Techno Freaks: March 2007

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Make Your Own Fuel Cell

Stephen Friend has the first hand-built fuel cell-powered house in the US. No, not another hopeful boil-your-own-yogurt demo for an impractical technology, but a real, sustainable achievement that makes its own hydrogen in a cedar shed out back. And it has a huge advantage over electric systems favored by his neighbors on Stuart Island, an off-the-grid Pacific Northwest paradise in Washington’s Puget Sound. Most residents there use solar power but must rely on noisy backup generators as well, since their batteries don’t hold enough energy to get them through the winter. So with the help of two buddies, Friend, a Merck vice president and pioneer in digital gene arrays, drew a back-of-the-envelope plan for an energy storage system that extends the life of battery banks. In 2004, they started rigging up a Rube Goldberg contraption that uses solar panels and electrolyzers to generate hydrogen and allows Web-based monitoring of its proton-exchange-membrane fuel cell. In late 2006, a bemused but impressed inspector granted state approval. Now the system, which they built for around $50,000, taps any surplus solar electricity to fill a 500-gallon hydrogen fuel tank, enough reserve for about 14 days’ worth of power (a second tank can be added to double that capacity). Friend thinks of the setup as sort of a TiVo for energy — bank hydrogen during the summer, then consume as it’s needed.

1) GENERATE SOLAR POWER
Jason Lerner, an alternative-energy expert and family friend, installed the home’s photovoltaic panels (cost: around $13,400) in the front yard. The cells pump out 1.6 kW during the sunniest hours of the day, which is just under a typical load for the Friend family.

2) TURN WATER INTO H AND O
Two laboratory-grade electrolyzers (Hogen GC 600 units at $7,900 each) run on solar electricity and water to make 0.3 gallon of hydrogen per minute, which is then forced into a steel tank at 200 psi. A second tank may be added to double the capacity to a month’s worth of power.

3) LEARN TO PLUMB FOR H
High-end stainless steel tubing prevents the plumbing from corroding. (Hydrogen ions are the active ingredient in acid.) A blast of nitrogen can be used to remove the air from an empty 500-gallon propane tank, which can then be carefully filled with home-brewed hydrogen.

4) TURN H AND O BACK INTO H₂O
A 148-pound, 48-volt fuel cell combines hydrogen with the oxygen in air to charge the battery bank. An inverter converts the DC electricity to AC for the home’s 110-volt system. Find this gear at www.fuelcellstore.com. The builders caution that these products aren’t perfect.

5) AUTOMATE AND MONITOR
The crew connected system switches to relays controlled by battery voltage. After 20 minutes sans sun, the electrolyzers shut down, and the house is powered by the fuel cell. A satellite link transmits reports on voltage and tank capacity, and a hydrogen sniffer checks for leaks.

For more information please visit the links in the referneces...

References

http://www.wired.com/wired/arcive/15.03/play.html?pg=9

http://www.siei.org/mainpage.html

http://www.fuelcellstore.com/

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Linux Smartphones

It's only been about two years since Linux started becoming a significant factor in mobile phones, an arena that has been dominated by Symbian, Microsoft, and proprietary operating systems. With the burgeoning complexity of mobile phones, feature phones, and smart phones -- plus increasing time-to-market pressures -- there's a clear movement toward off-the-shelf, third-party operating systems based on industry standards, and Linux figures to be a major beneficiary of that trend.

Linux is doomed to gain more share as even major players like Nokia and PalmOne will have a hard to compete with their OS in terms of features and complexity... not everyone can build an OS nowadays.

Grundig B700

The Grundig B700 is a QWERTY model that's only 10mm deep, and might give the BlackJacks and Moto Qs of the world a run for their money. It'll offer a 2mp camera, all the standard playback codecs, a 2.4" 320x240 screen, quad-band GSM, Bluetooth, and FM tuner, 100 MB free memory and a microSD card slot. I like the old-fashioned design, but that 1970s remote control look won't be for everyone.

Gupp Phreedom

On the one hand, it's an ugly wedge of technology. On the other hand, it might be the wonderful Sharp Zaurus' GSM-enabled spiritual sequel. Gupp Technologies' Phreedom smartphone will be out this summer, offering VoIP calling in addition to GSM, 2.5" screen, WiFi, push email, 320 MB memory and a 312MHz PXA270 CPU.

Greenphone

Undeniably beautiful in metallic pea green, Qtopia's Greenphone is designed from the ground up to offer complete control of the operating system, including a packaged development environment for all those coder types to build all sorts of crazy homebrew. Unfortunately "not intended as an end-user’s primary cell phone," this wasted opportunity offers a tri-band GSM/GPRS phone with 128 MB flash memory, a mini-DS card slot, 1.3 mp camera and Bluetooth.

FIC Neo1973

Another model riding in on the horse of open-ness and hackability is FIC's Neo1973, a GPS-equipped quad-band phone available this quarter for $350 or less. The Neo1973 will likely be more widely-available as a Windows Mobile device, but buyers will be able to replace it with the OpenMoko platform comprising solely of open-source software. FIC will offer "feeds" of certified open applications (as well as the standard amateur cruft) as well as commercial apps. The Neo1973 will have 128MB RAM, 64 MB flash, and a MicroSD card slot.

D-Link V-Click

The Wistron GW1 appeared late last year in the EU and Asia, and it looks very much like the phone D-Link has elected to sell here in the U.S. as the V-Click. At an unappetizing but unsubsidized $600, the WiFi/GSM/GPRS convergence model offers plenty of connectivity but cuts some odd corners, with a 2" 127x220 display and only 24MB of free memory. The tri-band GSM radio means it'll work with pre-paid SIM cards. The good news, however, is that is that it's one of the few things here guaranteed to be widely available (and acccessorized) in the U.S. Alas, the Wistron GW2 is so much sexier.

Moto "MING" A1200

Though aimed at China, Hong-Kong and, according to one source, Brazil, Moto's A1200 "MING" is a quad-band GSM model with a 2mp camera, microSD card slot, Bluetooth and other standbys. With the Star Trek-style translucent flipper, it's not exactly a looker, but it's slim and small.

Haier (China) recently showcased their new good looking N60 smartphone operating on Access Linux Platform. The Haier N60 features a SDIO expansion card slot, a swiveling 240×320 touch screen with 262k colors, a 400-Mhz processor, built-in MP3 and MPEG4 players, built-in 59MB memory, a Li-Ion batter providing up to 180 minutes talk time and 200 hours standby time, a 1.3-megapixel camera, as well as Infrared and USB connectivity (no Bluetooth, which is a downside).

This tri-band GSM phone measures 48×25 x 94 mm and weighs 131 grams.

ImCoSys Linux Smartphone

TI OMAP 730 processor

Quad band GSM support

GPRS support

WiFi and USB support

64MB Flash, 64MB SDRAM

SD slot

240 x 320 transflective TFT screen

Touch screen

GPS module

Measures 125 x 64 x 18 mm

40 polyphonic MIDI sounds

Uses embedded Linux Supports various document formats.

What has Linux to do with cellphones ?

Linux is likely to have a very bright future in the mobile phone industry specifically, the class of mobile phones that are considered smart phones. Motorola currently holds the torch for Linux on mobile phones in the U.S. market and has developed a unique platform called Moto Juix for its high functionality phones that is based on a melding of Java and Linux technologies.

Linux is collectively created by a large group of open-source programmers, many of whom work for companies such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard that sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of high-end server computers running the Unix-like operating system. Now, though, several companies are advocating use of Linux in smaller devices.

What Motorola articulated is the future for their high-end handset lineup is Linux, said Yankee Group wireless technologies analyst John Jackson. This is a pretty interesting statement from a company with the size, scope and market of Motorola. The operating system isn't that interesting. It's coupling Linux and Java together, The company hasn't changed its strategy of encouraging the use of Java for programmers who write cell phone software such as games or business applications.

Although they will be pioneers in Linux cell phones, the fact that application is written in Java leaves them reasonably insulated from the underlying operating system.

What do u think about the future of Linux cell phones ?