Hasta La Gadget!

221B Baker Street. Do you know that address? Sherlock Holmes fans know that this is where the world’s greatest detective resides. The apartment and address are a big part of the legend that is Sherlock Holmes. For fans, it feels like home.

And if you are a fan of Holmes and Watson, you will no doubt find this miniature version of 221B Baker Street in a Altoid tin very fascinating. It was made by Nichola “Knickertwist” Battilana. I hope she didn’t get her knickers in too much of a twist over this.

All of the necessary details are here, from the numbers on the door to the violin by the fireplace. You can practically see Holmes and Watson sitting by the fire.

If you’re interested in having your own 221B Baker Street Altoid tin, check out this post.

[via Nerd Approved]

Apple is investigating claims that tin used in its products comes from mines on Bangka Island in Indonesia. This comes after environmental watchdog Friends of the Earth (FoE) pressured the tech giant to identify the source of the metal used for soldering components in iDevices. While the island region is one of the largest suppliers of tin in the world, mining conditions are far from ideal. Landslides consistently claim the lives of workers, and mining itself has had an adverse effect on the local environment. The group successfully pressured Samsung to admit its involvement with the area’s tin supplies in April.

For its part, Apple commissioned a fact-finding visit to learn more and is helping to fund a new study on mining in the region so they “can better understand the situation.” Or maybe they could save some time and money by reading the one conducted by The Guardian and FoE from last November. You know, the one that found that unregulated tin mining leans heavily on child labor, destroys the environment and causes on average 100 – 150 miner fatalities every year. Cupertino has already vowed to not use conflict minerals and appointed a former EPA administrator to focus on its environmental efforts, so it at least looks ​responsible. Now to see if it can back up its actions.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Apple

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Via: The Verge

Source: Friends of the Earth, Apple Supplier Responsibility

There have been more than a few solar power efficiency records set in the past few months, let alone years. What makes IBM, DelSolar, Solar Frontier and Tokyo Ohka Kogyo think they can just waltz in and claim a record of their own? By using more commonplace elements in the periodic table, that’s how. The partnership’s new photovoltaic cell based on copper, zinc and tin (CZTS for short) can convert light rays to electric power with a 11.1 percent efficiency rate — still nothing to upset traditional silicon power, but a large 10 percent more efficient than anything else in the class. In its early form, CZTS can already be manufactured through ink printing and could be produced in quantities equivalent to about 500 gigawatts of power per year, or five times more than some of the next-closest alternatives. The group wants to improve CZTS’ efficiency over the course of the next several years, ideally reaching the point where it’s useful as a truly cheap, ubiquitous source of power. We’re looking forward to the day when there’s a little slice of solar energy in just about everything, hopefully including a few more hybrid cars and private aircraft.

Filed under: Science

IBM alliance sets efficiency record for solar power cells using common materials originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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