Tata just produced the world’s cheapest car

The world’s cheapest car was just produced, in an announcement made by Tata. This small car has an engine of 625cc, and can go for 20km per litre of petrol. It actually looks pretty decent, and sort of resembles the Mitsubishi I. However, if the announcement is accurate, then the basic model comes without air-conditioning!

It was designed for emerging markets though, and was meant to replace scooters, so I guess that’s understandable. It’s quite an exciting announcement, as this will definitely mark a watershed moment in the automobile industry — I’m pretty sure the other automobile makers will catch up with offerings of their own too.

While such a car puts the ability to own a car in the hands of the lower income families, it does pose an environmental concern, especially since it would mean the rise of the total number of vehicles on the road. However, if people were to downgrade from their luxury or sports behemoths to these cars though, then I guess it would be a good thing.

Read the full article

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Switching Off Appliances Still Draws Power

My previous post about power adapters got me interested in electricity and it led me to this article on how there are vampiric devices in your home, sucking energy all the time. I got pretty surprised when I read the article (Read the full article here: http://www.electronichouse.com/article/why_your_electronics_suck_energy/). It turns out that all our appliances still draw electricity even though they’re turned off.

I know that they require SOME electricity, especially things like DVD players which have an internal clock — but did you know that SOME electricity can mean around 9 percent of your total household electricity bill? That’s a lot for appliances that should be already turned off.

Even power supplies like those that are used by notebooks can result in drawing electricity for nothing. Have you ever left a power supply plugged into the socket, but not plugged to your notebook computer? Then this excerpt may surprise you:

Many power supplies are inefficient and result in power loss when converting the AC power to DC power needed by the electronics. These are conversion losses, but there are also no-load losses, when an external power supply may be detached from a laptop computer but remains plugged in. “In that case, the standby load is for nothing, and it is still drawing power and dissipating it as heat,” Meier says.

I have a portable scanner, and this point sure surprised me:

Portable printers and scanners that are operated by software programs often don’t even have off switches, and these can be very problematic if left plugged in. An unused but connected scanner can draw 12 watts continuously, says Meier.

If you’re interested in finding out more about how much power your appliance is drawing, there’s a handy device that can help you. It’s called Kill A Watt, and how it works is that it acts as a middleman between your appliance and the power socket. So essentially you plug your Kill A Watt device into your power source, and then plug your appliance into Kill A Watt’s input socket, as such:

It’s rather useful because you can now reduce your energy costs by identifying the real energy abusing devices in your home. Kill A Watt has a LCD display that shows you consumption by the kilowatt-hour, just like your local utility company, so you can quickly calculate costs. Amazon has several Kill A Watt devices for sale at pretty low prices, especially if you buy low and used!

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Best International AC Pocket Socket / Plug Adapter

I just returned from a short trip to Taipei, and while it was really fun, it’s nice to be back home. Taipei’s (Taipei Travel Guide) surprisingly not very different from Singapore, except the mild winter’s there currently is a welcome change from Singapore’s all-year-round tropical climate (Singapore Travel Information).

Another difference that got me was the power sockets — Taiwan uses a 2-pin blade socket configuration that’s different from Singapore’s 3-pin rectangular configuration.

I brought a 2-pin converter, but with one small problem. My converter was of the round-pin variety. Urgh. You can see a picture of said converter here:

I didn’t check the power sockets Taiwan uses properly, so I ended up having to use my digital camera REALLY sparingly to make sure it lasted the whole trip. I’m going to get myself one of these truly universal plug adapters though, so such a situation won’t happen to me again. I did my research around, and this is a pretty recent product by Belkin, released around mid 2007, and is apparently one of the best — if not the best — universal plug adapters around. Caveat though, this doesn’t do anything to transform (step up or step down) the voltage. This is just making sure your plug will fit the socket, almost anywhere in the world.

If you need to transform, convert, step up or step down the power, then you’re looking for a Power Converter (or transformer). These devices converts between 220v to 110 volts so that your appliances will operate on the country’s current. Take note that you need to check that the power rating (in watts) exceeds the rating of all appliances you expect to plug in at one time. Your appliance should have a sticker or label with its power rating clearly stated on it. Amazon has some good universal power converters.

Last I checked, Amazon seemed to have the best price for this Belkin plug adapter at around $14 (Amazon: Belkin plug adapter).

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Climate Change Worries? Want to Go Green?

Concerns over the environment, and the push to go green has grown exponentially over the years until everyone’s talking about it these days.

In my opinion, I think one of the ways to reduce greenhouse gases is to have people give up their passion for fast cars for the situation to change. It’s just not possible to have a significant reduction in carbon emissions if everyone drives a ton of steel around everyday.

Even with advances in technology, nothing beats personal contact, so personal mobility is still a important and critical in a modernised society. Sometimes taking public transport just can’t cut it — but driving alone in a car, much less a big car, also doesn’t justify it’s use. Why not travel around in a smaller car? This requires a wee bit of change though, and seeing how hard it is to change mindsets, this change may probably only take place over a couple of generations.

That said about smaller cars, I thought the Mini was a small car until I found out about the 1964 Peel P50. I love this clip where Jeremy Clarkson takes a look at the Peel — a great idea for a great car. And mind you, this was way back in the 1964! I laughed at 7:17 haha

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Cool and Geeky Mountain Dew Christmas Tree

Wow….check out this Christmas tree made out of Mountain Dew cans. Even the “star” is a Mountain Dew plastic bottle!

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