Ideas out loud

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Transform your bike into a hybrid | The Copenhagen Wheel Project

copenhagen wheel project
Original site senseable.mit.edu
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It seems those creative young minds over at MIT, with a few other partners, have come up with a clever solution to transform your existing street bike into a hybrid bike. This may not be of that great of interest to the already strong bike crowd, but to those that don't like the thought of getting on a bike, pedaling to work and getting there all hot and sweaty without the assistance of their familiar GPS to guide them, well this may be the add-on they've been waiting for.

The Copenhagen Wheel is an add-on for your existing bike, that cleverly encompasses all the components into the hub that can be retrofitted to your bike. Inside the hub comes a 3-speed internal hub gear, batteries, torque sensor, GPRS & sensor kit that monitors CO2, NOx, noise (DB), relative humidity and temperature. All of this linked up, via bluetooth, to your iphone which also doubles as the key to lock / un-lock your bike, change gears, select how much assistance you get from the hub and for viewing real-time information such as traffic as well as km's you accumulate and tracks that you ride, which you can share with your networks.

A great invention that is built upon an existing and tested technology, I really like this for several reasons; One, it links something off-line to the on-line world i.e. real time data, and the ability to share it with social networks. Two, existing bike enthusiasts can adopt this technology without having to purchase a new bike or transportation device. Lastly, it's viral both through the sharing of data through the social networks but also via its visual impact.

I look forward to it's release sometime soon, would love to know when...

Lowering the friction | Charging Up Nissan's Electric Car Without Wires : TreeHugger

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via treehugger.com
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By taking out of some of the consumer friction, Nissan's engineers have made it easier for consumers to park their cars and have their batteries recharged without the hassle of plugging them in. The recharging is completed through the principal of electromagnetic induction, "when two coils (one on the ground and one under the car) come into proximity, a charge can be transferred from a power supply to the battery. It takes a few seconds for the primary and secondary coils to recognize each other, but once they do, the system could charge the small electric vehicle (above) in three hours." Treehugger.

The implications of this could be huge, imagine for a second that each parking spot or parking garage had these electric induction coils under the pavement, so that when you paid to park your car it would automatically recharge your batteries. A point of differentiation for carparks maybe? Just stick a windmill on the roof and away you go, green parking.