Flywheels and Data Centers

The Week in Geeks News covers data centers and fly wheels followed by Lyle, Ben and Miles taking your calls and comments.

Vycon Plans Regenerative Braking for Subway Trains

Vycon’s technology works in a similiar way to regenerative braking. Moving trains carry a lot of kinetic energy, and the company believes they can harness this energy whenever a train slows down at a station. By connecting a flywheel to the rail system, Vycon believes that the kinetic energy could be converted to electrical power. This electricity could then be used to get the train moving again – it is a system that has had been used with great success in hybrid vehicles. However trains would certainly generate a lot more energy then a Prius.

How to Surf T-Mobile Without a Data Plan

The mother of all ingenious hacks has emerged: if you have an Android smartphone and a T-Mobile (US) unlimited messaging plan, you can now use an app called Smozzy to surf the web… for free.

Smozzy is basically just a wrapper around the standard Android browser, but instead of using a data (2.5, 3, 4G) connection, everything is funneled through SMS and MMS. Whenever you click a link, instead of firing off a packet to a remote web server, a web request is instead sent to Smozzy’s intermediate server via SMS. Smozzy forwards the request, downloads the web page you’re trying to visit, and then sends it along to your phone as MMS messages. Both SMS and MMS are completely free with T-Mobile’s unlimited messaging plan.

Google Details Electricity Usage of Its Data Centers

“Google disclosed Thursday that it continuously uses enough electricity to power 200,000 homes, but it says that in doing so, it also makes the planet greener.”

CCleaner - Optimization and Cleaning - Free Download

CCleaner is the a tool for cleaning your Windows PC. It protects your privacy online and makes your computer faster and more secure. Easy to use and a small, fast download.

Carrots are Orange for an Entirely Political Reason

“For centuries, almost all carrots were yellow, white or purple. But in the 17th century, most of those crunchy vegetables turned orange.”

DIY flying robo hacker threatens wireless networks

With a name like SkyNET, it’s got to be scary. This flying robo-hacker deserves its “Terminator”-inspired moniker: Although it stops short of actually hunting humans, it’s a potential nightmare for anyone with a wireless home network. Worse, it’s a DIYer’s dream: cheap and easy to build and fun to operate.

Kinetic Traction Systems - Flywheel Power

Listener John sent this in:
Providing Clean Flywheel Power for Energy Storage and Power to Rail Traction Systems
Kinetic Traction Systems, Inc. (KTSi) designs and manufactures next generation flywheel systems for voltage support and energy recycling that increase performance, lower capital costs and reduce energy usage.