Korner Gives Simple and Inexpensive Home Security
A brand new project launched today on Indiegogo called Korner. It’s a unique, affordable security system you can put in your home, or even take along with you as you travel. It’s super simple to set up because there is just a “Tag”, a tiny little triangular sensor that mounts on a window or door, and a “Fob” that plugs into an ethernet port on your router.
The Tags wait for motion and then alert the Fob wirelessly using the Zigbee protocol when they detect it. They’ve got an impressive three year battery life running off one of those little CR2032 watch batteries, and when motion is detected one of several things can happen. The system will alert your iOS or Android device, it’ll set off an alarm located in the FOB, and it will allow you to either call the police, or notify a group of friends or family so you can have someone check on things.
Two things I particularly like about this project. First, the actual sensors are single piece units. They don’t require you to nail a magnet to the window or door frame. They just stick in the corner and that’s it! Secondly, the price is definitely compelling. During the campaign you can get a three pack of sensors plus a Fob for $79 with no ongoing fees if you jump in early. You can even get a Large Home pack that includes 9 sensors, 1 Fob and a repeater since the wireless range without it is only about 100 feet. You can learn more at geekbeat.tv/korner.
Aereo Case Hits Supreme Court
Moving on… You may have heard us talking about Aereo the company with banks of dime-sized antennas that grab over-the-air broadcasts, and DVR em’ so subscribers can stream shows over the Internet. Now, Aereo says each subscriber has their own antenna and DVR space, but the broadcast industry says that Aereo is infringing on copyrighted material by rebroadcasting their signals.
Well, today Aereo and the broadcast TV industry have their hearing before the US supreme court. The debates will go something like this.
Broadcasters will be like, “Aereo isn’t playing fair!”
Aereo will be all like, “broadcasters are a bunch of dummies”
Broadcasters will be like, “No we aren’t, you’re a bunch of fatheads”.
Aereo’s like, “nu-un, YOURE a fathead!”
Anyway, Aereo’s gonna win. Because at the end of the day, they are merely renting infrastructure to the viewing public. There isn’t a law that says I can’t rent a DVR in YOUR datacenter. I mean if a rented Time Warner DVR in my living room is legal, why not one in YOUR living room that I remotely access?
The end.
New Pacemakers Powered by Body Movement
According to The Scientist, John Rogers, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his colleagues have constructed flexible energy-harvesting devices that can convert the movement of body parts—like the heart and lungs—into energy captured by a battery that could be used to power implantable devices like pacemakers.
The new pacemakers can generate 1.21 gigawatts of electricity. Sorry, that’s actually only about 1.21 microwatts of electricity! Which also happens to be just what the doctor ordered to keep the heart pumping.
Normal heart pacemaker batteries tend to run out of juice every few years, but these batteries don’t seem to have any expiration on em, meaning once its installed the patient won’t need dangerous heart surgeries performed every 5-7 years to keep them alive.
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