The world’s first self-sufficient wind-powered vehicle crossed Australia in 18 days. Wind Explorer was driven by two German extreme sport enthusiasts – Dirk Gion, a television host, and Stefan Simmerer, an engineer. Gion was the first person to cross a continent on a kiteboard, and Simmerer was the first person to cross the Changtang, a cold desert in Tibet, without a support team. The extremely high winds of the Tibetan trek gave Simmerer the idea to build a vehicle with a wind-powered generator.

The Wind Explorer is another first for the men – it was the first time a continent has been crossed by a wind-powered vehicle. For the first 800 km of the trip, Wind Explorer was driven entirely by electric power. Following strong winds, the pilots switched to kites.

The vehicle is electric, wind and kite powered. It has its own mobile power supply, and can be recharged by a portable wind turbine, or by the conventional power network. If the wind is right, it gets driven by kites. During the 18-day trip, the Wind Explorer was able to reach speeds of around 80 km/h. The entire electricity cost for the trip was about 10 Euros.

Gion and Simmerer came up with the idea for the trip last summer. Only a few weeks later, Evonik Industries AG, a German specialty chemical producer, offered to provide the materials for the car body and the lithium-ion batteries. The team behind the Wind Explorer hopes the vehicle will inspire further research and development into alternative transport. Their vision is a vehicle capable of crossing a continent with zero emissions.

Check the project’s website for more videos and information on the technology used.

[via Wind Explorer]

The post Crossing Australia Using Wind Powered Car – Only 10 Euros appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

One of the unfortunate byproducts of our addiction to gadgetry is that it may not always be so good for the environment. In order to treat mother nature a little better, Tjeerd Veenhoven fashioned together a special iPhone case that he dubs the iFan. Yeah, it’s a case with a giant fan at the top of it.

The idea with the repurposed computer cooling fan is that it can act much like a windmill, taking the power of passing gusts and harnessing it into useful electricity. This can then recharge your iPhone on the go without ever needing to plug into a wall outlet. I can’t imagine it being all that efficient, but every little bit helps.

Is it unsightly? Possibly. Will you have a very hard shoehorning this thing into your jeans pocket? Without a doubt. Even so, I could see this being an effective solution for someone going for a bike ride, mounting the phone with the iFan case to the handlebars. This way, you can use your iPhone as a GPS navigator (or music player or whatever) and keep the battery charged with the wind passing you by.

[Gadget Review via Tjeerd Veenhoven]

The post iFan case for iPhone really blows (in a good way) appeared first on Mobile Magazine.