HyMini uses wind power to charge your gadgets
Sunday, April 6th, 2008
People have been paying more attention to the impact that their technology use has on the environment. Thus we’ve had a slew of of gadgets that take advantage of the sun’s rays for power. However, there are other sources of renewable power that are untapped. If you want to be the coolest eco-friendly tech lover on the block, you might look into the HyMini.
Rather than concentrating on drawing solar energy for power, the HyMini has a turbine that uses the wind to charge your gadgets. It has ports for many cameras, phones and other devices.
While I think this $50 gadget is interesting, I don’t actually think it is all that practical. The main reason is that you need air traveling at 9 mph to turn the turbines fast enough for a charge. That would make it ideal for attaching to your car, however, you can’t have winds of more than 40 mph, as it just won’t hold up. Make one of these that can take 70+ mph winds and you’ve got yourself an awesome product.
Source: GearFuse
Alright everyone, let’s review: If you’re going to put out a joke press release for April Fool’s Day, it’s important to make sure it’s actually April 1st. That’s a little lesson the folks at AbleComm apparently didn’t get, because the company’s April Fools press release about Panasonic putting partially-Ablecomm-sourced plasma screens in cell phones went out yesterday, April 3rd — and got subsequently picked up by a variety of news outlets, including us. Yep, we got punked, we’ll admit it. Unlike us, however, AbleComm hasn’t yet had the stones to issue its own retraction, instead ordering PR Newswire to completely pull the release and put out a new, PRNewswire-written three-line retraction elsewhere. Yikes. We’ll probably live without plasmas in our cellphones, but c’mon, people, at least admit it when the joke goes bad. Check out the retraction and the original fake press release after the break.
We’d already heard it was delayed, but that apparently hasn’t stopped some pics of Hauppauge’s much-anticipated HD-PVR from landing in the hands of a moderator of the SageTV forums, who has kindly posted them for all to see. As you can see, however, it isn’t exactly much to look at, but the promised real-time H.264 compression of 1080i video from a component video source should be more enough to make up for any design quibbles. What’s more, if that same SageTV moderator is to be believed, Hauppauge should be starting to take pre-orders for the device relatively soon, possibly as early as today (it’s still expected to set you back about $250). 
We’ve seen plenty of houses of the future, but none quite like this so-called Bioscleave House by artists Madeline Gins and Arakawa, which promises to force people to “use their bodies in unexpected ways to maintain equilibrium.” Those equilibrium-inducing measures include, as you can see above, a vast undulating floor (somewhat curiously made of concrete), as well as off-kilter power outlets, walls painted in about 40 different colors, and windows of varying heights, all of which is designed to keep occupants and visitors “on guard” at all times. That equilibrium also comes at some risk, however, with visitors required to sign a waiver before they enter (children aren’t allowed in at all). What’s more, while they seem quite pleased with their creation, the artistic duo didn’t build the $2 million dollar house for themselves, and they’re now looking for someone else to call it home.
After some serious neglect, Sprint is finally giving the Nextel iDEN network some new devices, not the least of which is a WiFi blackberry, says Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. The phone will hit the network “later this year,” and will be accompanied by phones from Sanyo, Samsung, Motorola and LG that will rock the Sprint CDMA, but will use Nextel capabilities for push-to-talk. That old 7100i (pictured) doesn’t stand a chance.
