The Rozetkus Wall is designed for plugging in low-power devices, the ones that don’t need a third prong for grounding. The abundance of female contacts – the holes – means you can arrange several plugs that may not fit at the same time on conventional wall sockets.

The female contacts are backlit by an LED panel to make the socket easier to spot in the dark.

If you find the design of the Rozetkus Wall familiar, it’s because it’s based on one of the studio’s earlier products, the Rozetkus power strip. If you’re wondering why both Rozetkuses (Rozetki?) have an odd number of female contacts when all plugs have two male contacts, I got no answer for you.

Obviously, this thing wouldn’t work in the U.S., where outlets have straight prongs instead of pins, and building code requires that all wall outlets must offer ground plugs – even if the devices themselves use just 2 prongs.

[via Yanko Design]

Electricity is one of the things that everyone can consume less of to help the environment. A lot of people aren’t aware of it, but leaving appliances and electronics plugged into chargers even when they’re already fully charged is a huge energy waster. Concept designs like the Eco-Socket and the PumPing Tap Concept all work with the concept of stopping the flow of energy once the device is fully charged or when it’s not used, respectively.

If you’ve ever wished for at least one of those concepts to become a reality, then your wish has already been granted with Bracketron’s GreenZero Chargers. Your wall sockets remain unchanged, because all the green stuff happens in their smart and eco-friendly chargers.

Their series of GreenZero chargers automatically shuts off at zero idle power when your device is fully charged. There’s one specifically for Apple devices, one with a micro USB wire, and two that have a USB slot so you charge any USB-powered device. The chargers will be priced from $24.95 to $34.95 (USD) and will be unveiled at CES next week.

[via Oh Gizmo!]

Designers Suhyun Yoo, Eunah Kim & Jinwoo Chae probably couldn’t take oddly-angled sockets any longer, because they came up with the Donut Outlet concept design.

Basically, the Donut lets you to hook up your plugs quickly and easily into the socket, without any of the guesswork or inconveniences. You don’t need to move anything so that the holes of the socket are visible. The Donut has a ring-shaped connector so you can just plug it in, even without looking at the socket itself.

It’s a pretty neat design and a useful one at that. But is it technically feasible? Guess we have to wait and see.

[via Yanko Design]

Designers Seong Soyeon, Kim Seonmi, Lee Jeongjae, Park Jihye & Lee Yeontaek call their concept the PumPing Tap. An OLED indicator on the PumPing Tap turns blue to indicate that a plugged in device is in use. That in itself is a useful feature, so you don’t accidentally turn anything off while hunting for an open socket. But that’s not the best trick of this device. When it detects that a plugged in device is turned off, the OLED turns red. If the plug is still in the socket after 10 minutes – lazy human! – the PumPing Tap will eject the plug on its own.

Neat concept, but my only concern is the socket itself becoming another device that might malfunction or break down, only this time the device is where my other devices get their juice from. Still, I’m not surprised that the PumPing Tap won a Red Dot Award for Design last year. Plug into the source link to have a look at the socket’s schematics.

[via Yanko Design]

I’m not talking about leaving the computer or television on (although both cases still aren’t ideal.) I’m talking about leaving the power and gas on in your home – which could lead to dangerous and life-threatening circumstances if you plan on being away for an extended amount of time.

So to prevent all that, Eun Ah Kim, Jinhyuk Rho and Maria Rho came up with Off, the door handle that’s connected to your mains like gas supply and electricity. I mean, how can you forget to switch it off when the switches are just on your door handle, which is most probably the last thing inside your house that you’ll touch?

There are three functions on the Off handle. You can choose to turn off just your lights, just the gas, or turn everything off. Just rotate the dial to the function, push the button, and leave your home. Quick, easy, simple, and safe.

Of course, this won’t work if you need to keep your heat and water heater running in the winter time, and there’s no mention of how it would start all your pilot lights back up when gas is reactivated.

[via Yanko Design]

Asahi originally developed the cable with humanoid robots and wearable electronics in mind, but ordinary consumers could benefit from the stretchy cord as well.

It won’t make extension cords extinct, but I’m looking forward to more durable and safer power cords. Humanoid robots? Not so much.

[via Diginfo TV via Gizmodo]

Researchers from the University of Virginia and Microsoft Research are now saying (opens PDF) that in the future, people might purposely host small “data furnace” server farms in their home to be able to produce the heat needed to cool the place. I think this would make more sense for data farms or businesses than individuals. According to the researchers, if you had a server that had 40 mainboards and processors inside you could create some serious heating capability.

In fact, they claim that if you had 110 of those mainboards inside a server room in a home you could heat the entire place, as well as a furnace from the server heat alone. The downside is that if the room temperature reaches 95F or higher you would have to shut the servers off to prevent overheating.

[via NYT]

You can use the Dialug to schedule or set when you want power to flow through. But for everything else, there’s the Eco-Socket.

I honestly prefer the Eco-Socket over the other concept design because it’s more intuitive than a timer. The Eco-Socket automatically pops out and cuts power when it detects that a dip in energy consumption of a device that’s plugged in. It’s the more convenient option because there’s no need to time anything or keep monitoring it.

And when you need to power your device again, just push the plug right back in again. The Eco-Socket was designed by Ya-Hui Chi and is an entry for the 2011 Lite-On Award.

[via Yanko Design]

The charger is actually a small piezoelectric microbelt that has the capacity to generate tiny amounts of electricity. The researchers behind the study, Xudong Wang, Chengliang Sun and Jian Shi, explain that the device generates a charge when it vibrates because of exposure to moving air – or someone’s breath. The microbelt can hold and deliver enough energy to recharge medical devices like blood glucose monitors and pacemakers, which is great news, because the batteries for these devices often have to replaced via surgery.

The device can be implanted into the human nose. So it doesn’t make use of the breath coming from your mouth per se, although if you’re a huge talker (or a mouth breather), then that’s a whole different story.

[PhysOrg via Dvice]

A designer going simply by the name of Patrick has come up with this concept for a watch that tells time using the same sort of colorful sparks you get in those Tesla-coil inspired plasma balls.

The way it would work is that two tiny electrodes would rotate slowly around the perimeter of the watch – one for hours, the other for minutes – and then when you touch your finger to the center of the watch face, sparks would shoot between your fingertip and the two electrodes and through a bubble of Argon gas to display the time. Pretty cool, eh? The other cool thing about this design is that you can still read the time even when the plasma isn’t activated – which should save on power.

At this point the plasma watch is only a concept. I’m actually not sure if it’s even physically possible to pack the necessary electronics and transformer onto your wrist to pull this off. Regardless, if you like the design, head over to the TokyoFlash design blog and cast your vote if you want to see it produced. For now, you could always just strap one of these to your wrist.

Researchers Tom Krupkin and J. Ashley Taylor at UW-Madison have been working on this technology and it looks like it will be able to deliver 10 to 20W of power. This is a lot more than the electricity created by similar attempts with piezoelectrics. The process is called reverse electrowetting and includes liquid metal that is stored in pouches of the heel and sole of the shoe. As you walk, you will pump nano-sized droplets of the metal through tiny channels, creating electricity. The electricity is stored in a battery at the center of the shoe.

To access the shoe power for your gadgets, you just plug in an USB cable. They’re hoping the tech will be ready for the market in a few years and will cost about the same as the shoe you’ll end up buying, so it’s not that much more expensive.

[UW Madison via DVice]

However, in one fell swoop, the Switch Plug solves all of these problems by adding a–wait for it–switch to the plug. Genius?

It might not be the most novel idea there is, since I’ve already seen some adapters on sale in some hardware stores with switches on them. But I haven’t seen plugs with embedded switches–until today, that is.

It’s a smart solution, especially for people who can’t be bothered with unplugging stuff but who can be bothered with switching a switch off instead.

The Switch Plug is actually a design by Gonglue Jiang and it’s still a concept for now. I think it’s pretty practical and would make a fine addition to the way plugs are made today. It will eliminate my fear of sparks, that’s for sure, because there’s no more need to keep on plugging and unplugging all the plugs we have at home. What do you think?

[via Yanko Design]

The designers of the Ecopad mention that this concept generates electricity thanks to the touches on its touch screen. They say that a nano-piezoelectricity film would capture a tiny bit of energy whenever a user presses the screen with their fingertips. It sounds like a cool idea, but I have trouble imagining how practical this would be for generating enough power to operate a tablet.

The concept is by Yonggu Do, Jun Se Kim, and Eun Ha Seo from Korea. It’s one of only 7 entries of over 3,000 that received the special award.

[via designboom]

Yep, you really need to kill your old CDs by hitting them with crazy amounts of high-voltage electricity, like Youtuber Photonicinduction did in this action- (and power-) packed video clip:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

And if you’re really feeling adventurous, why not erase two discs at a time?

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Now that’s how to erase your CDs with style. I only wish that AOL still sent out those dial-up discs in the mail. I’d finally have something to do with them.

[via Laughing Squid]

Justin got to shoot some of the longer-range Taser weapons at dummies and then agreed to get Tased by the new Taser Grenade himself. The projectile-based Taser Grenade has 50,000 volts of light your ass up inside and can be fired from a long distance to attach itself to its victim. Apparently, the Taser guys decided that he might not be able to handle the actual Taser Grenade, and opted to just hook the electrodes from a box that has the same stuff inside it directly to his body.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Silverman said, “First off, the grenade’s 50,000-volt charge, as you might imagine, is extremely unpleasant. Every voluntary muscle in the body yanks tight, as a sizzling crackle of electrons fills the air, making it impossible to move. Its white-hot barbs even leave burn marks on the skin as a surge of electricity scorches your flesh.” I hope he got a nice bonus for getting shocked.

[The Daily via CrunchGear]

The hack was a true team effort, with Brightarcs providing the tesla coils, and Tom Wyatt and the London Hackspace team putting together the Kinect part. The finished product watches for the person’s motion and allows the control of the Tesla coils to be done based on the movement of their hands. Move one hand and only the coil on that side discharges, move both and they both discharge. Check out the video to see how cool this really is:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I had no idea Tesla coils were that loud. This is so awesome, I would have pretended to be the evil Emperor shooting lightning from his hands screaming “Then Die, Skywalker!” right before Darth Vader tossed him off the bridge.

[via Adafruit]

The device uses a heat sink with fins that gather heat and that heat is used to drive a Nextreme eTEG HV56 thermoelectric power generator. The maker says that the system is maintenance-free, and can run for decades with no interference.

The Thermobility WPG-1 generator can produce a constant voltage output of 3.3, 4.1, or 5.0 Vdc to electrical loads of 15kΩ and up. The WPG-1 is available for testing for $495. When we might see gear on the market using the tech is unknown.

The VeloMini bike has a driving range of up to ten miles and it folds up small enough to be taken in the trunk of a car or inside a home or office without getting in the way.

The little bike is battery-powered and has a 180W electric motor inside. It can hit speeds up to 12mph with an average rider without having to pedal.

At $995 (USD), the little bike is expensive, but electric bikes – like the Ultra Motor A2B – can cost as much as $2700 and more.

I bet that there are lots of you out there who would forget to plug in too. A company called HaloIPT has announced an induction-based system it is developing that will be able to charge an EV without needing wires.

The thing has a pad on the floor of your garage and a pad under the car. All you have to do is park and the power will stream wirelessly over a gap of up to 400mm. I wonder how accurate your parking has to be, my wife can’t get any closer than a foot to the same spot in the garage each day. It could be a problem for her and others with similar parking skills, if you need to be dead on for it to work.

The HaloIPT system should will be ready for demos in the real world by 2012.

That’s probably the best screenshot I’ve taken in my entire life. The man holding the broom is Bob Davis. The box on the right is his washer launcher, fitted with ten of the biggest capacitors I have ever seen. To the right of the box is the “washer”, which is actually a hard drive platter, sitting on top of the launcher’s electrical coils. The broom is the extent of Davis’ safety protocol. If you don’t care for the hows and whys, the launcher does its thing around 3:15, 4:35 and 5:45.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

As the commenters at Hacked Gadgets have mentioned, the sound the washer makes as it is launched is freakin’ awesome. I hope Mr. Davis comes up with a backpack version of the launcher. Also I hope that he stop underestimating the destructive capability of his toy. He says in his blog, “Not included in the video is another free launch where I lost the washer.  It was found later over 100 feet away on the far side of the house.” Oookay. Neighbors, you have been warned.

[Bob Davis' Blog via Hacked Gadgets ]