This week’s Engineering Update from ECN is brought to you by Mouser Electronics, the electronic components distributor with the widest selection of the newest products. In this week’s headlines:

Mobile 3D, Without the Glasses: A new screen protector from Nanovue, called the EyeFly, gives mobile devices a glasses-free 3D display. Made out of a thin, transparent film, the nano-engineered EyeFly is essentially a piece of plastic film with thousands of finite lenses on the surface that use nano-imprinting technology.

Capturing Energy From Waste Heat: A new process for thermoelectrics has been discovered by the Fraunhofer Institute. Through the use of a technology similar to inkjet printing, scientists created flexible, thin sheets of thermoelectric generators, called TEGs.

New Lightweight Electric Car: Detroit Electric has reportedly created their first purely electric sports car. The SP.01 is an open-topped roadster with a mid-mounted motor and lightweight battery pack … but it’s still no Knight Rider.

Longer-Lasting Batteries: Researchers have reported significant progress in the development of longer-lasting batteries. Scientists at the Institute for Material and Beam Technology in Dresden have reported the production of a long-lasting, cost-efficient lithium-sulfur battery that was shown to increase the lifespan of button cells by up to 1,400 cycles.

Charging Phones Without Electricity: A new concept has been developed for charging your cell-phone battery when there is no source of electricity. With a soon-to-be funded project on Kickstarter, the SOSCharger works through the use of a crank that generates power manually when there is a lack of a traditional power source. It can also help avoid potentially deadly Spaghetti Western-like showdowns when hunting for outlets.

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