Tag: Japan

Now this is clever. Here’s the idea: the roof top turbine convert the breeze created by the moving car into electricity and is routed back into the car’s battery. Passengers are invited to charge their cell phones while using the cabs. All of this is to promote awareness of the environment and renewable power sources. Sounds like a good idea to me except that the drag crated by the turbine might negate the power crated by it, but then again the taxis themselves are equipped with an engine “idle stop” features, which temporarily shuts off the engine when idling to reduce the amount of exhaust and gas consumed.
And they have bike racks too, now that is a good idea. Perhaps in the future more cab companies will offer things like this.

[via Unplugged Living]

Taxi’s Rooftop Wind Energy Charges Cell Phones

Now this is nifty, I wonder if this uses some of the technology that was pioneered at Lawrence Livermore Labs a few years ago.

Japanese geological research firm Oyo will launch this month a handheld radar system that rescuers can use to locate people that are alive but unmoving and trapped under rubble.
The system can pinpoint the location and the depth of persons who are breathing by detecting the electromagnetic waves that reflect back from their moving chests.
To use the system, wireless antennas are placed at the search site to send out signals and capture the signals that reflect back. This information is relayed to the handheld radar reader, which analyzes the data and displays moving objects as black dots and living but immobile persons as red dots. Each antenna can search an area of 1 square meter to a depth of around 4.5 meters. A single radar analyzer can read the signals from as many as 30 antennas.

[via we make money not art]
Oyo