Hm... survivalists have used tarps for a very long time to do the exact same thing.

Military (and scouts/campers) use pills to clean "any" water to make it drinkable, which is probably slightly better solution for catastrophe survivors... but this solution could be helpful to people who have problems with supplies in general (3rd world countries), where they can't get hold of enough food, much less stashes of cleaning tablets for water.

Though yes, the idea behind this isn't exactly new, this solution is. It seems to be able to serve for a longer periods of time, it's made from cheap materials and given there are so many people supporting (directly or not) people in these conditions (lack of supplies/survivors/...), this should be affordable. Nice design by the way =P

This video is only 8 years old.
Perhaps a more recent follow up could be posted.

Why have we not seen this before?

Maybe the uploader knows, but we, mere mortals don't know who prevented it to come out big...
So, who was it???

Good idea but the hard part is to make people use it. Solar ovens have been existing for years and are designed to fight against deforestation in arid areas but local populations don't change their habits that easily.

will not work, needs a lot of time
also he said within 24 hours, but sun is not there the wh0le 24 hour of the day.

you can even use it in the desert, you only have to take a pee in it.

This might be pretty obvious, but why don't they make a really large version that would provide water for the whole village!

I wonder how many lives this has saved. That thing must have saved thousands of lives. Brilliant!

wow, that's really smart thinking.
but 6-7 cups in 24 hours? people will die dehydrating.
but for the design, it is the best.

really is brilliant! CAn save many poeple...

there was an report a few days ago on german TV
http://www.prosieben.at/tv/galileo/videos/clip/230858-watercone-die-geschichte-einer-genialen-erfindung-1.2945821/

#11
They can each use 2 or three and get 2-3 times the amount.

be careful it's not a really good water, there is no minerals in it, but it's better than polluted water.

#11, don't forget it only works 12 ours a day. so for 5 glasses you need it to work 2 days. (in case of sun powered)

Ancient Fremen secret

#17 I hope that you remember something from elementary school physics classes. Water is always evaporating even when its colder, also when its freezing.

Thank God for German Genius!

So where is all the money we send over there? the supplies ? and also,why if they can introduce a water cone,can't they provide the guy a decent microphone ? the sound is terrible.

what about the bacteria that will develop in it since its already there in the lake or sea and heating helps the bacteria to even grow faster, ?

this solution is only suitable to remove salt, which is not there in the lakes. bacteria is the enemy, well unless you boil the water but again they are poor

Saviour of the world with astonishing idea for clean drinking water.....

There is a major problem with the design of the cone. Considered that the condensed water from the evaporation is cleaned (probably clean of bacterias from the lake water but what about airborne one?), there is no guarantee that the collected water is cleaned. This is because the cone itself may not be cleaned!! Especially if the cone is used repeatedly to collect clean water this way. What are the chances that a single drop of water from the lake contaminated the cone? The simplest and surest means to ensure safe drinking water is to boil it for at least 5mins. Collecting the evaporation and hoping that the cone to stay clean is very risky if not misleading in the purity of the water. But if there is no means of boiling water, then this would be a great alternative.