In places like Africa where clean water is at a premium and girls must often spend much time carrying it from the source to their village, PlayPump works at a nearby underground source. How does it work? It’s a merry-go-round! Five minutes of kids playing on it provides a good-size bucket of water. See the YouTube video
Source: Guy Kawasaki – The Cleverest Idea I’ve Seen In Years
Steve Wozniak, or "Woz" as he is commonly called, is best known for co-founding Apple along with high school friend Steve Jobs. Knowledge@Wharton speaks with Wozniak on a wide range of topics including founding Apple, his relationship with Steve Jobs, and his fascination with pranks.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1903
An international team led by Physics and Chemistry teams from the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) has used a controlled chemical process to make gold, silver and copper, intrinsically non-magnetic metals, magnetic.
Read the English summary article on Science Daily.
Unlike conventional solar cells, solar cells painted onto flexible steel surfaces being developed at Swansea, are more efficient at capturing low light radiation, meaning that they are better suited to northern countries. Read more at Science Daily.
Teams from Penn State University in the United States and the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom has developed a process for growing a single-crystal semiconductor inside the tunnel of a hollow optical fiber. Read more at the Penn State News.
From Reuters:
E-Fuel Co has announced the release of it's "MicroFueler" that allows you to make your own fuel at home using sugar. At $10,000.00 a unit you may want to get your neighbors to chip in.
More from Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/gc08/idUSN0850981420080509
About the MicroFueler from Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/09/e-fuels-micro-fueler-creates-ethanol-from-sugar-in-your-backyar/
Bluetooth has now moved into the medical field. Just like a laptop within a wireless signal, your “in-body network” would immediately send an alert when a heart attack is happening. The technology, which is being tested now in Portsmouth (UK), could also be used if a patient failed to take his or her medicines. Read the article in the Times (London).
Former fighter pilot Yves Rossy, 48, accelerated to 186 miles an hour May 14, 2008, over the Swiss Alps during his first public flight while strapped to his self-made, jet-powered wings. He hopes to eventually fly the English Channel. Read more and watch the video on MSNBC
Researchers at the University of Washington have created a computer game called Foldit, that simulates protein structures using protein sequence-design algorithms. Players create protein structures, the more chemically stable the protein the more points the player earns.
The project is the latest innovation of the Rosetta@Home project that uses screen savers and computer downtime to work out how proteins fold.
"Foldit attempts to predict the structure of a protein by taking advantage of humans' puzzle-solving intuitions and having people play competitively to fold the best proteins."
More from Fold It!
http://fold.it/portal/adobe_main/
Rosetta@home
http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/
Researchers at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Mitsubishi, and Tokki Corp have designed a thin-film solar cell disguised as a leaves on a plant. They plan to develop these thin-film solar cells for use in architecture as well as other everyday uses like toys, household items, clothes etc.
Complete article:
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080527/152443/
Japanese manufacturer Shinoda Plasma Co. will demonstrate for the first time in the U.S. next week its 125-inch, curved-screen "Shipla Wall" television. The superslim TV uses plasma tube arrays, allowing for a superior picture and a tenth of the weight of a regular plasma TV. Read more at Electronic House.
Mr. Jalopy, a writer for Make magazine and author of the Maker's Bill of Rights is advocating for manufacturers to think more creatively when designing new products. He wants them to include features such as customization of parts, minimize "special" tools for such things as replacing a battery and give more thought to how users can repurpose, repair, or reuse the product or its parts.
Full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/opinion/25mon4.html?ex=137740
SPIE Photonics Innovation Summit
6 November 2008
San Francisco Airport Marriott Hotel
Burlingame, California, USA
Attend the SPIE Photonics Innovation Summit and take the mystery out of innovation – refine your strategy, learn new tactics and improve the odds of successful commercialization. Become fluent in the latest business research and learn real-world lessons from successful innovators.
Sign up today and receive two FREE copies of the books written by the keynote speakers – Open Innovation and Innovation Nation.
Seating is limited—register today to secure your space
5 reasons to sign-up now:
1) Learn from world-renowned speakers including top authors Henry Chesbrough and John Kao.
2) A unique focus on photonics – hear leaders and top thinkers in solar, solid-state lighting and biophotonics from Stanford, Berkeley, PARC, and DOE.
3) Make new connections that can help you move ideas to market.
4) You’ll be able to cultivate and sustain innovation, so it becomes a standard way of working and thinking in your company.
5) Two free books by keynote speakers – Open Innovation by Chesbrough and Innovation Nation by Kao.
Don't miss this event—register now
In one day, you will learn how to help innovation flourish in your organization – isn’t that worth putting on your calendar, right now?
Sponsor:
# SPIE
Co-sponsors:
# PARC
# UC Berkeley - Center for Executive Education
# Lester Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
SPIE Photonics Innovation Summit
Hear from the experts who have turned their intellectual capital into real-world success:
David Benaron, Spectros
Craig Cornelius, Hudson Clean Energy Partners
Henry Chesbrough, UC Berkeley
George Craford, Lumileds
Chris Eberspacher, Applied Materials
Scott Elrod, PARC, Hardware Systems Labs
Jennifer Ernst, PARC
Joseph W. Goodman, Stanford University
John Kao, Kao & Co.
John Lushetsky, U.S. Department of Energy
Lesa Mitchell, Kauffman Foundation
Richard Swanson, SunPower
Jean-Luc Vanderheyden, GE Healthcare
Peter Visser, Philips Lighting
Forget those flat silicon laden solar cells that have to be tilted to absorb the most sunlight. A Fremont company, Solyndra, has created cylindrical solar cells that "collect sunlight more efficiently across a broader range of angles and catch light reflected off the roof."
More from Make
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/10/solar_roll_ups.html
As part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, Stanford students were challenged to use an everyday object to create as much "value" as possible. The mystery object was revealed to be water bottles. The videos below are the Stanford recognized entries:
Winners of the Global challenge will be announced December 5.
Congratulations to the winners of the Stanford Global Innovation Tournament. See the winners and watch videos of the entries here: http://eweek.stanford.edu/global2008/recognition_global.html
This page contains an archive of all entries posted to Stanford Engineering Library Blog in the Innovation category. They are listed from oldest to newest.
IEEE is the previous category.
Internships is the next category.
Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.