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While the world waits for Ginger, which may or may not be a hydrogen-powered scooter (see next page), two San Francisco designers have built one of their own--or at least a prototype. The elegant carbon-fiber-and-aluminum Scoot combines a wide, scooped-out footrest with rugged, over-size wheels. Scoot folds in half so that the tires and grimy underside are neatly tucked away. And with a hydrogen fuel-cell engine, you will leave the slackers in the dust.
--INVENTORS Johan Liden and Yves Behar, Fuse Project --AVAILABILITY In 2003, for $500 to $800 --TO LEARN MORE Visit fuseproject.com
CLEARER THAN CRYSTAL
Would you pay for what your car radio now gets for free? You may be ready for satellite radio. Two rival companies are betting that drivers are sufficiently fed up with bad reception, tired playlists and irritating ads to fork out around $10 a month (plus up to $1,000 for a receiver) for dozens of stations offering ad-free music, sports, news and weather. Signals are beamed from "Rock" and "Roll," XM's pair of stationary satellites, and from Sirius' three orbiting birds.
--AVAILABILITY XM debuts nationally this month; Sirius is aiming for early next year --TO LEARN MORE Visit xmradio.com or siriusradio.com
the tops in bots
VERTICALLY CHALLENGED
Imagine a robot small enough to crawl through pipes to check for chemical leaks or sneak under doors to spy on intruders. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have created the Mini Autonomous Robot Vehicle Jr. to do just that. Smaller than a cherry and powered by three watch batteries, MARV Jr. can cover 20 in. per min. on custom-made tracks fashioned from strips of latex balloons. Future versions may include miniature cameras, microphones and chemical microsensors.
--INVENTOR Ray Byrne, Ed Heller and Doug Adkins; Sandia National Laboratories --AVAILABILITY Around 2006, for under $500 --TO LEARN MORE Visit sandia.gov/isrc/Marv.html
SLUGBOTS TO THE RESCUE
They are every gardener's nightmare: big, slimy slugs that eat holes in lettuce leaves and gouge craters in tomatoes. Now Ian Kelly, a computer scientist at the California Institute of Technology, has developed a robotic slug catcher that not only identifies and eliminates slugs but could eventually power itself with its victims' bodies.
Here's how the Slugbot works: a lawn mower-size machine with a long arm shines red light on the ground to identify a shiny, sluglike object, then analyzes its shape. When it finds a slug, it picks it up and drops it in a hopper. Bacteria inside the robot eat the slimy critters--a process that releases electrons that can be captured and, in theory, keep the bot's batteries perpetually charged.
Kelly says he has perfected the slug-identification-and-retrieval system but estimates that it will be several years before the slugbot is ready for market. Biggest hurdle: getting the robot to convert those captured mollusks into usable energy. While the concept of microbial fuel cells has worked in laboratory tests, applying it to slugs turns out to be a sticky proposition.
--INVENTOR Ian Kelly --AVAILABILITY About 2004 --TO LEARN MORE Visit micro.caltech.edu/people/Postdocs/ian/tta.html
MODEL EMPLOYEE