Heck; off-the-shelf tech can see you through your walls.
If you actually read the article you linked, you could find out that it's custom made hardware made from components which may be used in a wi-fi device, that's not the same as off-the-shelf.
FTFA:
"All the components we use are ones typically used in a Wi-Fi handheld device," she said.
Wi-Vi transmits two Wi-Fi signals, one of which is the inverse of the other.
Off-the-shelf stuff can't do this, but with components similar to that you can.
The screen is 13.3 WXGA, and the size is about 286mm x 179mm, and the panels appear to be the same size, and I can spot three.
Assuming a solar radiation of 1300 W per sqare meter and 15% solar panel efficiency, we arrive at a guesstimate of:
286mm * 179mm * 3 panels * 1300 W / square meter * 15% efficiency 30 W.
Looking at their website, it has a Intel Atom D2500 cpu which has a stated max TDP of 10 W, the hard drive could use 2-4 W (guesstimate), and the backlight could use from 1 to 10 watt (guesstimate), leaving still some power to charge the battery.
Now, back to the battery, assuming we get 90% efficiency when charging at 30W at 2 hours gives 54Wh.
Now, using this guesstimate of 13-24W should give from 4 to 9 hours use assuming the CPU is working at max TDP all the time.
To summarize, 2 hours solar charge in ideal conditions and (generously) assuming high quality solar cells (and a lot of other things) could give from 4 to 9 hours laptop use, possibly more.
Sometimes I wonder how much of a role of embarrassment plays in the decision to keep the source code private.
This is usually the biggest concern for me when i develop something, if its something i am proud of and can release freely, then it's gonna be GPLed, if i am embarrased of it, i'm not going to release it, unless people email me about it and promise to not mention me.
Good luck with that the next time you're at the security check at the airport. Pacemakers they know about, but with people getting withheld due to t-shirts with *images* of electronics, this thing is just asking for trouble.
I was at the airport with one of those t-shirts with a working clock on it.
I boarded with no problems, but as they were to take off, (i am not making this up) they announced: "Please turn off all mobile phones, laptops and t-shirts"
There is a 42 reference in this story. This your cue...this is your chance..the spotlight is on you to bring humor to the world and make countless references to Douglas Adams. Because he mentioned the number 42 in a book!
I was thrilled, almost panicking when i read that, the amount of jokes i could make would be endless!
Then i realized that none of them were actually good jokes.
1. Question: How much energy does the plasma-arc use? Answer: The plasma-arc facility uses approximately 40 megawatts of energy per hour. This is approximately one-quarter of the total output of hourly energy received from MSW.
2. Question: What will be the source of the plasma-arc energy? Answer: The facility will receive its energy from its total output. For St. Lucie, it is expected that the 3,000 tons of MSW processed per day will create 160 megawatts of energy per hour. As stated previously, 40 megawatts will be used to power the facility and the remaining 120 megawatts will be sold to an Electric Utility.
3. Question: What does the energy source emit? Answer: See question 5.
4. Question: Is the high heat of the plasma-arc being captured and utilized? Answer: Because of the nature of a closed-loop system the heat will be captured and utilized both in the plasma gasification process and later in the production of steam.
5. Question: How are they going to combust the syngas to keep the emissions low? Answer: There is no combustion during the gasification process. The Plasma-arc gasification process is a chemical reduction process that converts MSW from its original state to a glass-like aggregate solid at the bottom, and a synthetic fuel gas, also known as syngas, at the top.
Once gasification is over, the syngas is cleaned in a multi-step process, bringing it to levels near natural gas cleanliness. It is then compressed before being used as fuel for a gas turbine.
The gas turbine for this process is a modified natural gas turbine that mixes the cleaned syngas with air from the atmosphere, combusts the mixture and sends the hot gases through a turbine. The turbine spins an electric generator to produce electricity. The discharged hot gases are then passed through a heat recovery steam generator to produce more steam and to cool the hot gases. The cooler exhaust gases are then discharged into the atmosphere via a stack.
Emissions from this process are very similar to natural gas combined cycle plants which are considered to be 'clean' and are located and permitted all over the U.S., and for that matter the whole world.
What I'm saying is that kids should not be licensed to work with explosives at such a young age. Mostly because any safety training they'll get in the beginning of the course is unlikely to stick, what they'll remember after such a short course will be how to blow stuff, and I think kids should not learn that until they are old enough to remember and take safety precautions.
I know this is way too much thinkofthechildren, but as a kid, I nearly blew my hands of several times, and I dont want my kids to do what I did. It was fun, yes, but completely unneccesary, and i did not learn much from it.
This is the best and worst idea I've ever seen at the same time.
On the one hand, you have explosives, which are really fun to play with.
But on the other hand, it is illegal without a licence, and for a very good reason, and to give this knowlegde to unlicenced kids?
If kids weren't "bad" enough, you train them to run around and blow stuff up?
If those kids get a little "inspiration" from CNN, you've got a problem.
I beg to disagree - all it would take is for one new strain of virus (biological or programmatical), and suddenly the affected population could well be toast; it could be that only the unmodified folks survive. Then again, that wide and serious diversity could be humanity's redundancy and saving grace as well.
A entire population will not, and cannot be affected by a programmatical virus.
I believe that like now, to catch a computer virus and let it do any damage one has to be either very reckless or a computer illiterate.
I for one welcome a future where stupidity and computer illiteracy is deadly.
It can be viewed from a full 180 degrees cool, so now i can read my paper 'edge on' Actually, if its bendable enough, you can get a 360 degrees viewing angle...
I agree.
Our local newspaper had an article about how dangerous wifi was, but in the way that they assume that hackers lie in your garden to pick up your online bank passwords.
This is probably well off topic, but the magnetic field surrounding the earth come from the fact that we are living on the crust of a molten iron ball which the core spins faster than the rest, thus creating electric currents in the magma and therefore creating a magnetic field.
Slashdot Mirror
Heck; off-the-shelf tech can see you through your walls.
If you actually read the article you linked, you could find out that it's custom made hardware made from components which may be used in a wi-fi device, that's not the same as off-the-shelf.
FTFA:
"All the components we use are ones typically used in a Wi-Fi handheld device," she said.
Wi-Vi transmits two Wi-Fi signals, one of which is the inverse of the other.
Off-the-shelf stuff can't do this, but with components similar to that you can.
Let's work the numbers:
The screen is 13.3 WXGA, and the size is about 286mm x 179mm, and the panels appear to be the same size, and I can spot three.
Assuming a solar radiation of 1300 W per sqare meter and 15% solar panel efficiency, we arrive at a guesstimate of:
286mm * 179mm * 3 panels * 1300 W / square meter * 15% efficiency 30 W.
Looking at their website, it has a Intel Atom D2500 cpu which has a stated max TDP of 10 W, the hard drive could use 2-4 W (guesstimate), and the backlight could use from 1 to 10 watt (guesstimate), leaving still some power to charge the battery.
Now, back to the battery, assuming we get 90% efficiency when charging at 30W at 2 hours gives 54Wh.
Now, using this guesstimate of 13-24W should give from 4 to 9 hours use assuming the CPU is working at max TDP all the time.
To summarize, 2 hours solar charge in ideal conditions and (generously) assuming high quality solar cells (and a lot of other things) could give from 4 to 9 hours laptop use, possibly more.
Got any spoilers for the C++?
Sometimes I wonder how much of a role of embarrassment plays in the decision to keep the source code private.
This is usually the biggest concern for me when i develop something, if its something i am proud of and can release freely, then it's gonna be GPLed, if i am embarrased of it, i'm not going to release it, unless people email me about it and promise to not mention me.
Good luck with that the next time you're at the security check at the airport. Pacemakers they know about, but with people getting withheld due to t-shirts with *images* of electronics, this thing is just asking for trouble.
I was at the airport with one of those t-shirts with a working clock on it. I boarded with no problems, but as they were to take off, (i am not making this up) they announced: "Please turn off all mobile phones, laptops and t-shirts"
Attention wannabe comedians:
There is a 42 reference in this story. This your cue...this is your chance..the spotlight is on you to bring humor to the world and make countless references to Douglas Adams. Because he mentioned the number 42 in a book!
I was thrilled, almost panicking when i read that, the amount of jokes i could make would be endless! Then i realized that none of them were actually good jokes.
shoot their wife, etc) that no one wants to be associated with.
The guy who named reiserfs should have thought of that
From http://biowaste.blogspot.com/2007/01/geoplasma-answers-trash-vaporization.html:
1. Question: How much energy does the plasma-arc use?
Answer: The plasma-arc facility uses approximately 40 megawatts of energy per hour. This is approximately one-quarter of the total output of hourly energy received from MSW.
2. Question: What will be the source of the plasma-arc energy?
Answer: The facility will receive its energy from its total output. For St. Lucie, it is expected that the 3,000 tons of MSW processed per day will create 160 megawatts of energy per hour. As stated previously, 40 megawatts will be used to power the facility and the remaining 120 megawatts will be sold to an Electric Utility.
3. Question: What does the energy source emit?
Answer: See question 5.
4. Question: Is the high heat of the plasma-arc being captured and utilized?
Answer: Because of the nature of a closed-loop system the heat will be captured and utilized both in the plasma gasification process and later in the production of steam.
5. Question: How are they going to combust the syngas to keep the emissions low?
Answer: There is no combustion during the gasification process. The Plasma-arc gasification process is a chemical reduction process that converts MSW from its original state to a glass-like aggregate solid at the bottom, and a synthetic fuel gas, also known as syngas, at the top.
Once gasification is over, the syngas is cleaned in a multi-step process, bringing it to levels near natural gas cleanliness. It is then compressed before being used as fuel for a gas turbine.
The gas turbine for this process is a modified natural gas turbine that mixes the cleaned syngas with air from the atmosphere, combusts the mixture and sends the hot gases through a turbine. The turbine spins an electric generator to produce electricity. The discharged hot gases are then passed through a heat recovery steam generator to produce more steam and to cool the hot gases. The cooler exhaust gases are then discharged into the atmosphere via a stack.
Emissions from this process are very similar to natural gas combined cycle plants which are considered to be 'clean' and are located and permitted all over the U.S., and for that matter the whole world.
What I'm saying is that kids should not be licensed to work with explosives at such a young age.
Mostly because any safety training they'll get in the beginning of the course is unlikely to stick, what they'll remember after such a short course will be how to blow stuff, and I think kids should not learn that until they are old enough to remember and take safety precautions.
I know this is way too much thinkofthechildren, but as a kid, I nearly blew my hands of several times, and I dont want my kids to do what I did.
It was fun, yes, but completely unneccesary, and i did not learn much from it.
This is the best and worst idea I've ever seen at the same time.
On the one hand, you have explosives, which are really fun to play with.
But on the other hand, it is illegal without a licence, and for a very good reason, and to give this knowlegde to unlicenced kids?
If kids weren't "bad" enough, you train them to run around and blow stuff up?
If those kids get a little "inspiration" from CNN, you've got a problem.
A entire population will not, and cannot be affected by a programmatical virus.
I believe that like now, to catch a computer virus and let it do any damage one has to be either very reckless or a computer illiterate.
I for one welcome a future where stupidity and computer illiteracy is deadly.
cool, so now i can read my paper 'edge on'
Actually, if its bendable enough, you can get a 360 degrees viewing angle...
Actually, some of the dead are tired of being stolen from:9 90719/souls1.html
http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/
If this was a watercooling mod, I'd definetively buy it!
Because it only took a couple thousand years the last time it was evolved.
Good luck trying to transform dc currents!
I agree.
Our local newspaper had an article about how dangerous wifi was, but in the way that they assume that hackers lie in your garden to pick up your online bank passwords.
Wikipedia can.
Actually, slashdot IS my only source of news (besides tv, which i rarely use)
I'm no good at physics, but if it can generate 30k newton per 1kW, would you have a perpetum mobile if you hooked it up to a dynamo?