The good news: Toyota’s developing a plug-in Prius hybrid that can run off the battery alone for short trips. The bad news: we’re talking really short trips (8 miles or less). These cars are “not fit for commercialization” because the battery technology hasn’t kept up with the potential usages. Damn that bunny. [slashdot]
Category Archives: Blog
Growing clean energy down at the Crowd Farm
Here’s a different sort of crowdsourcing. The “Crowd Farm” is the brainchild of two MIT architecture students, and it’s a system designed to harness the physical movements of large masses of people and turn it into usable electricity – imagine contributing to the metro station’s lighting by climbing the stairs, for example. It’s a great idea – and like a lot of great ideas, a couple of people have thought of it already. Let’s hope any arguments over patents don’t get in the way of something that can reduce our collective carbon footprints, eh? [Image by yeuxrouge]
Wikia – searching with the wisdom of crowds
It’s a brave business that openly announces its intent to beat Google at their main game. But Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, is nothing if not a man of vision – his commercial start-up Wikia is currently assembling the base of a distributed web-search facility which will be enhanced by its users, in the form of human editors who will clarify ambiguous results.
We hear a lot about crowdsourcing from its supporters and detractors alike, and the jury is still out on Wikipedia’s reliability for that very reason. But one thing’s for certain – there’ll be a lot of SEO consultants with a vested interest in this project not doing so well. Ever seen a wiki-war? Now, just imagine the sort of intense conflict that paid shills could produce over search results … and the potential income a bribe-taking editor could make …
The Street Finds Its Own Use for Things (…and so does prison)
The vibration function in the Nintendo 64’s Rumble Pak can be hacked into an improvised tattoo gun. Someone let MAKE Blog know…
Synthetic Resveratrol Passes Early Tests in Humans
In other life extension news, resveratrol, a naturally occuring compound found in red wine, has been demonstrated to increase the lifespan of rats sharply. Sirtris Pharmaceuticals has been testing a synthetic version of the compound, said to be 1000 times stronger than the natural form, in medical trials for type 2 diabetics. As writer David Ewing Duncan points out, the synthetic SRT501 still has years of testing to pass before it’s available, but there is a lot of hope in life extension circles that resveratrol is the wonder drug they have been seeking. Expect SRT501 to replace cialis and viagra in your spam box soon.