GE looking to saddle up with TI, bring dual-piezo jet cooling to market

GE looking to saddle up with TI, bring dualpiezo jet cooling to market

We're often disappointed when 'cool'-looking inventions never come to market, but it looks like the dual-piezo jet fans we saw in GE's labs recently have a fighting chance. The company told us at CES 2013 that it wants to team with Texas Instruments to put the millimeter-thick, bellows-like units inside upcoming Ultrabooks and other devices that have no room for a traditional fan. Such a partnership could work out since GE has little experience in the gadget-space, and TI has all the power conversion bits necessary to make the tech work, since they're similar to the latter outfit's circuits used in so-called high-definition haptics, a tactile feedback system. Representatives from the two outfits said that manufacturers are already working with the tech, meaning we could see the technology in slimmed down products like Ultrabooks within a year -- perhaps just in time to meet Haswell's demanding specs.

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Researchers use virus’s rogue traits to create electricity from motion

berkeley-labs-piezoelectrics-from-virus

Viruses are the swarming bullies of biology, but it turns out their alarming self-replication could one day power your iPod. We've seen them in batteries before, but researchers at Berkeley Labs have now coated electrodes with modified M13 bacteriophage, a harmless bacteria-eating virus, to create the first ever organic piezoelectric material -- which can convert force to electricity. The team explained that such a substance would be non-toxic, organize naturally into thin layers and self-regenerate, giving it a possible advantage over chemical options. In theory, by attaching a thin film of it to your shoes, power could be generated when walking, lending volts to the myriad electronics we pack around nowadays. To see a finger-powered video demo of our frequent-enemies making themselves useful for a change, stroll on past the break.

Continue reading Researchers use virus's rogue traits to create electricity from motion

Researchers use virus's rogue traits to create electricity from motion originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 May 2012 17:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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