Just last week, we reported on a solar panel which rotates with the sun to optimize charging time and power. Today we bring you another method to recharge your life, but this time wearing clothes. Silvr Lining is a start up clothing company which integrates solar panels into your every-day cloths.
The style Silvr Lining embraces is that of a casual fit – as it would be difficult to integrate solar panels into a bikini or fitted top.
The company integrates several 6 x 8 panels into the outside of pocket panels so the lock blends with the style.
The solar panels are the right size to charge most any small USB gadget like MP3 player, phone or PDA device. It also appears the pockets are big enough you might just fit that iPad which is so awkward to carry around.
The solar power pants from Silvr Lining run just under $300. The company is based in Los Angeles and all cloths are made in the USA. Not sure how fashion conscience you are, but if you are
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In a concept design only, Eric Strebel and Jim Nogarian prototyped a solar panel which can rotate with the sun. The case has three angles on the bottom, a flat surface for sunlight directly above around noon time, and two 45 degree angle for morning and afternoon sun. It’s a good idea…I think.
After a little bit of research it appears the direct sunlight approach to solar is a thing of the past. New technology allows diffused light to generate electricity through the solar panels and thus maximizes any solar panel even slightly exposed to sunlight.
Putting this information aside, The Solcar Vox does look like a fresh idea on charging your USB gadgets or other devices which charge via USB like the iPhone.
If you like the idea you can pre-order the prototype which is
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Do you see something odd about this picture? Maybe the fact an LED is illuminating from a USB connector with no PC in site? Ya that’s it. Good job Sherlock.
So what we have here is a How To or USB Hack on running an LED from a Super-capacitor. If you are non-technical, then we basically mean a very short lived battery to run the LED. A super-capacitor has the ability to store energy for longer periods of time over traditional capacitors – yet still not long enough as with batteries.The concept of this tutorial is to wire a super-capacitor to a USB socket whereby your computer can charge up the capacitor and when disconnected you’ll get about 10 minutes of LED illumination.
Granted there isn’t much day-to-day use with this USB hack, but just a fun little project if you have the time.
Over on the Instructables website there is an updated USB tutorial which includes
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There was a tweet about Windows Phone 7 offering USB tethering. It first started with a claim the feature will be available, and it would be available withour the courier adding additional charges. Unfortunately, that claim has been retracted. However, there is still hope for USB tethering.
I think in all likelyhood, Windows Phone 7 will offer USB tethering so you can get to the internet through your phone, but it’ll be with a data plan surcharge.That’s OK by me for the moment because sometimes it’s critical to get your data while on-site or at a remote location where there just isn’t an option. In addition, this would give WP7 a nice edge on Apple products who don’t let you tether.
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CoolerMaster is definitely taking advantage of the Universal Serial Bus we’ve all come to know as simply USB. CoolerMaster introduces a universal power adapter which connects via USB. The new USNA95 is a 95watt power block. It can easily power your laptop, netbook and USB devices.
The USNA95 has a simple Red and Green LED to indicate whether a device is being power properly so even the tricky GPS units and SmartPhones will get the right amount of juice.
The power cycle time is also faster for peripheral devices as CoolerMaster is stating a 30% faster cycle time to power your devices than a traditional device to PC connection.
The USB power adapter is also the smallest one we’ve seen with a size of 62 x 17 x 104 mm and is texture surfaced to provide a durable case for when taken on the road. Video after the jump
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Just last week GetUSB.info reported on a solar charging USB hub and a USB power strip and for noting more than to recharge your gadgets. It’s clear that USB is the common thread in recharging – and moving forward I only expect this trend to continue.
Speaking of continue, now we have a 13 port USB hub which fits right into your 5.25″ computer bay. I do say, the picture is inviting enough to get this add-on component and integrate it into your tower, but then we’ve got two questions for you. 1) Don’t most people use laptops these days and 2) Imagine all the cables coming out of this thing. I say this because you’ll quickly realize the ports are much too close for anything but cables. Even the most slim USB stick would have a hard time fitting into each port.
What I do like about the design is the power connection you can make to the internal power supply of your PC. This means the 13 port USB hub will support larger devices with more power thurst…say hard drives and large 64GB flash drives.
The 13 port hub isn’t on sale yet, but will be in late August 2010. Pricing was not given. Here is a link you can bookmark to check availability.
Yesterday we spoke about Elcom introducing a USB power strip and today we have USB Fever with a solar powered USB hub. We where very excited to hear about this product - as it seems to be a step up from the introduction from yesterday, and it’s got some great features, but unfortunately, the solar power charging system isn’t for the USB devices which are connected, but rather the built-in LED torch light [insert sad face here].
I understand it would take a fairly big solar panel to correctly power 4-5 devices connected to a USB hub, but it would be nice to see a trickle charge feature for anything connected. Like I said yesterday, in our house we have 3 iPhones, a Flip Video camera, two blue-tooth headsets and some other stuff, so a solar powered trickle charging USB hub would be nice.
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About three weeks ago I started the process to design a USB power strip where the device would be a dumb down version of a USB hub…it only gives power. The reason why I wanted to design something like this was for the infinite number of USB items I have. Just in my house alone, we have 3 iPhones, one Flip Video camera and two blue-tooth headsets…all powered and recharged by USB.
So enter, stage left, my thought of a USB power strip. Well, Elcom was thinking the same thing, but only months earlier! They have officially released the USB for port power strip and the 7 port USB power strip. Clearly I think the idea is simply brilliant.
Elcom includes LED lights for each port to show if a device is active or not. They include a switch to flip On or Off that particular port and last, Elcom gives you some clear labels [in English] to label what cable is going to which device.
The 4 port USB power strip is $40. The 7 port USB power strip is $110. Both are available at Geek Stuff 4 You. Page.
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Warpia is a wireless docking station for your laptop to easily connect your keyboard, mouse, monitor and just about anything else without using cables. Using just a wireless USB dongle to your laptop it will then connect with the base dock station where you’ve connected the keyboard & mouse dongle, the monitor, hard drive and other peripherals.
The wireless connection of the Warpia supports resolution up to 1400 x 1050, 32-bit True Color Depth. The dock station includes the following ports to support your peripherals – DVI connection, two USB ports and a 3.5mm audio jack.
The wireless USB dock station does support Mac and Windows operating systems and after a quick scan of some blogs/forums we cannot conclude if the Warpia supports Linux.
We found the Warpia as low as $140 here.
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Several years ago, I reported on a USB wifi extender in parabolic form. Now, we’ve got a slimmed down version using an empty food can and your USB wifi dongle.
It’s not the prettiest thing, but it works and will boost your signal strength enough to grab the channel from your neighbor who’s barely showing up in your wireless network.
Plus this hack gives you adjustable control both up and down, and left and right.
The concept here is getting the can to increase your signal. In addition, mounting the can and USB wifi dongle to a portable camera stand. This will give you the stability you need to keep the signal strength strong while in use. It will also allow you to keep the position for use from day to day.
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It’s very common these days to see a media player with a USB port. Whether it be a Blu-ray player or a set-top box, chances are, a USB port is somewhere in the front or back.
At first glance you say to yourself, “sweet, a USB port so I can play content off my flash drive” but then you think a bit more and wonder if you can hang a wireless dongle off the media player and stream content to your media box from a source computer?
Well, Home Server Technologies Inc is one step ahead of you. Their new Wireless Media Stick will do exactly that; stream digital content to your media player.
Whether it’s a laptop, TV, DVD player, Stereo or game console the Wireless Media Stick can stream the content and your media player will play it. There is no limit to the type of format, music, audio or video.
Currently the USB Wireless Media Stick will only stream saved content from the source computer, but future updates will include the ability to stream internet content to your wireless setup, so now you’ll have the best of both worlds.
The Wireless USB Media Stick is $99 USD.
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The love for Linux is that with a bit of tweaking you can do just about anything. Case in point: Sven Killig took the Nexus One, loaded up some code to control the USB host controller and is now running a full work station.
Now this sounds awesome. Sven can run a digital camera off his phone, stream video from a USB stick to his screen or even run a printer off the USB port. Check out the screen-shot of his work station…
So if you’re like me, this project would be in the advanced level of Instructables for DIY mods, but thanks to Sven’s recording skills, we have a video to tell us how.
The best part of all this? He’s got the whole thing demonstrated for you on video, but not only that, you can hit up the down-loadable binaries from his website. And while he tried all of this on Android 2.2, which means its the only version of Android it’s been successfully tested on (at the moment), Sven believes that it will work on Android 2.1, too.
Source: SlashGear.com.
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The style Silvr Lining embraces is that of a casual fit – as it would be difficult to integrate solar panels into a bikini or fitted top.
The company integrates several 6 x 8 panels into the outside of pocket panels so the lock blends with the style.
The solar panels are the right size to charge most any small USB gadget like MP3 player, phone or PDA device. It also appears the pockets are big enough you might just fit that iPad which is so awkward to carry around.
The solar power pants from Silvr Lining run just under $300. The company is based in Los Angeles and all cloths are made in the USA. Not sure how fashion conscience you are, but if you are
Continue Reading
No Comments
Well, Home Server Technologies Inc is one step ahead of you. Their new Wireless Media Stick will do exactly that; stream digital content to your media player.
Whether it’s a laptop, TV, DVD player, Stereo or game console the Wireless Media Stick can stream the content and your media player will play it. There is no limit to the type of format, music, audio or video.
Currently the USB Wireless Media Stick will only stream saved content from the source computer, but future updates will include the ability to stream internet content to your wireless setup, so now you’ll have the best of both worlds.
The 