When I read about the dissolvable electronic medical implants created by Professor Fiorenzo Omenetto of Tufts University and John A. Rogers at the University of Illinois, my first thought was what about dissolving all my old cell phones packed up in my garage? And, sure enough…
How many chargers do you have lying around the house from all of the different devices you bought? Now, how many of those are you actually using? You probably have a few chargers tucked away in a drawer somewhere because you already have a couple that you’re currently using. To cut down on the amount of unused chargers circulating around the world, O2 and HTC are teaming up to release a new smartphone that won’t come with a charger in the first place.
According to O2, 70% of customers in the UK who buy a new smartphone already have the charger to go with it. This results in more than 100 million chargers going unused. O2 says that by trying to reduce the number of chargers floating around in the world, it will prevent further environmental damage by limiting the amount of components and packaging that are normally required.
While this unannounced smartphone from O2 and HTC won’t come with a charger, you’ll still be able to grab one separately if need be, but the phone itself will only come with a USB cable, for which you can use to charge your device through a USB port on your computer. But if you need to charge via a wall outlet, you’ll need to get the separate wall charger.
It makes sense really, especially for those who are loyal to one handset manufacturer. Back in my Android days, I only bought HTC, and as a result I ended up with a ton of chargers that were all the same. It was nice to have extras, but I simply had too many that would go unused, especially when I mostly just charged my devices through USB.
[via Pocket-lint]
O2 and HTC to sell new smartphone without charger is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
If you love Amazon (especially their free two-day shipping for Prime members) and are environmentally friendly, Amazon has launched a website just for you. Vine.com is a shopping site that only sells organic and environmental-friendly products. The site sells all sorts of fun stuff, from organic groceries all the way to all-natural skin care products.
Vine.com sells pretty much anything, as long as its all-natural, organic, or environmentally friendly in some way. This means that in order for an item to show up on Vine’s website, it must fall into at least one of these categories: ability to remove toxins, energy-efficient, natural, organic, powered by renewable energy, reusable, made of sustainable materials or water-efficient.
The site’s frontman, Josh Dorfman, says that Vine “is a site that is not necessarily about saving the planet, though we feel the products are useful in that regard.” We know he’s being slightly modest, but he raises a good point. He mentions that “if you care about raising safe and healthy kids, and you feel green products without chemicals can help along the way, we’ve figured out ways to help you do that.”
Vine.com is a part of Quidsi, which is a company that Amazon has owned since 2010. They run other websites like Diapers.com, Wag.com, and YoYo.com. And like Amazon, customers will have a shot at free two-day shipping, thanks to the robots that pack boxes in the warehouse within minutes of receiving an online order.
[via Bits]
Amazon launches Vine.com shopping site for environmental activists is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Strangers won’t mess with one’s personal portable potables thanks to Bandai’s Magic Pets, plastic critters who “live” in your water bottle, personalizing it and keeping owners entertained all the while.
You gotta love the Russian company SKN for converting old Russian ammunitions
into diamonds, and didn’t you always want to know how many steps you’d
have to take to create the inevitable splash of coffee on your carpet?
But the SpeechJammer in 2012? A machine that delays speech and
makes one stutter is decades old, and it actually has the practical
application of helping stutterers speak without stuttering.
Purple prose phrased headline aside, a slow leak in a large bag of powdered violet dye brought big trouble to a little Chinese village. The generically dark powder wasn’t noticed as it spilled from a truck passing through town but when rain fell, villagers suddenly saw their world through rose-colored glasses.
The Houston Zoo proudly announced the birth of five Madagascan big-headed turtles today, the eighteenth most endangered species of turtle in the world. It was the first birth for zoos worldwide.
On the day the National Snow And Ice Data Center (NSIDC) announced the
dreary news that the level of ice in the Arctic Sea is the lowest it has
been since such information was recorded, the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) presented some positive news regarding
its goal to reduce the global warming potential (GWP) of the
refrigerants used in our homes and cars.
Rohm, together with Aqua Fairy and Kyoto University, has developed a compact, high-output hydrogen fuel cell.
This fuel cell generates electricity by producing hydrogen on the spot. This is achieved through a chemical reaction between calcium hydride sheets and water.
From a sheet with volume of less than 3 cc, this fuel cell can generate 5 Whr of electricity. It can be used for many purposes, from charging a smartphone, to providing back-up power in emergencies.
“This single sheet can …
The guys at Re-Char, a small startup that makes carbon-negative products, were faced with a problem. They wanted to ship products to Kenya, but the options available were wasteful, costly, and not nearly as efficient as simply manufacturing near to the customers. To do it, in a place with little industry or infrastructure, Re-Char designed something new—a fully functioning, off-the-grid factory inside a shipping container. More »
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