Turning radio waves into power (with circuits printed on paper) Researchers at Georgia Tech have found a way to harvest energy from electromagnetic waves in the air. The harvesting devices are produced using an inkjet printer and can collect small amounts of power from a wide band of frequencies--everything from FM radio up to radar. The technology isn't new—researchers have floated concepts (and a few devices) that can harvest energy from ambient WiFi signals and other small sources, but these are usually able to pull power only from tiny slices of the electromagnetic spectrum (perhaps just a few KHz).
The new system can draw energy from much wider electromagnetic swaths: 100MHz to 15GHz. Even better, the sensors that harvest the energy are simple to make. To print the circuits on paper or paper-like polymers, the researchers use an inkjet printer and add an emulsion of nanoparticles. Circuits printed on polymers are currently less advanced, but the scientists say they have a wider range and can harvest energy from frequencies up to 60GHz. Your Friday must-see video: 14 minute Bioshock Infinite demo. Ars Technica. Renewable energy tops nuclear power in the US. Plunging prices and booming investments are beginning to reshape the energy market, according to a couple of reports that were released this week.
A report produced on behalf of Bloomberg says that investments in renewable energy have gone up by roughly a third over the last year, to $211 billion. Led by China's renewable push, the world is now on a trajectory that will see its investments in renewable electricity surpass those in fossil fuels within a year or two. As a result of these investments, the US is now producing more renewable energy than nuclear power. First, renewable investments. Bloomberg's New Energy Finance group has collaborated with the UN Environment Programme and the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management to produce a global overview of funding for renewable power.
Any way you look at things, the numbers make it clear just how significant renewables have become. Renewables made up 35 percent of the power capacity added worldwide last year. The six ways you can appeal new copyright "mitigation measures" Under the new voluntary antipiracy regime agreed to this week by Internet providers, users who receive a first "alert" regarding copyright infringement on their account won't be able to challenge that alert.
Nor can they challenge the second alert, or the third, or the fourth. They can only challenge the alerts when they move from "education" to "mitigation"—after the fifth or sixth alert, depending on the Internet provider. (RIAA head Cary Sherman told me yesterday that this was because the first "educational" alerts are like traffic warnings rather than traffic tickets; there's no penalty, so who would want to challenge them?) At that point, before a user's Internet connection is throttled, curtailed, or otherwise hobbled, the account subscriber can pay $35 and appeal to a new independent body funded by the ISPs and the content owners. Each defense category is governed by specific rules. What about the "open WiFi defense" ("unauthorized use of account")?