At any rate, I broke away long enough this morning to submit a patent for my new bioluminescent touchscreen display. This is going to be a real game changer. It's a backlight system for handheld devices using bioluminescent, dinoflagellate algae in a wafer-thin aqueous solution grid. I've already pitched it to Apple. Jobs isn't returning my calls, but that's just because he's mad at me again. I cleaned him out at poker night last week.

Bioluminescence is the next logical step for energy-efficient lighting. It's a travesty, really, that any of us continue to use incandescent light bulbs, which are really just tiny little furnaces. You didn't ask, but I'm telling you anyway: Regular bulbs light up when the thin tungsten filament inside becomes overwhelmed by the electricity being passed through it, and incandesces into a white hot state. All that heat is wasted electricity, since what we want out of a light bulb is light, not heat. Fluorescent lights are at least a step in the right direction -- around five times as efficient, in terms of electrical wattage. An incandescent bulb produces about 15 lumens (a unit of measuring light) per watt. A fluorescent light: 60 to 100 lumens per watt.

My touchscreen display is just the beginning. I'm working right now on a prototype bioluminescent lamp that's going to knock your socks off. More updates as events warrant.

Double Secret Bonus Puzzle: Check out the picture below. Can you guess what it is? Hint: The U.S. goes through about 2 million every five minutes. Click here to find out (via ElectroPlankton).

---

Bookmark this article:

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Show/Hide comments

Show/Hide comment form

Name

Title

Comment

Add Comment