Hasta La Gadget!

January is an exciting time for both green technology and eco-friendly cars, as the Consumer Electronics Show segues into the Detroit Auto Show — which just kicked off today! Inhabitat is on the scene at NAIAS 2013 to bring you the latest green car unveilings. So far, Mercedes-Benz launched its 2014 E Class Hybrid and Volkswagen showcased the Crossblue plug-in hybrid SUV. We also saw several breakthrough automotive technologies at CES 2013. Audi unveiled its new futuristic LED headlights, which the company claims will increase visibility and reduce the chances of a collision and Lexus unveiled a new high-tech autonomous vehicle that could pave the way towards self-driving cars. Also at CES, New York-based company CTA Digital unveiled the iPotty, a toddler potty that comes with a built-in iPad stand. Earlier last week, the state of Nevada followed California’s lead and granted automakers permission to operate self-driving cars on public roads. In other green car news, Nissan announced that the 2013 Nissan Leaf will be more efficient, come with more features and charge in half the time as earlier models.

Continue reading Inhabitat’s Week in Green: cardboard cockroach, a milk carton pavilion and the iPotty

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For every big name present at CES, there are literally hundreds of smaller companies littered throughout the show’s many halls and venues. We make it our mission to walk every aisle in search of hidden gems. However, that treasure hunt sometimes leads us to the most useless of products, otherwise known as Crapgadgets. While there was plenty of shameless branding in Vegas this year, we didn’t find nearly as many pointless novelties as we expected. Nevertheless, it just made the ones we did spot all the more special, so head past the break to see what took top honors as this year’s “worst in show.”

Continue reading CES 2013: Crapgadget roundup

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Source: Necomimi, WheeMe, CTA Digital

Hardbound books, apparently, are soooo 20th century — at least for the upcoming BiblioTech library in San Antonio, Texas’ south side. When the shiny, new public library opens its doors to bookworms this fall, visitors will notice something important missing: actual books. Instead, the facility will be serving up ebooks — about 10,000 digital titles or so — in an attempt to supplement the area’s traditional library system with some new-school cool. To help users partake in its content, BiblioTech will also carry actual e-readers for users to check out. Footage of the media event shows what appears to be a Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch as the facility’s e-reader of choice. Checked-out ebooks are also programmed to be accessible by the borrower for a two-week period. Going the digital route has certainly been a growing trend — 3M recently launched a Cloud Library lending service while one Austrian town kicked off its own unique e-book repository based on stickers equipped with QR codes and NFC chips. As ongoing issues involving Penguin show, however, digital lending sadly still has some hurdles to overcome.

Filed under: Misc, Alt

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Via: Gizmodo

Source: San Antonio Express-News

Use Groupon Payments for your business? You just got a little more choice — the popular deal broker just updated its Android app to support credit card transactions. The update brings the fledgling payment service a little closer to Square, which has been available on Android since 2010. If the iOS rates hold, swiping plastic through Groupon Merchants will set retailers back a mere $0.15 per transaction, plus 1.8 percent of the charge for Visa, MasterCard and Discover, or three percent for American Express. The update also boasts improved analytics, giving retailers the ability to check transaction history, daily sales reports and peek at revenue trends. Budding business owners can check out official press release after the break.

Continue reading Groupon Payments comes to Android, starts catching up to Square

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Let’s face it, PC cases are often pretty lame — and traditionally something we don’t chase down — though In-Win’s two launches at CES definitely beg for an exception. Heck, what can you say about a case? The D-Frame (pictured above) is pretty stellar with its glass sides, orange welded aluminum tubes, amazing fasteners, and blue LEDs would be an easy choice if we were building a new box around these parts. Though, the H-Frame with its radiator or layered gasket look is also a strong contender as we really dig its layered look and the solid metal thing it has going on. Both of these cases are seriously strong-looking, fairly hefty to haul, and in the case of the D-Frame crushproof. Look for these at you favorite In-Win retailer sometime this month for a hefty $399 each.

James-Trew contributed to this report

Filed under: Misc, Peripherals

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