Archive for September, 2009

CRISTAL – Control of Remotely Interfaced Systems using Touch-based Actions in Living spaces

Multiple remote controller for different devices is like a thing of past ever since the release of all in one remote controller. But there since to be another problem to it, is that it is quite complicated to configure. But now there since to be another invention to solve the problem of having multiple remote controller. It is call the Control of Remotely Interfaced Systems using Touch-based Actions in Living spaces (CRISTAL), this machine resemble the one from microsoft surface. CRISTAL is design just like your normal home coffee table, with an LCD screen showing your living room. Take for example if you want to control your house lamp you simply touch the lamp that is show on the LCD screen and you will be able to control it. It is also acting like a media server which you can just drag and drop a movie onto the television and it will auto play the movie. I leave to the video clip to explain more clearly.

Use Lemon as your Battery

Making a battery using a lemon is a common project that can be found in most science textbook. Successfully creating one of these devices is not easy. Batteries consist of two different metals suspended in an acidic solution.  Copper and Zinc work well as the metals and the citric acid content of a lemon will provide the acidic solution. Batteries like this will not be able to run a motor or energize most light bulbs.  It is possible to produce a dim glow from an LED.

Lemon battery label

Insert a 1cent coin into a cut on one side of the lemon. Then push a galvanized nail into the other side of the lemon. The nail and penny must not touch.

4 Lemon battery

Usually a single lemon battery will produce voltage of about 0.906volts so when you connect 4 of them into series circuit it produce roughly 3.5volts. This is more than enough to make a LED glow. If you fail in your first attempt try to experiment with different zinc and copper (The 1 cent coin may not be purely copper so try experiment with different coin).

via hilaroad

PAL-V Flying motorcar

In fact the first flying car concept go all the way back in 1892 where Henry Ford started building his first experimental automobile. Because flying cars and roadable aircraft seem to be more of a dream than a reality, many people believe that these things do not exist. The truth is that even before the Wright Brothers learned to fly, people have been attempting to build such vehicles and some of them have had a fair degree of success. Thank to these people never say dieing spirit we finally can dream of owning a a flying motor in year 2011. Check out my previous post on Flying Car.

Pal-V

PAL-V Europe NV started in 1999 to study many technologies and evaluated various concepts. It made numerous designs and patented all its findings, leading to the PAL-V One. The first Personal Air and Land Vehicle (PAL-V) available for anybody. The design actually began 7year ago, the huge amount of time taken was due to a lot of difficulties such as land vehicle and aircraft having different level of gravity, finding the right aerodynamic frame, legislation and fuel consumption. All these problem have to be solve before thinking of flying a motorcar.

Finally on this year March, a real flying motorcar was tested. It was say to be very successful test fly. In order to be certified to manage this new machine you need to attend 20-40 hours flying lessons to get a pilot’s license and also need to have a regular car driver’s license.

via PAL-V