Tesla Motors has been promised $40 million in financing in order to avoid bankruptcy and insolvency. The electric car manufacturer has had a tough couple of months. First, there was a pretty huge round of layoffs and then their Detroit office closed down. So, any good news is a welcome change of pace.

Elon Musk, the owner of the company, admitted just a few weeks ago that Tesla Motors had as little as $9 million in the bank, so this new investment will go a long way to making sure orders get filled and employees get paid. Here is to hoping they see brighter days in the future.

Tesla has revealed a finalized photo of their 4-door, all-electric Model S sports sedan, shown above. The car was designed completely by Tesla and will get around 240 miles per charge. It will also go from zero to sixty in approximately six seconds. The Model S will be released sometime in 2010 and will cost about $60,000.

Click this link to read a writeup about the car from Road & Track Magazine.

Click on the Picutre of Tesla and check out the cool vid.

Twin Solid State Musical Tesla coils playing Mario Bros theme song at the 2007 Lightning on the Lawn Teslathon sponsored by DC Cox (Resonance Research Corp) in Baraboo WI. The music that you hear is coming from the sparks that these two identical high power solid state Tesla coils are generating. There are no speakers involved. The Tesla coils stand 7 feet tall and are each capable of putting out over 12 foot of spark. They are spaced about 18 feet apart. The coils are controlled over a fiber optic link by a single laptop computer. Each coil is assigned to a midi channel which it responds to by playing notes that are programed into the computer software.

Today I was going to write a nice article on the Wii or maybe Apple’s new operating system and it’s pros and cons. Then I got creative and thought…mmm, how about writing about robotics or even the progress of Holograms? Yet, none of this really interests me today. Call it being uninspired, but this stuff is BORING! Most of the time tech and science are really exciting (see yesterdays article on Tesla).

So, I thought back and remembered what I used to do early in the mornings, then it hit me. CARTOONS!!! So, instead of writing a long, boring article about what everyone is writing about, I’ll leave you with  one of the greatest science cartoons ever created. For those of you who actually care, it’s from the man himself: Walt Disney. Just click on the link below because for some reason this blog manager won’t let me embed it directly onto this page. Go figure.

Life on mars Video courtesy of You Tube.

May the Force be with you.

Ok, now this is a really cool story. A group at the renowned research group at MIT were able to light a 60watt light bulb wirelessly from a distance of about 2 meters. If the MIT scientists have their way, in a few-year’s time we will all be charging our cellular phones, MP3 players and laptops using wireless technology without ever worrying about running out of power.

This idea isn’t new. Around the late 1800’s Nikola Tesla (inventor if the radio and noted Edison rival) had ideas and prototypes  of wireless electricity (pictured below). How does it work? I’m not going to give you all the scientific details (which you can find here)  but it involves electromagnetic fields that are picked up by copper discs and converted into electricity.

You have seen this type of stuff before back in grammar school, when the science teacher wrapped a bunch of copper wire to a battery and created a magnetic field? Yeah, it’s kind of like that but in reverse.

Imagine it, no more worrying about decorating your home or apartment according to blocking the light plugs. Place that lamp anywhere! Put the TV as far into the corner as you want! It’s a cool idea and I’m glad the visions of Tesla are now becoming a reality.

may the force (no pun intended) be with you.