IKEA’s taking its low cost solar panels to eight more countries

Remember when IKEA started selling solar panels in the UK despite its famous lack of sunshine? It must have been successful, because company CEO Peter Agnefjäll has just pledged that eight more nations will get the service in the next 18 months. First up is the Netherlands, which will begin offering the gear on October 28th, while Swiss stores will launch just before Christmas. The company’s remaining tight-lipped on the other six locations, but we’d imagine the bulk of them will be in neighboring European countries. At the same time, Agnefjäll also pledged that, by 2020, all of IKEA’s plastic products will be sourced from recycled plastic or renewable materials as part of a pledge to save 700,000 tons of CO2 each year. Clearly someone’s been listening to those clever folks down at the UN.

Filed under: Misc

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NASA’s MAVEN probe arrives in orbit around Mars

Whenever NASA achieves something, row after row of neatly-dressed mission controllers all begin whooping and clapping. The reason for today’s jubilation is the news that, after nearly a year, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution probe has successfully entered orbit around the red planet. MAVEN began its tour of duty at 10:24pm EDT Sunday night, and after a six-week test phase, will analyze the upper atmosphere of Mars in an attempt to understand how its climate has influenced the surface below. In addition, the information will help other white shirt-and-pocket-protector-wearing analysts to determine if, when, and how best to send a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s. You never know, maybe MAVEN will be able to find some Methane in the atmosphere and make David Bowie very happy.

[Image Credit: NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center]

Filed under: Transportation, Science, Alt

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Via: Ars Technica

Source: NASA

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Sky’s finally increasing the prices of its Now TV packages

It was back in May that Sky announced that Now TV bundles would cost you a little more each month, but never got around to implementing the rise. Five months later, and the company has now decided that the increases (£2 for Entertainment, £1 for Movies) will begin on October 16th. In exchange for more of your moolah, the £7 Entertainment bundle will offer Nickelodeon, Nick. Jr. and ITV Encore as well as an increased number of episodes to watch on catch-up and box-set services. Meanwhile, the £10 Movies package will now get a further 200 titles, as well as access to Sky Movies Disney, which shows around 150 extra titles from the House of Mouse. Hopefully some of that cash has also gone to resolving some of those long-standing reliability issues, too.

Filed under: Home Entertainment

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Via: ISP Review

Source: Now TV

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EE scoops up 58 Phones4u stores

When Phones4u entered administration, it immediately shut all of its doors and put thousands of employees on notice. It didn’t take long for Dixons Carphone to secure 800 positions, with Vodafone sweeping in shortly after to buy 140 Phones4u stores and save another 900 jobs. Now, it’s EE’s turn. The UK’s biggest carrier has just announced that it’s reached a deal with administrators to buy 58 outlets and bring 359 employees onto its books. It’s moving quick too, confirming that it’ll open the majority of stores within the next week. Over a year ago, EE began reducing its retail presence after its stores began saturating high streets, but now that it’s joined Vodafone in pulling out of deals with Phones4u, the company will need to move quickly to fill the gaps left by its former partner.

Filed under: Wireless, Mobile

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Source: BBC News

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Researchers create a headset to turn your jaw into a tiny power plant

We’re no strangers to projects that try to capture the power of the human body, but here’s one with a peculiar twist. A pair of researchers from Montreal’s École de Technologie Supérieure have cooked up a headset that, while extremely goofy-looking, can harness the power of your mighty jaw muscles while you chew, gab on the phone and stress-grind your teeth into a fine powder.

The secret sauce here are piezoelectric fibers, strands of material that basically convert physical motion into electricity. Those fibers have been fashioned into a chin strap and are lashed to either sides of a pair of earmuffs, and as your mouth moves, the fibers streeeetch and generate power in the process. Alas, the total amount of juice your face will generate comes out to a whopping 10 microwatts a minute – to put that into perspective, that’s just a fraction of a fraction of the amount needed to use a bog-standard flashlight. If we’re being honest, it’s not like the theoretical maximum is all that lofty either. Assuming a totally pure conversation of the mechanical energy your molars make into electricity, we’re looking at 7 milliwatts, tops. Here’s the thing to remember, though: piezoelectric fibers aren’t exactly new, but scientists almost certainly haven’t finished pushing the envelope. This insane-looking contraption might not be terribly useful, but hey — there’s always the chance that it’s similarly awkward progeny might wind up charging our phones while we talk on them.

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Via: Gizmodo

Source: Smart Materials and Structures

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Watch a tiny robot fly an aircraft nearly as well as a real pilot

Autonomous aircraft are likely to be the future of air travel, but we’re not quite there yet; even with autopilot systems in place, most airplanes are designed with human pilots in mind. South Korean researchers may have a clever robotic stopgap, however. Their tiny PIBOT automaton uses a mixture of flight data and visuals to fly using real controls. It still needs intervention shortly before touchdown, but it can otherwise take to the skies as well as many organic air crews — it may even be a bit better in a few areas, since it uses its camera to align neatly with the runway on takeoff and landing.

This pint-size machine is only flying a simulator right now, and it’s certainly not going to captain an airliner any time soon. However, its creators are only getting started. Besides giving PIBOT enough skill to tackle every stage of flight, they’re already translating its skill to real (if remote-controlled) aircraft. It’s not hard to envision a future where robots stand in for flesh-and-bone pilots in aircraft that can’t easily be retrofitted to fly on their own.

Filed under: Robots, Science

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Via: Phys.org, Popular Science

Source: IEEE Spectrum

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