David Pitlyuk

I happened to stumble on this neat effect where people have made their monitors look like they are transparent. They do this by using photography and their desktop background to make it look like the picture is part of what would be behind the monitor. Here’s a great example:

You can check out a slideshow gallery of Flickr with many more examples. Have you ever done anything like this?

I was going through my RSS feed of Engadget, and found the Hamster Shredder. This state-of-the-art contraption utilizes 1hp (hamster power) to shred your documents in order to ensure complete privacy.

There hasn’t been an idea out there for a while that I’ve gotten truly excited about. That has all changed with the introduction of a new business started by an entrepreneur named Shearer. The company name? Powercast. If you haven’t heard of them yet, trust me, you will.

What Is It?

Wireless technology has really developed over the last 10 years, its made our lives easier and cleaner…but there has always been one wire left over, the power plug. That’s where a new patented, FCC-approved technology comes in that was invented by Powercast. The technology is wireless power. By utilizing a receiver plugged into the wall, and a receiver chip on the unit, it can act as if it is plugged in up to 3 feet away. The receiver converts radio waves in to DC electricity.

So imagine having your PDA/Cell phone in your pocket, and as soon as you sit down or get in the car it’s automatically charging. Imagine LED lighting in your house with no wires. Imagine medical devices such as pacemakers, that never have to be replaced. I think you can see where I’m going here, the technology is limitless in applications.

Limitations

I’ve already mentioned the 3-foot limitation, but there is also a power limitation. At this time, the technology can only power smaller devices up such as phones, PDAs, LED lights, etc. Something like a TV, computer monitor, or laptop cannot be utilize this technology…yet. The amount of power consumption by devices is getting better by the year. As power consumption goes down, the possibility of wireless power for that device goes up. Lets say I’m Dell. I’m going to do everything in my power to create a laptop that will only need enough power that it can work through wireless power, because I know my laptop will have the edge over other companies, which means it will sell. This thought process will drive many companies to work harder and faster to use less energy for their devices. This is a good thing!

When & How Much?

It sounds like something out of the future, but we’re going to start seeing products released this year, yes, 2007. Powercast has already signed over 100 nondisclosure agreements with companies to develop products. One of the first products will be an LED stick from Phillips. We should expect to see many more products in 2008, such as computer peripherals.

It gets better. The technology is cheap to manufacturer! The actual chip in the product (the whole bread and butter) only costs about $5 to make. I’m sure products will bring a premium because the technology is so new, but we shouldn’t expect to see something like a $1,000 cellphone that can do this…expect your normal prices.

How Do I Plan On Monetizing?

I will be closely watching this company, and I hope that they get an IPO. I just dabble in the stock market, but I only invest in companies which I personally believe in. Powercast has the opportunity to easily be one of the richest companies in the world, it will be very exciting to watch their growth.

A sweet product from a Korean company called SNT announced an in-dash PC at CeBit this week. The negative….it’s most likely for the Korean market only, but we can still drool and hope stuff like this comes our way.

A bunch of tech sites posted about this prior to CeBit, but I haven’t read any updates yet and none of them knew what kind of price or hardware specs were going to be available. They did post some interesting tid bits though. It will be powered by WindowsXP and equipped with GPS and touchscreen. It supports something called T-DMB which can be used for viewing live TV and later be recorded to a hard drive. It can be hooked up to the internet constantly through HSDPA. The fact that everything is built into the entire unit, it will be such a clean installation, especially in cars that support double DIN.

I can really appreciate this because I had an in-car PC setup in my 350Z. We had to custom fabricate a way to fit the screen, run all the wiring throughout the car, etc. This is a much simpler solution. Here’s the setup I had in my Z: