water

Building show: Smarter homes, water out of air

SAN JOSE, Calif.--The West Coast Green 2008 building show kicked off on Thursday, for the first time in this city with one of the nation's most ambitious "greening" plans.

During our sneak peek at some of the 400 exhibits, products that caught our attention included a device that seemed to make water out of thin air, a solar-powered table, home energy automation systems, and better concrete blocks. Check out the video below for more.

Element Four Element Four claims to extract water from the air. Its Watermill appliance is supposed to supply enough water daily to quench the needs of a six-person family. It costs around 35 cents to produce more than 3 gallons of drinking water each day, according to the British Columbia-based company. The Watermill is set to become available next February for around $1,300.

CEO Rick Howard said he'd like to create different versions of the 300-watt Watermill, perhaps powered by the sun or wind. He sees the technology as ideal for household use during emergencies, as well as for people in the developing world. It could even customize flavored water, Howard added.

As air enters the Watermill, humidity condenses on a patented coil, and passes into a reservoir. Water passes through a carbon filter and past a germ-killing UV light. The product could be hooked up to a kitchen faucet.

Most drinking water technologies, by contrast, take dirty or salty water, or even sludge, then purify it.… Read more

Rugged notebook from the house of salt and fog

It happens every time. The mainsail cover is off, and it's freshening nicely. Then the boss calls begging you to get online and placate one of her key accounts. Luckily, she's seen fit to spring for the fully salt/fog-certified B300 ruggedized notebook.

What distinguishes this rugged, watertight, vibration- and drop-shock resistant PC--besides the sealed ports and connector cover--is the finish. According to manufacturer Getac, it protects everything from hinges to the keyboard to the electrical innards from salty corrosion, thus allowing you to telecommute from deck to dune.

The B300 was recently certified under standards set by … Read more

Bottoms up! Lug heavy water bottles no more

The water cooler is a standard fixture in many homes and offices. It provides an easily accessible supply of pure, clean water--until the jug is empty and someone has to replace it. You know the drill: you either con a friend into helping you lift and lower the jug into position, or you do it on your own and deal with the backache that inevitably results. And then you grab a mop and clean up the spilled water that's all over the floor.

Haier's Aqua Fontana could be the solution to your problems--well, at least your water cooler … Read more

Super Talent Techonolgoy's Pico D series: Larger capacity thumbdrive, smaller size

Super Talent Technology, a manufacturer of Flash storage and DRAM memory modules, on Wednesday announced the Pico D, the newest member of world's smallest USB thumbdrives.

Though tiny in size, measuring only 1.4-inch in length and weighing less than 0.2 ounces, the new Pico D series are shock- and water-resistant.

According to STT, these drives can transfer data at speeds up to 30 megabytes per second. Like the Cosair Flash Voyager Mini, the Pico D achieves the miniature size by using chip-on-board technology. However, the Pico D series offers storage capacity up to 8GB, twice that of … Read more

The 404 149: Where you can call us now for your free reading

After one of our listeners calls us out on our truly awful Jamaican impression, we try, try, try again--unsuccessfully. It doesn't work out so well, and we slowly start to sound like a Jamaican extradited from Ireland. Anyway...today's episode finally reveals the secret pre-show juice that powers the enthusiasm we bring you everyday: crunk juice! And, by crunk juice we mean orange juice! All this segues into our first story, where we lay the smackdown on 50 Cent for getting a little trigger happy south of the border. Jeff decides to change 50's name to "… Read more

Machine claims to get water out of thin air

With all due respector to inventor extraordinaire Dean Kamen, the notion of his "Slingshot" distillation system--which makes drinkable water from any type of liquid, including bodily fluids--has been met with more than a few squeamish responses. For those seeking a more palatable solution, the "Base 1 AirWater Machine" taps into a very different source: the air.

Its manufacturer, a Greek company called Klimatic, claims that the system can extract 5 gallons of water every 24 hours, according to Dvice, which adds: "It cleans the extracted water with an active carbon filter, runs it through an … Read more

New Panasonic projector runs on water

The Panasonic PT-DZ12000's reported native curve screen support may be a cool feature, but what caught our attention was its water-cooling system.

This takes the heat off the DLP three-chipper efficiently, while four built-in lamps deliver a whopping combined 12,000 lumens for installation in large venues. The latter also give this 1,920x1,200 light cannon enough headroom to power up to an epic 600-inch projection from a minimum throw distance of 12.4 meters.

The projector is scheduled to be released in August. Pricing is unclear, but you can be sure it won't come cheap.

(Source: … Read more

Asetek offers a new liquid solution to cool those hot video cards

If you think the new generations of video cards, the Radeon HD 4800 series and the GeForce GTX 200 series, from ATI and nVIDIA, respectively, are hot (as they actually are, literally and figuratively), then just know that they can be cool, too. Liquid-cooled, that is.

Asetek announced last Friday their first liquid cooling solution, called LCLC, for the latest video cards from the two leading GPU companies. Asetek's new liquid cooling solution is compact yet powerful enough to bring the temperature of the card down to less than 80 degrees Fahrenheit during peak performance. This allows users to … Read more

Rainwater harvesting advocates bring filter tech to the U.S.

SPICEWOOD SPRINGS, Texas--When Joe Wheeler built his new house here in 2001, he was told that it would cost $10,000 to drill a well, and that he wouldn't be able to drink or bathe in the water. Undaunted, he turned to the old-fashioned idea of rainwater collection to solve his water problem.

Wheeler talked to people who had experience with rainwater collection, and eventually installed what was available on the market at that time, so-called first-flush technology. The first-flush system he had installed sent the first, dirty batch of water from the roof into a diverter tube, and … Read more