I've always wanted to drive on water!

The Aquada is a revolutionary showcase of High Speed Amphibian (HSA) technology.

This radical new breed of vehicle has been precision engineered to the most exacting standards. It has undergone an extensive safety testing programme and complies with appropriate marine and road safety regulations.

Entry to the water is via beach, boat ramp, slipway or directly from the water's edge. Once afloat, the transition from road vehicle to High Speed Amphibian (HSA) is effortlessly achieved.

Simply press a button and drive into the water. The wheels automatically rise and as you press the accelerator nearly a ton of thrust pushes the Aquada onto the plane. The whole process takes less than 12 seconds. The Aquada can plane at over 30mph.

Powerful enough to tow a water-skier and with a style and class of its own, the Gibbs Aquada is the perfect leisure vehicle. It combines the thrill of an open top car with the sheer exhilaration experienced in a high performance speedboat.

The Aquada is the new name for freedom!

OriginOil's Modest Plan To Make Money Off Oil From Algae

OriginOil (OOIL.BO) has a plan for algae based oil, and it's not to save the world by using algae-oil to replace petroleum. Rather, it's a modest plan that involves selling technology to algae farmers in the near term, then moving on to selling its technology to other companies.

OriginOil CEO Riggs Eckelberry swung through The Business Insider's HQ this afternoon to explain how he plans on turning the green of algae into the green of money*.

Last Friday the company applied for a patent that Eckelberry thinks will set the company on its course. That patent is for a technology that makes extracting oil from algae an efficient, cheap, one-step process. As pictured above, algae enters one of OriginOil's tanks, and is quickly seperated into biomass and oil afterwards. Eckelberry says OriginOil hasn't tested the technology in on a massive scale, but he's confident that it will work as it scales upward.

The business plan for OriginOil is to sell its technology to algae farmers who will use the extraction process to produce oil. Eckelberry says there are about 30 algae companies now, and he expects there to be over a 100 in the next year when he actually commercializes the technology.

He tells us that many companies are interested in working with OriginOil, though he wouldn't name any. He says that OriginOil has a waiting list of clients.

If the company can advance this technology, the next step in its business is to sell modular systems to companies with factories throwing off CO2. He says those companies can channel their CO2 into tanks that have algae in them. The algae will grow off the CO2, then it can be processed and turned into fuel.

It's a win-win for companies. They cut back on CO2 emissions, which are pricey in Europe where a cap and trade system exists, and might soon exist in the U.S. And companies also get a new source of fuel for themselves.

The best part of the business, from our perspective, is that he doesn't want to be a "land baron" as he puts it. He doesn't want to use loads of space to develop his technology. That's up to someone else.

Of course, for the business to really thrive, Eckelberry will have to sell his technology to other companies. He'll have to get customers lined up, and he'll have to prove his technology not only works, but is the best.

Iiamo self-heating baby bottle requires no stove, batteries

If you want to heat up a baby bottle when you're out and away from your kitchen, you're usually out of luck. Not so with the Iiamo self-heating baby bottle, which uses some form of magic to heat up milk without any batteries required.

It uses a "100% organic heating cartridge that only contains salt and water." How does that generate heat? I have no idea, but it apparently works, and in just 4 minutes at that. For people who take their babies out on the town often, this could be a pretty great product.

Sliding House

The brief was simple: to build a house to retire to in order to grow food, entertain and enjoy the East Anglia landscape. The outcome was as unconventional as they come. A structure that has the ability to vary or connect the overall building's composition and character according to season, weather or simply a desire to delight. Wallpaper* took a trip to the site to capture the physical phenomenon in the only medium that serves it justice - film.

Light Transmitting Concrete.

Litracon as tough as concrete, yet light can get through it. Litracon is a combination of optical fibers and concrete. A wall made of Litracon has the strength of traditional concrete but thanks to an embedded array of optical glass fibers, which lets in the view of the outside world, such as the silhouette of trees, or passersby, that are displayed inside the building.
The glass fibers allow light to travel by points between the two sides of the blocks. Due to their parallel placement, the light-information on the brighter side of such a wall seems unchanged on the darker side. Also there is no change in the color of the light.
An array of thousands of optical glass fibers runs parallel to each other between the two main surfaces of each block. Theoretically, there is almost no loss in light up to 20 meters due to the fibers in such a block and hence a wall structure built from light-transmitting concrete can be several meters thick.
In 2001 Hungarian architect Aron Losonczi invented Litracon, the first light transmitting concrete and in spring 2004 he founded his own company, Litracon Bt., located in the Hungarian town Csongrád.

Smittens

What Are Smittens?
Smittens are mittens specially designed so that two people can hold hands inside of one mitten.


HOW IT ALL BEGAN:



I created the idea of Smittens while on a romantic walk with my husband. We were trying to hold hands through our bulky mittens, when it dawned on me to create a mitten that was large enough for both our hands. That way, I thought, we could truly hold hands.
WHAT’S INCLUDED:
One set of Smittens includes one pair of regular size mittens, and one oversized mitten for hand-holding (shown in photo).
http://www.smittens.biz/Smittens/Shop.html

Woody Norris: Inventing the next amazing thing

Woody Norris is a serial inventor of electronics, tools and cutting-edge sonic equipment -- such as the LRAD acoustic cannon.