If Honda wishes to bring back the CB750, look no further than Igor Chak’s Hydrogen concept.

The bike — which ran in production from 1969 to 2003 — was an unprecedented piece of machinery. It was the first to offer a front disc brake and an straight-4 engine with an overhead camshaft all on one affordable, production bike.

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GE’s Electric Bus (Source: GE)

The Inspired Economist (IE) recently interviewed GE’s Bob King, a 30-year veteran of the company who has driven the company’s research in the advanced electric and hybrid vehicle space.

With the energy crisis of the late ’70s, GE began to aggressively pursue the development of an electric test vehicle, creating a prototype that included nearly all the components that can be found in today’s hybrid vehicles. Bob worked on this, and also on the development of GE’s hybrid bus in 1996. The bus established the emissions requirements for NYC’s hybrid transit buses and paved the way for those that you see on the roads today.

Bob has witnessed the cyclical nature of the country’s demand for energy-efficient cars and the changes in technology that have resulted in advancing the industry. Here’s what he had to say to IE.

IE: What is GE’s hybrid vehicle?  Can you describe it?  It’s USP?

BK: GE researchers are working on hybrid systems and battery technologies for a hybrid locomotive and for heavy-duty vehicle applications, which we believe could cascade down and help accelerate key advancements for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) in the automotive sector. In fact, we also have been performing some research in conjunction with the lithium-ion battery maker A123Systems to support their battery development for automobile applications.

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Many of us are accustomed to watching TV on high-quality plasma and LCD screens, but we pay a severe price in energy inefficiency. Toshiba has come up with a solution to our energy woes: flexible OLED paper that doubles as a TV screen.

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OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) technology is still new, but the Universal Display Corporation has already developed a flexible OLED wristband prototype. The prototype, which is supported by the US Department of Defense, is currently on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

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The folks at General Electric Global Research have put together the first ever OLED Christmas tree. GE has a tradition of showcasing its most recent technology in an annual holiday gesture, this year choosing to demonstrate their roll-to-roll OLED fabrication that they unveiled last March.

The tree was made by wrapping a green-glowing 6 inch by 15 foot OLED around a spiral Christmas tree form.

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German scientists have discovered a method of hydrogen doping that allows the production of higher-performing LEDs and other semiconductors.

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There is a new generation of super-thin displays that produce sharper images using less power. Organic light-emiting diode (LOED) screens use more than 40% less power than a LCD display and are also twice as thin, since they do not need backlighting (they glow on their own).

Currently, Samsung Electronics and Kyocera are already using this technology for music players and mobile phones. Sony will soon be selling OLED in Japan as early as 2008: it showed off the screens at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year.

Currently, OLED displays cost manufacturers 1.7 times more than LCDs, but as the technology advances, the prices will drop and it will be a strong competitor for LCDs. OLED is an regular LED that has an extra emissive electroluminsecent layer comprised of an organic compound film. The layer contains a polymer substance with organic compands that result in pixels that emit lights of different colors. OLED displays do not require a backlight to function, so they use less power and can last longer when they are being powered by a battery.

Via News.com