To Feed Empty Stomachs Or To Feed Empty Fuel Tanks?

The entire world is waiting with abated breath for the fuel to touch the record price of $200 a barrel. Elsewhere a growing emphasis is being laid on growing fuel crops to combat the fuel demand. Environmentalists have jumped into the bandwagon pointing out the advantages of using alternative fuels and reducing the guilt of humanity.

Riots from people belonging to the lower economic strata in most of the nations have started to grab headlines. The cause: unable to afford a square meal due to the rising food prices. Reason: growing fuel crops is a lucrative business.

To be caught between the “Devil” and the “Deep Blue Sea” comes to mind portraying the situation in which most of the nations are in. What is their priority? To feed empty stomachs or to feed empty fuel tanks?

The farmers are being offered incentives to grow fuel crops. Corn which serves both as a food crop and a fuel crop has put the American Government in a quandary as to which purpose it has to serve. White House and the United Nations have acknowledged that the rising food prices is due to the diversion of corn into ethanol.

The rising fuel cost has resulted in a heavy emphasis being laid on increasing ethanol production. But at what cost? Empty stomachs? How does one justify offering farm subsidies for fuel crops at a time when the nation is facing acute food shortage.

The ethanol industry has responded to the impending crisis by squarely laying the onus on biotechnology to come up with the goods. Some of them have chosen to dismiss the entire brouhaha saying that the current ethanol industry is too small a portion of the global oil market to have a meaningful impact or offset higher food prices.

To feed empty stomachs or to feed empty fuel tanks? Is there a choice?

At the time of publishing this article, fuel prices had breached $130 dollar bracket. Meanwhile rising food prices has lead to unrest and violence in the third world countries.

For more in depth analysis, please check out the article by Joshua Boak

Prefer Gadgets With Bluetooth? These Will Certainly Rank High In The List

With every gadget maker including Bluetooth functionality in the gadgets they make, no wonder, from toasters to watches, refrigerators to picture frames, they are all Bluetooth enabled.

That being said, here are two cool gadgets that function mainly using Bluetooth technology.

Virtual Laser Keyboard

This one comes straight off some alien mother ship and small enough to fit snugly into one’s palm, weighing about two ounces. The virtual laser keyboard (VKB) projects a full size QWERTY keyboard. Seen the movie Die Hard 4.0 where the kid uses a foldable rubber keyboard. This VKB goes one step further by projecting the keyboard itself onto a flat surface. As you type on the laser projection, detection technology based on optical recognition enables the user to tap the images of the keys, complete with realistic tapping sounds, which feed into the compatible Bluetooth-enabled PDA, Smartphone, laptop or PC. The company claims that this is more convenient to use than the foldable rubber ones.

The drawbacks are that it requires a non-reflective, opaque flat surface for projection of the keyboard and offers an illumination of 600 lux. It supports Bluetooth v1.1 class 2 while most of the modern devices sport a v2.0 Bluetooth spec.

It costs about $160.

MBW – 150 Bluetooth Watch from Sony Erickson

Like any other watch, apart from the fact that it vibrates when you receive a call on your Sony Erickson mobile phone and also lets you switch tracks and adjust the volume on the phone via Bluetooth. The OLED display in the watch shows the track currently playing on your phone. When one moves out of the range of the phone (which is approx 10 meters), the phone tells you that you are out of range.

The phone is set in stainless steel covered with mineral crystal glass and is water resistant to boot!

This device supports Bluetooth 2.0 and costs about $400.

Source: Sony Erickson, Golan Technology.

Two Seater “Green” Plane For Jetsetters Looking For A Way To Reduce Their Carbon Footprint

People who clock up flying miles faster than the “Doctor” on his Yamaha M1 and are worried about how much they are polluting the air, fret not, cause Pipistrel has come with a two-seater, electric-powered commercial jet which it plans to mass produce at the end of the year.

Hope all you CEO’s and “rich enough to afford a private jet” people out there do take notice that Taurus Electro gliders from Pipistrel costs $133,000. You can now jet around the globe and sport the “green” label too, which is the latest thing to show off considering the hordes of celebrities lining up in front of hybrid car maker’s doors to buy their products; cause they wanna go green.

Enough of me ranting about erasing the guilt of humanity and lets get to the features and specs of this aircraft. Ivo Boscarol of owner of Pipistrel based in Slovenia has come with a worthy successor for Sinus, a microlight motorglider named Taurus. Taurus according to Pipistrel is a fully equipped aircraft with a separate ventilation system for each pilot and side-by-side seating arrangement; featuring a fully retractable engine and glide ratio of at least 1:40; also featuring a total rescue ballistic parachute system which saves the aircraft and both pilots, all instruments, radio etc. at a reasonable price. Whew!

The “green” part comes here. The internal combustion engine is substituted with its electric counterpart. Pipistrel says that “Using the latest findings in the fields of batteries and charge storage as well as the recent developments of synchronous electric motors with small mass and high specific torque, the flight of electric-powered aircraft can now become a reality.”

Pipistrel has not delved deeper into the technicalities of the engine on its website and I could not get my hands on any aviation magazine which has featured Taurus Electro Glider. Hence, please visit Pipistrel website for more details or contact them. My job is done here. I have just provided a spark and you guys reading the posting have to make the fire. Oops! Not too environment friendly is it? Lets hope Taurus Electro Glider lives up to its expectations.

Source: Pipistrel.