There are already lamps and bulbs that can somewhat emulate sunlight, but CoeLux is on another level. Assuming it’s the real deal, that is. Founded by University of Insubria associate professor Paolo Di Trapani, the company’s eponymous lighting looks exactly like a sunny blue sky. The company claims that the images below (along with the rest of the images on its website) are “real and unretouched.”
According to World Architecture News, CoeLux has three key components: LEDs that reproduce sunlight, an optical system that creates distance between the fake sky and the fake sun, and nanomaterials that induce Rayleigh scattering, the phenomenon responsible for our planet’s blue skies and wonderful sunsets. The device is then installed in a “false ceiling and window system” to enhance the illusion. Currently, CoeLux has three types of lighting that provide light at different angles.
How crazy is that? I wish I could see this in person. Head to CoeLux’s website or to World Architecture News for more info.
[via Inhabitat]
Anyone who’s experienced intercontinental jet lag will tell you that it really messes you up. My personal system involves doing an all-nighter the night before I get onto a plane, so that I crash when I land. These goggles might help me actually get more sleep and do away with this all-nighter foolishness.
The Re-Timer is designed to help reset your body’s internal biological clock so that jet lag effects can be minimized. The goggles emit a soft green light onto the eyes of the wearer, and this is supposed to improve your alertness level, and make getting out of bed easier. Its makers claim the reason why it works is because Re-Timer mimics the effects of sunlight, relying on light to stimulate a segment of the brain which is responsible for regulating our biological clocks.
With that in mind, wearing them could also help manage the effects of seasonal affective disorder (aka the “Winter Blues”), as well as to help those who work the night shift readjust their body clocks.
The Re-Timer was designed on the back of 25 years of research, so I would hope that they would be effective. A pair of Re-Timer goggles costs AUD$249 (~$258 USD).
[via Ubergizmo]
Eking out more power from solar cells is an ongoing challenge for scientists, and now architect André Broessel has developed a spherical glass energy generator that's said to improve efficiency by 35 percent. Acting as a lens, the rig's large water-filled orb concentrates diffused daylight or moonlight onto a solar cell with the help of optical tracking to harvest electricity. In certain configurations, the apparatus can be used for solar thermal energy generation and even water heating. In addition to the oversized globe, Broessel has cooked up a mobile version of the contraption for domestic use and an array of much smaller ball lenses with dual-axis tracking that offers 40 percent efficiency. These devices aren't the first venture into concentrated photovoltaics, but they are likely among the most visually impressive. If the Barcelona-based architect's vision of the future comes true, you'll be seeing these marbles incorporated into buildings and serving as standalone units. Hit the source links below for the picture spread of prototypes and renders.
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Spherical glass lens concentrates sunlight by up to 10,000 times, boosts solar cell efficiency originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Aug 2012 09:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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What's this orange-like patch, you ask? It's a layer of carbon nanotubes on silicon, and it might just be instrumental to getting a lot more power out of solar cells than we're used to. Current solar power largely ignores near-infrared light and wastes about 40 percent of the potential energy it could harness. A mix of carbon nanotubes and buckyballs developed by MIT, however, can catch that near-infrared light without degrading like earlier composites. The all-carbon formula doesn't need to be thickly spread to do its work, and it simply lets visible light through -- it could layer on top of a traditional solar cell to catch many more of the sun's rays. Most of the challenge, as we often see for solar cells, is just a matter of improving the energy conversion rate. Provided the researchers can keep refining the project, we could be looking at a big leap in solar power efficiency with very little extra footprint, something we'd very much like to see on the roof of a hybrid sedan.
All-carbon solar cell draws power from near-infrared light, our energy future is literally that much brighter originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 05:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Delaware Ph.D. student hopes to solve energy woes with renewable hydrogen production originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Apr 2012 03:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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