OpenEEG
Posted 12:52 AM

Mostly I'm posting this for self-reference since I'm excited about the idea of putting together an OpenEEG system and testing some ideas I have about using EEG to help you remember dreams, but my wife is hollering at me from the other room to come to bed. Ah the irony.

I know Neurosky has a product that's cheaper and available to buy online, but it seems to not be a serious EEG connection. I think you'd need at least a half-dozen electrodes for any kind of useful resolution, and I'm not interested in biofeedback "wave" nonsense. I'm going to do some serious pattern detection in response to stimulus events. Emotiv has a product with at least 2 real electrodes and an API cluttered with lots of facial recognition stuff. But why get those or $300 when I can buy 5 good electrodes for $30? Might even skip the OpenEEG stuff and do my own for now.

Also want to experiment with voltage *generating* (EEG record-replay and subsequent recognition). Not too many people have tried that, and I think it might be interesting.

Hmm... that's it for now.
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Zero Pollution Motors
Posted 4:28 AM

In an amazing development, it looks like all of the electric vehicle makers may be trumped by Zero Pollution Motors. The company is licensing new drive systems to India's Tata and France's MDI.

The cars will get 125 miles per plug-in "charge", but the charge is not a battery or a fuel cell.

It's compressed air.

Using extreme air compression, ZPM's s technology might beat battery-driven vehicles on price, performance and time to market.

Indian consumers should see the new Air-Tata this year, Euro consumers might have to wait until MDI gets approval in 2010, but U.S. consumers, due to tougher crash-testing standards, might have to wait longer.

ZPM claims their vehicle can be charged at an outlet within 7 minutes. They also have a duel-fuel version that compresses air as needed, similar to the way the Volt's serial-power drive train works.

Skeptics:

Some experts believe that the heat-exchanger problems with compressed-air cars might prevent them from ever going mainstream. U.S. critics have claimed that ultralight cars like these cannot pass crash testing standards. Engineers also critique the efficiency of using air, as opposed to Li-Ion, as a storage medium with the resulting energy losses causing more electricity to be needed per KM.
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