On summer nights in Hanoi, people escape to air-conditioned ATM kiosks for relief from the oppressive heat.
(Credit: Viet Dung)Editor's note: CNET editor and Crave contributor Dong Ngo is spending several weeks in his homeland of Vietnam and will file occasional dispatches chronicling his adventures. To read stories from Dong's last visit, in December, click here.
HANOI, Vietnam--A word of advice for travelers: turn off your laptop when you leave the room.
This isn't the first time I've been back to Vietnam, but it's the first time since I left the country some 10 years ago that I've come back during summer. It's really hot in Hanoi during the day, often 100 degrees or more. And as it has always been the case with me when traveling, stuff happens.
After about 48 hours of traveling and coming to terms with the jetlag, I turned my laptop on for the first time. There were so many things to download: new episodes of podcasts, RSS feeds of different news sources, videos--and of course the 3.0 firmware for the iPhone.
As the Wi-Fi I got hooked up to was running at just around 60Kbps, these essential updates of my digital life (though most of them I can't find time to enjoy) would require hours to download. Like usual, I had a huge urge to download all of the data right away and decided to leave the computer running and go out for a jog. After all, it was almost midday and sunny outside.
Here is part of my gum supply for the trip. I may never chew gum during summer again.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)I started the downloads, opened a pack of Orbit gum, took a piece, and left the rest on my new loaded Dell XPS M1530 (for this trip, I upgraded from the smaller XPS M1330, mostly because my eyes are worse now). Before leaving the room, being a good citizen of the world, I turned off the air conditioning.
The moment I opened the door of the room, a wave of stifling heat engulfed me. Outside, the sky was high and pure, and it was so sunny I felt I could hear how bright it was. Or maybe it was the sound of my sweat starting to ooze out.
Unlike the dry and lovely San Francisco Bay Area or somewhat humid New York City, it's so humid in Hanoi that once outside there's no way you can escape the heat during hot days. It's hot when it's calm, and it's hot when it's windy, and fans won't do anything. The breeze actually helps the heat traverse to every corner. Once in a while a quick and so-heavy-that-you-can't-see-anything downpour comes, only to accentuate the heat when the sky is clear again.
For a lot of local people, there's no way to stay away from the heat, as air conditioners are still considered a luxurious commodity that most can't afford. (Plus, they have survived many years without one.) The water in outdoor swimming pools gets so hot that by midday you can't swim in them. During some extremely hot days, you'll even find people staying inside air-conditioned ATM booths to enjoy some free cooling.
After just about a few minutes of jogging, my glasses started to get blurred by steam and sweat and I had to take them off. Four miles later, I looked and felt like I had never worked out so hard before: my T-shirt and baseball cap were completely soaked with sweat and my forehead was dripping.
As I slowly walked back, I stopped by a familiar beer stand to enjoy a few well-deserved glasses of "Bia Hoi," under a common makeshift cooling system: a net of copper pipes that spray water mist in the air. Bia Hoi is a kind of light draft beer that the Hanoi Brewery never produces enough of during summertime. It made all of my sweating and sun-hating activities worthwhile.
A couple of hours later, I returned to my room imagining a cool shower and getting my stuff synced to my iPhone. Instead, I was greeted with a sight of horror: the computer displayed a Blue Screen of Death and I heard the CPU fan roaring to life. The worst of all, the sweet mint chewing gum had melted into some mushy and sticky substance that spilled all over part of the keyboard and completely covered the biometric reader. Some even dripped onto the bedsheet. The laptop was so hot that I couldn't touch it for more than a few seconds.
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Laptop tray beats the heat
(Credit: Veer)This Type Tray acts as a barrier between a hot laptop and your legs, which is great because up until now I've always used a pillow to protect myself from tech-related burns.
Veer and Scribble Product Design configured the tray to allow heat to dissipate through its 3/4-inch layer of 100 percent industrial wool felt. The Type Tray also features an intricate typographic design laser-etched into the surface, courtesy of P22 Kilkenny and Cavetto. The product also does its part to help Mother Nature by only using recycled (and recyclable) materials.
The Type Tray is available here for $100.
Either the Predator's hands get pretty chilly at night or this is an infrared pic of the thermals in the glove in action.
(Credit: Aevex)If you're reading this while rubbing your hands together and blowing hot breath into them (remember, the wider your mouth when you blow, the warmer the heat), well you should probably turn on the radiator or put on some gloves. If you already have gloves on and are still rubbing your hands together, keep reading.
Aevex announced on Monday that its Intelligent Heat technology can now be found in winter gloves from Mountain Hardwear and Outdoor Research. Not to be confused with the Cooling Glove (not sure why you would be, but I just wanted to get that link in there), both the PrimoVolta ($259) and the Red Savina ($300) gloves are available in stores this week.
The way it works: without forcing you to carry around a battery pack, heating functions have been integrated into a single panel that is sewn into the apparel like an extra layer of fabric.
According to Aevex, these panels are light, ultrathin, and flexible, so supposedly they virtually disappear inside the gloves. The technology works with your body to automatically adjust to its needs, delivering more heat to your cold parts and less to your warm parts.
When a part of your body begins to get cold, so does a unique polymer layer inside the Aevex panel. This polymer automatically increases the heart at that cold spot. As this spot warms to a comfortable temperature, Aevex then turns the heat down, redirecting power to other cold spots. Supposedly this kind of temperature regulates usage, and maintains an even, comfortably toasty temperature.
The technology makes sense, but how well does it really work?
(Credit: Aevex)When the batteries are spent (Aevex claims the gloves last through 800 recharges) and you're done with the gloves, Aevex will recycle them along with the lithium polymer batteries at no charge. Just send them back to Aevex and, according to the company, Aevex will take care of the rest. Check out the Aevex Web site for more info.
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EPISODE 109 |
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(Credit:
Thermaltake)
This may sound a little far-fetched, but anyone who's suffocated a still-hot laptop in a zip-up sleeve might be interested to hear about a bag that cools its contents without the help of a fan. That, at least, is what Thermaltake claims its "iXoft Notebook Carrying Bag" can do.
The 15-inch bag uses "unique thermal shifting chemicals to spread heat out evenly across the pad," according to Fareastgizmos, which "melt into a gel state when heated and solidify into crystal state when cooled." Yes, it could well be an attempt to capitalize on burning laptop fears, but that doesn't mean it won't work.
The company does have something of a track record on the subject, especially where sweaty palms are concerned. Besides, it's more convenient than lugging around a laptop in a picnic cooler. Just be sure not to use it with one of those Glacial touch screens that's supposed to stay warm.
The heated touch screen on the Everest keeps things legible regardless of temperature fluctuations.
(Credit: Glacier Computer)If you work in icy storage warehouses or happen to do most of your computing in an igloo, you may want to know that Glacier Computer, a designer and distributor of rugged industrial computers, is out with a heated touch screen for its Everest line.
The warmth solves a challenge that arises when the computer is being transported back and forth between sub-zero environments and areas above freezing--in and out of a freezer, for example.
"This activity causes condensation and then a refreezing of that condensation, making the screen unusable by the operator," explains Dan Poisson, director of engineering for Glacier. "Development of a clear, touch-screen heater now allows for uninterrupted use as the operator travels between these locations."
The non-wimpy Everest is designed for use on forklifts, carts, pallet jacks, and yard jockeys. The computers come with a 10.4- or 12.1-inch color LCD, and have an Intel processor, integrated 802.11 wireless, and a solid-state hard drive that offers protection against shock, vibration, and temperature extremes commonly seen in warehouse, logistic, and manufacturing/shop floor environments.
Come to think of it, even those of us who don't work in harsh conditions might enjoy a slightly heated PC on those cold winter days--as long as the warmth's not coming from a burning battery.
(Credit:
Wavemaker)
Crave has visited the effects of sunlight on human behavior more than we care to remember, but it's all for a good cause. If a few colored lights can stave off violence in the workplace (namely ours), than we're all for it. One thing we'd never anticipated, however, is a product that can have similar results on non-human beings.
The "Fauna Sauna" (we're not making this up) uses solar-like radiant heat, sans ultra-violet rays, "to bring healing to your pet right in your home," according to InventorSpot. It's even available in two versions--"Classic" and "Pro"--depending on the severity of your pet's maladies.
This form of "far infrared" heat, according to the company, can treat everything from arthritis to skin wounds--and, of course, stress. Then again, maybe Rover wouldn't be so tense if he wasn't so freaked out by you hoarding his fur.
The batteries in hybrid cars now get recharged slightly whenever the driver taps the brakes. If research at Honda pans out, heat from the engines could do the same thing.
The Japanese auto giant has released a paper detailing how a Rankine cycle co-generation unit could help recharge the battery in a hybrid and thereby increase gas mileage, according to Green Car Congress. Honda put the Rankine unit in a test car (a Honda Stream) and found that the unit generated more electricity than regenerative braking. However, the unit isn't very efficient so more work will be required before Honda can put one of these in cars.
Waste heat, according to some, is one of the untapped sources of power in the world. Some have proposed harnessing the waste heat from nuclear plants to run water purification systems or produce hydrogen.
The tough part is that it's not easy. Paul Marcoux, vice president of green engineering at Cisco Systems, was recently asked if computer companies could harvest heat from processors and hard drives and turn that into power. Probably not, he said. The temperature generally doesn't get hot enough.
In a Rankine unit, a water pump keeps water under high pressure. Heat from the gas engine in a hybrid is then captured, compressed, and used to make steam out of the water. The steam then turns a generator to make electricity, which charges the battery that runs the electric motor.
Hybrids have two motors: one gas, one electric. In conventional hybrids, the electric motor powers the car around town while the gas motor does more of the work on the freeway. General Motors and Tesla Motors are building cars in which the gas motor doesn't drive the car at all, but runs a generator which charges the battery for the electric motor. Conceivably, a Rankine system could be used in either but would probably work better in a conventional hybrid because the gas engine is larger.
Right now, Honda's Rankine unit is only about 13 percent efficient.
Honda is also trying to bring efficient, cleaner, high-mileage diesels to the United States.
Hallowell International is effectively committing air conditioner fraud.
The Bangor, Maine-based company has figured out a way to get heat pumps--the basis for heating and cooling systems for much of the Southwest U.S.--to work decently in cool climates. For residents in the Northeast and Midwest, that's good news. Electric heat pumps are more efficient than fossil fuel heating systems and double as air conditioners in the summer.
The Acadia
(Credit: Hallowell International.)In some northern states, residents can pay up to $4,000 a year to heat and cool their homes with fossil fuels, said Hallowell CEO Duane Hallowell. The company claims its heat pumps can cut that figure by up to 70 percent. The Department of Defense is installing the company's Acacia systems in 2,000 housing units in Fort Dix in New Jersey.
Traditional heat pumps don't operate efficiently when the temperature drops below 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat pumps basically take heat (and air pressure) from one place and move it to another. Liquid refrigerant inside pressurized coils sucks heat from the air inside of a home and then expels it outside; the heat turns the refrigerant into a gas in the process. The refrigerant then gets re-compressed, and the cooling process continues.
To heat a home, the stages get reversed. The refrigerant gets heated outside and discharges the absorbed energy indoors.
"It is a question of how many kilowatt hours do you need to remove X million BTUs or how many therms do you need to create Y number of BTUs," Hallowell said. "That is how guys like me look at the world."
The fact that the outside air has to be warm for a heat pump to create heat, however, has always been the problem. "The industry has been plagued with great air conditioners," he said.
Hallowell's trick is a second air compressor that creates an artificial environment around the heat pump. Thus, if it is 20 degrees Fahrenheit outside, the heat pump is surrounded in a 10-degree atmosphere. The outside air molecules as a result contain more energy than the refrigerant. Heat is motion, and those outside molecules are wiggling more. The energy is absorbed, compressed, and becomes heat.
"You want the heat pump to think it's hot outside," Hallowell said. "We create a 10-degree difference."
Besides a heating and cooling system, Hallowell also sells a water heater.
It is also working on something it calls the cube, a 2x2x2 foot device that will provide the heating, cooling, and hot water for a house or condominium. Prototypes have already been built.
"The cube will blow the doors off of a lot of things," Hallowell asserted.
IBM has come up with a technology that could one day let different cores on a processor exchange signals with pulses of light, rather than electrons, a change that could lead to faster and far more energy efficient chips.
The device, known as a silicon Mach-Zehnder electro-optic modulator--converts electrical signals into pulses of light. The trick is that IBM's modulator is 100 or more times smaller than other small modulators produced by other labs. Eventually, IBM hopes the modulator could be integrated into chips.
Electrons in, photons out.
(Credit: IBM)Here's how it works. Electric pulses, the yellow dots, hit the modulator, which is also being hit with a constant beam of light from a laser. The modulator emits light pulses to correspond to the electrical pulses. In a sense, the modulator is substituting photons for electrons.
Since the beginning of the decade, several companies--Intel, Primarion, Luxtera, IBM--have been coming up with components that, ideally, will let chip designers replace wires in computers and ultimately chips with optical fiber. Wires radiate heat, a big problem, and the signals don't travel as fast as light pulses. (The research in this area is known as silicon photonics and optoelectronics.)
The problem with optical technology, however, is making it small. Optical components historically have been tricky to produce and tend to be fairly large. Computer makers need components that measure only a few millimeters on a side. The idea is to come up with a way to produce modulators, lasers, waveguides and other devices on silicon manufacturing lines.
Right now, it remains an open question when these products will come to market. Still, the plethora of prototypes is a strong indication that progress is moving along well.
