• The Environment

    Off the Grid, But Living in Style

    By Posted on 1.22.2008 5 Comments

    The zeroHouse, a concept home designed by the New York architecture firm Specht Harpman, would run on solar power and rain water, use gravity-fed plumbing instead of traditional energy-demanding pumps, and recycle its waste. SF site Technovelgy.com likens it to the advanced abodes described in the Arthur C. Clarke novel Childhood's End, which could be anywhere on land, or even in the sea. The zeroHouse isn't quite there yet, but it certainly would make its occupants feel like the characters in an SF novel. Even the winged solar panel design is reminiscient of the International Space Station. Unfortunately, though, the couches don't look very comfortable.—Gregory Mone

    10.9.2008 at 04:31pm - Comment by jon.paton

    Good luck with the house. The military has similar house here in Afganistan, but we still use pumps and generators. I agree it may have a tough time up north. I'd be curious to see how it heats and cools.

  • Technology

    The Flying Car Gets Real

    By Gregory Mone Posted on 10.8.2008 45 Comments

    The Transition is not a flying car. The vehicle, set to go on sale next year, will cruise smoothly on the road and through the sky. It will have four wheels, Formula One–style suspension, and a pair of 10-foot-wide wings that fold up when it switches from air to asphalt. And when the engineers at Terrafugia in Woburn, Massachusetts, let me sit inside their just-finished proof-of-concept vehicle and grab the steering wheel, it’s easy to imagine piloting this thing up and out of traffic, into the open skies.

    10.9.2008 at 04:16pm - Comment by jon.paton

    Godspeed! I hope I see them flying all over the place.

  • Technology

    Developing Lasers for the Battlefield

    By Posted on 10.7.2008 16 Comments

    Laser weaponry is a hot topic lately (excuse the pun), especially for those who question the ethics of using them on the battlefield. In late September, the Senate approved a Defense Authorization Bill that would provide new funding for military laser weapons.

    10.9.2008 at 12:18pm - Comment by jon.paton

    Temporary blindness is fine with me. If I get into a TIC, an ambush I want to be able to light up an entire treeline or mountain side with lasers. My buddies and I would use them in a heartbeat if we had them here in Afghanistan, you bet. We'd shoot a lot less bullets, and have fewer civilian casualties.

  • Technology

    Going Up?

    By Paul Adams Posted on 9.24.2008 68 Comments

    One of the most promising technologies for the aspiring outer-space commuter is the space elevator. The concept, like quite a few others, was pressed into the public imagination by Arthur C. Clarke, who in his 1979 novel The Fountains of Paradise described a incredibly thin, incredibly strong carbon filament with one end anchored on Earth and the other extending up to a satellite in geostationary orbit. Now, a group of Japanese scientists are convinced that they can build a space elevator more quickly and cheaply than has been believed possible. Such a cable could convey cargo into space very cheaply and easily. Carriages would travel up and down the cable under modest power, not the vast expenditures of energy that are currently needed to send anything into orbit.

    10.9.2008 at 11:48am - Comment by jon.paton

    No energy beams! If I had anything to do with this elevator, i.e. if I was a passenger or had cargo on it I would not want high energy microwaves or lasers pointing at me in the climber or anywhere near the cable. Can you imagine the cable being cut by its own power system? -I believe Lightning happens mostly in the lowest part of the atmosphere. -There are of spacecraft, satellites and and space junk in low earth orbit to be concerned about. The military can't stop that. -The cable wouldn't be a straight line: Low level winds and the jet stream will affect the cable and the climber at higher attitudes. Solar panels would act like wind sails. The capsule would need to be streamlined like an aircraft.



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