Oct 15

Samsung Blue Earth Phone Made From Old Plastic Bottles

Posted in: Environment, Phones, Today's Chili

blue_earth

Samsung’s Blue Earth cellphone, announced but not detailed back at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year, has been launched. The handset is made from old water bottles, and the packaging is paper printed with soy ink (something I never knew existed). The Earth-friendliness even extends to the charger which sips a mere 0.03 Watts when in standby. And standby is likely where it will spend much of its time, due to the most obvious feature of the phone: a big solar-panel on the back.

Otherwise, the Blue Earth is less hippy than you might think, and instead of being wholemeal and puritan, it has all the mod-cons you’d expect of a cellphone today: a 3.2 MP camera, touch screen, music and video players, FM radio, Bluetooth, 3G and a microSDHC slot.

Actually, there are a few tree-hugging features that made it in. The pedometer, for one:

The “Eco Walk” function allows users to count their steps with a built in pedometer and calculate the reduction in CO2 emission realized by walking as opposed to using a motor vehicle.

Pretty smug, right? I imagine we’ll be seeing these in the hands of Prius owners as they distractedly drive while talking and mow down eco-friendly cyclists. And Samsung certainly wants to look green on this one: Search the press release for the word “eco” and you get 23 hits. The phone will launch in Sweden this month and across Europa and Asia thereafter. Rumors of a gas-powered model for the US market are unconfirmed.

Press release [Samsung]

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Oct 14

Remote Control Your Car With Your iPhone

Posted in: car, Environment, iPhone, Phones, Today's Chili

smartstart

Now you can use your iPhone or iPod Touch to kill the environment by firing up your car from afar and leaving the engine to idle whilst either warming or cooling your ride while you wait inside. This alternative to a scarf and gloves comes from Viper in the form of the SmartStart, a module which is wired into your car and lets you lock, unlock and start your car from any distance.

The remote unit isn’t new — Viper has sold the SmartStart for some time. The fancy part this time is the iPhone (or iPod Touch) integration, which comes by way of an iPhone app and a $300 add-on for your SmartStart device (you can opt for the $500 all-in-one if you are starting from scratch). This box has inside it a GSM cell radio, with which you communicate via the internet using the companion application.

Because it uses the cellular network, you’ll need to pay a $30-a-year subscription (year one is included in the cost of the device) and, because it has something to do with cars, you’ll have to pay somebody to install it — there is no DIY kit version. I guess only you, reader, can decide if it’s worth burning extra gas instead of just sitting in a cold car for five minutes. On the other hand, having the car report status info — triggered alarms, for example — direct to your phone is pretty handy stuff.

Product page [iTunes]

Product page [Viper]


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Oct 13

California Cool Cars regs put the kibosh on radio, cellphone, and GPS reception

Posted in: automobile, Environment, gps, green, Today's Chili, Transportation, Windows

We’ve seen plenty of tech over the years meant to mitigate our destruction of the environment — from greener autos to Grateful Dead-themed cellphones — most of which don’t really ask us to tone down our consumer impulses all that much. But how about these new “Cool Cars” regulations recently adopted by the California Air Resources Board? By the year 2016, all autos sold in the state must have windows that prevent 60 percent of the sun’s energy from entering the vehicle. To achieve this, windows are given a coat of glazing that contains microscopic specs of reflective metal oxide — which will seriously hamper reception for your GPS, cellphone, and (this is of special interest to Engadget readers) white collar criminal-style work release ankle bracelet. As you can imagine, companies like Garmin are fuming — although we suppose that if they play this right they can make a killing in the external car antenna business. It just goes to show you — when it comes to environmental catastrophe, everyone’s a victim.

[Via AutoBlog]

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California Cool Cars regs put the kibosh on radio, cellphone, and GPS reception originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 12

BMW makes the awesome look SIMPLE with leaning three-wheeler (video)

Posted in: car, Cars, Environment, Today's Chili

BMW’s latest concept isn’t quite as far out as some of its earlier efforts, and the company has dubbed it SIMPLE, but don’t let that fool you. Joining Nissan’s Land Glider in a new trend toward leaning vehicles that have motorbike-like footprints, the “Sustainable and Innovative Mobility Product for Low Energy consumption” is said to have similar seating space to a BMW 3 Series coupe. Its space fighter appearance isn’t just for show either — with a drag coefficient of 0.18 and a weight of only 992 pounds, this bad boy is capable of harnessing a small internal combustion engine and electric motor to tear up the autobahn at up to 124mph. Zero to sixty in under ten seconds and 118 miles per gallon fuel efficiency fill out the sexy stat sheet, though sadly there are no productions plans as of yet. The concept is being exhibited in the BMW Museum in Munich, but if you can’t make it over to Germany right now, there’s a video for you after the break.

Continue reading BMW makes the awesome look SIMPLE with leaning three-wheeler (video)

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BMW makes the awesome look SIMPLE with leaning three-wheeler (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 05:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 06

Sanyo Eneloop batteries good for 1,500 recharges, maintain 70% charge even after 3 years in storage

Posted in: Environment, Today's Chili


We’ve got a thing for Sanyo’s Eneloops. Had it ever since Sanyo released us from the clutches of underperforming NiCad and NiMH batteries about five years ago. Its latest AA and AAA batteries can be recharged about 1,500 times, that’s about 3 years of continuous service and 500 more cycles than competing rechargeables, according to Sanyo. The batteries also feature a low self-discharge rate so they remain usable even after they’ve been charged and stored in a drawer. In fact, an Eneloop will maintain about 75% of its charged power even after three years. Impressive, we know, and the reason they come pre-charged from the factory for immediate use of out the box. And compared to disposables, they’re as good for the environment as they are for your wallet over the long run.

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Sanyo Eneloop batteries good for 1,500 recharges, maintain 70% charge even after 3 years in storage originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sep 29

Home-Made Cargo Bike Is Cheap, Easy Rider

Posted in: Environment, Hacks, Mods and DIY, Today's Chili

3307385877_bdfdb267b0_o

Want to trade your expensive car for a cheap bike in “These Troubled Economic Times”? Scared that you might not be able to make those monthly mega-mart runs and still carry home all that important junk food? Clearly a purpose-made cargo bike is out of the question, as it is a relatively expensive specialist machine. We have the answer: A hacked together cargo bike.

Flickr user Harvwoien took two old beaters and joined them together. The front bike is unmodified, other than the removal of the rear wheel. The rear bike has been more drastically chopped, and is now missing its down-tube. The end of the top-tube has been hammered flat and drilled and then bolted onto the back of the seat-post of the front bicycle, and its bottom-bracket bolted to the dropouts.

Lastly, an old derailleur has been used to guide the chain through the frankenframes, and a pair of wire baskets hung on the sides to carry cargo. Although rather scrappy, the solution is elegant in its simplicity, and while it doesn’t have the flat load-bed of some ready-made options, you do get the extra stability of a long wheelbase. Now, imagine this made with an old mixte or step-through frame, and the extra load-space it would give, and you have a rather splendid and cheap bike, ready for a shopping trip. Bonus: It’s so ugly, nobody would ever steal it.

Extra Bike [Flickr via Bike Hacks]

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Sep 27

Website rates best and worst cellphones by radiation output levels — how does yours stack up?

Posted in: cellphones, Environment, Today's Chili

You’re surely aware that your cellphone bleeds radiation into your face the whole time you’re on the phone with your mom, best friend or lover, right? Yes, it’s a fact we try not to think about most of the time, but now there’s a tool out there on the internets for the more reality-facing folks among us. The Environmental Working Group’s launched a website dedicated to rating cellphones on their radiation output alone. Ranking highly (meaning they put out the lowest levels of radiation) are the Motorola RAZR V8, and AT&T’s Samsung Impression. In fact, it seems that Samsung is cranking out the healthiest phones these days! Phones with poor showings includes T-Mobile’s myTouch 3G and the Blackberry Curve 8830. So hit the read link and tell us, how does your phone rate?

[Via bookofjoe]

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Website rates best and worst cellphones by radiation output levels — how does yours stack up? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Sep 2009 08:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sep 24

Waking Up On Mars: Australia’s Bizarre Dust Storm

Posted in: Environment, Today's Chili, top, video

I woke up Wednesday (Tuesday U.S. time), to a scene from Total Recall. Sydney had been blanketed by an apocalyptic glowing red dust storm. Red from iron-oxide: rust. And if I couldn’t breathe, my tech gear wouldn’t like this either…

But I did what any geek would do. I regressed into an excited 10 year old, grabbed the camera, and went out to play in the freakish weather. After 5 minutes of constantly clearing my throat, and noticing that my G9 had started to collect dust, I decided it just wasn’t worth it. Having been asleep with a window open meant a little dust was also inside. I switched off my main desktop (it’s got a big air-intake fan), and fired up a laptop to find out what the hell was going on.

Big winds had swept the dust from Australia’s drought-stricken interior, carrying it hundreds of miles to the east coast. Sydney (with a population of 4.3 million) was most affected, but other cities were, too. In terms of air pollution, particle concentration reached a thickness of about 15,000 micrograms per cubic meter—a normal day here has about 10-20.

Comedian Arj Barker (from Flight of the Conchords) Tweeted this pic: “It’s like Dune here in Sydney. This is the giant dust storm we had to land in.”

Until winds swept the dust to sea mid-afternoon, flights were canceled, Twitter went crazy, MMS traffic spiked 50 percent, and data centers installed air filters…it was interesting to watch how technology intersected with the bizarre weather.

The dust cloud was the worst in 70 years, and it’s still unclear if climate change was to blame. But at the very least, I got a dusty taste of life on Mars for the day (well, sort of). [Sydney Morning Herald]

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Sep 17

Samsung S7550 Blue Earth reviewed, Monkey Wrench Gang unavailable for comment

Posted in: cellphone, eco, Environment, green, review, samsung, Today's Chili
We’re not sure if the recent trend for greener gadgets comes from a wish to save the planet, assuage consumer’s guilt, cash in on a trend, or some combination of the three, but we’ll tell you one thing: it’s not going anywhere. Of course, with a product named “Blue Earth” you know that you’re not just getting a handset, but some vaguely eco-friendly ID, including: an outer shell (mostly) fashioned from recycled water bottles, a solar panel, and a pedometer (you know, to encourage walking / discourage driving). Of course, these are all things we can abide, but the question remains: how does this handset hold up, you know, as a handset? Well, GSM Arena recently put one through its paces and was kind enough to let us in on its findings. As feature phones go, says the author, this one stacks up quite nicely with something like Nokia’s 5530 XpressMusic — and even does it one better by throwing in a GPS. On the other hand, this isn’t the thinnest phone in the world, the lack of HSDPA will be a deal breaker for some folks, and the 3 megapixel fixed focus camera leaves something to be desired. And how about the solar panel? According to Samsung, one hour of solar charging is good for 2 hours of standby and a little over 15 minutes of call time in 2G (or 10 minutes of talk time in UMTS). Also, it seems that they make the phone bulkier and harder to handle — although we imagine it can’t be as bad as whatever users of after-market solar panel attachments are experiencing. Other features include a 3-inch capacitive touchscreen (quite responsive, apparently) and WiFi. But that ain’t all — you really need to wade into this review yourself if you want all the juicy details. Luckily, it’s but one click away: hit the read link to see for yourself.

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Samsung S7550 Blue Earth reviewed, Monkey Wrench Gang unavailable for comment originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sep 11

Survey finds Americans want to go hybrid, can’t afford it

Posted in: Cars, electric car, ElectricCar, Environment, green, hybrid, Today's Chili

48 percent of respondents to a recent Pike Research survey have classified themselves as very or extremely intrested in buying a plug-in hybrid vee-hee-cle, and 65 percent of them were willing to pay a premium price relative to a regular old petrol puffer. This enthusiasm stretched to an average premium of 12 percent which, while encouraging, still won’t quite cover the current price gap between hybrids and, erm, monobryds? It would seem, then, that the environmental, fuel efficiency and plug-in ability benefits aren’t lost on buyers, but neither are basic principles of economics. Our view on things? What we need is a netbook equivalent in the car world — a dirt-cheap hybrid that students and hippies can get behind and stimulate the move of all prices downwards.

[Via Autoblog Green]

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Survey finds Americans want to go hybrid, can’t afford it originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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