EcoGeek - Clean Technology

A battery-powered airplane

Thursday, 27 July 2006

Side Story
E-newspapers: but what will I wrap birthday presents in?

Silly me -- I thought newspapers were just going to become obselete because everyone read them online. That might still be a bit drastic, and a daily economic paper in Europe called Les Echos is trying to strike a balance by producing the paper electronically using iLiad E-reader.

Readers use a tablet that weighs less than a pound. Currently e-newspapers are only available in black and white, with 16 shades of gray.

The real news is for the ad sales reps -- you can program the devices to show coffee ads in the morning and beer ads in the evening. Or if you happen to be reading your handy tablet near a Wi-Fi spot, ads may become more interactive to Mapquest you to their destination.

Via: LiveScience.com

Panasonic, insistent on proving that its new oxyride batteries have been increased by 120% in terms of efficiency and longevity, decided to prove the batteries' buffness in a logical way -- by powering an airplane with them earlier this summer.

With our recent obsession with batteries, we stopped our "batteries + anything" Google search long enough to admire the work of Panasonic and the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Hell-bent on showing off the batteries, the Tokyo Institute designed a glider plane that flew -- albeit, briefly -- on 100 of the oxyride batteries. While it's certainly not the "21st Century Wright Brothers" as they're already claiming, we'll certainly salute you with our battery-powered flashlight over our solar-panel charging monitor.