Strap-on macro lens works with any smartphone camera

The Macro Cell Lens Band captures detailed macro images

The cameras on most smart phones tend to be rather simple affairs so it's not surprising that savvy inventors have dreamed up numerous add-on attachments such as mini-microscopes and wide/telephoto adapters. They do tend to be rather elaborate and brand-specific, however, not to mention somewhat pricey. Not this one though - the Macro Cell Lens Band is a simple close-up photography solution that has two definite pluses - it works on any camera equipped phone and it's very inexpensive.

The Lens Band is decidedly low-tech, just a thick rubber band with a thin plastic lens smack in the middle of it, but judging by the sample shots, it produces surprisingly good quality images.
Installation is quick and simple, take the band out of your wallet or off your wrist, wrap it around the phone with the lens positioned correctly and you're away.
PhotoJojo sells the Macro Cell Lens Band for US$15.

MIG 675 draws its power from the water

The LUXURY MIG 675 is a 70-mph hydrogen-powered motor boat

If money is no object to you, but environmental concerns are, then LUXURY's MIG 675 might be your kind of boat. The 22 x 8-foot (6.7 x 2.5-meter) cruiser seats three, has a top speed of 70 mph (113 km/h), and produces emissions consisting of nothing but water vapor - this sucker is hydrogen-powered.

 Unfortunately, the Quimperlé, France-based company still hasn't responded to our request for more detailed information, but here is what we do know.

Instead of carrying pressurized hydrogen tanks, the MIG 675 reportedly produces its own fuel, using an onboard generator that harvests hydrogen from the surrounding seawater. This powers its 500 HP supercharged engine, providing a cruising speed of 45 mph (72.5 km/h) and the previously-mentioned 70 mph top end.

The hydrogen generator also powers all the onboard electrical devices, which include an electric anchor roller, a 10-inch touchscreen controller, GPS, depth finder, rear-view camera, an Alpine audio system, a bar fridge with an electric retractable table, and an LED navigation lighting system.

Other features of the 2,866-pound (1,300-kg) aluminum-hulled watercraft include a shower, toilet, leather interior, sun deck, and teak floor. It also, so we're told, comes with its own set of dental forceps - perhaps there was a problem with the French-English translation, with that one.

The LUXURY website claims that the MIG 675 features "live [hydrogen] production during navigation," although one has to wonder ... does this mean that the boat could theoretically just keep running indefinitely, or does its hydrogen consumption exceed its hydrogen production?

If you're interested in finding out for us, you can purchase a MIG 675 of your own as of next year, for a mere EUR250,000 (US$329,727).

The audio-disabled video below shows the boat in action.

Google engineer builds ultimate LAN party house

A Google software engineer built a house designed specifically for hosting LAN parties

Anyone who has a attended a LAN party - where people connect their computers on one network in one location to play multiplayer games together - can tell you that they can be both very fun but also kind of a hassle. Playing games with your friends all in the same room: fun. Having to organize all your friends to each haul their usually-oversized gaming rigs to one person's house, ensuring they all have the same software, and inevitably dealing with one or more people having trouble connecting: not fun. With that in mind, it makes sense that one Google employee decided to bypass all that inconvenience and just build a house specifically for LAN parties, complete with multiple networked computers and TVs connected to game consoles.
Kenton Varda, a software engineer with Google, moved into his dream home in March but has just now revealed some of the inner workings of the gaming-centered house. On the surface the house appears pretty typical, but when guests are over the space transforms into a haven for gamers. Twelve fold-out PC stations are built into the walls for easy storage and are split between two rooms for team vs. team matches. The stations themselves only contain a monitor with a mouse and keyboard, while the actual computers are housed in a different room and connected to a server machine. When putting together the computers, Varda went for a hardware configuration that balanced price and performance. However, since he does not own multiple copies of each game, guests still need to log into their personal Steam, Battle.net, etc. accounts to play using their own licensed copies.

Just setting up computers on a network isn't going to automatically ensure a LAN party-ready home though. Those machines are each going to need software updates for the operating system and games constantly, which would be time consuming to do on every individual PC. Luckily, Varda thought of this and had the server machine host a master disk, which can be used to sync all the machines with the latest updates all at once.
In addition to the stations, the house contains two large TVs connected to various game consoles, though Varda says those are usually just used to stream pro Starcraft matches. The house also has a security setup with cameras and motion detectors, along with some custom software of Varda's own design that sends picture updates to his email and phone and can stream a real-time video feed. The actual design of the living areas (this is his home after all) was handled by his father, Richard Vardas. In the future, Kenton hopes to improve on the tech in his home further by installing whole-house audio, solar panels, and Dance Dance Revolution using Google TV.

Intel & Micron Unveil 128Gb, 20nm NAND Flash Device

Intel and Micron’s 64Gb, 20nm NAND flash? Old news. It’s now in mass production. Today, Micron revealed the two companies’ hottest new collaboration, a 128Gb, 20nm NAND flash device. The little thing crams 1Tb of storage onto eight die for a total package that’s roughly the size of a fingernail.

The new device, which is designed to provide flash storage to mobile devices and high-capacity SSDs alike, can hit 333 megatransfers per second (MT/s).

The dramatic increase in density is enabled by the planar cell structure technology used on the 20nm NAND, which gets around scaling issues by incorporating a Hi-K/metal gate stack.

Intel, Micron Extend NAND Flash Technology Leadership With Introduction of World's First 128Gb NAND Device and Mass Production of 64Gb 20nm NAND

New 128Gb Device Ideal for Small Form Factor Tablets, Smartphones, SSDs and High-Performance Compute Devices

SANTA CLARA, Calif. and BOISE, Idaho, Dec. 6, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Intel Corporation and Micron Technology, Inc., (Nasdaq:MU) today announced a new benchmark in NAND flash technology — the world's first 20 nanometer (nm), 128 gigabit (Gb), multilevel-cell (MLC) device. The companies also announced mass production of their 64Gb 20nm NAND, which further extends the companies' leadership in NAND process technology.

Developed through Intel and Micron's joint-development venture, IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), the new 20nm monolithic 128Gb device is the first in the industry to enable a terabit (Tb) of data storage in a fingertip-size package by using just eight die. It also provides twice the storage capacity and performance of the companies' existing 20nm 64Gb NAND device. The 128Gb device meets the high-speed ONFI 3.0 specification to achieve speeds of 333 megatransfers per second (MT/s), providing customers with a more cost-effective solid-state storage solution for today's slim, sleek product designs, including tablets, smartphones and high-capacity solid-state drives (SSDs.)

"As portable devices get smaller and sleeker, and server demands increase, our customers look to Micron for innovative new storage technologies and system solutions that meet these challenges," said Glen Hawk, vice president of Micron's NAND Solutions Group. "Our collaboration with Intel continues to deliver leading NAND technologies and expertise that are critical to building those systems."

The companies also revealed that the key to their success with 20nm process technology is due to an innovative new cell structure that enables more aggressive cell scaling than conventional architectures. Their 20nm NAND uses a planar cell structure — the first in the industry — to overcome the inherent difficulties that accompany advanced process technology, enabling performance and reliability on par with the previous generation. The planar cell structure successfully breaks the scaling constraints of the standard NAND floating gate cell by integrating the first Hi-K/metal gate stack on NAND production.

"It is gratifying to see the continued NAND leadership from the Intel-Micron joint development with yet more firsts as our manufacturing teams deliver these high-density, low-cost, compute-quality 20nm NAND devices," said Rob Crooke, Intel vice president and general manager of Intel's Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group. "Through the utilization of planar cell structure and Hi-K/Metal gate stack, IMFT continues to advance the technological capabilities of our NAND flash memory solutions to enable exciting new products, services and form factors."

The demand for high-capacity NAND flash devices is driven by three interconnected market trends: data storage growth, the shift to the cloud and the proliferation of portable devices. As digital content continues to grow, users expect that data to be available across a multitude of devices, all synchronized via the cloud. To effectively stream data, servers require high-performance, high-capacity storage that NAND delivers, and storage in mobile devices has consistently grown with increased access to data. High-definition video is one example of an application that requires high-capacity storage, since attempting to stream this type of data can create a poor user experience. These developments create great opportunities for high-performance, small-footprint storage, both in the mobile devices that consume the content and the storage servers that deliver it.

Intel and Micron noted that the December production ramp of their 20nm 64Gb NAND flash product will enable a rapid transition to the 128Gb device in 2012. Samples of the 128Gb device will be available in January, closely followed by mass production in the first half of 2012. Achievement of this milestone will further enable greater densities and overall fab output, while also helping the companies' development teams cultivate the expertise required to design complex storage solutions and refine future technologies.

AOC Introduces Portable, Laptop-Friendly USB Monitor

AOC introduced a new portable USB monitor that uses the DisplayLink DL-125 chip. The new e1649fwu portable USB 2.0 monitor features a 15.6-inch display that supports a resolution of 1366 x 768 at 60 Hz. This monitor also has a built-in stand that supports both horizontal and vertical positions and sits flush with the monitor when not in use. The monitor receives power and signal via a USB cable. The monitor weighs just over two pounds. AOC’s e1649fwu USB monitor is currently available for $139. A 22-inch model is also available.

DisplayLink Drives Portable 16-Inch USB 2 Monitor from AOC

AOC’s New Portable USB Bus-Powered Monitor to Expand Digital Desktop Now Available at Retailers Nationwide

PALO ALTO, Calif., and FREMONT, Calif., December 5, 2011 – DisplayLink®, provider of technology for virtual graphics and USB-connected computing, and AOC®, a leading manufacturer of LED/LCD and HDTV monitors, today announced the new e1649fwu portable USB 2.0 monitor from AOC (www.aoc.com), enabled by the DisplayLink DL-125 chip, is available at major retail chains and outlets throughout the United States.
The lightweight AOC e1649fwu combines productivity and portability into an elegant 15.6-inch display providing an ideal take-along monitor for business presentations, and for other multi-screen applications like social media monitoring, photo editing, expanded spreadsheets and more. It’s a great productivity enhancement for anyone who runs multiple applications and is priced at just $139 MSRP.
“AOC has leveraged DisplayLink’s USB 2.0 virtual graphics and the capabilities of our DL-125 chip to deliver a portable, extended monitor that requires nothing more than plugging in a USB cable, at a very attractive price point,” said Dennis Crespo, DisplayLink executive vice president of marketing and business development.

The AOC e1649fwu monitor offers a maximum resolution of 1366 x 768 at 60 Hz, and receives both its power and video signal through a USB 2.0 port. Designed to increase productivity for laptop and netbook users at home, at the office, and on the road, it draws a maximum of eight watts yet delivers brilliant clarity. The USB monitor has a built-in stand that supports both horizontal and vertical positions.
"With DisplayLink technology, AOC was able to rapidly bring to market this productivity-enhancing, versatile monitor for both mobile professionals and the home office user," said Robert Velez, AOC Marketing Manager. "The market for extended displays is growing rapidly, and this offering with its low power consumption, cord-independence and value price makes multi-screen computing more practical than ever."
The combination of AOC’s e1649fwu and DisplayLink technology easily integrates with existing desktop / notebook environments and is supported on all leading operating systems including Windows XP / Vista / Windows 7 & Apple MAC OSX Tiger / Leopard and Lion. Linux support is also available through many of the standard distributions.
AOC’s model e1649fwu USB monitor is available now at retailers like BestBuy.com, Costco.com, hhgregg, Nebraska Furniture, TigerDirect.com, ABC Warehouse, Electronics Express, and other major retailers, and carries a list price of $139.

Siri hack lets your iPhone control your car

Developer Brandon Fiquett has hacked Siri on the iPhone 4S to enable control of his car

What if you could ask your iPhone to start your car?
Developer Brandon Fiquett has gotten his phone to do just that - hacking Siri on the iPhone 4S to work along with his Viper SmartStart module to not only start his car, but also to arm and disarm the car's alarm, lock and unlock doors, and even pop the vehicle's trunk.
Fiquett was able perform the hack by using Siri Proxy created by another hacker @plamoni, and then running a custom PHP script on his home computer along with some custom plugins to communicate with Siri.
Originally the system was only able to respond to commands such as "Vehicle Arm", "Vehicle Disarm", "Vehicle Start", "Vehicle Stop", "Vehicle Pop Trunk", and "Vehicle Panic," with an update later adding more conversational commands such as "Start my car", "Lock my car", and "Pop my trunk."

The hack is currently in the "proof of concept stage," and isn't something you're likely to be able to replicate unless you really know your way around some code. If you are super tech-savvy, however, Fiquett has published links to the code on his website you can use to recreate the hack with your own phone and vehicle.
This particular hack is the work of just one man, and with Siri only being available a little over a month, it will be interesting to see what other functionality the developer community is able to create over time, as well as what other functionality Apple may add to Siri in the future.

Researchers create bone-like material using 3D printer

The re-purposed ProMetal 3D printer used by the WSU researchers to create objects in a bone-like material

Over the past decade, 3D printing technology has made the transition from huge expensive units used by industry to produce prototype components to small desktop units like the DIY MakerBot Thing-O-Matic that are within the reach of home users. But home users looking to produce custom household objects aren't the only ones set to benefit from advances in 3D printing technology, with 3D bio-printers offering the prospect of creating organs on demand for replacement surgery. Now researchers have used a 3D printer to create a bone-like material that could be used to create customized scaffolds to stimulate the growth of replacement bone tissue.

For their work, researchers at Washington State University (WSU) optimized a commercially available ProMetal 3D printer designed to make metal objects. The re-purposed printer uses an inkjet to spray a plastic binder over a bed of powder in layers just 20 microns thick - that's about half the width of a human hair.
When paired with actual bone and used with some bone growth factors, the resulting bone-like material acts as a scaffold for new bone to grow on before dissolving with no apparent ill effects. The researchers say this would allow customized scaffolds to be produced for new bone to grow on in orthopedic procedures, dental work and to deliver medicine for treating osteoporosis.

"If a doctor has a CT scan of a defect, we can convert it to a CAD file and make the scaffold according to the defect," said Susmita Bose, a professor in WSU's School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and co-author of the WSU study.
The researchers say they have already seen promising results in vivo tests on rats and rabbits and after just a week in a medium with immature human bone cells, the scaffold was supporting a network of new bone cells. The main finding of their research was that the addition of silicon and zinc more than doubled the strength of the main material, calcium phosphate.
Research into the use of three-dimensional scaffolds to stimulate the growth of bone and/or tissue within the body isn't new, with researchers at MIT using a similar method to stimulate bone and cartilage growth when transplanted into knees and other joints. Meanwhile, Columbia University researchers have been looking at growing dental implants in a patient's empty tooth socket using a tooth-shaped scaffold. But the use of 3D printing technology would make it easy to create scaffolds specifically tailored for individual patients.
The WSU team's study has been published in the journal Dental Materials.
Professor Bose explains the technology in the following video:

New technique turns 2D patterns into 3D objects using nothing but light

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for transforming two-dimensional print output into 3-D structures, using nothing but light

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for transforming two-dimensional print output into 3-D structures, using nothing but light. A pre-stressed polymer sheet is fed into a conventional inkjet printer, which applies black stripes to areas designed to be used as hinges. The desired pattern is then cut out and subjected to infrared light. The material contracts at the hinges, and the sheet collapses into a predefined 3D structure. Dr. Michael Dickey, who co-authored a paper describing the research, says the process could be used for packaging purposes and could be applied to high-volume manufacturing.
The idea is based on a remarkably simple principle. The printed-on black stripes absorb more energy that the remaining part of the polymer sheet, so the contraction manifests itself exactly where it's needed, which is at the hinges. What is more, the technique uses existing materials and is compatible with widely used commercial printing methods, such as roll-to-roll printing or screen printing. Three-dimensional objects, such as cubes or pyramids, can now be printed using techniques that are inherently two-dimensional.

It is possible to vary the extent to which a hinge folds by changing the width of the black stripe. The wider the hinge, the further it folds, e.g. 90 degrees for a cube and 120 degrees for a pyramid. Also, wider hinges fold quicker, as the energy-absorbing area is larger. By patterning the lines on either side of the material, the researchers can decide which direction the hinges should fold, so the resulting structures can be pretty complex.
A computer model of the process shows that the surface temperature of the hinge must be higher than the glass transition temperature of the material used (i.e. the temperature at which the material changes its behavior and becomes flexible). Another important finding is that the heating needs to be targeted at the hinges, and not at the whole sheet, for the folding to take place.

The work is described in a paper recently published in the journal Soft Matter. See the video below for a presentation of the process.

Floating weed inspires high-tech waterproof coating

A plastic material inspired by the leaves of the aquatic weed Salvinia molesta may lead to a coating that makes ships more buoyant and hydrodynamic (Photo: Eric Guinther)

It may be an invasive weed that's fouling waterways in the U.S., Australia and other countries, but it turns out that Salvinia molesta has at least one good point - it's inspired a man-made coating that could help ships stay afloat. The upper surface of the floating plant's leaves are coated with tiny water-repellent hairs, each of which is topped with a bizarre eggbeater-like structure. These hairs trap a layer of air against the leaf, reducing friction and providing buoyancy, while the eggbeaters grab slightly at the surrounding water, providing stability. Scientists at Ohio State University have successfully replicated these hairs in plastic, creating a buoyant coating that is described as being like "a microscopic shag carpet."

In laboratory tests, the man-made coating performed just like the Salvinia hairs. In both cases, water droplets couldn't penetrate between the hairs, but did cling to the uniquely-shaped tips - they even hung on when the surface was tilted by 90 degrees. The adhesive force of the coating was measured at 201 nanoNewtons (billionths of a Newton), while the natural hairs managed an almost identical 207 nanoNewtons. While these numbers are far below those attained by substances such as adhesive tape, they are similar to those of gecko feet - and geckos seem to have no problem climbing walls.
"I've studied the gecko feet, which are sticky, and the lotus leaf, which is slippery," said lead researcher Bharat Bhushan. "Salvinia combines aspects of both."

If commercialized, the Ohio State-developed material could conceivably be applied to the hulls of ships or submarines. It is believed that it could provide the vessels with more flotation, while helping them sit in the water with more stability and move through it more easily.
A paper on the research was recently published in the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science.

Teenage Honduran builds open source eye-tracking computer interface for the disabled

Luis Cruz's Eyeboard - an eye tracking computer interface for the disabled

This unique and worthwhile project was put together by a 17-year-old electronics and programming whiz from Honduras, of all places. The Eyeboard system is a low-tech eyeball-tracking device that allows users with motor disabilities to enter text into a computer using eye gestures instead of a physical interface. This kind of system is not unique - there's plenty of eye tracking interfaces out there - but Luis Cruz has figured out a way to build the full system into a set of glasses for less than US$300, putting easier communication within reach of users in developing countries. He's also releasing the software as open source to speed up development. Personally, I spent my year as a 17-year-old in a series of heroic failures trying to impress girls with my air guitar.

Tracking eyeball movements is far from a new science - in fact, people have been studying eye movements for more than 130 years. Early on, the main focus was on understanding how the process of reading works - the way the eyes skip and dart across rows of text to take in written information. Congratulations, you're now aware that your eyes are jumping from word to phrase to word as you read this article!

While eyeball tracking used to be achieved using painstaking manual mapping of direct observations, more recent technologies have made it much easier and more precise. High-tech contact lenses, for example, can now be used to map and record eye movement to provide data that's used in everything from driver training to sports development to gaming, virtual reality and medical research. Still, the dominant commercial application by far is in advertising and usability - working out how different designs steer the eye towards a final goal most effectively.

But for people with certain motor disabilities, particularly those who don't have good control over their hands or voices, eye tracking can take on a much more important role, as a hands-free computer interface that can be a fantastic aid to communication, and a much easier alternative than the head wand or mouth stick, which are used to tap on a keyboard.

Unfortunately, eyeball tracking computer interfaces have proven to be quite expensive on the market - anywhere from several thousand to more than US$10,000 when combined with software. This puts them out of reach of many affected people, particularly in developing countries where that sort of money could represent several years of average earnings.

And that's where 18-year-old Honduran high school student Luis Cruz is stepping in. Two years ago, Cruz indulged his love of electronics and software tinkering by building a video game system - but in the last 12 months he's turned his focus to far less teenage pursuits.

Cruz has spent the last year building and developing an eye tracking computer interface that works on the principles of electrooculography - that is, measuring the resting potential of the retina using electrodes placed just beside the eyes.

As it turns out, the human eye is polarized - the front of the eye carries a positive charge and the rear of the eye has a group of negatively charged nerves attached to the retina. So when the eye is moved, you can use electrodes to measure the change in the dipole potential of the eye through the skin.

It's a fairly lo-fi input - it doesn't track eye movements with anywhere near the accuracy of a high tech contact lens or video tracking system - but on the other hand, it's extremely cheap, and so uninvasive that Cruz has managed to mount the electrodes in a pair of sunglasses. And it's good enough at tracking macro eye movements to allow the next phase of the project: the computer interface software.

Although Cruz's sensor glasses can only track horizontal eye movements at this stage, he's developed a piece of software that takes those inputs and uses them to choose letters in a grid, so that users can type entire words using just their eye motions.

The Eyeboard system is still in a fairly embryonic state at this stage, but Cruz believes the hardware can be produced cheaply - as in, his prototypes cost somewhere between US$200-300 for a set of glasses - and he's releasing the software as open source to enable quicker development of tools like autocomplete which will make users' communication even quicker and more fluid. Here's a little more about the effectiveness of electrooculography in computer interfaces.

Clearly, this is a kid with some serious drive - check out his technical documentation for a closer look at the project. If anyone feels like giving Cruz a helping hand, he's looking for PayPal donations to help him towards a college education in America. Given how much he's achieved in Honduras at such a young age, his potential and motivation is clear, even if his home country doesn't afford a lot of opportunities.

We wish Cruz the best of luck and hope to see the Eyeboard project develop into something that can help the disabled community in Honduras and around the world.

What were YOU doing when you were 17?

Russia's MiG Aircraft Company develops 3D flight simulator for the MiG-29 Jet Fighter

Russian Aircraft Company's MiG-29

Russian Aircraft Company's MiG is best known for its fighter planes which have been used by the USSR, China, North Korea and North Vietnam since the beginning of WWII.

These days, the former Government-owned RAC MiG is a publicly traded entity and competes on the open market with its technologies, having more than 1600 of its MiG-29 fighters in operation in 25 countries.
Now MiG is claiming a major first in military aviation with the launch of a 3D flight simulator at the Dubai Air Show, providing volumetric visualization of beyond-the-cockpit space for trainee top guns. The simulator comes complete with the MiG-29's cockpit and actual control systems.
Existing military simulators have a 2D projection system, at best projected on a wrap-around screen, imitating surround environment in the more or less precise manner, but they do not provide volumetric visualization.

As a result, pilots face problems in assessing the distance to the key virtual objects being monitored, as well as size of those objects, making it difficult to perform precisely when flying the virtual fighter in close proximity to other aircraft, in air refueling, or on the approach to a landing strip or aircraft carrier.

Some advanced systems offer better visualization of actual distances in the beyond-the-cockpit space but such simulators are huge in size, and have a limited arc of visibility.
MiG claims it has developed a better visualization system with a much higher level of accuracy from the virtual cockpit. The system produces stereo imagery of the aerial environment using the same type of glasses as are used in 3D cinema to create a far more realistic illusion of real flight, and experience so far suggests even inexperienced pilots can easily assess distances to and dimensions of other aircraft and objects.
Guests at this week's Dubai Air Show can try the 3D MiG-29 simulator for themselves.

LuminAID solar-powered inflatable lantern - simply a good idea

LuminAID is an extremely lightweight and easy to transport, solar-powered inflatable waterproof lantern

Although it can be considered as a basic human need alongside food, water and shelter, 1.6 billion people all over the world have no access to stable and safe source of light. It's a situation that two bright young Architecture graduates are aiming to combat with the LuminAID solar-powered lantern. Like the Solar Pebble initiative, the LuminAID lantern is designed to address dependence on kerosene lamps in the developing world and its extremely lightweight and easy to transport inflatable design is also targeted at use in disaster relief situations ... plus it makes a very handy addition to your camping kit.

At first glance the LuminAID resembles a simple plastic bag, but its coating is made of flexible, semi-transparent waterproof material with a printed dot matrix to diffuse light and it incorporates a very thin solar panel, bright LEDs that provide the light source and a reinforced handle for easy carrying.

LuminAID is fully charged after 4-6 hours in sunlight makes and is reportedly good for up to four hours of lighting at 35 lumens, or up to six hours at 20 lumens. The battery can be recharged 800 times.

Founded by Anna Stork and Andrea Sreshta, both graduates from the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation in New York LuminAID Lab is currently field testing the inflatable lamp is in Rajasthan, India, where fifty percent of households lack electricity. It's being distributed to rural schools, homes and small-business owners.

LuminAID Lab says 100 percent of funds will go to producing and distributing the LuminAID lights to you and to our community projects.

It's possible to back LuminAID project by purchasing the lamp via on IndieGoGo. A pledge of US$25 results in purchasing two units - someone in need will obtain one lamp for free, while you'll get your own too.

For US$50 you get a carabiner and a LuminAID t-shirt (Adventure Pack), or print pattern on the coating designed by graphic designer Hillary Cribben as well. You can also back the project by US$10 without obtaining a lamp, or donate a larger sum (US$100 - 1,000) to purchase multiple lamps. The production of lamps will take 45-60 days.

Sounds like a great deal to us ... and a fantastic project.