plate installed on the top. In this process, it is operated using hydrogen as energy source and discharges oxygen. If you put it into a water bottle while you don’t use the laptop, it automatically charges a battery and discharges oxygen. A leaf-shaped strap hanging on the top is made with silicon. It plays a role of a hand ring and a green LED indicates when the battery is charged. Using this LED, users can check how much spare capacity the batter has.”
The Plantbook is certainly an innovative idea, making laptops much more energy efficient, while also looking pretty awesome. I mean, look at Beijing or Mexico City, when you go there you have to wear a mask it’s so bad. This idea, along with electric cars and other eco-friendly products, will hopefully help revive the ecosystem closer to what it was BEFORE we humans started to damage it.
This week’s Tech Of The Week is an advance in automobile technology and the interplay between smartphones and large-scale consumer products.
Before his death, Steve Jobs had a idea to make Apple an even bigger part of society than it already is. One concept has been called the iCar.
After Jobs died, the idea for an iCar faded, but under new Apple CEO, Tim Cook, there are rumors that the company has started to rethink the idea. An Apple iCar would seamlessly interwork all of Apple’s devices. We could of course expect a typically stylish and futuristic design from Apple as well.
The interior of the car would be a key challenge for the designers. They want it to interwork multiple devices, yet be still a car, not a mobile Apple store. Also, when people shop for cars, they want comfortable seats and attractive dashboards. Apple’s design, like Ford or Tesla, could resonate with the buying public or Apple’s design success for small gadgets might not transfer to large scale products.
“Look at the car industry; it’s a tragedy in America. Who’s designing the cars?” said Mickey Drexler, a long time Apple board member. “Steve Jobs’ dream before he died was to build an iCar.” It will be interesting to see how Apple would do on the car, being a mostly smartphone and computer manufacture. Even without Jobs, Apple will most likely impress the public with a futuristic iCar, just like Steve Jobs wanted.
Back in 1932, Mercedes Benz released their motor and Formula One racing car, the Silver Arrow. The Silver Arrow was very successful, and the most popular car for german racers in the 1930s. The trademark white, for Germany, decorating the car, the Silver Arrow won many competitions. It even won the French Grand Prix 1-2-3. This type of car was a source of pride to the company and country, and it was only logical to preserve it’s greatness.
The Silver Arrow
79 years later, at the 2011 LA Design Challenge, Mercedes Benz were showing off their concept car, Silver Lighting. Silver Lightning, as you may have guessed, was inspired by Silver Arrow, reintroducing the pride of Mercedes prowess in the racing sport.
As part of their presentation, they made a short film about the car:
Silver Lightning was not only inspired by Silver Arrow, it was also inspired by classic sci-fi movies, as is a lot of technology today. Think about it. The flip-up communicators from Star Trek. In the Silver Lighning’s case, the futuristic lights on the wheels were inspired by Tron: Legacy, and the shape was inspired by Star Wars: Episode II. Along with science fiction, the Silver Lightning embodies everything we want the future to be like: flashy, slick, technologically advanced, and as cool as heck.
Silver Lightning is still not coming out any time soon. It uses a lot of future technologies, like Mag-Tech. Mag-Tech is a retractable roof system, a lot like nowadays convertible roofs. But instead of having to take the whole roof off, this technology would make it easier. Mag-Tech uses small lightweight magnetic squares to quicken the process, and can be quickly put together to make a roof, or easily contracted to make a convertible.
When you look at Silver Lightning, you may be wondering, “Where are the wheels? All I see are rings where the wheels should be!” Totally understandable. Those rings ARE actually the wheels, which is another future technology that might postpone the release of Silver Lightning. The technology is called Omni-Directional Wheels. Inside the rings, there are rollers that are all placed in a different direction, making the car able to move in all directions. This technology would let the driver be able to move the car in all different directions, not just forward and back, and is already being used in the storage and manufacturing business for lifting boxes and heavy objects. Omni-directional wheels would eliminate the need for parallel parking, which in sure many new drivers would be happy about, but the technology isn’t yet ready for implementation into racing or even regular automobiles.
Silver Lightning is designed for speed. The sleek design is perfect for zooming down the freeway or track. But just like Lamborghinis and Maseratis, it will probably become a fancy sports car that like to show off. The problem with many of these technologies, such as the segway, and even Google Glass, is that the hype surrounding them blocks out the unfortunate downsides of the technology itself. It may look cool now, but by the time we get to a point where any of these technologies would be possible, which wouldn’t be that far into the future, there will most likely already be many cars with the same design. Who knows, there may be a time when having a Maserati Silver Lighting would be just as normal as having a Toyota, but for now, it is still a futuristic concept, yet to be built.
TOTW: Google's Project Ara Modular Phone May Be The Future Of SmartphonesOctober 30, 2014
