The beauty of a thermoelectric device is that it has no moving parts, making it extremely durable and easy to produce. The high durability means students were able to install it in flues at the cogeneration plant, where it will capture waste heat and use it to create more energy for the campus air conditioning, heating and electricity. Eventually, the team hopes to install the device in the waste heat nirvana, hot water pipes, which could ramp up that 80% number a few more percentage points.

In addition to increasing the efficiency of the MIT campus, the device could also have an effect on the environment by trapping waste heat before it's ejected into the atmosphere as exhaust. And after that, home heating in general could be revolutionized as consumers install the device in their home furnaces.

Ultimately, said Daniel Kraemer, graduate students in mechanical engineering, this simple device could work anywhere there's excess heat. Gizmodo writers are pretty full of hot air, Kraemer, why don't we start here? [MIT]

Not only could it be used to harvest waste heat from humans, it can be used to harvest heat from regular engines or combustion turbines, and has no moving parts at all. The National Science Foundation has granted Mr. Super Soaker funding, which means that we could soon have stuff attached to siphon off our waste heat. Or be connected to the Matrix by robots. Either/or. [Popular Mechanics via Treehugger]

Using "rough" silicon wires, produced by a process known as "electroless etching," where silicon nano-wires are synthesized in an aqueous solution, over a thin, semiconductor crystallized base, the scientists have been able to exploit the process of galvanic displacement of silicon. This displacement technique, which uses silver ions, causes the thermoelectric efficiency to be increased on the rough surfaces of the nano-wires.

The breakthrough comes from the boffins at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, who believe they have found a way to increase the conversion efficiency by a factor of 100. Though they are unable to pin the exact physics of why this works, what they can be certain of is that it definitely does work.

The potential uses for such a technology are mind blowing; from power-jackets that recharge gadgets kept in their pockets to vehicles that utilizes your farts for headlight juice, and pretty much everything else in between. It will be a long while before anything like this makes it to the consumer market, but the development is an exciting one. Expect my son to blog about future developments concerning these nano-wires in 2016. [Tom's Hardware]

last year's American Inventor who made the solar-powered pet fan that sits in your cars window. [Product Page via Washington Post]

It can sit on a desk and blow cool or hot air at a person, at 90% more efficiency than a space heater. It's all done by electrics, and the unit has a high quality filter built in.

I can't see this being very powerful or effective for cooling a full human, but you know when your pants get really sticky and hot and sweaty in the Summertime? Yea.

c2 [Herman Miller via i4u]

Nacho lovers will love the electric Chip and Dip tray [Shiny Shiny]

Helio Heat [Gizmodo]

However, there is a trade-off. (Isn't there always?)

Compared to its bigger brother it does give up a bit in the control and spec department. First of all, it has a 2.0MP camera for the 1.3MP setup. One gripe: The electrostatic buttons aren't much better than the ones on the LG chocolate phone (which I hated ). And I still have issues with the browser, which is a piece of total trash compared to the Opera Mini browser. It crashes browsing Youtube, never mind the inability to play those videos. That would be a rare ability, but I expect that kind of feature from Helio, with its 3G connection and forward thinking attitude. Come on, Sky Dayton — Open up the phones for Java support, and get us a flash player! Most geek care about openness as much as MySpace T&A.

A recommendation? I'd choose this over the Drift. Size matters.–Brian Lam

Helio [Gizmodo]

The scraper has a 15-foot cord which plugs into your car, and produces a "gentle heat" to help melt away the ice. Pretty smart, and not at all expensive at $14.99. Grab one to last you through the next few months. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Amazon via Luxury Housing via Oh Gizmo]

Convenient seat heating will set you back $100, but once February rolls around and you're watching Sheva draw blanks at the Bridge you'll be glad you're as warm as can be. Pretty cool, we just hope it doesn't get too warm and start a fire or something. 'Cause that'd be painful. – Nicholas Deleon

Product Page [SkyMall via Ubergizmo]

The pants are controlled by a wired remote which goes into a pocket, and they're powered by a rechargeable li-on battery. The phrase "honey, did you recharge my pants?" will probably less awkward after you pick up a pair. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Brookstone via Red Ferret via Sci Fi Tech]

Information Page [Via ubergizmo]

This will certainly be welcome inside that car that can heat up to well beyond 150 degrees on a sunny day in late July. Plus, you can use it inside the home or office, too. If you have to spend your day around those cold-blooded fussbudgets who must be from the planet Vulcan, insisting on maintaining temperatures that are well above 80 degrees inside, there's an AC adapter that lets you use this coolness indoors, too. Does it feel like it's hotter than a June bride in a feather bed were you are? Sweet, blessed relief is on the way. – Charlie White

Product Page [Smarthome, via Crowded Brain]

Reader Jason sends in this heat-changing paint from Alsa Corp. By applying a certain type of Eclipse paint, the finish will change from one color to another—white to blue, black to green, black to Apple Red Candy—whenever heat is applied.

Splashing this on your shirt and re-living the late '80s aside, the paint has a few interesting applications. Jason notes of placing these on a case or a laptop so you can know which parts of the system is the hottest. There's also uses in sinks, bathtubs, and walls, for telling the temperature at a glance. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Alsa Corp - Thanks Jason!]

What the Power-Pipe does is transfer heat from the warm water traveling inside of pipes, to the cold water flowing on the outer coils. Normally, the heat that the Power-Pipe recycles would be completely lost, costing people money in the process. The inventor of the Power-Pipe, Gerald Van Decker, figures that the typical temperature of water would rise 18 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) to 45 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius). Best of all, since the Power-Pipe uses no moving parts, maintenance is nigh non-existent, with a projected life span of more than 50 years. – Nicholas Deleon

Engineering alumnus brings energy-efficient technology to a home near you [University of Waterloo]

So if you run a MacBook for 3 hours it goes up to 101.9 degrees Fahrenheit and that, my friends, is "exceptable." Apparently having a Macintosh that can double as a space heater is a normal operating condition. – John Biggs

How Hot is the MacBook? [EGMac]

One way to solve that heat problem inside notebooks is to use lots of fans, which are noisy and take up too much space. So Intel is using a thermal sensor that determines when to throttle those memory modules, taking their speed down by 50%, from 667MHz to 333MHz. But Intel says, surprisingly, that throttle-down shouldn't have an impact on performance unless the graphics share the RAM with the CPU. Really?

Heat hits notebooks as specs rise [the Inquirer]