HP and Arizona State University’s Flexible Display Center have partnered together to develop an affordable, flexible electronic display made entirely out of plastic. The lightweight plastic design makes the displays extremely portable, virtually unbreakable and more energy efficient than typical available on the market today. This technology’s potential applications are extraordinary, from the development of electronic paper to any number of consumer electronics from laptops to digital cameras. HP and the FDC created the flexible displays by using self-aligned imprint lithography (SAIL) technology that was invented by HP Labs. HP says SAIL technology is considered self aligned because the...
Shred Easy is a name that’s pretty much self-explanatory - it specializes in churning out shredders that are an important fixture at any office, gobbling up important information and making sure that said document suffers a similar fate as Humpty Dumpty, where nobody who takes a look at the post-shredding handiwork will be able to piece together the original. This time round, Shred Easy has unveiled yet another member to its range of mobile shredding devices known as the Urban Shredder. It is tipped that the Urban Shredder will be a common sight in city centers sometime in the near...
Eco Factor: Water bottles made from recycled materials. Statistics show that 60 million plastic bottles are thrown away daily in the United States, 86% out of them become garbage and hence a threat to the planet. While convincing people not to use plastic bottles will take a couple of decades, the best idea is to sell stuff in bottles that are ecofriendly. Brandimage have created 360 Bottle made from renewable and recycled paper. These paper bottles are not only good enough for water but for any liquid. The company has received an IDEA award for the design. The Dark...
photo: Julian Last month British newspaper The Guardian started a greenwashing column to turn the spotlight on the dubious claims of environmental benefits that some companies put forth. In the latest of these columns, Fred Pearce takes on BP, showing how that company hasn’t really gotten ‘beyond petroleum’ at all. Check it out, as similar claims can be made about pretty much every fossil fuel company: Despite any efforts they’ve made in ......
I have been convinced of the environmental benefits of bag-in-box wines, as they carry more wine in less packaging than any other form. (glass is heavy and is usually down-cycled, tetra-paks are light but not very green). Unfortunately, the selection is limited, the packaging is cheezy and the contents are a blend of who knows what. One Australian reader says they are known locally as "goon bags. You can get 4L of truly awful wine for about eight bucks thanks to these things." But in Germany, there appears to be ......
Shopping online is one of the great luxuries of modern life and it has its environmental benefits. It keeps us from using our cars and, in the case of online-only stores, removes the need for energy-demanding, brick-and-mortar stores. But when you factor in the fuel-using, emission-producing trucks that deliver the products, it becomes clear that online shopping has its environmental cost. Luckily, delivery companies are starting to look for solutions. UPS announced yesterday that it will be the first delivery company to use hydraulic hybrid vehicles (HHVs), a diesel hybrid technology that replaces the conventional drivetrain and transmission with a...
Last Friday, Oprah introduced the Amazon Kindle as her "new favorite thing in the world," announcing a $50 discount on purchases made by November 1 using the code "OPRAHWINFREY." If history is any indication, the gadget is headed up for an up-swing in sales. But can Oprah do for the Kindle what she's done for her book club selections? Even with the promotional discount, the gadget costs more than $300 and the e-reader has had a tough time catching on. The environmental benefits are obvious, but it's hard to justify the purchase when checking out books from the library is...
The Blade might clean up your dirty poisoned gas pumped out by your car, cutting CO2 by a third and overall pollution by more than half, and it might even give you better mileage. But the reason that this eco-friendly add-on might be a success is that it looks badass. As a teenager, I bought a big fat chrome extension for the tailpipe of my Morris Minor just to make it look cool (it didn't). If it had given me these environmental benefits too then... Well, I wouldn't have cared. I was a selfish teenager. But neither would it...
Telecommunications provider Ericsson is putting some wind power into its network with a new radio communications tower unveiled today. The Swedish telecom partnered with turbine maker Vertical Wind AB and Uppsala University to incorporate a vertical-axis wind turbine into the tower that houses radio base stations and antennas. The tower is now undergoing trials to see if the design will enable low-cost mobile communications to spread throughout remote regions with minimal environmental impact. The rig is a conceptual riff on Ericsson’s energy-lean Tower Tube design. Ericsson claims it has greatly reduced the station’s power demand, eliminating the need for feeders...
Image credit: Stephen Fung – a typical high-speed train in Taiwan UK Conservative’s Plan for Trains No Planes – Green or Not? We TreeHuggers tend to be big advocates of the environmental benefits of trains vs. planes, so we should all be overjoyed that the UK Conservative Party, who are currently riding high in the polls, have announced plans to scrap a third runway at Heathrow and to instead build a £20bn (US$36bn) rail link between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. And according to The Guardian, the...
I am primarily an ecogeek, but I can't deny that I'm also just a geek. And so I, of course, love the open source, free software and creative commons movements. Without those powerful forces EcoGeek would absolutely have never existed. So, yeah, I hate digital rights management. I believe that it's contrary to the spirit of creation and should not exist. But I don't get to talk about it here, because its all geek and no eco. Or so I thought! When recently reading about Wal-Mart's epic DRM fail at Read Write Web, I realized that DRM is indeed very...
Rail-happy Japan, a country that probably takes great joy in watching America's embarrassingly slow and fitful adoption of high-speed and maglev trains, will be graced with new breed of green, 200+ mph trains by 2010. Kawasaki Heavy Industries, the designer of these new trains, isn't promoting speed as the main selling point — Japan railways have seen much faster hardware fly down the tracks before — but instead is emphasizing its environmental benefits. The main bit of green tech will sound somewhat familiar to car enthusiasts; regenerative braking, which converts braking resistance to electricity, has been a standard feature of...
EcoFactor: Environment friendly building The Cristalchile factory is an offshoot of the Chilean architect Guillermo Hevia. The building exemplifies a green construction stringed with varied other environmental benefits. The plant features passive ventilation and a daylight use strategy that reduces the energy consumption of the building. The use of multiple maintainable technologies creates a suitable environment for working and production of glass bottling. The fact that this construction is parallel with the geographical area placed in favor of the predominant winds, makes it better than most other current designs. The factory escorts industrial architecture worldwide by incorporating the use...
Image courtesy Trixi As I wrestle to get my home-built pedicab legal for passengers in my fair metropolis of Austin, Texas (more on that in a later post), this article reminds me that I could have it significantly worse. My favorite part: Council Speaker Christine Quinn makes a face. "No way. I would never get into one of those things," she says. Any problems with the law can be fixed when it comes up for renewal in two years, she suggests. As for the pedicabs' environmental benefits, she is skeptical. "Human-powered vehicles are never going to be the answer."...
We love Ikea. Cheap furniture, endless parts for hacking projects and of course, the knowledge that you are no longer an individual bu that you share your tastes with half of the entire developed world. Ikea's innovation was to cut storage and transport costs with flat-pack furniture, and at the same time bring some simple and attractive design to mass manufacturing. Now the Swedish company plans to bring this buying power to alternative energy. Johan Stenebo of Ikea spinoff company Greentech will invest $75 million in solar companies and wants the retail giant to start selling the products in...
