Eco-Friendly Hummer H3 Hybrid Gets 100+ MPG

Dubbed as a “Chevy Volt on Steroids”, this Eco-friendly H3 runs on a Raser electrical engine that gets upwards of 100 miles per gallon, about twice the efficiency of a Toyota Prius in the city. With an acceleration of 0 to 60 in 8.5 seconds and a total range of 400 miles, this green Hummer will run for about 40 miles on electricity only.

Raser’s Electric H3 does have a small combustion engine inside its shell, but its only purpose is to recharge the vehicle’s 600 pounds of lithium-ion battery packs.

[Via Dvice | Raser]



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Solar-powered cellphone on the way

A Japanese cellphone provider plans to sell a waterproof, solar-powered handset later this year. The firm says it will be exclusive to Japan, but the technology appears to be particularly useful for some developing nations.

Manufactured by Sharp, the device is set up so that solar power can recharge the battery to 80% of capacity. Providers KDDI say a 10-minute charge is enough for one minute talk-time or two hours on standby.

KDDI hasn’t released any images, but the picture shown here is reported to be the phone in question. It appears the flip-screen design takes advantage of the larger displays on Japanese phones (for easier text message reading and writing) by using the outside of the phone as a large solar panel.

The initial marketing of the phone will be based on its environmentally-friendly credentials with a reduced need for electricity consumption. However, given that it appears to be an otherwise low-spec device with few features, it would seem a good fit for developing markets where electricity sources can be scarce, unreliable or prohibitively expensive, particularly in countries with reliable sunlight levels.

Festo’s Robotic Walls of Doom

Festo, a company we’ve featured here on [GaS] in the past for their extraordinary work on various forms of strange robotic organisms, is back with a new video showcasing the latest toys out of their development labs: two robotic penguins, a robotic hand… and a robotic wall. Yes, you read that right: A friggin’ robotic wall! I don’t know about you guys, but being surrounded by walls like this would totally freak me out. Oh, they may look fairly inoffensive for now, but one day, these things might be programmed to crush you at the slightest nod of their owners. Ok, maybe not, but the thought is still disturbing, right? Video after the jump.

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Retro Hardware Orchestra

Can you get any geekier than Bohemian Rhapsody played by an orchestra of vintage gadgets? I think not. From the YouTube page:

Please note no effects or sampling was used. What you see is what you hear (does that even make sense?)
Atari 800XL was used for the lead piano/organ sound
Texas Instruments TI-99/4a as lead guitar
8 Inch Floppy Disk as Bass
3.5 inch Harddrive as the gong
HP ScanJet 3C was used for all vocals. Please note I had to record the HP scanner 4 seperate times for each voice. I tried to buy 4 HP scanners but for some reason sellers on E-Bay expect you to pay $80-$100, I got mine for $30.

[via Arbroath]

Were You Here Before Oprah?

By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Seeing Oprah start “tweeting” made me realize a few things:

  1. Celebrities who are not comedians or geeks twittering is just a bad, bad idea. I realize that this probably just makes me a snob, but Oprah’s credibility goes down once I learn that she can’t use apostrophes correctly.
  2. My mother is probably going to start using twitter now.

If this means that Twitter is now officially “mainstream,” then perhaps the old school Twitter geeks will remember the time B.O. (Before Oprah), much in the way many remember Facebook more fondly before their parents discovered it. I once saw a shirt that read “I Had an iPod Before You Knew What One Was,” and luckily a service has popped up to allow Twitter users the same kind of affirmation.

before_oprah

Just as Twitter asks the simple question “What are you doing?”, herebeforeoprah.com asks: “Was ____ here before Oraph?” Just type in a Twitter username and find out if that person has the appropriate cred. Though if there is now going to be a mass geek exodus from Twitter, might I recommend Flutter? It’s the next craze in “nano-blogging” – because a lot of people don’t have time to twitter.