Inside: The PowerPot uses a thermoelectric differential transducer to harness the power of changing water temperatures within the pot. The more the temperature difference, the more electricity is produced. There is a built-in regulator, which outputs 5 V (USB standard) and up to 1000 mA of current, which is enough to charge smartphones, MP3 players, radio, GPS devices, lights, water-purifiersand other such devices. It is almost like charging off a normal outlet at home. Simply fill te pot with fluid, plug-in the regulating cable and close the handles to gude it away from the heat. Place the pot on any heat source and start cooking. Within seconds, a green indicator lights up and you can start charging devices. The pot is waterproof, fire-resistant and light-weight. It doesnot rely on sunlight, so it can be used any time. There are no moving parts or batteries, and since the thermoelectric technology is built into the bottom of the pot it can produce electricity from a wide variety of heat sources. The only condition is that water must be used for cooking, since it acts as a heat-sink to maintain the temperature difference required to produce thermal electricity.
Cloud-based ridership tracking
Kidtrack is a biometric ridership monitoring system that helps keep track of who is riding on which bus. The cloud-based system can be effectively used by schools, offices, tours, parents and othr caregivers to make sure people get on the right bus, go to the right places and get off at the right points. Parents can breathe easy when they send their kids to school. It will also be very useful in emergency evacuations, route diversions and such situations.
Inside: Developed by T&W Operations Inc., Kidtrack makes use of Fujitsu’s PalmEntry physical access control system, which is a secure, contactless, biometric access control solution that positively authenticates the identity of an individual. PalmEntry scanners are installed near the doors of buses. When kids board the bus, they simply place their palm in front of the scanner, which recognises individuals using the unique vein pattern on their palm. A confirmatorybeep sounds, and the scanned information is pushed to the cloud wirelessly, to be accessed by the authorised users and applications.
PalmEntry relies on Fujitsu’s PalmSecure biometric palm vein sensors, which use near-infrared light to capture a user’s palm vein pattern, generating a unique biometric template that is matched against the palm vein patterns of pre-registered users. Unlike other readers, PalmSecure-based devices do not come in contact with the skin, making the technology extremely hygienic, non-intrusive and independent of factors such as skin types and conditions.
Nostalgic experience for gamers
Like music aficionados,gamers also like to relive old memories. There is a rising crowd of retro-gamers who have a penchant for old games. Some have even preserved their old cartridges and controllers, and are waiting for a chance to use them. Hyperkin offers a way out with its range of retro-gaming consoles. The new Hyperkin RetroN 5, for example, supports games from seven vintage systems.
Inside: The RetroN 5 console has reverse-engineered hardware, which is nearly two decades old, and allows games from seven systems to be played. It plays original game cartridges and will also support original controllers. It is not a slack on state-of-the-art features either, as is proven by its high-definition multimedia inerface (HDMI) capability, which can upscale games up to 720 p, allowing classic games to be played on HDTVs. Audio-video ports are also present, in case you want to use your old cathode ray tube (CRT) TV. There are five cartridge slots on board that can handle NES, SNES, Geesis, Famicom, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color and the original Game Boy game cartridges. RetroN 5 has two Bluetooth controllers and six controller ports on the console to use old pads. You can save your game to the console, to the cartridge, or to some kind of removable storage like an SD card. You can save and resume at any point in the game, speed through slow parts (overclocking), configure conrollers and pick what to play (using a PS3 like interface). The console is likely to be priced around $100.
