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Posts with tag Heat

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USB-Powered HEAT ME Stirrer: A Coffee Geek's Dream

by Darren Murph, posted Jul 18th 2008 at 3:01PM


We'll go ahead and squash your hopes before you waste time pulling out the plastic -- this thing's just a concept, at least for now. From what we can glean, the HEAT ME is a fantastic device just waiting to be snapped up by Brando (or similar) and turned into the next must-have USB-powered gizmo.

Put simply, the metal ends of this here stick warm up when plugged into your USB port, thus giving you a toasty wand to keep your hot tea / coffee at the proper temperature even when colleagues pull you away momentarily. Really though, is there any doubt this won't go commercial within the next six months? [Source: Kawamura & Ganjavian via Coolest-Gadgets]
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Swiss City Heats Public Pool with Computers

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Apr 4th 2008 at 2:09PM



One of the byproducts of extreme computing power is heat. The problem is that all of this heat represents wasted energy, and instead of trying to recapture it, we use even more energy to dissipate that heat with air conditioning. But in the city of Uitikon, Switzerland, the local government, GIB Services, and IBM have come up with a rather unique solution.

The IBM-built data center run by GIB has been custom designed to directly transfer heat from the bunker full of refrigerator sized racks of computers and hard drives to a local public swimming pool. GIB is providing the heat for free, but the city did have to cover some of the initial equipment costs.

Its probably not the greenest solution to powering a massive data center, but it is certainly one of the more creative ways to reduce energy waste we've ever heard of.

From Engadget

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Charge Your Gadgets with Excess Heat

by Tim Stevens, posted Jan 15th 2008 at 12:37PM

Charge your Gadgets with Excess Heat

You know that somewhat discomforting warmth that comes from your cell phone when you use it? A lot of people joke that it's the radiation slowly cooking your brain, but really it's just a combination of the heat from the battery, the processors inside your phone, and of course your face. Any time any mechanical or electrical device gets warm (excepting toasters and hair driers and the like) it's a sign of wasted electricity, and two teams of researchers are working on ways to capture that heat and turn it back into power.

The researchers are focusing on the use of nanowires to capture this heat and generate electricity from it. Nanowires are just what they sound like: wires that are very, very small. You'd have to lay somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 of these nanowires side-by-side to equal the width of a human hair. Bundles of the wires are placed between heat sources and, with some chemical and electrical tweaking, are capable of conducting electricity when a temperature difference is applied to them.

Cell phones are the first mentioned application, but think about a car that uses exhaust heat instead of an alternator, or a laptop that charges its battery instead of warming up your lap. The potential is exciting, but is in the very early stages of experimentation, so you won't be finding nanowire regenerative charging in your next gadget for a few years at the very least.

From textually.org and Cellular News

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Electric Rug Puts Heat on Your Feet

by Tom Conlon, posted Aug 27th 2007 at 3:32PM



Some bad news today for slipper fans -- someone has finally invented the electric carpet. Panasonic's new heated floor covering is like an electric blanket you stand on and is available in a variety of colors, patterns and materials. It can be cranked all the way up to 114 degrees and is even stain-resistant. We're hoping it's also electrocution-resistant, just in case Fido tries to test that claim. Panasonic says there are also plans to offer heated wood surfaces in the future.

Unfortunately, for now, this technological wonder appears to only be available in Japan. But really, how long can a piece of home gadgetry this absurd stay out of the pages of SkyMall?

From Engadget and GizmoWatch

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