The Jellyfish is a 36 inch vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) that can be plugged in directly into your electrical sockets and can generate roughly 40kWh a month on a moderately windy day. There is no fancy setup necessary and with only one moving part, maintaining the turbine is easy enough for regular home owners. It is also comes equipped with WiFi and WiMax in order to create a point-to-grid system.

The power that these small turbines generate is not much (40kWh a month can power a room that contains CFL bulbs), but harnessed collectively and tied interactively with the local utility grid there can be significant environmental and system reliability benefits. Chad Maglaque, the creative genius behind Jellyfish, states that these turbines are the PC of renewable energy stating “We could have 10,000 of these sitting in a city, networked—it’s like a virtual utility…”

Unfortunately, the Jellyfish cannot be used on its own. Should there be a power outage, the turbine will not provide energy due to safety features built in that prohibits the turbines from operating on their own nor can it be used to charge battery banks for off-grid systems. In fact, the product is more of a way to supplement your existing power grid and eventually, with enough of these little guys, create a virtual utility network.

The turbines is currently not ready for distribution, but it is expected to retail at $400 eventually reducing to $199 at higher production volumes  with rebates, discounts or tax credits available from your local power utility. It will typically cost 7 years to recoup the cost of the Jellyfish.

[via Clarian]

The MetalCell is a unlike other rechargeable batteries in that it is: 1. refuelable 2. takes seconds to recharge. According to a S.E.G. Inc. report, The battery contains either magnesium or aluminum plates. Addition of salt water, creates a chemical reaction and generates electricity. Adding extra salt water will recharge the battery until the magnesium dissipates. The battery can charge anything from flashlights to night vision goggles to laptops. While saltwater creates the preferred chemical reaction, addition of urine can also help charge and power the cells.

These battery cells may not take the place of wind or solar in terms of generating mass amounts of energy, but it begin invading our household. Japan has created urine powered batteries for public use. Currently available in AAA and AA size, these batteries (NoPoPo) produces 500 milliamps/hr and can last up to ten years. Like it’s larger brother, MetalCell, the NoPoPo contains magnesium (and carbon) which reacts with various liquids [Source: Reg Hardware]. Unfortunately the batteries are only available in Japan.

So the next time you’re going to the bathroom, remember that your pee also has its place in saving the environment.

Now a team at MIT, headed by Marin Soljacic has found a way to make wireless electricity, AKA WiTricity, a reality. Much like Tesla’s original idea, Soljacic created a pad that contains a powered coil that creates a magnetic field. In turn this magnetic field induces a current to flow through a secondary coil (any portable device like a phone or BlackBerry). This electricity then charges the device’s rechargeable battery. Everything is done wirelessly and in some cases a battery may not even be necessary!

One of the benefits of using magnetic resonance is that biological organisms are invisible to and unaffected by magnetic field. In essence, the receiving coil “tunes” to match the powered coil in order to charge. And because its based off of resonance, the WiTricity is fairly omnipresent so long as it is located in the general area of the appliances. WiTricity is also highly efficient over various ranges and can exceed 90% for certain applications. It is designed to work with variety of products and systems and can handle a wide range of power levels. Not only that but it also comes in a variety of shapes and sizes and can be built directly into the product, eliminating the need for a an external power source.

The first announcement of a WiTricity partner product is expected toward the end of 2010.

[via WiTricity]

The OLEV is an answer to the problem of recharging electric vehicles. While the technology is currently in testing phase at the Seoul amusement park, widespread application is not far off. The city government of Seoul and KAIST signed a Memorandum of Understating (MOU) on the development of the online electric vehicle. With increasing concern about the environment, both organizations agreed to introduce eco-friendly vehicles to the city’s public transportation system, beginning with a bus route in Seoul [Source: KAIST].The OLEV system receives it’s power from non-contact magnetic transmissions from recharging strips in the road.

The vehicles receive “micro-charges” each time they pass over these strips. These micro-charges are extremely efficient, only only 20% of the total bus route would need to contain recharging strips, and only at places like bus stops, parking lots, and intersections [Source: KAIST]. This allows for smaller battery size and better range. Not only that, the no contact power transmission reduces hazards associated with electric vehicles, such as electric shock.

While the OLEV will help to reduce emissions from the public transportation vehicles, the energy they are receiving is still from fossil fuels. Korea is the fifth largest importer of oil in the world with oil supplying 50% of its energy demands and coal supplying 24% [Source: US Energy Information Administration]. Using electric vehicles might help in the short term, but without a real source of renewable energy to power the energy grid, these small changes will not make much of an impact since the vehicles will still be running off of oil.

Although there are still many improvements necessary in South Korea, the OLEV offers a newer and easier method of charging electrical cars. The batteries in the vehicle are five times smaller than for conventional electric vehicles [Source: Engadget]. As the technology improves, it seems likely that this could become accessible to civilian transportation as well.

We have nothing against VUDU. In fact, they are quite awesome. In case you aren’t familiar, they stream up a storm of media, all without monthly fees. Of course, you have to rent and buy content and the boxes are kind of pricey. So with so many other set-tops swirling around, VUDU’s demise seemed inevitable.

However, VUDU not only remained, but they seemed to always have something going on. For instance, many companies wanted VUDU inside their hardware products. Cut the expensive hardware out of the equation and you’d have something pretty cool.

Apparently, Walmart thinks so too. VUDU just announced that Walmart plans to purchase the streaming media company.

Right now, neither side is saying much about future plans. However, we have to assume that Walmart will do something cool with the online movie service. Maybe they will carry more VUDU products and streaming TVs, or create their own super-cheap streaming box. The retailer could also use the service to sell a variety of other products.

According to The New York Times, Walmart beat out Best Buy, Amazon.com, Comcast and Echostar for the company. All parties were said to be interested. However, when Walmart wants to buy you, we’re guessing you’ll say yes.

VUDU first launched in 2007. Since that debut, the company has put less resources into its own hardware to partner with a variety of mainstream manufacturers. At last month’s Consumer Electronics Show, VUDU announced that by the end of 2010, they would be streaming to products made by LG, Mitsubishi, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Toshiba and VIZIO.

So save yourself the trouble of circling for a parking spot, paying $5 for flavored water, and elbowing your way through crowds only to be digitally shut out — try the WiFi Walker, an all in one 802.11b/g WiFi finder and USB adapter. The backlit LCM display shows detailed information about the list of wireless hotspots in range — including name, signal strength, encryption, SSID, security status and AP number — so you can easily suss out whether or not there are open signals for use wherever you are. The USB Adapter is also prepared to plug directly into your laptop for charging (no batteries, just juice!) and will double as a wireless adapter in case you’re working with a laptop that didn’t come with a wireless card (hey, it happens). The packaging is both sleek and durable — no cheap plastics used here — though we really wish they would’ve added a loop to the business end so it could be tethered to something while not in use.

Check out the video to see the Walker at work:

And then there’s the WiFi Seeker, a boiled-down version of the Walker — no big display, just a series of sweeping LED lights (sort of like the EMF detectors you see on ghost hunting shows) that can detect wireless access points within 300 feet. Just press the big blue button and wait for the red lights to stop sweeping and remain lit — if the red lights don’t stop, you’re in a dead zone, if only 1 or 2 bars stay lit things look shaky, but 3 or 4 bars means you’re good to go. Plus they definitely thought about mobility and threw a thick key ring on the end, making it easy to attach to your cluster of keys or travel case for regular use on the fly.

If you’re ready to buy one of your own (or add to someone’s gift list), WiFi Walker starts at $59.95, and the Seeker’s a bargain at $14.95, both available directly from wifiseeker.com.

Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm Computing, just can’t catch a break these days. First the Treo gets generally slammed by the public for failing to be as sexy and modern as its competitors in the handheld device arena, and then he releases “the most exciting project [he's] ever worked on” the same day Microsoft goes media-nuclear with The Surface. Still, this may not just be poor PR and production — the kids might be on to something by failing to do virtual backflips over the new Palm Foleo.

First, let’s be clear: this IS NOT a laptop. Sure, it’s masquerading as a slim little lappy, but don’t get confused — the Foleo is merely a companion device to the Treo. Maybe merely is a little harsh; it does run a Linux-based OS with a 10-inch display (because who isn’t sick of staring at tiny screens) and full-sized keyboard that lets you sync up with your Treo to view/send emails and edit documents. Representatives are quick to point out that the Foleo is light (2.5 lbs), boasts 5 hours of battery life, comes with a Wi-Fi connection, and is expected to also work with BlackBerry devices and the new iPhone. Unfortunately, when you strip away the oohs and aahs of a simple design and easy plug-and-play functionality, what’ve you got?

For $500, and without some really revolutionary advances, it’s tough to get too excited over this smartphone extension. Sorry, Jeff.

For all intents and proposes The Big Ox is oxygen in a can. Each can contains 89% pure oxygen as apposed to the wimpy 21% we normally breathe from day to day and comes in four tasty flavors Tropical Breeze, Mountain Mint, Polar Rush and Citrus Blast.

If you are exercising, training, or just need a pick me up during your high paced day you can grab yourself a 2 pack of 4.4gram cans for just $23.98 at TheBigOx.com

The BDC-2202 drive will be capable of reading regular Blu-ray at 5x and dual layer at 2x along with the ability to read and write to both DVDs and CDs. One downside to the drive is its inability to burn actual Blu-ray discs, which might leave some strung in confusion.

I’m still not playing favorites with an HD content format – I’m still poised and waiting to see what happens in the war of the formats, to see who comes out on top. That said, I won’t be purchasing a player until they drop under the $200 mark.

Bright and early (at 1AM in the morning), Canon announced the new “prosumer” Powershot S5 IS which replaces the previous highly successful S3 IS.

The new S5 IS sports a 2.5-inch swiveling LCD display,  8 Mega-Pixels (a nice bump over the previous 6MP models), and integration of the enhanced Digic III image processor, which facilitates the introduction of face-detection auto focus and exposure modes.

This release is well worth the upgrade for current owners of previous S1, S2 or S3 Powershot models and perfect for those wanting a camera which puts them in total control, without having to take a leap for a Digital-SLR (DSLR).

It is expected in mid-July, and will be retailing for a cool $499.99.