Eco Bikes: Green Speed air-powered motorcycle aims to smash land speed record

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Eco Factor: Zero-emission air-powered motorcycle to use solar energy to compress air.

Industrial designer Edwin Yi Yuan is hinting toward a future where compressed air would be used as a primary fuel in vehicles such as motorcycles and bikes. The air-powered engine has been lurking around for years with Zero Pollution Motors working to launch air-powered cars soon. The idea does seem fantastic, as air-powered vehicles don't harm the environment with greenhouse gas emissions and above all, air is cheap and readily available. However, most air-powered engines fail in two ways – either the operating range is no long enough or the speed of the vehicle is too low.

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Edwin, accompanied by a team of student designers and their lecturer, has designed a concept air-fueled bike that possibly removes all obstacles associated with air-fueled vehicles. The motorcycle, known as Green Speed Air Powered Motorcycle, is based on an old Suzuki GP100 from the 1970s. The designers removed pretty much everything on the original bike, the petrol tank, the engine, gear box, etc., and just used the frame of the bike, its wheels and brakes.

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The engine that used is a rotary air engine. It is the invention of the Melbourne engineer Angelo Di Pietro. The engine is compact, lightweight and powerful and runs on compressed air from two compressed air tanks on the bike. It revs up to 10,000 RPM, and because of this the inventors didn't need any gear box on the bike. There is only one gear, which is just a sprocket bolted directly to the axis of the engine and chained to the rear wheel.

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Compressed air is stored in the bike's on-board carbon fiber tanks. Once mass produced, the bike will have solar panels that will generate enough energy to compress air and store it in the bike's tanks, which will increase its range indefinitely.

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As the bike was designed as a speed record setter, there is no headlight, brake light or indicator lights on the bike. Instead, there were three little cameras fitted at the front and tail on the bike that are used to record the run. The body works were designed to be aerodynamic and lightweight, and it will be made of fiber glass or carbon fiber.

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Now, control your TV, DVD player, stereo from your iPhone

Here is good news for people who are too lazy to pick up the TV remote to change the channel.

A Berlin-based company has developed a new gadget that converts your iPhone into a universal TV controller, which works on all major models of television.

The VooMote One is a sleeve that fits over your mobile and allows you to choose your programme or flip between functions - and make calls too.

The device also allows the user to "group" together different appliances such as a DVD player and stereo so that you don't even have to reach for those controllers either.

There are also the volume controls, which one would normally associate with a TV remote.

According to the manufacturer Zero1.tv, the device works with wireless technology and captures more than 30,000 infrared cords and thousands of electronic devices.

In total, it is compatible with "574 TV brands, 995 Top Box/DVR brands, and 151 audio and CD brands" with a list of codes that is regularly being updated.

Zero1.tv says that the VooMote's star feature is the 'Room Control' function which allows you to group devices according to their location, e.g. the kitchen.

"VooMote One is the only like-product on the market right now that makes set up effortless, reduces clutter, and streamlines the control of all of your devices with your iPhone," the Daily Mail quoted Zero1.tv as saying.

The VooMote, which also works on an iPod touch, comes with a free app that links up with the sleeve.

The hardware, however, is currently only available in the U.S. and costs 99 dollars.
Source: ANI

Use of Internet affecting our memory, finds study

New York: Researchers have found that the widespread use of search engines and online databases is affecting the way people remember information.

To know whether people were more likely to remember information that could be easily retrieved from a computer, Betsy Sparrow, an assistant professor of psychology at Columbia and her collaborators, Daniel M. Wegner of Harvard and Jenny Liu of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, staged different memory experiments, reports the New York Times.

In one experiment where participants typed 40 bits of trivia, the team found that the subjects were significantly more likely to remember information if they thought they would not be able to find it later.

"Participants did not make the effort to remember when they thought they could later look up the trivia statement they had read," wrote the authors.

A second experiment was aimed at determining whether computer accessibility affects precisely what we remember.