Back in ‘96 a movie came out called “Who killed the electric car?” that sparked interest in why we are driving with combustible engines knowing full well we are killing the environment with them. Much in typical American fashion, we’ve forgotten all about the movie and the flavor-of-the-month attitude killed the majority’s interest in it as well.

Flash forward to today and you’ll see the interest being renewed (pardon the pun) in a race to build a car that either reduces carbon emissions or gets rid of them all together. Ford is dead set on making Ethanol cars which, to me, is just trading one problem for another. Toyota has the hybrid but that’s just cutting the emissions in half and, unfortunately at this point, it isn’t enough.

Enter Shai Agassi.  Wired Magazine’s cover article this month has a fascinating interview with him. This 38-year-old dot-com veteran took on the task to change the way we see cars and how a new approach would, and could work. The concept is somewhat simple, but not without its questions: create a car that has a rechargeable battery. The battery can be recharged at various stations that will be constructed around the country. This has been thought of many times over. So we need a new perspective on it and here it is: the battery is not the property of the car owner, it’s merely leased to them. Just like you don’t get petrol and oil to feed your car when you buy it, you don’t get to keep the battery. This way the owner gets the piece of mind knowing that if something goes wrong with the battery they can just give it back for a new one and the car company gets profits from the lease. Here’s one of the diagrams of the set-up:

Agassi has had an interesting last few years, talking with everyone from Israeli president Shimon Peres to U.S. state representatives about this idea. He’s got the passion of 100 poorly-paid school teachers and seems like he can really pull this off. He was asked in the interview if he was afraid of some other company taking the idea from him and running with it. “…he stares at me like I’m an idiot. ‘The mission is to end oil,’ he says, ‘not create a company.’ ”

We need more people like Agassi for the (right) new world order.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I love things that are efficient and tidy. I’m psycho like that, I guess. Which is why I did a mental happy-dance when I saw the Fly - a simple shelf set that includes a screen that rolls up inside.

It’s from the Italian company Liv’it. They state it’s made out of anodized extruded aluminum so I get the feeling it’s not all that quiet when pulling the screen out. It comes in four colors: stainless steel, aluminum, anthracite (from Greek anthrakitis meaning “a kind of coal”), and a hideous red.

The handle for the screen is the same silver color, no matter what the shelf color is which sucks. However, it blends in well with the aluminum. Any other color takes away from the ‘hiding’ factor.

These would be an outstanding feature to the entertainment set up which included one of these in the ceiling. Of course, then I’d need to find something worth watching.

From the time-killing articles at boing-boing (via NYT), comes the story of Glenn Martin and his latest invention which is just about every dude’s dream: a jetpack.

Unveiled today at the EAA AirVenture show in Oshkosh WI, this thing has got the power to lift your average-sized male to the heavens and beyond. Martin dubs it “The world’s first practical jetpack” and its developers  note that the innovative technology will allow up to 30-minute flights and a total engine life of 1,000 hours. It took them around 27 years of research and development to make it and is a huge technological leap from the 25- to 30-second flights made by the Bell Rocket Belt of the 1960s. The downside is that the company who made it has no direct competitors which means the price tag (roughly $100,000.00) will be around for a while.

Rather clunky in design but it looks pretty sweet in action. Check it out on NYT’s site. NOTE: if you see the video clip, watch closely at around 40 secs. into it. You’ll see a couple of large, bushy branches get sucked into the props for a second or two. Then just imagine showing this toy to your drunk buddy or your long-haired girlfriend who “wasn’t watching where she was standing” for a moment. Rrrrrriiiipppp!!!!