Hasta La Gadget!

Apple dominated the news cycle this week with the debut of the iPhone 5, as the internet was buzzing with details about the lighter, thinner and faster new iPhone. But not everyone was thrilled with the news. A journalist in China spent 10 days undercover working at a Foxconn factory, detailing the grueling conditions workers undergo to produce the new gadget. Apple wasn’t the only tech company in the news this week, though; Google got some time in the spotlight this week too, as the company’s new augmented-reality glasses were trotted down the runway at New York Fashion Week. Continuing the trend of high-tech fashion, British designer Dominic Wilcox unveiled a GPS shoe that guides you home from anywhere in the world.

This week, a team of Finnish researchers did what we would have thought was impossible, building an electricity-free computer that’s powered by water droplets. Israeli designer Nitsan Debbi cooked up a batch of working electronic products made of bread. A Boise-based tech company used 3D printing technology to produce a new working beak for an injured bald eagle. Artist Luzinterruptus fitted 10,000 books that had been discarded by public libraries with LED lights and covered the streets of Melbourne with them, and in an exciting development the much-anticipated Low Line underground park in NYC debuted a full-scale model of their incredible fiber-optic solar-concentrating technology in New York City’s lower east side. And in a surprising development, a researcher in Switzerland discovered a special strain of fungus that can make an ordinary violin sing like a Stradivarius.

Continue reading Inhabitat’s Week in Green: GPS shoes, shape-shifting bicycle and a wheelchair helicopter

Filed under: Transportation, Science

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: GPS shoes, shape-shifting bicycle and a wheelchair helicopter originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 Sep 2012 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As we head towards the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, we’re closely watching both candidates to see what they’re doing for the environment. The Obama administration scored a major win for fuel-efficient cars this week by finalizing new standards that will increase the fuel economy of cars to the equivalent of 54.5 mpg by 2025. But what about the cars that are currently on the road? This week we test drove a 2013 Ford Focus Electric through the streets of San Francisco (we admit, we did get a bit of range anxiety). And in one of the most interesting automotive stories from the past week, the world’s first 3D-printed car — the Areion EV– reached a top speed of 141 kph.

Continue reading Inhabitat’s Week in Green: go-kart made of Lego bricks, TOTO toilet bike and the launch of ‘Willow Glass’

Filed under: Misc, Transportation, Science

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: go-kart made of Lego bricks, TOTO toilet bike and the launch of ‘Willow Glass’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Sep 2012 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hear those school bells in the distance? It’s hard to believe, but the start of the school year is just a few weeks away — and all week we’ve been rounding up some of our favorite eco-friendly back-to-school essentials. From green school supplies to sustainable backpacks, we’ve got all your back-to-school needs covered. And to top it off, we’re giving away a laptop-charging Voltaic solar-powered backpack (worth $389) stuffed with green school supplies for a total prize package worth over $500. If we could go back to school and live in any dorm, we’d probably choose Copenhagen’s Tietgenkollegiet dorm, a circular building with community kitchens, cafes, music rooms and a central courtyard. And if we could choose any gadget to take with us, it would have to be the P&P Office Waste Processor, which can transform a basket full of waste paper into fully-formed pencils.

Continue reading Inhabitat’s week in green: solar powered toilet, pollution-fighting mural and the world’s largest rooftop wind farm

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Inhabitat’s week in green: solar powered toilet, pollution-fighting mural and the world’s largest rooftop wind farm originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Aug 2012 10:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This summer has been one of the harshest in recent memory in the US, with record heat waves and more than half of the country experiencing the worst drought conditions in more than 50 years. And in an even more troubling development, an iceberg twice the size of Manhattan broke away from Greenland this week. The need to develop clean alternatives to fossil fuels and water-saving technologies is more urgent than ever, but we’re making progress in several key areas. In California, scientists fired 192 lasers onto a single point, producing an amazing 500 trillion watts of energy and bringing them one step closer to starting a nuclear fusion reaction that would produce an unlimited supply of clean energy. In another promising development, a teenager in Egypt figured out a way to turn the country’s plastic waste into $78 million worth of fuel.

Continue reading Inhabitat’s Week in Green: liter of light project, space tourism and a ‘Hyperloop’ train

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Transportation, Science

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: liter of light project, space tourism and a ‘Hyperloop’ train originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 22 Jul 2012 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It was a big week for superlatives in clean tech and green architecture — particularly in Europe. First, construction on The Shard, architect Renzo Piano‘s shimmering, 72-story skyscraper, wrapped up in London, making it the tallest building in Europe. A nighttime celebration, complete with a laser light show accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra was held. Just about a mile down the river, construction is moving forward on Blackfriars Station, the world’s largest solar bridge. The historic bridge is being fitted with a solar array that will produce 900,000 kWh of clean electricity per year. And in Germany, solar producers have set a new world record, pumping an astounding 14.7 TWh of electricity into the grid during the first six months of 2012 — 4.5 percent of the country’s total power production during that period.

Continue reading Inhabitat’s Week in Green: rise of solar power, cardboard forts and a Death Star ping pong ball

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: rise of solar power, cardboard forts and a Death Star ping pong ball originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Jul 2012 20:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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