One of the biggest draws of Chromecast is its ability to easily push audio to your home audio system. Google is taking that one step further with the introduction of Chromecast Audio. From the sounds of it (no pun intended, or was it?), ease of use is going to be the main draw here. Mountain View says that Audio will support a standard 3.5mm auxiliary input, RCA jacks and an optical input. What’s more, it’ll mirror the audio of most Android devices — not just music, if that’s the sort of thing you’re into. Same goes for "any" music-streaming site’s output from your computer. Just like the rumors said, Chromecast Audio will support longtime holdout Spotify as well as Google Play Music, Deezer and the BBC iPlayer. Much like the original Chromecast made dumb TVs smart, the Audio version wants to do the same for the speakers you already own — a direct shot at companies like Sonos.
Setup doesn’t stray far from its forbearer, either. Download the app; plug the device into your speaker and a power source; connect your device and Chromecast to the same WiFi network; and you should be good to go. Oh, and it’ll support multiroom audio so you have "Blockbuster Night Part 1" by Run the Jewels playing throughout the whole house later this fall. Perhaps best of all, though, is that Chromecast Audio doesn’t change where it counts: The gizmo will cost $35 and work with Android, iOS, OSX, Windows and, of course, Chromebooks.
Get all the news from today’s Google event right here.
Mealworms are those squirmy guys you took care of in science class or fed to a particularly hungry pet chicken or reptile. And new studies from Stanford suggest that these creepy crawlers could be incredibly good for the environment.
Two papers, published in Environmental Science and Technology this week, found that mealworms can eat Styrofoam, turning a huge source of waste into compost that can be safely used on soil.
"Sometimes, science surprises us. This is a shock," said Craig Criddle, who supervises plastics research at Stanford, in a press release.
Styrofoam, and in particular Styrofoam cups, are everywhere, and less than 10 percent of those used in the United States get recycled. In the first study researchers found that mealworms fed only Styrofoam were just as healthy as mealworms fed the more traditional meal (bran, in this case). Each worm could eat about a pill-sized portion every day.
In the second study focused on the mealworms’ gut microbes, which are able to break down the plastic safely. The researchers were able to turn this bacteria into a film that they applied to polystyrene, a form of the same plastic used to make Styrofoam. The bacteria were also able to eat through polystyrene, but at a much slower rate than the mealworms.
The researchers plan to continue looking into whether mealworms can safely break down other plastics, like those that make up car parts or microbeads. They also plan to look for the marine equivalent of mealworms, in the hopes that some sea creature with a strong stomach can help reduce the massive amount of plastic waste in the oceans.
from Popular Science http://ift.tt/1O2nNJ2
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What you see above may look like an unremarkable slice of electronics, but it can theoretically power a low-energy device forever, and for free. If that sounds like a big deal, well… that’s because it is. Drayson Technologies today announced Freevolt, a system that harvests energy from radio frequency (RF) signals bouncing around in the ether and turns it into usable, "perpetual power." Drayson isn’t exactly a household name, but the research and development company has a particular interest in energy, especially where all-electric racing is concerned. And now it’s developed the first commercial technology that literally creates electricity out of thin air.
We’re constantly surrounded by an ever-denser cloud of RF signals. They’re the reason your smartphone gets 2G, 3G and 4G coverage, your laptop gets WiFi, and your TV receives digital broadcasts. Capturing energy from this background noise is nothing new, but most proof-of-concept scenarios have employed dedicated transmitters that power devices at short ranges. Furthermore, research into the field has never really left the lab, though a company called Nikola Labs is hoping to release an iPhone case that’s said to extend battery life using RF energy harvesting.
According to Drayson, Freevolt is the first commercially available technology that powers devices using ambient RF energy, no dedicated transmitter required. The key to Freevolt is said to be the efficiency of its three constituent parts. A multi-band antenna scavenges RF energy from any source within the 0.5-5GHz range, which is then fed through an "ultra-efficient" rectifier that turns this energy into DC electricity. A power management module boosts, stores and outputs this electricity — and that’s all there is to it.
Freevolt may well be the most efficient system of its kind, but it’s still only viable for devices that require very little power. In a location where lots of RF signals are flying around, like in an office, a standard Freevolt unit can produce around 100 microwatts of power. That’s nowhere near enough to say, run your smartphone, but Drayson has some specific use cases in mind. The company thinks Freevolt can be the backbone of the connected home, and in a broader sense, the internet of things. Sensor-based devices, such as a smart smoke alarm, can be powered by Freevolt indefinitely. Beacons that provide indoor mapping and targeted advertising are also perfect candidates.
While it’s easy to visualize specific examples — a smoke alarm that never needs a new battery, or a low-power security camera that isn’t bound to a mains outlet — the true potential of Freevolt is hard to grasp. We’re talking about free energy here: devices that never need charging, cost nothing to run, and aren’t limited by the location of an external power source. An entire smart city — where roads know when they’re busy and bins know when they’re full — could be devised using countless sensors that require no upkeep, and have no overheads beyond the price of the hardware itself. It’s a powerful idea, and beyond sensors, Drayson imagines Freevolt being used to trickle-charge all kinds of hardware, significantly extending the battery life of a wearable, for instance.
What’s more, Freevolt can be scaled up for applications that require higher power outputs, and Drayson is currently working on miniaturizing its initial reference design and creating a flexible version that can be integrated into clothing, among other things. There are limitations to the technology, of course. The amount of power Freevolt can harness depends on the density of ambient RF signals, which are way more prevalent in urban areas than the countryside. A sensor-based product could still operate in these lower-yield environments, though, by monitoring a value every five minutes instead of every five seconds, for example.
Drayson’s business model involves selling licenses to Freevolt and its related patents, as well as offering guidance and technical support to interested parties. Development kits are also available to pre-order from today, so advanced tinkerers can get their hands on the tech too. It might take some time before Freevolt finds its way into products, as Drayson is relying primarily on other companies to dream up and develop real-world applications. That said, Drayson has created a consumer product of its very own that’s powered solely by Freevolt: an air pollution monitor called CleanSpace.
The CleanSpace Tag is a continuous carbon monoxide monitor that sends data back to your smartphone via Bluetooth. From the companion app, you can see real-time air pollution levels, and review your exposure during that day, recent weeks and further. The app also keep tabs on your travels, encouraging you to build up "CleanMiles" by walking and cycling rather than taking motorized transport. These banked CleanMiles can then be exchanged for rewards provided by partners such as Amazon, incentivizing you to travel in non-polluting ways.
Air pollution is of particular interest to Lord Drayson, chairman and CEO of Drayson Technologies, who hopes to increase awareness of the invisible health risk. But, there’s also a bigger picture. The CleanSpace app uses data from the 110 static sensors dotted around London to build a pollution map of the capital. Each CleanSpace Tag also feeds anonymized data into this system, with the idea being the more tags in the wild, the more locally relevant and robust that UK pollution map can become. CleanSpace users can therefore decide on the fly to avoid more polluted areas in favor of cleaner routes. The plan is to expand the crowdsourced data concept elsewhere if it’s well received, but for now the CleanSpace Tag is only available in the UK through a crowdfunding campaign. Pricing starts at £55 per tag, though you might want to buy one just to rip it open and see the Freevolt backbone hidden inside.
