External hard drives are pretty nifty but if you really want some decent external storage you have to carry around the hard drive, USB cable and power adapter. That was the case until now. Western Digital’s My Passport Essential SE is now available in 1TB and 750GB models that get their power via USB doing away with the need for a power plug and additional cord.
The 1TB version is going to cost you $300 or–if you can do without the extra 250GB of storage–you can get the 750GB model for just under $200.
The Chevy Volt may be the first car publicly available to get a 3 digit MPG rating in the city.
The catch?
It doesn’t really get 230 MPG.
This morning, Government General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson made the incredible announcement,
“Having a car that gets triple-digit fuel economy can and will be a game changer for us.”
While we would definitely agree something must first be explained.
For the first 40 miles you drive the Volt will be running on battery power and use virtually no gas. After that the gas engine will kick in and take you from there. Henderson said, “most Volt drivers will operate on a daily basis without having to use a single drop of gas,” claiming that 3 in 4 drivers travel less than 40 miles a day. After the vehicle runs out of battery power in that first 40 miles or so the gas engine will kick in that could get as much as 50 MPG.
Determining fuel economy on a true electric car can be tricky. With a Toyota Prius it is relatively easy because all of the driving power of the Prius is still generated by gas, it just handles its energy more efficiently than a standard vehicle. The Prius averages 46 mpg while other similar sized vehicles only get low 20s.
The Volt is different in that it gets its energy from two different sources, a battery–charged by an outside sourc–as well as gasoline. On the gas the Volt may get the same fuel economy as the Prius but that is not accounting for the fact that the Volt has already gone 40 miles on battery power and used no gas.
So, if you never go more than 40 miles a day then your gas mileage will be roughly infinity. The way that GM has been able to come up with the 230MPG figure is by assuming that the average person will travel roughly 50 miles a day. The first 40 miles will consume no gas and then for the last 10 miles 0.2 gallons will be used. 50 miles on roughly 0.2 gallons equals 250 MPG which is really impressive. But if you go 300 miles the fuel economy would only be 62.5 mpg.
Don’t get me wrong that is still excellent but it is no 230 MPG which is very deceiving. Still at 40 cents a charge driving to work and back could be really cheap if these vehicles are reasonably priced when they come out.
20 year old Wu Zhongyuan–a farmer from the Henan province–created a home made helicopter using wood from an elm tree, a 150 cc motorcycle engine, steel pipes and no formal training–except for what he learned in a middle school physics class.
In Guangdong, 12-year old Xie Yanshou has created a flying car capable of taking off vertically.
“The car is powered by two pairs of propellers of the same rotation speed and different rotation direction, which would also balance the propellers’ torsional stress at the same time. Ducted fans are another feature helping accelerate the efficiency of the propellers and protect people from getting hurt.” said Xie
It is unbelievable how fast the price of technology goes down. Four years ago it would be hard to find a 720p projector for around $1,000 and now you can have a 1080p 120″ HD projector screen for under $1,000.
The Optoma HD20 is available to purchase from Amazon now and is suppose to ship within the next few weeks. The HD20 has two HDMI inputs, VGA, component and composite video inputs. It has 1,700 ANSI lumens of brightness with an estimated 4,000 hours of lamp life and can have a screen size up to 300 inches!!!!
