What if charging your cell phone was as easy as sticking it in your pocket for a few hours? That’s the premise of the Nokia E-Cu concept phone, developed by British designer Patrick Hyland. Hyland’s Nokia E-Cu (E for environment, Cu for Copper) phone features a copper exterior and a thermogenerator integrated interior that converts heat energy into electric energy.
This month HP is asking for individuals to submit stories about how they found a surprising alternative use for an everyday object. One of our writers Kevin Dalias wasn’t shy about sharing his story about how his Cisco-Linksys WRT54GL router got him a date — and no, we’re not talking about how Kevin used his new internet connection to sign up for eHarmony. Read ahead for his hilarious story about how …
Our ‘Sustainable Style Sundays’ usually features a fashion or two for the ladies, but this weekend we’re switching it up with a nod to the fellas. We all know a guy (or 50) who’s really into gadgets, but how do you make left from right in a …
Attention, chatterboxes of the world: one day you may be rewarded for your talkativeness with power to juice up your cell phones. Researchers in Korea have figured out a way to turn the main ingredient in calamine lotion (zinc oxide) into a material that converts sound waves into electricity — and eventually, it could be used to power up cell handsets.
Still struggling with water conservation when it comes to getting clean? Well, newcomer Reveeco has broken new ground in the field of shower fixtures with their ingenious EcoVéa. This innovative shower system allows for considerable water savings of up to 70 %, without the sacrifice of a comfortable flow. Using …
Soon enough, your home electrical wiring could do more than just keep electronics running–it could also act as a giant information-transmitting antenna. Researchers at the University of Washington and the Georgia Institute of Technology have leveraged electrical wiring to power wireless sensors able to keep track of a building’s temperature, light level humidity, air quality–essentially any quantifiable building function. With help from the wiring, these sensors could run for decades on a single watch battery, meaning they could even be placed in hard-to-reach areas around the home.
We love innovations that keep people out of their cars and using alternative methods of transportation, so we were intrigued to hear about the Sporting Sail. This $79 kite-like device purportedly lets skateboarders harness the wind to control their speed.
These hefty-looking machines are Green Steam Weed Killers, and they will soon be patrolling the streets of San Francisco, annihilating unwanted weeds without the use of pesticides. The City’s Park and Rec Department recently purchased one for every Park Service Area. Created in Canada, these high-tech gardening machines are the first of their kind in the United States, and we can’t wait to catch one in action!
If you ask a woman what her life staples are, the cell phone and the little black dress would probably come up in conversation. So in the spirit of streamlining, the clever designers over at CuteCircuit have fashioned a sexy little number that does duty not only as a favored basic, but also as a soft-circuitry cell phone! Dubbed …
With consumer interest in greener gadgets on the rise, Apple has refused to include the iPhone in a far-reaching green ranking system for mobile phones in the UK. The rankings convert manufacturers’ answers to a 63-question survey into a ranking of 1-5 for each device, factoring in energy use and materials among other things.
We can thank MIT for adding another piece of weaponry to our future oil spill cleanup arsenal. Dubbed the Seaswarm, this autonomous 16-foot long, 7- foot wide robot features an oil-absorbing conveyor belt covered with a nanowire mesh, carefully designed to absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil all while repelling water. But as impressive as that may sound, perhaps the best feature of this new bot is the fact that it is completely autonomous. Affixed with two square meters of solar panels, unlike traditional oil skimmers which require frequent maintenance, the Seaswarm can run at full power continuously for weeks on end. Jump ahead to see a video of this amazing robot in action.
What high-tech gizmos will we see in the kitchens of the future? IKEA may have the answers. The Swedish superstore recently drew up a concept kitchen for the year 2040, and it’s pretty wild — it features self-cleaning kitchen counters, 3D holographic displays, cabinets on rails, a “sixth-generation” iPad, remote-controlled ovens, and a host of ultra-efficient energy-saving systems.
Forget about the next iPhone or an iPad as thin as paper, Apple is pedaling in another direction these days. Just a few days ago, the company filed a new patent for an advanced smart bike now in development. Fresh off the drawing boards, and not yet named (but how cool would iCycle be?), the new smart bike will allow cyclists to link up with one another, share pertinent course data, individual health stats and much, much more. So just as Apple’s i-gadgets have dramatically changed the way consumers interact with and experience hand held tech, could the same soon be said for the bicycle?
You may think today’s kids just aren’t as crafty as you were back in the day, especially with all this entertainment technology at their fingertips – where’s the imagination?! But think again. While video games and Facebook may reign supreme for some, there are more than a handful of kids out there who’d rather put their minds to a more inspired use in their free time. As proof …
The iPhone is a sleek piece of minimalist design, and this beautiful piece of modern technology shouldn’t be spoiled by an ostentatious skin made from earth-unfriendly silicones and plastics. If you’ve been looking for a new iPhone case, why not wrap that beauty up in another beauty made 100% from bamboo? Handcrafted locally by Karvt, this new stunning …
As kids, most of us spent our days playing hopscotch, toying with action figures, maneuvering Tetris blocks, and wrestling with Donkey Kong. Not these creative tykes, however! These eight amazingly innovative kids and adolescents are inventing up a storm — whether for their own personal kicks (Hibiki Kono’s wall-scaling backpack), to help their community (Kelydra Welcker’s water-filtration method), or to save the world (Javier Fernández-Han’s algae-driven super-system). Need some inspiration today? Click through our slideshow of amazing kid inventors for a look at the creative solutions the next generation is conjuring up for this one.
It’s common for green-minded gadget-lovers to rely on solar power to charge up cell phones, music players, and other electronics. But the latest solar-powered gadget is nothing if not unusual. Micro-Kitty — the world’s first solar vibrator — can keep going for two and a half hours when fully juiced up from the sun.
Earlier this summer we reported on One Laptop per Child’s (OLPC) efforts to create an affordable device able to bring technology into the hands of children in developing nations. Since then news has broken that the humanitarian organization has teamed up with India’s Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to realize this venture across the country. But while OLPC’s initial goal was create a tablet costing just $75, together with the MHRD, the pair is aiming to create a device with a price point of less that half that, ringing in at just $35.
Even if you don’t consider yourself a full-fledged greenie, solar power is worth looking into when it comes to gadgetry. Solar powered gadgets are super-convenient – allowing you access to a renewable electricity source on the go, and they are battery-saving, time-saving and oftentimes life-saving when you’re in a bind! If you’ve ever experienced the agony …
Technology (and sloppy planning) may have gotten us into BP’s oil mess, but it also proving instrumental in the cleaning process. The Natural Resources Defense Council and Oceana just launched an underwater oil-tracking robot, dubbed “Waldo”, off the Florida Keys in an attempt to protect the area against encroaching oil plumes.
The premise of any science fiction movie worth its salt is robots operating without human supervision for long stretches of time. (Those pesky robots do get into trouble, don’t they?) Researchers at the UK’s Bristol Robotics Laboratory have brought us a step closer to that prospect with the Ecobot III, the first robot capable of powering itself by consuming and excreting biomass that can run unsupervised for a full week. The bot uses a set of 48 microbial fuel cells to break down its food, extracting electrons from the metabolic process to run ultra low-power circuitry.
German publishing company Hamburger Automatenverlag found a brilliant new use for old cigarette vending machines — instead of icky cigarettes, the re-purposed “machines” carry a series of condensed novels, photo books, graphic novels and collections of poetry by local authors. The new initiative for book distribution is a throwback to the conventional vending machine and promotes literacy in a clever and charming way.
If you’re part of a family that’s really into technology and the bounty of entertainment options it has to offer, then the Roku Box may just be the thing you’ve been looking for to streamline your entertainment system. This hardworking gadget is the perfect way to compact your home entertainment into a lightweight …
