Recent Comments:
DARPA's Vulcan engine combines turbo jet with scramjet, faces will melt {Engadget}
Jun 24th 2008 5:01PM Man what was I thinking... scramjet - supersonic combustion ramjet
DARPA's Vulcan engine combines turbo jet with scramjet, faces will melt {Engadget}
Jun 24th 2008 4:56PM Another of the major differences, and one that adds orders of magnitude to the difficulty is the fact that scramjets alone are hard to light, and even harder to keep lit. In ramjets the velocity of the air through the engine can be slowed down to subsonic velocities, in the combustion area. Scramjets (SupersoniC Ramjets) however have supersonic flow through the entire engine. Trying to keep stable combustion in that is like trying to keep a match lit in a hurricane.
DARPA's Vulcan engine combines turbo jet with scramjet, faces will melt {Engadget}
Jun 24th 2008 4:51PM Actually the 747 was flying with one engine running on a 20/80 biofuel/jetfuel mix. They could have completely shut that engine down and they'd still be able to make the flight. Also, the coconut oil is not a long term sustainable source for aviation fuel, and even Branson admits that.
Vizio supplier says it paid MPEG-2 patents {Engadget}
Jun 11th 2008 4:51PM And with the Supreme Court ruling that you can't sue up and down the supply chain, looks like "the world" is SOL.
Fanswag: Wii Fit and a Nyko Energy Pak {Nintendo Wii Fanboy}
Jun 1st 2008 8:06PM Why? Well I sit at a desk all day trying to come up with ways to keep airplanes from falling out of the sky. It isn't all that conducive to physical activity... or my waistline.
SUNRGI, University of Tel Aviv boast of solar power advances {Engadget}
May 1st 2008 4:52PM It has been thought of before, as well as using a bunch of mirrors to reflect onto a single small PV cell. The benifit is exactly what you said, it's cheaper because lenses and mirrors are cheap, and solar cells aren't.
The major hurdle that SUNRGI is claiming to have overcome is the problem of temperature. When you concentrate that much sunlight into that small an area it raises the temperature considerably. This makes the solar cells less efficient, as well as just the threat of melting things. SUNRGI has some fancy cooling system in place to disipate all that heat.
Dutch cyclists lobbying for external airbags on cars {Engadget}
Apr 24th 2008 11:09AM This really isn't a new idea. Automotive companies have been working on pedestrian air bags for several years now. I think it was one of the Japanese auto companies that had a working design, which makes sense considering the traffic congestion (both pedestrian and automobile) in the cities.
Kegerator-based cooling system gives your PC a buzz {Engadget}
Apr 15th 2008 9:43AM My mistake, I missed the "keg" used for the coolant... (still don't personally consider it a kegerator)
Seriously though, who gets a keg that small? It'd last like a day and a half were it actually full of beer.
Kegerator-based cooling system gives your PC a buzz {Engadget}
Apr 15th 2008 9:38AM That's not a kegerator, it's a minifridge. A kegerator needs to have a keg tap in it.
And if this is enough to qualify as a story, then I'm going to go duct tape my rig to a window air conditioner for the ultimate in liquid cooled, forced air thermal regulation.
Pixar hops on bandwagon, also commits to 3D productions {Engadget HD}
Apr 14th 2008 11:49AM If all these companies are going to be coming out with movies in 3D then I think it's high time someone came up with a better solution to polarized glasses.
Maybe polarized contacts... or better yet, polarized lazik.
