Gaelis from Martin Rolland on Vimeo.
Gaelis from Martin Rolland on Vimeo.
THE COPHENHAGEN WHEEL
Smart, responsive and elegant, the Copenhagen Wheel is a new emblem for urban mobility. It transforms ordinary bicycles quickly into hybrid e-bikes that also function as mobile sensing units. The Copenhagen Wheel allows you to capture the energy dissipated while cycling and braking and save it for when you need a bit of a boost. It also maps pollution levels, traffic congestion,and road conditions in real-time.
SENSE AND SUSTAINABILITY
Controlled through your smart phone, the Copenhagen Wheel becomes a natural extension of your everyday life. You can use your phone to unlock and lock your bike, change gears and select how much the motor assists you. As you cycle, the wheel’s sensing unit is also capturing your effort level and information about your surroundings, including road conditions, carbon monoxide, NOx, noise, ambient temperature and relative humidity. Access this data through your phone or the web and use it to plan healthier bike routes, to achieve your exercise goals or to meet up with friends on the go.
You can also share your data with friends, or with your city - anonymously if you wish – thereby contributing to a fine-grained database of environmental information from which we can all benefit.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
If you are interested in owning a wheel, producing, licensing or distributing, please join our mailing list so that we can keep in contact with you. The Copenhagen Wheel was unveiled on December 15, 2009 at the COP15 United Nations Climate Conference. The project was conceived and developed by the SENSEable City Lab for the Kobenhavns Kommune. The prototype bikes were realized with the help of our technical partner Ducati Energia and funding from the Ministry for the Environment.
Graphene is a material discovered by a team out of the University of Manchester in 2004. It is a sheet of carbon atoms bound together with double electron bonds (called a sp2 bond) in a thin film only one atom thick. Atoms in graphene are arranged in a honeycomb-style lattice pattern.
Graphene is extracted from graphite, which is how it gets its name. In fact, graphene provides the structural basis of all other graphitic materials, from graphite itself to fullerenes (carbon nanotubes, buckeyballs, etc.). Perfect graphene is in hexagonal form, although imperfections can cause heptagonal or pentagonal structures.
Obtaining pure graphene in planar form is difficult and, until 2004, it was assumed by many to be impossible. According to a March 2008 Scientific American, a sample smaller than the width of a human hair would be approximately $1,000, making it currently one of the most expensive materials on the face of the planet.
Graphene in Nanotechnology
Since its discovery, graphene has grown central to much of the research into nanotechnology, due to the unusual electrical, magnetic, and other properties that it possess. It remains to be seen what ultimate use will be obtained from graphene, but research in this area is in extreme demand.
Major Lazer is a Jamaican commando who lost his arm in the secret Zombie War of 1984. The US military rescued him and repurposed experimental lazers as prosthetic limbs. Since then Major Lazer has been a hired renegade soldier for a rogue government operating in secrecy underneath the watch of M5 and the CIA. His cover is that of a dancehall night club owner from Trinidad and he enlisted the help of long-time allies and uber-producers, Diplo and Switch, to produce his first LP. His true mission is to protect the world from the dark forces of evil that live just under the surface of a civilized society. He fights vampires and various monsters, parties hard, and has a rocket powered skateboard.
As part of a plan to subdue the forces of evil with a batch of futuristic dancehall bangers, the three encamped at Tuff Gong Studios in Jamaica to record the Major Lazer record. The product of this collaboration is Guns Don't Kill People… Lazers Do, a collection of tracks that draws from the rich dancehall tradition of Jamaica, the futuristic dance-floor-killing aesthetic of Diplo and Switch, and contributions from some of the biggest names in dancehall today. The record runs global pop culture through the filter of Major Lazer's particular brand of 80's-inspired digital dancehall, at once an homage to a bygone era and a look to the future of dance music.
Diplo (Philadelphia-based DJ and producer Wesley Pentz), incorporates such disparate influences as Miami Bass and Baile Funk into the high-tech ecclecticism of his productions. Known for his forward-thinking productions for MIA, Bonde Do Role and many others, and for the solo LP of cinematic, sample-based hip hop entitled Florida he recorded for the Ninja Tune imprint. Diplo is also the founder and owner of Mad Decent records, which has put out records by DJ Blaqstarr and Bonde do Role.
Switch (the pseudonym of British producer and DJ Dave Taylor) is the owner of one of the most progressive and respected underground dance music labels around, Dubsided. His work as producer is revered by critics, emulated by his fellow DJs, and sweated hard by dance floors on both sides of the Atlantic. Switch also permanently endeared himself to the bespectacled music cogniscenti with his contribution to Santigold's critically acclaimed self-titled debut.
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