Writer Evan Ratliff pondered the same question while writing an article for Wired magazine about people who for various reasons had tried to start over with completely new lives .  A few months later he found himself a willing volunteer to find out firsthand what the experience entailed.  With a 24 hour head start, $2000 cash stuffed in his belt and a fake office to set up in Las Vegas he drove his Honda Civic across the Bay bridge, then out of California in a bid to disappear entirely.  Leaving behind family, a girlfriend, and any semblance of a normal life for a month while assuming an entirely new identity.

The magazine periodically published clues and made accessible to their online community all the information a private investigator might be privy to, as well as placing a $5000 bounty on Evan’s head.  His travels took him across the country a few times, his disguises changed almost daily and online groups spontaneously emerged to track and document his every move.  Amateurs and professionals from coast to coast took to the chase disseminating all the details they could uncover, staking out airports and bars, even trying to glean details from acquaintances as varied as his cat sitter.

In the end it wasn’t nearly what Evan had expected when he began.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by renderanything.

Instead of using aboveground ponds to grow algae for biofuels, researchers at the Missouri University of Science and Technology have proposed growing algae underground in abandoned mines.  What are the advantages?  Underground mines are cheap, maintain constant temperature, solve the aboveground evaporation and contamination problems, and the site preparation has already been done by the mining companies.

But don’t algae need sunlight to grow?  Not necessarily, says mining engineering professor David Summers.

It happens that algae work best when they use only the blue and red parts of the light spectrum, which can be provided by LED lights, and they need periods of darkness in which to process the photons.

An added benefit:  Mine owners like the idea because it eliminates the need for them to clean up the sites, as algae are particularly good at sequestering metals.

Win + win + win?  I guess we’ll find out.

More information at Scientific American.

Ever wondered just how much surface area you would need to supply the entire world with all of its power needs using only energy collected from solar panels?  Luckily for us the Land Art Generator Initiative have done all the math.  Crunching the numbers based on our current and projected energy usage and using statistics grounded on the solar technology that is available to us today, they have created this handy map of what 2030 could look like.  The map shows use distributed roughly proportional to use and weather patterns.

A related link in the article shows an alternative map based on offshore wind power.

Link – via coolinfographics

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by renderanything.

“This way you not only know when to go, but can also find out what you’ll be missing.  You will no longer miss those ultra-important scenes, or need to come back to your seat and ask someone, ‘What did I miss?’”

They have new releases and classics, and now there’s even an iPhone app that alerts you when a good opportunity is coming to answer Nature’s call.

Link |  Image courtesy Elizabeth O. Dulemba

A ‘telepathy’ chip that allows people to control computers, televisions and light switches by the power of thought is being developed by British scientists. The idea was conceived by Dr. Jon Spratley while he was studying at the University of Birmingham.

The tiny sensor would sit on the surface of the brain, picking up the electrical activity of nerve cells and passing the signal wirelessly to a receiver on the skull.

The signal would then be used to control a cursor on a computer screen, operate electronic gadgets or steer an electric wheelchair.

This type of technology would allow disabled people such as Stephen Hawking to have more control over their environment. Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by scaryman.

In a tributary near Havana, about 200 miles from Chicago, ecologist Greg Sass is testing a barrier that injects beeping sounds into an effervescent wall, which captures and magnifies the noise. The chirping bothers only the carp because it hears higher frequencies than native species do; a series of tiny bones connecting the carp’s swim bladder to its auditory system amplifies sound. In hatchery trials, the acoustic “fence” stopped 95 percent of the invasive fish.

Link

If you’re like me, you have a major problem with cables taking over your home life. Here’s a great, visually interesting way to overkill the solution -a whole wall of outlets.

Link

Festo, has been shown here on Neatorama several times in the past and each time their robotics and bizarre creations blew our collective minds…our Neatorama Hivemind to be exact…but that’s a story for another time.

In this video you’ll get to see creepy blue LED robotic penguins swimming about in a large pool. Also, you’ll see it’s more lighter cousin who probably is the envy of every penguin in being able to fly/float and much more in terms of various robotic creations. Really fascinating stuff!

More info here – Link

For older Neatorama Festo links:

Festo’s Upside-Down Hot Air Balloon
AquaJelly and AirJelly
Air Ray: The Blimp With Wings
Meet Aqua Ray
Festo Airic’s Robotic Arm
Floating Fish Blimp

TechRadar UK explains:

The problem of ‘good enough’ is a huge headache for the tech industry. When your computer isn’t good enough – when a slow processor, meagre memory and tiny hard disk struggle with even everyday tasks – you’ll buy a better model as soon as it becomes available.

Now, though, the weakest link isn’t your PC: it’s you.

Will a 200-core processor make you type an email more quickly, make you work more productively or make your Facebook status updates any more amusing?

Link – via AQFL

Pothos has thousands of followers and gives regular updates. Pothos … is also a plant. A built-in moisture meter relays messages about the plant’s current state in order to remind its owner when it needs watering. This is, one has to admit, a potentially wonderful innovation for those of us with thumbs that are anything but green. Still, Twitter is all the rage these days, sure, but plants Twittering? Has this fad gone too far?

Are you slowly killing your houseplants? Is it because you’re too busy Twittering? THEN HAS THE INTERNET GOT THE SOLUTION FOR YOU!

link -via huffingtonpost

Green roofs have become about more than just sustainable architecture – they have become new, long-unused canvasses for artistic expression and creative design.

This collection of green roof designs shows the possibilities of not only environmental architecture but of making something beautiful out of one of the most ubiquitous bare surfaces in the world – the roof – as we move into the future of sustainable design.

We’ve always thought we had roofs covered. They had to be barren, hostile places the rain and the wildlife slid from before they could do any damage. Nature had no place on our roofs. Except…we couldn’t have been more wrong. A green roof may required a little extra engineering behind the scenes, but it’s far better than its non-living counterparts for regulating house temperature, filtering out pollutants, scrubbing the surrounding air, controlling stormwater run-off, absorbing sound and many more factors that impact our quality of life. A green roof is a healthy roof.

link

Comedian Louis CK was on Late Night with Conan O’Brien explaining how amazing everything is, and yet nobody is happy. You’d think with all this technology and instant gratification, we would at least realize how lucky we are.

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by JKirchartz.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

The Amish are often portrayed as anti-technology Luddites, but in fact they often accept non-electrical forms of technology, as long as they can remain "off the grid" and independent. 

The photo shows a home-crafted gas-powered ice cutter used to harvest lake ice for non-electric iceboxes.

The diesel engine burns fuel to drive the compressor that fills the reservoir with pressure. From the tank a series of high-pressure pipes snake off toward every corner of the factory. A hard rubber flexible hose connects each tool to a pipe. The entire shop runs on compressed air. Every piece of machine is running on pneumatic power. Amos even shows me a pneumatic switch, which you can flick like a light switch, to turn on some paint-drying fans.

The Amish call this pneumatic system “Amish electricity.”

Link – via reddit

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Minnesotastan.

IBM has filed for a patent on technology that would heighten reflexes, making it possible to actually dodge bullets. This body armor continuously scans the area for incoming projectviles. When one is detected the system delivers a shock to the body’s muscles, thus creating a reflexive movement away from the incoming bullet.

The present invention relates generally to the protection of an individual against a projectile propelled from a firearm. More particularly, the present invention relates to a body armor system and its method of use that is capable of detecting a projectile propelled from a firearm, computing the trajectory of the projectile, and moving the individual out of the path of the projectile to avoid being hit.

Link – via gizmodo

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Gukbe2000.

You just love buying the latest technologies, right? Can’t stand to sit without the coolest and newest gadget. But wait … where did your old one go? There are graveyards for these kinds of things, believe it or not, and some are more impressive than you ever imagined.

The city of Guiyu is home to 5,500 businesses devoted to processing discarded electronics, known as e-waste. According to local websites, the region dismantles 1.5 million pounds of junked computers, cell phones and other devices a year.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Urbanist.

Colorsonic is an MP3 player that uses color indication to play music based upon certain moods.

Music is loaded to the Colorsonic like an ordinary MP3 player and converts the songs to color associations chosen by the user. Colors are assigned individual emotional states and playlists correlating to those states can later be accessed by selecting that color on the device.

As an added bonus, the hole in the center of the donut shaped product is used to magnetically store earbuds.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

You may like land line phones and going out to Blockbuster video to browse down their aisles, but by the time your great grandkids are old enough to start to figure out the world, there will be plenty of things that will just be a faint memory in their little minds.

Here’s a list of 10 things from I Heart Chaos that your grandkids will barely even know existed.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by cbz3000.

From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by whitespace.

It’s the highest-resolution tabletop display system ever built and has a combined resolution of 24 million pixels! My non-technical self, though, just keeps thinking what an awesome coffee table it would make. I bet you’re in trouble the first time you dump your Diet Coke over on it. I know; I’m sad.

Link

Link

From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by whitespace.

Designing those little icons is tougher than you might think. Check out how designer Felix Sockwell went through the creative process (and the review process, of course) to come up with the icons for the New York Times app.

Link via Boing Boing

What we now take for granted many people once took for granted could never work.

The lightbulb. The telephone. Email. If you’re a specialist in your field, there are two ways to become a household name: create something new…or claim it can never be done. If you want to be remembered on the Internet, choose the second one. Here are 9 examples of breakthroughs, inventions and innovations the experts were completely wrong about.

Link

Laughing Squid blog has the clip: Link [embedded YouTube]

Previously on Neatorama: Evolution of Tech Logos

Robots + Dancing = Awesome.

But is it useful to society in anyway? Maybe the way the Hexapod (six legged) robot moves flexibly and its precision movements could be applied to many fields. Until then we’ll have to be just content with the robots dancing at the third Austrian Hexapod Championship.

The device itself is fairly simple: a small flexible circuit board inside a body that is composed of plastic and can be blown up manually. When not in use, it can be de-flated and folded into a compact size or slid between the screen and keyboard of your laptop when it’s closed.

Source: Gizmodo

The original inventors and designers of the exciting Disappearing Car Door technology are now in a position to equip your favorite automobile with a cool, sexy, safe and convenient automatic door.

The vehicle architecture offers an attractive rethink for car design and adds greatly to overall vehicle safety including structural integration of the door with the unibody and cruciform door frame technology.

One thing is for sure, it will definitely grab everyone’s attention when you drive a car with Disappearing Doors!

Totally Awesome!

Source: disappearing-car-door
Video: Youtube