Category: Cool

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From Engadget: South Korea opens up cellphone sales, networks wary of the ‘free market’

South Korea opens up cellphone sales, networks wary of the 'free market'

South Korea’s Communications Commission is wresting control of the domestic cellphone market away from operators. From May 1st, it is opening the handset business open to any vendor, who will sell phones unlocked so consumers can decide their choice of network. The plan is aimed at lowering prices by introducing competition between the retailers — although some voices in the industry have expressed concerns that the operators will withdraw discounted offers in retaliation. Naturally, the KCC is determined to ensure a better deal for consumers, and is already strong-arming wayward networks into ensuring that doesn’t happen.

 

from Engadget

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From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: Turbine Condenses Clean Water From the Air and Generates Wind Power At the Same Time

A new type of wind turbine harvests not only electricity from the wind, but clean water from the air, by condensing humidity from even the driest climes. One prototype turbine is apparently collecting 16.3 gallons of water an hour from the desert air over Abu Dhabi, according to the company that builds it.

French company Eole Water produces several water-harvesting technologies, including the WMS1000 wind turbine, a harvester powered by a 30-kilowatt solar panel and a water condenser that can connect to an existing power grid. The company’s founder, Marc Parent, started collecting water from an air conditioner while he lived in the Caribbean, and later conceived the idea to generate water from atmospheric moisture.

The turbine works like a typical wind turbine, with three upwind blades spinning to generate electricity. Then in a separate process, air is sucked into the turbine’s nose and sent through a cooling compressor, which extracts moisture from the air. Water droplets drip down stainless steel pipes inside the turbine shaft and are collected at the base, which houses a filtration and purification system. The system is powered by the wind turbine.

The company claims one turbine can produce up to 1,000 liters of water every day, depending on the humidity and wind conditions. The company says it could help remote communities in need of clean drinking water, especially in Indonesia and countries in Africa. For now, one turbine costs $790,000, but the cost could come down if the company starts building lots of them, according to a spokesman who spoke to CNN.

The prototype in Abu Dhabi has been in operation since October, the company says.

[via CNN]

from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now

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From MAKE: Math Monday: Paper Polyhedra

By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics

 

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If you’ve never made a set of the Platonic solids from paper, perhaps it’s time to try it. These shapes are the foundation for many aspects of three-dimensional design. Here is a set made with open faces, but the openings are strictly optional. You can just cut out regular polygons and tape them together so every vertex is identical, e.g., putting five triangles at each vertex leads to the icosahedron.


After mastering the five Platonic solids, there is a world of more complex models to explore. The polyhedron below consists of twelve regular pentagons and twenty (very slightly irregular) hexagons. It is made by cutting out paper polygons and taping them together on the inside. This design is often confused with the truncated icosahedron shape that is well known because of its use as a soccer ball.  But this shape is the truncated rhombic triacontahedron. To see the difference, notice that there are some vertices here with three hexagons and no pentagon, but in a soccer ball there is one pentagon and two hexagons at each vertex.

And if you become engaged in discovering the world of polyhedra, you will encounter the many additional families, including the stellated icosahedron below. Their intricacies can be quite a challenge to make from paper, especially when some components meet just at points.  I made the model below over thirty years ago, starting from a template in the book Polyhedron Models by Magnus Wenninger. If you want your models to last this long, be sure to use acid-free paper.

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See all of George Hart’s Math Monday columns

from MAKE

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From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: Video: ISS Soars Above Beautiful Auroras, Lightning and Stormy Weather Back on Earth

ISS Over the Clouds via YouTube

For your morning viewing pleasure, we bring you another beautiful video of one of the rarest views in the universe – Earth lit up from below as the International Space Station soars 220 miles above.

The video contains a series of time-lapse sequences captured by the crew of Expedition 30 aboard the ISS. It starts over the southern United States and moves toward the American West and into Canada; then you see central Europe toward the Middle East, starting at 21 seconds in. There are amazing lightning storms, rains over Africa, the southern aurora over the Indian Ocean, a setting moon – and even Comet Lovejoy makes an appearance.

The song is called “Walking in the Air,” by Howard Blake, in case you’re wondering.

NASA posts these videos on occasion, and although they may be similar, each is so unique that I stop what I’m doing and stare. Especially when the spangled arm of the Milky Way shows up on the horizon, serving as a reminder that our planet really is so very small.

[NASA]

from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now