The PHEV (pneumatic hybrid electric vehicle) car runs on air. Compressed air. And batteries. Pretty clever, pretty Korean. More here.   If a car uses compressed air engine it can reduce about 20% of the total cost of production because it doesn’t have cooling system, fuel tank, sparking plug and silencer etc….The exhausted gas from the cars has a bad effect to environment but compressed air engine doesn’t exhaust noxious gas, therefore this engine can solve the problems of environmental…

Apparently the boffins have started to learn how to read our thoughts. Not nervous me, oh no. I’ll just keep changing my mind constantly. That’ll fool ‘em, the idiots.  Scientists from Japan and the United States have figured out how to read a person’s mind by remotely measuring brain activity, extracting information of which the subject is not even aware. Science fiction? No. It’s real.

The Hugs Shirt. The Ferret prefers his hugs bear style not virtual, but the F+R Hugs Shirt is bound to enthuse legions of eager young things anxious for a textile caress. Oh yes. [via the rather delicious We Make Money….]   F+R Hugs is a wearable system that allows to feel the physical closeness of a distant loved one, bringing the pleasant sensation of a hug to body and mind. Is designed to satisfy a desire shared by many people: communicate emotions to distant people…

The Whole House Machine. Yowsers, a machine that builds houses, doesn’t wolf whistle or wear saggy baggy craggy jeans? Whatever next?  In a sunny laboratory at the University of Southern California, a robotically controlled nozzle squeezes a ribbon of concrete onto a wooden plank. Every two minutes and 14 seconds, the nozzle completes a circuit, topping the previous ribbon with a fresh one. Thus a five-foot-long wall rises—a wall built without human intervention…If all goes as planned, Khoshnevis will use…

The Reva-NXG electric car. Launched in concept form in the UK this week. Indian tech from the Simputer people heads West. Silently. Touchscreen dashboard, 125 mile range, 75 mph max speed, 6 hour recharge. Needs a lid to keep out our rain, but doesn’t look half bad from here. [Thanks Dave!]   The car is fitted with a “wireless tablet,” an embedded appliance that integrates into a high resolution single touch-screen display system all dashboard functions such as speed, state of charge, range…

The Kinetic Energy Cell. Get ready to shake yer battery. An interesting Aussie tech which apparently may lead to batteries which generate power from vibrations, such as you’d find in a moving vehicle or even people. So in the future we could dance or jog our way to a re-charge. Picturing a commuter train carriage full of jiggling suits. Oh yes! More here.  A renewable energy device that captures vibration to produce electricity looks set to replace or compliment small conventional batteries…

MoCA. The Multimedia over Coax Alliance. Home networking done retro. Interesting.  The goal of MoCA is to create specifications and certify products that will tap into the vast amounts of unused bandwidth available on the in-home coax without the need for new connections, wiring… More than 70% of homes in the United States have coax already installed… The technology underlying MoCA provides the vital elements necessary to distribute DVD quality entertainment throughout the home – high speed (270 mbps), high…

Apparently researchers are closing in on a cure for smoking. Or rather there are a number of companies developing tools to combat the ‘disease’. From the ‘believe it when you see it dept’.  Then there’s NicVax, a drug that Florida-based Nabi Pharmaceuticals claims could be used as a nicotine vaccine. NicVax triggers the production of antibodies that bind to nicotine molecules, preventing them from reacting with receptors in the brain. NicVax, which was developed primarily with grants from the National Institute…

The Thinking Carpet is an interesting project. Mind you, I’m not sure just how much more thinking I need from my furniture and environment. [Thanks Andi]  A self-organising network of robust microchips is responsible for the capturing and processing of data in the “Thinking Carpet”. In this case, self-organising means: If a sensor fails for some reason, the neighbouring processors can use their own positioning to look for a new connecting route which circumvents the defective region and maintains functionality….

The CLEVER Project. Yet Another Funky Urban Transportation Project. Are any of these things ever ack-tually going to appear on the streets?  The natural gas engine allows travelling with minimal fuel consumption (2.5 l/100km (111 mpg) equivalent to gasoline for CO2 emissions of 60g/km)…Because of the lack of appropriate infrastructure with natural gas filling stations, the refuelling of CLEVER is possible by the exchange of gas bottles. Two mounted gas bottles offer a driving range of approximately 150 km.

Cybertelly, CyberSky and Byte-Tornado. Watch this one folks, it could be fascinating. At the moment distribution of the beta software has been stopped due to a temporary injunction issued by a German court on 7th Jan this year. [Thanks James!] Cybertelly. P2P television using a small (220kb) downloaded client. CyberTelly is a new technology of broadcasting TV, an Alternative to Cable-TV or Satellite-TV. Instead sending satellites into space or laying a cable into household, we use the internet for signal transmission. Cybersky….

The folks at ThirdEye Interfaces reckon they’ve come up with an innovative game controller tech which uses the seeing capabilities of cameras like the EyeToy to control on-screen action. Hard to explain, take a look at the video for more meat. The Ferret is not totally convinced, if only because it’s unclear from the rather sparse web site just how flexible the tech will be in the real world. A mere two degrees of motion is not good enough for…

The Griefcase. A courier-safe briefcase which can only be opened by someone who is not the owner or carrier. Not so great for smuggling cheese sarnies and crisps into the library then. [Huh? – Ed]   In order to ensure this accountability, the owner or person carrying this briefcase cannot open it. Only persons other than the owner of this briefcase can open it. Anyone opening this briefcase, whether they be law enforcement officers, customs officials, military police, or private security forces, must therefore be…