Designer Irina Ivanova is proposing the development and promotion of a unique form and system of vending machines filled with healthy food products that will encourage a social change in children’s eating habits.

The health of youth in the United States is now negatively affected by dangerous eating habits that may eventually lead to obesity. Vending Machines are one of the “easiest” and most convenient ways for children to access snacks, frequently junk food, in schools.

The packaging design for VitaMeal food products is based on a unique shape that will be more appealing to younger audience. Each individual package will contain a “face” of a character that is intended to emotionally present the contents of the food inside. The size of each package contains just one serving size of any food or liquid, to facilitate better control of portion sizes.

The new vending machine is designed to be modular in nature to better adapt to different spatial environments. By being modular it allows more kids to access it during class breaks and it will host more products. It can be placed against a wall as a single unit or in multiples of 3, or it can be free standing in the center of the room, allowing access from any side. Each machine is built with a refrigerating unit in order to host food and drink products that both require and those that don’t need refrigeration.

The new machine will have a Card Reader that will simplify the food buying process.The built-in speaker verifies to the consumer their chosen food or drink selection. The automated speaking device also greets the customer after the machine reads their card.

The Vita-Smart Cards are designed to mirror individual graphic characters used on the VitaMeal packages. Kids may chose a card based on their favorite personality. Each card comes with a “Smart Chip” that functions both as a credit card and at the same time allows parents to control what their children may or may not eat, thus protecting a child from a potential allergic reaction to a specific food. Kids may use their card when recycling the packages to recieve a credit amount, to be deposited back onto their account.

Prototype Nokia phone recharges without wires

JJ Lee — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:31:00 +0000

Tue Jun 16, 2009 1:06PM

Pardon the cliche, but it’s one of the holiest of Holy Grails of technology: Wireless power. And while early lab experiments have been able to “beam” electricity a few feet to power a light bulb, the day when our laptops and cell phones can charge without having to plug them in to a wall socket still seems decades in the future.

Nokia, however, has taken another baby step in that direction with the invention of a cell phone that recharges itself using a unique system: It harvests ambient radio waves from the air, and turns that energy into usable power. Enough, at least, to keep a cell phone from running out of juice.

While “traditional” (if there is such a thing) wireless power systems are specifically designed with a transmitter and receiver in mind, Nokia’s system isn’t finicky about where it gets its wireless waves. TV, radio, other mobile phone systems — all of this stuff just bounces around the air and most of it is wasted, absorbed into the environment or scattered into the ether. Nokia picks up all the bits and pieces of these waves and uses the collected electromagnetic energy to create electrical current, then uses that to recharge the phone’s battery. A huge range of frequencies can be utilized by the system (there’s no other way, really, as the energy in any given wave is infinitesimal). It’s the same idea that Tesla was exploring 100 years ago, just on a tiny scale.

Mind you, harvesting ambient electromagnetic energy is never going to offer enough electricity to power your whole house or office, but it just might be enough to keep a cell phone alive and kicking. Currently Nokia is able to harvest all of 5 milliwatts from the air; the goal is to increase that to 20 milliwatts in the short term and 50 milliwatts down the line. That wouldn’t be enough to keep the phone alive during an active call, but would be enough to slowly recharge the cell phone battery while it’s in standby mode, theoretically offering infinite power — provided you’re not stuck deep underground where radio waves can’t penetrate.

Nokia says it hopes to commercialize the technology in three to five years.

Sketchbook of JJLee » Technology

Vending machine- Vita Smart Cards

VitaMeal – A Nutritious Revolution in Vending

Prototype Nokia phone recharges without wires