Archive for the ‘Green Gadgets’ Category
Monday, December 1st, 2008 |
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Assuming our eco-friendly attitude in front of the people seems to be the latest trend nowadays, even if, deep down our souls, we don’t really give a damn on the environment. Treehuggers would say that, after all, it doesn’t matter whether you’re truly into this issue or not, but let’s face it, when your actions are based on strong beliefs, there’s nothing to stay in your way.
Saving electricity is good and I agree. But when it comes to energy consumption, we’re all a little bit indifferent. The only moment when we become conscious about it is when we have to pay for what we’ve consumed. The electric bill is what scares the hell out of us.
So, just in case you need some help in order to monitor the electricity consumption, this high-tech flower might be the perfect solution for you. Created by the British designer Carl Smith, this prototype design, dubbed the Wilting Flower, is a fake plant placed in a vase that is meant to let you know when your energy use is too high. What does it do? It wilts, in rainbow-hued LED lights.
Therefore, you can call this device a visual reminder of how much energy you’re wasting on a regular basis. The best thing about it is that when you’re not using an exaggerated amount of energy, the flower has its petals open, letting you know you’re doing it right.
But how does it work? There’s a wireless transmitter clipped to the main electricity source which keeps an eye on the information you need. Then, according to the amount of electricity used, the flower changes its color, from blue, to yellow, and then to red, the final phase, when the lights go down.
“The flower rewards people for consuming low amounts of energy by standing tall, bright and open and punishes users by closing up, wilting and dying. Other products typically display energy use on a small LCD unit which is not very attractive and can be hard to interpret”, said the designer. On the other hand, he puts his hopes on people becoming fond of their flowers and trying to keep them in a good shape.
Unfortunately for environmentalists, the Wilting Flower is in its concept phase, but we’re sure hoping that the prototype will hit the mass production in the near future. Still, it’s expected to be purchased for approximately $90, if it goes on sale.
(Source: Dvice)
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Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 |
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I’m not sure why people don’t really care about the environment and why they don’t seem to understand that this is a very important task for everyone of us. More than that, ensuring ourselves and our children a better life shouldn’t be something like a burden or a sacrifice.
Preparing for those times when man has completely ravaged our planet, the robot research laboratory at Korea’s Chonnam National University has managed to develop a robotic plant, a “green” robot that surprisingly functions just like its biological counterpart – as it has humidifying, oxygen-producing, aroma-emitting and kinetic functions. I don’t think that this robotic plant will be more popular than the real thing, but it is very good to know that we can rely on this – just in case there is a nuclear fallout sometime in the future – to provide us with oxygen. Because after such an apocalyptic scenario, chances are there won’t be any sunlight at all due to the dust kicked up and plants will die as they won’t be able to perform the photosynthesis process, providing vital oxygen for the atmosphere.
The robot was developed using characteristics of plants normally grown for ornamental purposes. It is 130 cm tall and 40 cm in diameter and consists of a pot, a stem and five buds of a flower reminiscent of a rose of Sharon. According to the plant’s creators the plant responds to stimuli from outside, such as movement by humans or animals, and bends towards the sound source and spreading its “bloom”. This happens when a person comes within a 40 cm radius of the flower and when the person leaves, the plant returns to its original state.
The plant also trembles gently when exposed to loud noises or high vocal tones and dances when music is played. If a person’s voice becomes louder than a certain level, the flower buds will come into bloom and the stem shakes slightly to suggest a greeting. When the room lights up, the buds open and close, and when music is played, the plant dances.
Users could build a “robot garden” of several robots embedded with a ubiquitous networking system or use them for indoor interior decoration. “American universities and Japanese manufacturers have produced toy-like robot plants, but ours has various new kinetic and electronic functions”, project leader Park Jong-oh said. “It’s a fresh attempt to introduce the concept of plants, rather than humans or animals, to robot making”.
There are no specifications about the release date or the price of the Robotic Plant.
(Source: Dvice)
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Monday, October 20th, 2008 |
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My recently purchased Olympus digital camera is an alkaline batteries eater, there’s no doubt about it, as the device can be revived with four AA batteries. Imagine I’m very enthusiastic about taking pictures therefore I threw away dozens of these power sources. I know, it this new green era we live in, it’s almost the same as chopping down like five old-growth oak trees or something, but throwing them away was handier, if I may say so. It was so damn easy.
But if you get to think about it for a couple of minutes, you’d realize that there isn’t much to do with those dead batteries. Yes, they are really bad for the environment if we don’t dispose of them properly. The right thing to do is to send them to special recycling centers, but this would mean too much of a trouble, right? Because we’re all too indolent to just have a couple of minutes to properly recycle alkaline batteries. So hundreds of tons end up in landfills where their toxic innards seep into the earth.
But you know what? Those batteries you’re throwing away may not have enough energy left to power your gadgetry, but it does have enough juice to light up a low-energy LED. This is the idea South Korean designer Sung Woo Park and Sunshee Kim based their conceptual Energy Seed on. This is a stylish street lamp powered entirely by discarded batteries. The whole point is to encourage people to throw their batteries away into the Energy Seed. There’s a slot for nearly every size battery. They are then stacked upon each other and the combined power works together to power a street lamp.
Americans, for example, purchase nearly 3 billion dry-cell batteries every year to power their gadgets, many of them being tossed after a single use. And this is bad, don’t you think? Nevertheless, Park thinks this is only a temporary solution, saying: “Of course once the bins are full, we’re left with the same original problem. Somebody has to collect all those spent batteries and recycle them”.
Energy Seed is a cool idea, undoubtedly, but it’s not terribly practical. Hopefully, this isn’t sustainable either, because with a little bit of luck, we won’t have alkaline much longer. Still, until that moment, Energy Seed is a way for us to recycle alkaline batteries, or at least makes us conscious about the consequences involved.
Seriously now, this idea makes a lot of sense, don’t you think? Let’s just hope that Energy Seed will overstep the bounds imposed by its conceptual character. Someday.
(Source YankoDesign.com)
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Friday, October 17th, 2008 |
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Being on the threshold of winter should make us think a little bit more about the way we’re going to provide our homes with enough heat in order to create a cozy environment. But another issue we should be concerned about is the fact that, with the gas prices still unstable, it’s very important to monitor our thermostat. This isn’t a very pleasant thing to do, whatsoever, but thanks to all the smart home systems developed by ingenious manufacturers and available nowadays on the market, we can easily relieve this burden.
These smart home systems I was earlier talking about are a great helping hand when it comes to reducing energy costs by giving us real information about our home’s energy and making it easy to conserve. The only disadvantage of such a full home integration is that they are pretty expensive.
How about taking some smaller steps in order to make a big difference with the new Ecobee Smart Thermostat, a cool device that not only has a nice futuristic look compared to your current thermostat, but it also helps you save money on the power bill. This is a programmable thermostat that went to the next level and got even smarter. Ecobee has an integrated programmable smart thermostat provided with a WiFi-enabled touchscreen that automatically sets your household to conserve energy at the press of a button.
The thermostat is actually very easy to install and program, as you can use the touchscreen or the Internet. This way, you can get updates via Internet anytime, anywhere, so you can adjust you heating and cooling settings to fit better your energy-saving patterns. In addition, you’re connected to your utility company, which allows you to obtain alerts, updates and ways to reduce your bill by reducing your energy use.
This part of online functionality is what makes the device a whole lot more interesting, because when you’ve run out the door and suddenly realize you’ve forgotten to turn the heat off, just log onto their website and change your settings there. All you have to do is to register you Smart Thermostat on the Ecobee website in order to access its control panel from a web portal.
There’s also a “Quick Save” button, where the thermostat will automatically change the settings to optimize energy conservation, which means that the system will run based on what settings are optimal and efficient.
This device features a 3.5 inch color touch screen LCD display and promises to reduce 20 percent of energy consumed. Another option is the ZigBee (a home networking system standard) expansion slots in case you want to use the system for home automation in the future.
President and CEO Stuart Lombard said that “The Ecobee philosophy is ‘green made easy’! We can make a positive environmental impact if we make conservation a simple and easy choice”.
Ecobee is available for pre-order, with a delivery of estimated time of arrival of early 2009 and can be purchased for an amount of $385. The company says you’ll earn your investment back in energy savings within the first 12 to 18 months. There’s no doubt about it, this Ecobee device will complete your collection of smart home systems.
(Source Gizmodo.com)
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Saturday, October 4th, 2008 |
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Pollution has become one of the major problems of the century. In order to diminish the unexpected level it reached during the last years something has to be done. This is the reason we should take responsibility for our actions and try not to treat superficially the matter.
There’s no surprise for anyone that manufacturing electronic devices is a source of a certain amount of pollution. This is where Dell wants to interfere urged by the desire of making things right. The company understands that design and technical features aren’t enough anymore and there’s a great necessity of fusing the green element with current technology and style. When Dell commissioned a design contest for green computers, called Dell Regeneration Competition Design, Luis Luna, a Mexican industrial designer, thought of a concept that treated the term “green” literally. The result was the “O” Project, inspired by the oxygen and the cycle of photosynthesis and designed to reduce that tiny amount of CO2 that computers generate during their production and life use.
The main idea of this project is to design a CPU taking more into consideration the “green thinking” and “life style” and therefore having a decorative piece which is meant to eliminate the abundant visual noise that regular PCs create.
The O Project is a design concept featuring a couple of round PCs that take Dell’s bamboo-clad Studio Hybrid to the next level, adding a place to grow a small plant inside. We must agree the fact that the idea of such a “plant” is quite interesting, but imagine a focused fellow completely metamorphosed every time he hears the words he loves most “EA Sports, to the game!” could remember to water the plant instead of running desperately after a ball. In the best case, he’d remember, but rushing to get his job done, he’d spill drops of water over the PC. Therefore, the O PC would better be waterproof, if it wants to live a peaceful life!
The PC features a biodegradable polymer skin based on cornstarch and bamboo, while the computer’s components can be easily recycled or re-utilized in case you change your mind and don’t want it as another accessory in your house.
Maybe it’s not something we are to see in the near future, but if the O Project gets us thinking green for a little bit and we become aware of the harm we involuntarily do to the environment, then a purpose has been reached.
(Source Dvice)
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