A robust simple and low cost electric vehicle that can be assembled anywhere in the world. Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the abundance of new Technology Like all those relentlessly Innovative Devices with their hundreds of apps. For wearables Computer Systems that literally get on your back for the never ending flow of streaming Services Sometimes you might wish yourself back in a simpler age. Now google engineering is aiming to make that possible. Once upon a time this mobile phone was like cutting edge of high tech. 20 years of sweeping the market but nothing a 3310. 00 was rereleased in 2017 it still has none of todays standard apps but its battery runs for almost one month between charges and it only costs 50 euros but Many Companies arent willing to risk relaunching back to basics models not even a former market leader. Because its often just the fairest devaluing your own brand i thought because the customers could think its no longer a top brand or because theyre worried that customers might stop buying the expensive model when theres a budget in available. In fact the principle of frugal innovation can be applied to many sectors such as no frills flights or furniture and even some big name hotel chains have been stripping that service back to the basics just a bed and breakfast but a cheap price doesnt necessarily mean frugal. Cheap product important questions arent considered like who is my target demographic what do they need or really appreciate. Instead the focus is on how to make something is inexpensively as possible by saving on materials with a frugal innovation youre looking very closely at who the product is aimed at you cant cater to everyone. Many researches are convinced the market for back to Basics Innovations will continue to grow thats good news for people who are happy to make do with less and enjoy a low tech lifestyle. But no other example. The world simplest electric vehicle. This is the a car and electrically powered vehicle stripped down to the basics designed to be assembled anywhere in the world. Its simplicity makes the a car cheaper than regular electric vehicles. Sascha that is co director of the german startup behind the project. Will leave out all the frills you dont absolutely need like air com heating and any other special features for the interior of a car the bodywork consists of simple flat sheet metal which means it doesnt cost a great deal to produce. d a car was designed with africa in mind its a tough multipurpose vehicle that costs less than 10000. 00 euros in a merging economies like ghana where the car was tested theres growing demand for products that fill the gap between. I see luxury cars and cheap imports its common for several people to share a car. Many people there cant afford to be a go the picture we have of these countries is often not an accurate one things work a bit differently the owners rarely the vehicles user you could call it a form of car sharing would no frills products for new markets researchers have coined the term innovation to describe the development theyve seen a growing number of companies decide to design simpler products. For other things in the works on this these innovations are high in quality but reasonably priced they achieve that by pairing things down to the basic features and functions. Rather than trying to offer everything a regular car has they stick to certain clear cut features that the target group needs. That allows them to bridge the gap between low price and high quality. These glasses are also simple in design but high in quality they were also designed for developing countries the basic wire frame can be made locally the materials cost just 1. 00 the glasses sell for the equivalent of one to 3 days wages making them fordable for many. But uncomplicated robust products enjoyed growing demand in wealthier countries to something be a car design as soon discovered. We were never even looking at the European Market that came as a result of inquiries from gardening companies and organic farmers who said if you have a simple inexpensive electric vehicle why not sell it in europe as well. The startup hopes to have a car in Series Production next year for its developers the car is no longer just a Research Project they founded a company that has 50 employees of whom 30 are students. They hope that sales in europe will make the Company Profitable the 1st 1000 a cast to be my. If that will cost between 20 and 25000 euros the profits will be used to enable the Technology Transfer to other countries. The traffic with its congestion emissions and Noise Pollution is a problem all over the world. Quiet and clean electric vehicles could help. But the wrong materials they use bring new problems extracting these resources often takes place under inhumane conditions and causes ecological damage. So in germany the search is on for alternatives to these controversial commodities. Researchers here at the Helmholtz Institute in southern germany are working on batteries that can run on apple peel the can use some more metal yells for chanting death to finance. The aim is to develop a substitute for the lithium used in electric car batteries lithium is stored at the cathode the positive and graphite at the end no the negative and when the batteries recharged lithium ion flow to the anode. As it discharges the flow back in the process generating electricity could the lithium be replaced by sodium. Saddam is the 1st substitute because its very close to the doom are you so we only need to change those light to. The very a blunt i mean youre going to get sodium practically everywhere from the seawall there or from soul to mines. The sodium batteries are built in these chambers where there is 0 humidity even the tiniest amount of moisture would damage the batteries. The new devices are wired up to be continuously charged and discharged and they have another surprising advantage. For saddam what we can use that should be a kind of low cost car which is called our government and this can be produced by simply by you always like to have boats for example of what can be defined. By those all the bio was materials peanuts shell i would say working with. Apple peel is of particular interest to the scientists because it contains a large amount of carbon which is a good conductor of electricity they just need to remove the water from the peel to prepare it for the battery. Here the anode the negative and still contains graphite in a very pure form thats very expensive. But the researchers think it could easily be replaced by bio waste. They still dont know exactly what happens inside the batteries with these new materials and how the sodium reacts with the other chemicals but they have the technology to perform a kind of autopsy on the dead batteries. We should they stay on the set base and the town the electrons coming out from the surface and these electrons are like fingerprints of each chemical that are present on the surface and thats sense because because my eyes whats going on in this set that thats very general and beaten up to my eyes the chemistry of batteries they tell. The sodium batteries are already working quite well also as button cells they could be ready for mass production in just a few years but theyre. Less powerful than lithium batteries so electric cars would need a lot more of them which would take up more space. Thered been even the already implemented. So you make a top. Car with. 4. City mobility and would be. Hopelessly stationary storage just for the position of. The institute is also testing another element that would be even better magnesium like sodium its easier to mine than lithium and its in abundant supply all over the world. Magnesium is a dream solution it could deliver almost twice the electrical charge of its rival lithium. Is much higher than the density of your model so if we will be able to develop. By the race then it would be much smaller than the league of these. 3 mini. And it forms a year which is money so once these later this form. Will become so you knocked. The team is testing new materials to prevent that but its likely to take another 10 to 15 years before magnesium batteries go on the market. In the side by fantasy film black Panther Hyperloop is already a reality transports passengers at the speed of sound and is not only faster but cheaper and more environmentally friendly than conventional transport systems. And University Team in the netherlands is working to make fact out of fiction and their hyper motivated. The central train station in cologne germany. A noisy departure point for a quarter of a 1000000 travelers every day. You know theres almost Nothing Better than riding on one of germanys high speed rail trains these things can go up to 300. 00 clunkers per hour you know would be even better if the ride were smoother and a whole lot faster. Lighting on magnets hyperloop trains could in theory connect all of europe in just minutes thats the vision of the Hyperloop Team at the Delft University of technology in the netherlands. But could researchers in the Old University building really lay the foundation for europes Transportation Network of the future. Remake of the north is a Civil Engineer and she is a very clear vision of what europes Hyperloop Network could look like with the hyperloop you dont feel any borders in europe anymore you can just go to a station hop into a hyperloop and be anywhere in europe in no time right now you either have to sit through our long journeys and train or youre fast with a plane but you still have to wait extremely long before you can actually board your plane and it just makes travel way more uncomfortable than it should be and then it can be. So is all of this just a pipe dream or will this here one day really be able to transport people at speeds of 1200 kilometers per hour. Tim leads the full Scale Development team and walks us through the idea. So tim what is a hyperloop loop is what we call the 5th mode of transportation the future of transportation its actually a sort of train that you put inside it you release the air in order to create a near fake you so that you dont have much air resistance and its magnetically so it floats around trick in order to diminish the rolling resistance and thats when you can create very high speeds and be fairly High Energy Efficiency so this this thing here floats how does how does it float where does it float over here you see the magnets and right now there are not magnets inside theres. A race and a very strong magnet but the good thing about holding a race is that the magnetic force is going to the. Down side so depression in the upper hand doesnt notice that its magnetic so youre going to feel like youre floating exactly. Whole back arrays are specific arrangements of a series of magnets to provide a stronger more unified magnetic field. The radio on the track repels the magnets on the train which makes the train appear to float on the electric motor propels the train above the track. The goal of the delft team is to have a european Hyperloop Network in place by 2050. Its a gargantuan task. Up stairs a few dozen young people are dedicating themselves to getting a small pod ready for a race in 2019. Everyone involved in this project here are they all taking a year off to do this how does it work most of us are were with 39. 00 engineers in total of which 32. 00 are full time most of us have finished our bachelor stuff. The 1st 3 year over education and are now taking a gap year to get a little bit more practical experience so were here in 96. 00 every day were also really looking forward to competing in this face competition so we really have to work hard to make that happen but everyone in here is so extremely motivated to reach that goal and its really motivating to for yourself to Work Together with such a group of people that are all willing to give their time for Something Like this what the team itself has a new task ahead of them no one knows whether europe is actually going to get a Hyperloop Network but if we do europeans will be moving a whole lot faster in the future and it will be a lot more why cant. We asked you on facebook whether you think hyperloop could solve the transportation problems in your country. Miguel from colombia writes that despite hyper loops technical challenges the system of super fast tunnel transit would be a Huge Development boost in a mountainous country like kids. To sorry from indonesia sees a different problem he says if the government is banking on cars even the most highly developed system of public transport wont help. On a valentino thinks that hyperloop will remain a utopia because building it would be much too expensive. But arthur responds that even if it sounds like a futuristic idea at some point our fossil fuels will run out and well have to find new clean technologies. And ricardo reports from mexico that a hyperloop financed by musk isnt planning it would make the trip to mexico city in just 40 minutes. If its red white i mean but. Do you. You have a science question send it to us as a video text or voice mail if we answer it on the show well send you a little surprise as a thank you come on just ask. Your guidance online and on twitter and facebook this weeks viewer question comes from okello mickey i knew well in uganda. How do Autonomous Cars avoid accidents. And Autonomous Vehicle constantly monitors traffic with cameras and a variety of senses its claimed they can recognise potential hazards and respond to them even better than a human driver can. A stereo camera to text road markings pedestrians and other road juices. Radar senses scan the road as far as 200 meters ahead of the car. And there is a scans everything in 180. 00 degree field of view. And ultrasonic senses measure the distance to hazards and other cars using sound waves that bounce back off those objects. And they also draw on the latest digital map updates from the car sat nav system. So its all in full profile right. Well in fog a camera can only see as well as a human can heavy rain and snow fall also interfere with laser and radar bins. Most of the fully Autonomous Vehicles have been on the road only in sunny california and even then theyve had a few accidents along the way. One woman who suddenly appeared out of the dark much like this was even killed by an Autonomous Car similar accidents happen with regular vehicles as well. Self driving cars will use Artificial Intelligence to learn to respond to sudden hazards the way a human would and that will take time. But theres little doubt that Autonomous Vehicles will eventually make traffic safe and about 90 percent of accidents are caused by human error and those wont happen in fully Autonomous Vehicles. They cant fall asleep at the wheel dont drive under the influence of alcohol and wont become aggressive either. Many people complain that Autonomous Cars will make driving boring but in all likelihood passengers will find other ways to stay entertained. 5 g. Promises super fast internet and stable connections that will enable more and more devices to communicate wirelessly with one another. The car industry has also discovered the potential of the mobile internet. Field in a test track near austin its home to germanys 1st working 5 g. Transmitter Mast Technology that is claimed to make mobile connectivity as fast as fiber optic cables that work for smartphones with 4 g. And not exactly slow coaches either. From. 5 g. Is necessary to enable real Time Communication and Data Transfer such as an industry where robots have to Work Together and synchronize team of our own road traffic or Cars Exchange information in real time to warn each other of hazards. Network providers have discovered the business potential in cars. They want to make instant vehicle to vehicle communication the new benchmark. Current mobile connectivity is too slow and too unreliable. In future everyone will be communicating with everyone else and traffic cars will become 4 wheeled smartphones fitted with a sim card similar to smartphones now but traffic lights pedestrians cyclists and others will also be sharing information with each other. Researchers at the Technical University of arc and have built a test car. Here in their outdoor lab theyre probing the possibilities of autonomous driving with 5 g. Here for sure moment were looking at 2 core aspects right now for one the safety the most important aspect for us you know we can use 5 g. Mobile performance to make car safer because were accessing an Additional Data source and then theres the improved comfort of Autonomous Cars which allow the driver to do Something Else besides driving. The car will be equipped with a kind of radio based protective shield system will receive constant updates on weather and traffic conditions and information from other vehicles. If a car ahead spots a hazard the information will be shared with vehicles behind it which can automatically break in time to avoid accidents. You know every driver knows what its like to be behind a truck and not be able to see whether you can overtake it. In the future mobile communication will allow us to look through the truck would be able to see if theres a car coming the other way whether its safe to pass it. Until recently mobile telecommunications and car money factoring had relatively little in common but now Automation Experts are thrilled by the prospect. Marrying the 2. 5 g. Is not only faster with barely any time lag its also more robust and that makes it more suitable for use in safety features. View for mobile Technology Allows us to effectively see around corners thats such a huge advantage that in future it will definitely make sense to transmit a signal that makes you visible. So 5 g. Networks could potentially alert us to hidden hazards as well. As Something Like a pedestrian around the corner smart phone signal can be detected. This is. The signal that someone is about to cross the road could be transmitted via 5 g. The vehicle could be automatically brought to a halt to avoid hitting the pedestrian. Thats the theory and least but will it work in reality that test answers the question. d whats interesting is that the pedestrian isnt spotted by the driver the human. Any sense of a systems like cameras or radar. The pedestrian isnt visible out of sight around the corner. But infrastructure analytics and 5 g. Communication can transmit that missing data to the vehicle. On line highways with 5 g. Coverage promise to be safe and when accidents do happen the response of Emergency Services will also be optimized. In super designed the future approaching ambulances will automatically warn vehicles ahead of them which will also be told how to form an emergency lane quickly and efficiently. In other words the autopilot steps in whether you like it or not your vehicle will pull over to one side on its own. Denises ferguson vocally the next step will be to leave the testing ground and head out into the city with real traffic and real people. To begin with testing will be restricted to small 5 g. s arms such as limited stretches of highway for now blanket 5 g. Coverage will still well be on the horizon. Thats all for this week so next time on tamara today how data could be stored 4000 years on d. N. A. Not only is the tiny its also extremely durable. Then to find out more c assume that by. The artist. Was oscar winning director carlin and. Her films go straight to your car because she shows the year old crew childrens eyes. The kind joy come and sing on society the true children its great fun. Spotlight on carlino me. Any interest. Coming up on. What if christmas stories real. Bad and beloved characters strolled along the streets of. This to only be days into. Each Christmas Season the point city in the netherlands transforms into the enchanting 19th century world of charles dickens. Merry christmas to your romance 30. What secrets lie behind the small. Discover new adventures in 360 degree. And explore as an aging World Heritage sites. W World Heritage 316 get a map now. Closely. Listen carefully to. The soon. To be a good. Match. Discovered. Subscribe to the documentary on you tube. 50 years of religions for peace and from many different faiths are working together toward a common goal the peaceful resolution of most religious conflicts. Now the female members of religions for peace from the middle east are demanding a larger. Own Common Ground is empowering women giving them the rule making them agents of change. The female peacemakers storms january 5th. At a little bit. This is to give you news these are our top stories the company laying pipes of the north stream 2 gas pipeline between russia and germany says its halted work swiss Dutch Company all cs says its taken the step in anticipation of u. S. Sanctions u. S. President donald trump approved those sanctions on friday. British lawmakers have backed Prime MinisterBoris Johnsons e. U. Withdrawal though the u. K