News
Self sustaining building
Written by administrator on Thursday, 18 April 2013 18:14
Buildings are getting greener, and we're not talking about their colour. A new one that was just built a month ago in Germany is hoping to use Algae to become an entirely self-sustainable (only for electricity) building. Algae is cultivated on the outside walls, which is then burnt in a boiler to generate electricity. Solar panels and a heat recovery system complement this system. This might sound like a very complex process, but as we get more of those buildings that tinker around renewable energies, the process will significantly improve. See a few pictures and get more details here.
The Internet of Billions Things....Control your lights with Sparx
Written by Rejean Bourgault on Sunday, 09 December 2012 11:13
Dear 5Deka readers, here is why we love this new idea which isn't on the market yet. First the idea is brilliant, easy to understand and leverages many technologies. We love the fact that it demonstrates even further the Internet of Things... with a potential of billions of devices....
As we said before, with the Hue from Philips, there are 14 Billions Light Bulb in the world. We love, the fact that this young innovator team, is leveraging a global collaboration site like Kickstarter, to raise money.
Finally, as professional speakers, we love the power of this short video, less than 4 minutes, right to the point, showing the problem it solves, and uses neuroscience and neurofinance to create an emotional connection to sell the idea; as Oren Klaff explains in his book Pitch Anything.
The Future is exciting !
A cafe Latte for $5, A light bulb for $60... HUE from Phillips
Written by Rejean Bourgault on Sunday, 11 November 2012 22:00
This is a great lesson of how to re-engineer a product; going from a $1 price tag for a standard light bulb, with 14 billions of them in the world right now, to a light bulb with a price tag of $60. This is what engineers from Phiillips have put together. In addition, the marketing team at Philiips has done a great job, making this new product available just in time for Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays and, the holy grail of design some would say, offering it on the Apple Store.
Imagine, for external lighting, you won't need to climb the ladder to change your light for Halloween or for Christmas, you will be able to change the colour with a few simple taps on your phone. What, if in a few years, when the phones will be able to read out emotions, the colour of the lights (16 million colours!) outside of the house shows, before you even walk in, the mood of your spouse. Might be worth going back to the store and get a few flowers in that case! Of course, there are a lot more concrete applications for this, not ignoring the benefits LED lighting. The lights could be used for luminotherapy in a patient room at the hospital, or to inform of the temperature in a specific room. As the communication is bi-directional, it's even possible to monitor when a light is turned on, great security feature!
Who could have said that, one day, we would have light bulbs that can be controlled through wireless available. If you didn't believe it, this is what we call the Internet of Things.
The Future is exciting !
2060 Energy Source - Solar Power generated in Space
Written by Rejean Bourgault on Friday, 19 November 2010 12:44
In his book, The Next 100 Years released in 2009, George Friedman talks about the Revolution in Energy (page 217 onwards of his book). One key alternative to oil and earth based solar power energy, is the creation of a new source of Green energy called Space Based Solar Power. Imagine large solar panel in space or on the moon, capturing the sun's energy and beaming it back to earth for our daily use. Cloudy days would no longer have an impact on the quantity of energy produced. The requirement for land in desertic areas would be gone and these would capture a lot more energy than what we can capture on earth. With the transformation of the fossil energy to greener energy, and the fact that we will need much more energy in the coming decades, example for electric cars and robots (those required to fill the gap of manpower from 2020 to 2060), Space Based Solar Power is a serious alternative that researchers will look into. See the following YouTube if you're interested:
Power the whole world with solar power?
Written by Olivier Adam on Sunday, 27 September 2009 09:09
Granted there are a lot of impracticalities with this idea, but it is an interesting thought exercise. What if we could power the whole world only with solar energy, how much space would that take? Our friends at the Information is Beautiful site have done a little research on how much energy is required now (and in 2030) to power the whole planet (assuming no carbon emission) and what space it would take. They also assumed that the solar panels would be located in well lit areas of the world and tried to spread them to cover the energy need of the different part of the world too.
Page 1 of 2