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Carnivorous Clock Eats Bugs
Designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau have created a clock that is powered by "eating" bugs. The clock traps insects on flypaper stretched across a roller system and then drops them into a vat of bacteria. The insects are then "digested" and the ensuing chemical reaction is transformed into power that keeps the rollers moving and the LCD clock working. The two offer another version that is powered by mice and an even cooler machine that picks insect fuel from spiderwebs with the help of a robotic arm and a video camera.
I won't be buying a first generation one of these, it's bound to have a tonne of bugs.
Could i please have house alarm from same company please?
Until people start hacking these and needs more power. Then starts going for human flesh.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
...to your laser-blasted skeleton.
Any chance of Microsoft getting a version that would eat the bugs in VIsta? okay someone was going to say it...
Oh sure, everyone's in favor of bug powered clocks, but as soon as you put a pedestrian catcher on the front of your electric SUV to make city driving more efficient then OHHhhh, suddenly you've gone too far!
I'd love to take one of these to Alaska in the spring into the early summertime. With the number of mosquitoes living there, I'll bet enough current could be generated to do something more than just power a clock. Mosquitoes in Alaska have been known to be so voracious as to kill a moose that happens upon a swarm. Imagine what millions of these pests could do with this system - bake a chicken or turkey or even provide enough electricity to power a small cabin.
I think the practical application is that it gets rid of bugs and it tells the time.
Nice to see that PETA is already all over this.
These bloodthirsty, gut-wrenching robots, designed by UK-based designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau thrive on killing and liquidizing flies and mice, whilst serving the purpose of⦠well, not much at all really.
They even have their own vision of insect disposal.
I wonder if they target antibacterial soap and penicillin next...
Talk about a nested series of links. I had to go through 3 separate sites- Slashdot, Endgadget, and Hack-a-Day, one linked to the other, until I got to the original New Scientist gallery photos which had many more interesting robot pictures. Oh, and the end link wasn't to page 1 of the photo gallery and the links weren't obvious each time either. For those who don't want to go the long way around, here is the original link.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
Instead of linking to a blog that talks about another blog that refers to and links to the original story, why not just link to the original source to save us from 5 click throughs and give the original authors credit as well?
Original story: Domestic robots with a taste for flesh
More direct link, more details, related contraptions (eats mice!): http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/dn17367-carnivorous-domestic-entertainment-robots/1
The power generated might be enough to run one headlight. But what would really be interesting is capturing some of the speed energy to help charge the battery. But with using wind.
I'll do you one better. Attach a sail to the car so that almost all of the "speed" energy is harvested. Fans harvesting electricity from the "wind" generated by the engine propelling the car is less efficient than the engine just making the electricity.
I figured it was too good to be true:
Although, for now, the robots rely on mains power, Auger believes they could become truly self-sufficient.
I like technology-as-art projects, but it'd be much cooler if these things actually *were* powered by bug juice--that is, more like bug powered 75% of the time, with a battery backup or a solar panel (or both) for those days when all the flies have already been eaten--rather than just being combination clock-and-bug-zappers. I'd be interested to see their average power production vs. power consumption.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
This is nothing new, in fact there was an even better robot 5 or 6 years ago in Popular Mechanics that did the same biological digestion-to-electricity conversion, but that one was MOBILE. So theoretically it could walk around catching and eating insects and deriving its power needs from that. Don't know what became of it though, I suppose there were no commercial applications.
Now if the digestion can be made efficient enough, and if it can catch enough food to store enough surplus energy, maybe it could be made to breed!
No, the piratical application involves ship-sized receptacles, cutlasses, and ropes to fetch fuel.
Democrat school playground. Fewer moronic bad-science laws.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Won't work.
Well, it would work, but you'd always lose in the overall equation. By putting something in line to capture the "speed energy", you are forced to put more power out to make the speed.
blah, blah, blah, energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only change states, blah, blah, blah.
To expand on the idea, you could put a giant windmill on top of a car that could produce enough electricity to drive with. Unfortunately, it would take more electricity than you produce to make it move, because of the added resistance of the windmill.
Now, having a deployable windmill that could charge the battery while you're parked is a completely different idea, and almost practical. :) Just like solar, it depends on where you are, and what the environment dictates. Alaska in mid winter isn't exactly good for solar. Most cities don't have a good sustained wind at ground level. Florida along the coast should be great for either, but you'll run out of sun and get extra wind when a hurricane blows through. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
And for the alarm, the clock says
"help me! help me! help me!"
www.eFax.com are spammers
"It recharges on the fly"