INVOLEX a new promising wind energy technology

In this blog I have written a lot about renewable energy technology and tremendous work is happening in this field. Today I am going to write about a latest wind energy technology that uses concentrated wind power to generate electricity. INVELOX  as you can see in the diagram the the wind from various inlets enter the tower and then moves down . The tower is designed in such a way that it tapers down as the wind moves forward .

      Because reduction in the area of the tube as per Venturi effect the speed of the wind increases, that why INVELOX has a high cut in velocity of 2 miles/hr or 3.2 kms/hr. The turbine which is located at the bottom of tower as seen in the diagram experiences windspeed that are 4 times more than the speed at which the wind entered the tower.

       The setup is pretty simple , the inventors claim that the cost of generation of electricity is less than 2 cents per kilowatt .

       Since it is a concentrated wind energy system , it can be used in areas that have low wind speeds unlike traditional wind turbines which requires places with high wind speeds . Traditional wind turbines need to be aligned to the direction of wind but when it comes to INVELOX the direction of the wind doesn't matter at all. As you can see in the below picture and diagram the inlet at the top of the tower allows wind to enter from any direction. 

      

       

The cost of setting up an INVELOX tower is said to be less than that of a traditional wind turbine. This technology  can compete with thermal power plants and other non renewable sources of energy in terms of cost of energy. One of the main roadblocks in adoption of renewable energy is the cost of energy is higher than that of conventional energy. However this technology at par with conventional sources of energy in terms of cost, it causes no pollution whatsoever and can generate electricity at moderate wind speeds as well.

Universe and Us

I find it difficult to accept that humans and apes have evolved from a common primate ancestor . There is so much difference between a human and a chip, gorilla or a orangutan.

    First look at the physical features. The apes have fur or body hair while humans don't have any or very little. Herein comes the question why humans did not have fur even during the ice age. It is true that the fossils of human beings found during the ice age show no fur at all. Now if humans had indeed evolved from primates we should have had fur like gorillas and chimps . The fur would have helped humans immensely during the ice age . Again even today major part of human civilization lives in cold countries. Where having fur would have been advantageous. So why human beings don't have fur.

     There is one possibility that we maybe a cross between some alien civilization and a primate. Look at our mental functions they are far far more advanced than the monkeys. We think, we plan , we make tools , we do research and we have a vast amount of knowledge. We can communicate with each other by voice. This characteristics are not shared with any other animal on the planet.

        The fact that humans have such highly developed brains gives credence to the possibility that we are but cross between aliens and some primate here on earth or we may be product of some alien experimentation done on earth .

      Even when skulls of other primates and humans are observed it is found that the human skull is vastly different from apes , gorillas and chimpanzees. In South America there are huge figures etched on grounds thousands of years ago that resemble birds and different geometric structure. They are so huge that they can only be seen from a great height . Now the precision with which the drawings are made indicates that when these drawings were made there was someone guiding the people on the ground from a great height. Also why would the Ancient Man would need such drawings what purpose would it serve? It is very much possible that the drawings were made as guides to the ancient aircrafts to land here on earth. 

        All around the earth there have been reports of alien aircrafts  better known as Unidentified Flying Objects(UFOs) being seen by people . If you search in youtube you will find hundreds of videos claiming to be genuine videos of UFOs while many of them maybe fake but one thing is for sure there is no smoke without fire. Even in ancient times there are records of sightings of strange things in the sky ---of chariots( maybe mistaken for spacecrafts) descending to earth. Not only that ancient texts of many countries actually claim that these aliens have interacted and guided people. Especially in South America. 


         While there is very little doubt that intelligent life exists outside earth , the universe being so vast that if life can come into existence on earth , then it can exist at some other planet or place in the Universe. The life forms in that planet maybe adapted to live in conditions of that particular planet. Some of them maybe highly advanced in knowledge, so much that we maybe primitive in front of them. 

        The Universe is vast, the universe is full of mysteries and search of our origin and search of extra terrestial life will continue till we know the truth. 



       

Android and Free Software

Google's Android operating system has had tremendous success in the last few years , there are now over a a billion active devices that use Android Operating System. The success of Android has been wonderful for Free and Open Source software although Android is not totally FREE, some of the device drivers are proprietary . However it is big step into moving towards the free software regime.

We have come to a time when smart phones have become as powerful as computers that existed a decade ago. For ordinary users who are not developers or coders , whose computing needs are limited to surfing the Internet and creating a few documents, watching videos , capturing videos and taking pictures, smart phones and tablets are more than enough. Smart phones and tablets are cheaper and easier to carry around.

Android now is the most popular Operating System for smart phones and tablets. The Android can be considered a version of Linux considering the fact that it uses a modified version of the Linux Kernel. The source code of Android is available to users after the release.

However its runs on select devices and does not come with the code of the device drivers of certain components that are proprietary. One can download Android from the website free of cost, Google makes money from Android by selling apps made by developers on Google Play store. Not all apps are priced but for those apps that have a price tag to it, Google takes 30% of the amount.

      While Android is enjoying its day in the sun very soon it will have competition from the likes of Ubuntu touch, Tizen, Firefox OS and Jolla SailFish . Firefox OS maybe the real FREE software(free in terms of freedom ) that Android may have to contain with. The beneficiary of this competition will be the users around the globe .

One can clearly see that smart phones and tablets are converging towards desktops, as the processing power goes up and the RAM and storage increase. So in the future one may be using GNU/LINUX or the GNU operating system (with the HURD kernal ) directly from his/her tablet or smart phone.

Currently Google recommends 512Mb of RAM for Android operating system, in 2004 that is 10 years ago desktops used to have 256Mb of RAM , we have quadracore and octacore ARM processors  with over 1Ghz of clock speed. So it is clear from this that mobile devices are closing in on laptops and desktops.



Also android is the operating system of Google Glass the gadget that promises to change the way we use mobiles and computers. One can visit Google Play and find huge number of apps as on June 2014 one can find 1.2 million apps there, both paid and free.



With tablets and smart phones that run on Android or will run in the near future in any one of the above mentioned Free operating systems , the digital world is now successfully coming out of slavery of Microsoft Windows. 

For two and half decades the users were not being able to use any other operating system other than Microsoft Windows and before that MS – Dos. GNU/LINUX was then considered to be only for Geeks and not for ordinary users.



Its wonderful to see that with Android the world has taken a big step towards usage of Free Software and the above mentioned operating systems particularly Firefox OS will have more freedom associated with it , in real terms it can be called a Free Software. Bringing the the vision Free Software Foundation to reality. 
         
[Note when Free Software is mentioned it means software that is free in terms of freedom not necessarily free in terms of price.]