NEWS : TECH (NFPC)

Airless Bicycle Tire Needs No Pump

You can't reinvent the wheel, but you can reinvent the tire. Colorado tire maker BriTek has unveiled an airless tire for bicycles that does away with the need to repair flats. The Energy Return Wheel is made from two layers of rubber stretched over a 29-inch carbon fiber wheel.

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The space between the two layers of rubber contains a scaffolding of rods and cushions that allows the tire to give and react to compression. While riding, the compressed wheel stores elastic potential energy stored that's released as forward momentum. Hence "energy return." The tire is still in the prototype stage and no date has been set for sale. via Inhabitat

Credit: Energy Return Wheel

 

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Create Your Own Bike Lane, on the Go

A mounted laser that projects bike lane lines onto the street at night joins the ranks of lit-up safety gear for cyclists. The question is: Does it actually work?

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The XFire bike lane safety light was created by a Los Angeles based company with the goal of helping bike commuters stay safe. The patent-pending light costs about $40, contains five bright red LEDs, and projects two visible red laser lines on either side of the bike. It reminded me a little of the BLAZE device, which projects a bright green shared lane symbol on the road ahead of a cyclist.

British blogger Trevor Ward recently took the XFire tail-light for a spin and described his experiences in the Guardian online. Although a dog walker was impressed by the lasers, a neighbor who followed Ward in her car said she didn't really notice the lines and didn't feel the need to give him more room.

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You might be wondering why I try the XFire out myself. The truth is I've already got some bright (and expensive) flashing bike lights, and they've made me realize that lights can only do so much.

Many Colorado drivers don't care that my bike is lit front and back, or that I'm in a bike lane with reflective painted lines, or even that the crosswalk just automatically lit up to signal that they should stop for me. There have been a bunch close calls, and I was carefully following the rules.

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Better city planning could make more of a difference. Recently several main streets in my Denver neighborhood, which hasn't historically been the most bike-friendly area, were painted with shared lane symbols. Two bike shops have also opened up. Lasers are fun, but I'm looking forward to the day when drivers expect to see bikers everywhere.

Photo: Still from a video showing the XFire laser system in action. Credit: Alex Choi

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Smart Cycles, Transparent Time, Other Disruptions

TechCrunch Disrupt SF, the annual conference held by that widely read tech-news blog in San Francisco, has become a weird, not-so-little circus.

It draws celebrities and politicos (model Jessica Alba and Newark, N.J., mayor Cory Booker each showed up to discuss their online ventures). It features interviews and panels that can be enlightening (Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the company botched its mobile strategy by neglecting its apps) and enervating (TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington spent too much time asking Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff how awesome it was to be rich). It even has a soundtrack, an endlessly replayed loop of techno songs that continues to besiege my brain two days later.

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But Disrupt also serves as a useful stage for startups pitching themselves in the hope of earning extra publicity -- and a $50,000 prize to one company out of 30. (This year's winner, YourMechanic, promises house-call repairs for your car).

Some of these ventures look too oriented towards the kind of people who attend Disrupt -- for instance, an app that filters what people say on all of your other social networks. But others featured clever uses of technology to iron out inefficiencies, tell us more about ourselves and save us time. These five seemed particularly interesting.

Lit Motors

This San Francisco firm showed off its C1, an enclosed electric motorcycle whose steering wheel, sunroof and airbags make it more of a two-wheeled car. Like a Segway, it balances itself automatically with a set of gyroscopes; kickstand-style landing gear deploy when you park it. It will run for 200 miles on a charge, the company says, and should recharge in six hours on a standard outlet. But at a projected price of $19,000 in 2014, it would be an expensive way to streamline a commute.

Chronos

This iPhone app aims to provide "time transparency" by tracking where you spend your day and how long you spend at those places. It uses Foursquare's database to decide which places represent work or play and noting when you're near friends who are also using the app. Think of this service as a FitBit for your calendar instead of your calories, providing quantified data in convenient charts that you can use to improve your life -- say, by realizing you spend too much time at the gym and not enough with your kids or significant other.

MindMeld

Expect Labs' free iPad videoconferencing app listens to a conversation for keywords and then presents relevant search results--for instance, if somebody cites the iPhone 5's introduction, the program starts pulling up stories about it. The idea here is to minimize time spent on calls doing frantic Google searches to figure what somebody else just mentioned; that seems like a worthy goal.

PayTap

Consider this a sign of crummy economic times: PayTap allows friends and family to team up easily and securely to pay somebody else's bills without having to send checks back and forth, collect cash, share credit-card numbers or take turns covering the entire tab. The Dallas company charges $1 for each group payment, which beats PayPal's fees in some cases but not others.

Spinlister

Your bicycle spends much of the time sitting idle, so why not make a little money by renting it out, much as you might rent a spare room on Airbnb? This Facebook-linked service lets cyclists in New York and San Francisco do that, allowing renters to choose bikes by size and type (and, in the bargain, illustrating yet another way that technology can make transportation more efficient). Rates can go from $5 to $130 a day, with insurance included for bike owners; the site collects 25 percent of the proceeds.

Credit: Rob Pegoraro/Discovery

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Human-Powered Bike Set To Break Records

Over a decade ago, Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree broke records with his  bicycle he called Old Faithful. The handlebars for the bike sat right under the rider's chest, which gave it aerodynamic advantages. The advantages were so great, that after Obree's victory in 1993, the position of the handlebars was banned.

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Obree set about designing a new bike and with it, hopes to be the first man to break the 100 mph record for a human-powered vehicle. (The current IHPVA land speed record is 82.81 9mph, held by Canadian Sam Whittingham.) Obree's bike, named Beastie, has a compact front and a slim width, and unlike standard bikes, is not pedaled by foot using a circular motion but powered using a push and pull method. The design keeps the rider's knees from having to dip, which aids in aerodynamics. In addition, the bike has skin. Obree worked with the Glasgow School of Art to create a clear cover to encase the rider and make him resemble an engine.

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Originally, Obree set his sights on this year's International Human Powered Vehicle Association event in Battle Mountain, Nev, which is being held from Sept. 10 to 15. But, according to Obree's website, the bike isn't ready for prime time. A statement says, "This is disappointing but we have had technical issues in particular with regard to the fairing construction. We are not 100 percent happy with what we have and do not want to travel to Battle Mountain with any part of The Beastie unsatisfactory."

While the bike isn't ready for this year's event, Obree and his team are planning to attend a future speed event in the U.K. to try and break the record in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

via Humans Invent

Credit: Graeme Obree

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Personal Orb Annoys You Into Exercising

As someone who spends most of her day sitting in front of a computer, I can attest to the fact that I don't get outside as much as I would like to. It's really difficult to get away from the glow of my screen when I know there is work to be done and cat videos to be watched. Maybe a device that annoys me to the point of walking away from my computer would help. That's what the Personal Energy Orb concept device was created for.

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Ok, so it wasn't really built to annoy its users, it was built to encourage them to ride their bikes. The device connects to a person's computer and slows down their mouse's reaction time as the orb's energy level gets depleted. The longer you stay on the computer, the slower the mouse response. Eventually, it gets to the point where your cursor barely moves.

That's pretty friggin' annoying.

The only way to recharge the orb is to connect it to your bike and go for a ride. A mount on the bike counts revolutions and sends that information to the the orb. Its brains are from Arduino, an open-sourced platform that uses a micro controller board to develop interactive objects. Once the orb goes from red to green, you're good to get back online.

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The orb was conceived by Janko Hoffman and Fabian Pammer of the University of Munich. Hoffman and Pammer created the device for a class, they wanted to create something that would help people balance sedentary computer time with an active lifestyle. According to the duo's website, "The virtual energy level serves as a metaphor for time as a limited resource that is wasted in front of a computer which should rather be used more consciously."

Check out the video below for a full demo.

PEO - Personal Energy Orb from Janko Hofmann on Vimeo.

 

via PSFK

Credit: Janko Hoffman and Fabian Pammer

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The Best Bluetooth Speaker for Your Bicycle

SleekSpeak: $79

Your headphones are a hazard and your boombox is bulky, so strap on this colorful little wireless speaker and take to the road. Its rubbery skin not only helps it grip various parts of your bike, but also stand up to weather and shocks. It's got on-board volume controls and is easily good for several hours at full blast (over 80 dB). Plus it features a line-in, so it's useful beyond the bike.

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If fully funded, SleekSpeak could make beating a dusty trail, climbing paved hills and snaking in and out of traffic that much more fun. Right now, they're about a fourth of the way there, with less than a week left. If you or someone you know likes music and/or cycling, show some love...so they're not just left spinning their wheels.

Credit: StickyLAB

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LED Handlebars Illuminate Bike Safety

When it comes to bike safety, there is no shortage of illuminating reflectors, clamp lights and frame lights to make night riding less of a dark peddle down the road of hazard.

Yet the newest addition to hop on that saddle entirely does away with the need for fastening anything to your bike. Instead, Mitchell Silva has created GLOBARS and they perform just like they sound. They're handlebars integrated with LED lights.

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"My idea was to create a bicycle light that could be easily used, and offer the same user friendliness of integrated bicycle lights, while remaining at a significantly lower price point," Silva wrote on his website.

For his prototype, Silva cut long strips out of the bars and installed plastic tubing on the inside to keep them rigid.

"I then installed approximately 40 high-efficiency LED bulbs into the inner plastic tubing, and installed a momentary actuator button on the back of the bars," Silva explained. "The whole system runs off a watch battery."

Silva envisions his GLOBARS benefiting those who face the most danger: urban cyclists. In 2009, 630 cyclists were killed in the United States alone and 51,000 were injured. Of those accidents, 70 percent occurred in urban areas.

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Besides their safety attributes, GLOBARS are super bright and, not to mention, really cool-looking. And who wouldn't want to ride around the city streets at night gripping a pair of glowing-bull-horn handlebars?

via Coroflot

Credit: Mitchell Silva

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Aquatic Bike Pump Cranks Out Electricity

A bicycle pump-like device that harnesses wave power to generate electricity could be coming to the United Kingdom's coast within the next few years. The surprisingly simple system gets around a huge hurdle facing wave power: corrosion.

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The "Searaser" device works a little like an air pump for a bike, only it's much larger and pushes water around. Searaser contains a piston between two buoys, a larger one that floats on the ocean surface, and a smaller one suspended underwater that's weighted to the seafloor. When ocean waves pass by, the motion causes the piston to pump seawater through a pipe toward the shore.

British engineer Alvin Smith was inspired to create the device while playing with an inflatable ball at a swimming pool, according to the BBC.

Once ashore, Searaser sends the water uphill through the pipe to a reservoir. That seawater then gets released and comes downhill to an on-shore turbine, where electricity is produced. The BBC has a short animation showing how this works.

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Some might see similarities between the Searaser and other buoy-like systems. OPT's PowerBuoy system also uses buoys to capture wave power but relies on an underwater cable to transmit the power ashore. The ocean environment is especially tough on electrical equipment, though. It corrodes a lot of the materials needed to make an underwater wave-power system work.

By focusing on pumping seawater alone, Smith's design neatly avoids subjecting power generation and transmission equipment to the corrosive ocean:

Searaser was acquired by the British energy firm Ecotricity, which already created a prototype and plans to have the device ready for market in two years. A full-sized Searaser would be about 3.5 feet wide and 40 feet deep. Smith told the BBC he thinks that one will cost around $385,000.

Ideally, the system would be placed near a cliff that has a reservoir at the top. Fortunately for the British, the U.K. has more than 150 such reservoirs around the southwest. How well will it work? For now it's hard to tell, but 200 Searasers could power more than 230,000 homes. That's quite the cycle.

Image: A rendering showing the Searaser pumping underwater. Screenshot from video. (Credit: DWE Ltd.).

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New Spin on the Cyclometer Uses an iPhone

iBike Dash + Power: $749

Just as Clark Kent becomes Superman, your iPod Touch or iPhone can transform into the dynamic iBike Dash + Power just by popping into a 'phone booth.' In this case, it's a weatherproof holster that mounts quickly and securely to your handlebars or steer tube. But beyond merely protecting your device from the elements, it houses special electronics that easily allow you to track trip and workout info in real time.

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The iBike app receives signals from sensors and displays user-configurable info, including your trip and graphical interval workout data. Taking advantage of the iPhone's GPS capabilities, you can see real-time maps and download your actual bike route. And depending on your iPhone's memory, you can store up to six million miles of ride data at one-second intervals -- it records info even as you swap in the included spare battery, change to a different app or take a call (using a Bluetooth headset) mid-ride.

What sets the Dash + Power apart from the Dash CC ($169) and Dash CC Deluxe ($329) are its circuit board and special accelerometer, wind and elevation sensors that enable it to measure and report your power. That includes both FTP (Functional Threshold Power) and DFPM (Direct Force Power Meters) power. And it's in addition to wind speed, hill slope, elevation, speed, cadence, time, distance, laps, GPS coordinates and heart rate -- both numerically and with respect to your zone, using the included strap.

The iBike Dash + Power is compatible with Ant + sensors. It offers heavy-duty fitness testing. It can store multiple bike profiles. And you can download your ride data to a Mac or PC with their desktop application.

Credit: Velocomp

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Steel Wheel Bike to Be Auctioned for Charity

A Wheel of Sprung Steel from Ron Arad's "Two Nuns" Bicycle

For weeks, guests staying at the W London, Leicester Square have had a special treat: The opportunity to ride one-of-a-kind bicycles created by designer Ron Arad, singer Paloma Faith, fashion designer Alice Temperley, illustrator Natasha Law and footwear designer Patrick Cox. But now the six unique bikes are off the London streets and on the auction blocks. Until December first, World AIDS Day, bids for the "Wow Bikes Auction" are being accepted through that W hotel's Facebook page, with the proceeds benefitting the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

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Each of the six bikes is inspired, but Ron Arad's in particular is eye-catching. Arad, known for his flowing, curvy architectural and product design work with steel, looked past traditional tires and literally sought to reinvent the wheel. Colleague Marcus Hirst told Discovery News about the speedy creative process: "The wheel design was the result of a very quick discussion with Ron during which he literally made a quick two-minute sketch in red pen."

The goal was to convey a sense of Arad's classic design, the Well Tempered Chair. Each of the two resulting wheels is comprised of 18 strips of sprung steel, pinned at various tension points, ultimately forming what looks like a Spirograph visual.

What's unexpected is, despite the inherent bumps and lack of rubber, it provides a "surprisingly soft and smooth ride. The wheel affords excellent structural integrity and has just the right amount of yield." What's even more impressive is that Hirst was able to keep the metallic two-wheeler upright on a concrete floor and under control amidst busy London traffic. In the end, this first attempt is a stylish yet dynamic and functional piece of art. Hirst remarked, "Subsequent versions will be a refinement of the design and as such will be smoother to ride and have better traction."

Credit: The Elton John AIDS Foundation

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