ringfinger - Slashdot User

Submission + - What happened to this efficient steam generator?

Submitted by c4colorado on Tuesday May 29, 2007 @09:16AM

c4colorado writes: I have recently been looking into efficient power and heating equipment and ran across this device:
enginion SteamCell (Translated to English from German)

This device apparently runs off of "Fuel oil, gasoline, Diesel, propane, various renewable bio fuels as well as hydrogen" with about 30% increased efficiency and reduced emissions. This device is only the size of a 12v car battery and can produce up to 25kw of thermal energy and is capable of jumping from 5% to 100% output in milliseconds.

I was interested in using this device to possibly power a modern steam-powered vehicle using a Quasiturbine or similar high-efficiency motor/engine. This could be a new avenue of research for "green" vehicles.

The information about this device and the company that designed it has disapeared, there was a great deal of information about it around 2003 but since then there has been no news or information about it.

I wanted to ask the community if anyone knows of the fate of this product, did the company change their name, get bought out by a big oil company with ulterior motives, go out of business because nobody cared, etc?

Submission + - Net taxes proposed for internet sales, email

Submitted by

snobody

on Tuesday May 29, 2007 @09:12AM

snobody writes: "In an article in Cnet News, Washington politicians are planning to break the moratorium on internet sales taxes amd internet access taxes, with one politician even proposing to tax email messages. The politicians make the usual complaints about lost tax revenue to state governments as a justification for repealing the ban. Small businesses with less than $5 million in out of state sales would be exempted. Not discussed is how such tax systems would be implemented. A tax on email would be a non-starter for obvious technical reasons, but that doesn't mean that the politicians would let reality get in the way of their plans."

Submission + - Does Boston Have a Future as a Tech Center?

Submitted by

on Tuesday May 29, 2007 @07:50AM

An anonymous reader writes: The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine (http://www.boston.com/news/specials/futureboston/ ) has an interesting set of articles about how Boston will look ten years from now, including an article about Boston's struggle to reassert itself as a science and technology center in the face of competition from Silicon Valley and other areas and given transportation constraints, skills shortages, and housing challenges (http://www.boston.com/news/specials/futureboston/ articles/2007/05/27/americas_science_city/). Even more interesting: There's an affiliated social networking site, called FutureBoston, with a contest for people to collaborate in coming up with solutions for Boston in the areas of Health, Design and Energy.

Submission + - The Slurpr - Mother of all Wi-Fi Access Points!

Submitted by

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten

on Tuesday May 29, 2007 @07:42AM

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten writes: "

On June 1, 2007 Mark Hoekstra (geektechnique.org) will preview The Slurpr at The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam. The Slurpr is a high speed Wi-Fi broadband router that takes up to six available Wi-Fi channels and combines them into one free and ultra broadband connection. Fast and Free Internet Access with just one box! Now you can enjoy the great advantages and comfort that come with a high speed internet connection, all for free.

The Slurpr automatically connects to the 6 strongest available Wi-Fi channels in your neighborhood to give you unparalleled connectivity. To make this happen, 6 Wi-Fi adapters are combined in one small package. The six extra sensitive antennae give you an even wider range of connectivity.

The Slurpr will be on display and available for pre-ordering at The Next Web Conference.

Technical specs:

The Slurpr consists of a Six-channel wardrive-box broadbandrouter with 6 11/54Mbit fully configurable Wi-Fi connections bundled and redistributed to 9 wired ethernet connections. A 266MHz MIPS CPU with 64MB RAM with Linux installed on a 1GB Compact Flash card powers this extraordinary set-up.

Both the hardware and software of The Slurpr will be released under a Creative Commons license making it easy for users to build their own Slurprs and using and enhancing the software.

More information on:
http://geektechnique.org/
http://www.slurpr.com/
http://2007.thenextweb.org/

How it all started:
http://www.bomega.com/2006/07/31/who-will-build-me -a-wi-fi-canalizer/"

Submission + - Microsoft software ordered off Macs in NZ schools

Submitted by doofusdog on Tuesday May 29, 2007 @07:41AM

doofusdog writes: The New Zealand Ministry of Education has decided that the $2.7 million NZD that Microsoft wanted as part of the new Schools Agreement for Office Mac could not be justified. Therefore all schools that installed it under an old agreement must either remove it from all computers or buy separate licenses.

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