posted by admin on Aug 5

Trying to block out that office noise with partitions and office re-shuffles?

Apparently there is no need as Japan Blinds have invented and designed a range of blinds that actually absorb sound! They are almost identical in every way to normal blinds – except they are made of felt!

These natural fibre blinds have been proved to absorb up to 60% of noise power in the office environment – so not only shutting out the site of the office when you have a meeting (or lunch break) but also drowning out some of the noises like printers, fans and routers.

How Do They Do It?
Well, the trick is in the harnessing of the natural elements. Basically if the thickness of the felt sheets is balanced correctly with a layer of air between the source of the noise and your ears – it absorbs most of the sound energy within itself – like a shield of sorts.

Due to their construction on composition they are actually cheaper and easier to install than many other sound-proofing solutions currently available to businesses – they can be in place in less than 2 hours and cause no major disruption to the workplace.

I mean you have blinds in most offices – so why not just trade them for soundproof ones if you are plagued or annoyed by background noice when you are working.

Not all offices have time to attach massive sheets or materials to the wall cavities – and then still have blinds over the windows anyway!

How Do They Look?
Unfortunately they are not good! They are currently available in thick heavy-looking gray…….

And due to their manufacture, they are of course only compacted and matted fibres – so can tear much easier than plastic or wooden blinds, and depending on the fibres used – they may cause an allergic reaction if the fibres get into the air after damage or through incorrect cleaning.

However, they are a great new idea in the workplace if they really do stop that much of the background noise – and could maybe be used elsewhere and across walls and doors to limit sound interruptions at home or in your workshop!

posted by admin on May 15

Think that solar panels look unsightly – and you have a heritage home?

Well, worry no more – there is an eco invention that is right up your street! It’s one of the eco inventions that I think all eco advances should be:

It doesn’t take any extra effort from you than fitting a normal ‘solar panel’
It doesn’t create any extra work from you or your family to run
It doesn’t mean that you have to ‘put up’ with a second rate service
It doesn’t mean that you have to lower your standards of appearance or behaviour

The reason that these photovoltaic panels don’t do any of the above is because they are in the shape of and have the appearance of actual roof tiles. Yes – they are sheets of ‘slate’ virtually identical to actual slate tiles!

What a fantastic idea – why didn’t we think of it sooner?

No Extra Effort:
These photovoltaics are so easy to incorporate into your roof that they won’t cause you any more strife than fitting normal pv panels.

Well obviously you won’t be fitting them – an experienced and qualified fitter will do that for you – but I mean they won’t need excessive paperwork to be completed; won’t need extra support scaffolding once in place – and they can’t really ‘fall off’ either.

No Extra Work:
You don’t need to pay to much attention to them either. You don’t need to remember to turn them off when you leave the home (like your lights and electricals); you won’t need to ration their use (like turning off the tap while tooth-brushing); and you won’t need to remember to wash them out before recycling them.

They run themselves with no effort what so ever – just put your feet up and watch a movie!

Same Standards:
Unlike turning down the heating and wearing more jumpers, eating less meat, wearing your clothes more times, using less petrol and not flushing the toilet after every ‘number 1′ – using these photovoltaic slate panels doesn’t affect anything at all in your life.

Just like all alternative energy sources – the power that they generate will be backed up with mains electricity should you have any problems – I mean we all know that it isn’t sunny everyday! So don’t fret about a cloudy day – as the combination of energy sources is seemless. You won’t even know when your kettle is boiling on sunshine and when it needs fossil fuels!

Same (Or Better) Appearance:
And as with few eco alternatives – these slates are actually improving the appearance of your home while you are striving to be ‘green’. You haven’t got giant shiny panels on your south facing – and possibly – street facing roof. The appearance and value of your home should be unaffected by installing these.

And this is particulalry important if your home is a listed building, or you don’t want to distract from its cute cottage or castle appearance with standard solar panels.

Rather than growing broad beans up your front wall and a pile of different colour recycing bins and boxes filling up your front garden – these eco inventions will be all but invisible on your home.

That’s how eco friendly inventions should be!

Visit www.solarslate-ltd.com for more details…..

posted by admin on Nov 10

Green inventions are in demand at the moment – especially energy related ideas!

And we all know that to make an eco friendly alternative worth paying for – it needs to make our lives greener (as well as cheaper) and with no noticeable effort on our part.

Eco inventions aren’t all about ‘new’ and ‘innovative’ like new games and mobile phone technology – although they can be if they want!

However, and eco invention is generally something that offers an eco-friendly alternative to something that already exists.

Take the new VPhase unit: your home already gets a supply of electricity, and you already have all the wiring for your fuse box and everything technical like that – but this little box stops you getting more energy than you need in your home for the things that already exist in your home.

How It Works:
Every electrical appliance works on a minimum voltage – basically once you are sending more than a certain amount of volts through it: it will work.

However, you can send many more volts through it than this minimum amount and it will still work – up to a certain point when it will become damaged.  However, it doesn’t really need more than a set amount to work efficiently and larger voltages can actually put it under ‘stress’ and shorten its ‘lifespan’.

General utility voltages vary between this minimum amount and up to 30volts more than necessary – all day, its up and down – and obviously you pay for all the volts you use: even if you didn’t need them.

It’s like buying a family ticket to a theme park when there is only 2 of you!  You are paying for more volts than you need to ‘run your home’.

So, this great little invention makes sure you never get too many – it limits your incoming voltage to a basic rate (around 220v).  When your supplier is sending out a really high voltage level – your little device will stop all the extra from coming into your home – leaving you only paying for what you actually need.

Why Is That Good?
Well, the obvious benefit is that you aren’t paying for electricity that you don’t need!  By not allowing this extra energy into your home in the first place – you won’t have to pay for it.

And, if you aren’t taking more electricity from the grid than you need then there will be more ‘left in the system’ to power other peoples homes.  Ultimately this will mean that there needs to be less produced in the first place as less is being ‘demanded’.

Add on to this saving, the benefits of not over-charging your appliances will help to extend their workable lifespan.  Lightbulbs for example, will last longer at this lower voltage, as will many other appliances around the home.

Needless to say the environmental and energy savings will be huge.  Not only will your home reduce it’s energy demands, and therefore it’s energy use – it may well also reduce the need for appliances to be replaced – therefore reducing consumer demand over time.

And if all homes used less energy and brought less appliances – imagine the eco savings!

The Down Side:
As will all inventions – there is an initial cost involved.  However, once installed you need do nothing more!

If you are doing it for the money – you need to calculate how soon you will break even and notice the gains from it; bearing in mind that you can save an average of 10% off your energy bills.

If you are doing it for the environment, then you need to be aware that it will start to save energy and reduce carbon emissions instantly.  Once fitted, you are already making a difference to the environment without even having to try.

Your home will run exactly the same as before without any effort on your part.  No nagging the kids to ‘do this’ or ‘do that’ – just carry on as you are and the savings are being made for you!

posted by admin on Oct 2

Imagine seeing a crack in a 5000 year old building that’s only 1 cm wide!

Technology could well have advanced right now to the point of being able to map any structure (young or old) – or any size (from Rosslyn Chapel to the whole of Angkor Wat) – all down to the scale of a dot every half a centimetre!

It could be a great way not only to study such antiquities and historical sites in immense detail – but also a way to spot any flaws, damage, non-contemporary repairs or alterations.

However, it could also be the perfect way to keep an exact record of such structures incase they are lost to use forever – like the Bamian Buddhas in Afghanistan which were destroyed recently as a result of war.  And this destruction was actually the reason for setting up the non-profit company who developed and applied this technology: CyArk.

They hope that with such detailed images – humanity could help recreate or at least have a perfect ‘hard copy’ of the architecture, design and sheer scale of some of the Worlds great wonders.

Who Are They?
CyArk was formed when retiree engineer Ben Kacyra thought up another use for his laser-mapping tool which he had previously invented for engineering and industrial purposes.

He sold that invention in 2001 and now works with his wife to image ancient buildings rather than new-builds.

In the not-to-distant future, they hope to be able to superimpose real graphics on top of these geospatial images to create a perfect digital models for everyone to access online.

How They Work:
Well, it’s not just a matter of moving around the world taking pictures of everything of any interest at all, or anything over a certain age – they have a plan.

Firstly, they assess possible sites of international importance, it significance to human culture, human interest and the risk of losing the site, then set to work.

They use a variety of data recording equipment including scanning, specialist photography and other traditional surveying techniques to get as much information about the site as possible – all of which can be used and combined in such a way as to create an amazing digital 3D image!

Obviously once stored in CyArks archives, they can be used again and again – and by anyone!

How Does It Work?
Basically, their equipment is based on using portable 3D laser scanners – which create a unique high resolution image – consisting of up to 100,000,000 bits of data!

The pulsing lasers collect returning beams to create a floating map of the structure – with a recorded dot almost every .5cm of the structures surface.  It also records the colour and brightness of the surface as well – which can then be displayed as false colour.

This allows the resulting image to show which materials a structure is made from, the different or replacement materials used through the ages – and most importantly whether there are any faults or cracks within a structure that may not yet be visible to the eye, allowing remedial works to be considered and implemented as necessary.

You can take a look at some of their already collated data and images online on their website: CyArk and see for yourself what this technology can do today.

And maybe give you an ides of what it could do in the future!

posted by admin on Sep 27

There is no such thing as a permanent office for small businesses these days – it’s all change!

Rather than renting an office for your small business or working from your spare bedroom – things just go huge for the little guy!

No longer do you have to schedule that important meeting in a pub, or rent that PO BOX to hide you home address – you can rent a great office on a ‘need only’ basis. 

Great Address:
Buying in to a flexible office agreement like this allows for some great things to happen that could actually improve your business image and your sales too.

Firstly, you can always get a professional office in the city when you need one.  Even in another city if you pick the right set up.  And there may well be a receptionist on site to welcome and direct your associates when they arrive.

Your ‘office’ address could well be in a great part of town or in the building that means ‘stylish’ or ‘contemporary’ - or whatever you want it to mean – as basically you get to choose your office space!

And on top of this – you don’t have to rent a set space for your own office and meeting room that is static.  This way you don’t have to make it fit your needs for the next year or so.  Basically the flexibility of these new office agreements means that rather than holding a meeting for 8 in your rented tiny office space, or interviewing a single person in an oversized space – you can tailor your workplace to your exact needs every time.  You can request a large room in the morning for a great meeting, then get yourself a small personal space in the afternoon for an informal chat!

Great Services:
With these deals, you can also expect a few service extras on top as well!  These will usually help out with growing your business and working towards expanding your business and saving you some valuable time.

A typical set up will include an answering service or you where you can have a ‘company helpline’ so to speak.  Your number is inputted into a phone system so that when your customers call your business number, the call is diverted to a central switchboard which registers it as your company call. 

This way the ‘virtual’ receptionist knows to answer with your company name and company details – and can answer basic queries and take details and book appointments (depending on your individual needs) – meaning you don’t have to miss any customer calls when you are elsewhere or out of reception on your cell.

They even sort your mail too and few other little things that can really make your day more constructive!

The Conclusion:
You can really start to make an impact with your small business by using these services.  Yes, you may not have a permanent office from day 1 – but the extra services offered will more than make up for that.

With your phone calls and mail being handled externally – but all in your business name – you are free to meet your customers and actually get some work done!

Not only could it save you the cost of employing extra staff or a permanent (but maybe not perfect) office – you can have access to the best business lounges, meeting rooms and office space – as well as a team of assistants to help you out as well!

It may not be the best solution for everyone – but it is certainly a great solution for whoever can take advantage of this unique and expanding service sector!