Running a automobile on water has been the holy grail for vehicle manufacturers for some time now, but it appears that a Japanese company named Genepax may have pulled ahead of the competition with a prototype car that runs entirely on water and air. Their new “Water Energy System (WES),” generates power by supplying water and air to the fuel and air electrodes using a proprietary technology called the Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA). The secret behind MEA is a special material that is capable of breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen through a chemical reaction.

Not surprisingly, Genenpax has kept the exact details of their technology under wraps, but they did say that their new process, while based on existing technology, is expected to produce hydrogen from water for longer time than any method currently available. Furthermore, WES does not require a hydrogen reformer, a high-pressure hydrogen tank, or any special catalysts to get the job done.

During a current conference, Genepax unveiled a fuel cell stack with a rated output of 120W and a fuel cell system with a rated output of 300W—and there are plans for a 1kw-class generation system for use in both electric vehicles and houses sometime in the future. At this point, the cost of production on the water-powered automobile engine itself is around about ¥2,000,000 (US$18,522), but they hope to drop the price to ¥500,000 (US$4600) or less if they succeed in bringing it into mass production. [Tech On]

Via [Gizmodo]

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Yesterday Japanese toy maker Bandai presented their newest product, a stop watch called “5-second stadium”, which will go on sale in J-land on July 27th for $9. The watch features 3 modes: game, practice, and challenge. The game mode works like this: Stop the time after exactly 5 seconds. That’s it. If you fail, the 5-Byou-Man […]

Yesterday Japanese toy maker Bandai presented their newest product, a stop watch called “5-second stadium”, which will go on sale in J-land on July 27th for $9.

The watch features 3 modes: game, practice, and challenge. The game mode works like this: Stop the time after exactly 5 seconds. That’s it. If you fail, the 5-Byou-Man (5-Second-Man, pictured below) will appear on the Display, saying “You failed! You pushed too long! Go home!”. In the challenge mode, you’re supposed to clear 20 stages in order to save the world with the 5-Byou-Man.

A professor from the renowned Tohoku University in Northern Japan seriously says [JP] the toy appeals to human instincts with the 5-second approach. Believe it or not, Bandai is targeting 20 to 30 year old people with their watch. And they want to sell 550,000 units by the end of the year.

Via [crunchgear]

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Sprint is spending a lot of money in attempts to slay the iPhone and give AT&T a run for their money. And while we might all snicker over how closely their new posterboy the Samsung Instinct resembles the iPhone, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sprint has worked closely with Samsung to put a sleek iPhonesque UI over a pocketable handset that can handle video, stream Television, and offer turn-by-turn GPS.

So what did the reviewers think?

CNET
The Instinct’s touch screen dominates its real estate. With support for 262,000 colors and a 432,240-pixel resolution, the display is positively gorgeous. Colors popped, graphics were vibrant, and text was crisp. Indeed, it’s one of the better displays we’ve seen in a while…but [it] can look rather cramped…

AP
The result is a lucid, logical interface. It’s not as pretty as the iPhone’s, but it grants the user to quickly use e-mail, Web browsing, GPS navigation and text messaging; watch videos, live TV and photos; and listen to music and on the web radio.

Wall Street Journal
The touch system on the Instinct is more like that on an ancient ATM than a cutting-edge gadget, although it has a gimmicky feedback mechanism that gives you a little vibration-jolt when you press an icon.

infoSync
Above all else, the Samsung Instinct made phone calls that sounded great..crisp and clean, with no static or drop-outs in our test period. Reception was a steady three bars in lower Manhattan, which seemed a bit low, but this didn’t affect calling, messaging or data, so we didn’t let it bother us.

PhoneMag
Messaging is a mixed bag, with the Instinct falling a little more on the corporate side than the consumer. SMS, MMS and email are all supported, with the latter playing nicely with webmail, POP/IMAP and Exchange accounts, but there’s no instant messaging client and only plain-text, not HTML emails are viewable. Attachments can be sent with outgoing email, but not opened from incoming messages.

Gizmodo
Samsung and Sprint borrowed liberally from the iPhone playbook when it came to look and feel. But the comparison itself isn’t fair: The iPhone is a software platform that is growing every day, soon to have a host of applications that put it squarely in the smartphone category along with BlackBerry, Palm and Windows Mobile. The Samsung Instinct will never be mistaken for a smartphone.

Via [Gizmodo]

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Anyone who has ever piloted a Segway or watched a Betamax knows that the tech world isn’t always a meritocracy. Good products can be trampled by inferior ones, and unpredictable consumers can make frustrating choices (Blu-ray, anyone?). More likely, though, is that the product was just a stupid idea in the first place. CollegeHumor has posted a sort of revisionist consumer history in which a bunch of popular products have actually lost the marketing battles against their competitors. [CollegeHumor]

Via [Gizmodo]

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