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‘earth friendly’ Stories

MIT’s Printed paper solar cells could be installed with “a staple gun”

, May 6th 2010 Discuss [0]

Today, solar panels can be fragile, unwieldy to install and expensive; in a decade's time we could be wallpapering the outside of our houses with them.  Researchers at MIT have created an inkjet-style printing technology that can lay carbon-based organic semiconductor solar cells down onto a paper substrate, one of the headline breakthroughs that coincides with the opening of their new multi-million dollar Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Research Center.  According to center director Vladimir Bulovic, it paves the way for a time where people "could use a staple gun to install a solar panel." Read The Full Story

Solar City Tower promises huge waterfall for Rio de Janeiro’s 2016 Olympics

, May 3rd 2010 Discuss [3]

If there's one thing that Rio de Janeiro has been short of these past years, it's a huge solar powered waterfall standing 105m above sea level.  In fact, you could argue that most places lack one, but architects RAFAA reckon Rio de Janeiro deserve the Solar City Tower for the 2016 Olympic Games.  The waterfall is actually the showier side of a solar power plant which, RAFAA reckon, would supply enough energy to help make the Games carbon-neutral. Read The Full Story

Nissan Leaf EV pre-sales kick off today

, Apr 20th 2010 Discuss [0]

Nissan's Leaf may not be the most aesthetically pleasing all-electric car, but it's looking set to be the first one in a long time to go on sale in the US.  The company is contacting those would-be buyers in the US who signed up for more information, telling them that - as of later on today - they'll be able to put down a $99 refundable deposit to buy or lease a Leaf of their own. Read The Full Story

Lenovo ThinkPad L Series is greenest to date

, Apr 20th 2010 Discuss [0]

Lenovo has announced the newest entrants to its ThinkPad range, the L Series, and according to the company they're the greenest notebooks on the market.  Packing Intel Celeron, Core i3 and Core i5 processors together with either a 14-inch 16:9 display on the L412 or a 15-inch 16:9 display on the L512, the range kicks off at $649 but offers up to 8hrs of runtime. Read The Full Story

ASUS add IEEE 802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet to M4 Series motherboards

, Apr 12th 2010 Discuss [0]

ASUS have already thrown AMD Phenom II X6 support into their M4-series of motherboards, and now the company have thrown another tidbit into the mixture: IEEE 802.3az.  In case you're not familiar with the latest acronym, that's Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) and it promises to cut power consumption by up to 81.3-percent during periods of low network activity. Read The Full Story

Ford use Microsoft Hohm intelligent electric car charging; WP7 app in the pipeline

, Mar 31st 2010 Discuss [1]

It's been a while since we last heard about Ford's plans for intelligent hybrid and electric-vehicle charging, but now the motoring giant has picked up Microsoft to help out.  Microsoft Hohm sounds like it should be a Buddhist-themed April Fools prank, but it's apparently a new energy monitoring system that will help balance load across the power grid and make for more efficient, cheaper recharges.  There's also talk of a Windows Phone 7 app - complete with a homescreen widget - though currently only at the concept stage, which could remotely inform you when your car is charging, what its battery status is and how long there is left until it's completely topped up. Read The Full Story

Energy Star approve gas-powered alarm clock in covert government inquiry

, Mar 30th 2010 Discuss [0]

Energy Star - just one more army in the fight to green our gadgets, right?  Turns out, according to the US Government Accountability Office, Energy Star is "for the most part a self-certification program vulnerable to fraud and abuse"; they set up twenty fake products - including websites to go along with them - and sent them in to Energy Star to be certified.  Fifteen were accepted, including "a gas-powered alarm clock". Read The Full Story

Chevrolet Volt gets geeky video overview

, Mar 22nd 2010 Discuss [1]

Let's face it, the Toyota Prius - while still a reasonable hybrid - has lost one of its more important draws: its newness.  That leaves the floor open for a new generation of earth-friendly vehicles, and one of the more eagerly anticipated is the Chevrolet Volt.  Set to hit driveways in November 2010, Chevrolet brought the Volt along to SXSW last week for the geeks to play with. Video demo after the cut Read The Full Story

Tendril Vision home energy monitor predicts the future

, Mar 19th 2010 Discuss [0]

Will people use energy more thoughtfully if they're able to monitor it via a familiar device?  That's what nergy management technology provider Tendril reckon; they've borrowed style inspiration from a digital clock for their Vision energy monitor, which can not only show real-time usage but predict future patterns. Read The Full Story

AT&T ZERO Charger promises to kill “vampire draw”

, Mar 17th 2010 Discuss [0]

While most people probably don't have several review cellphones lying around on their desk at any one time, the trickle of juice soaked up by even just one cellphone charger left unplugged is enough to add an unpleasant bump into your power bill.  AT&T have decided to do something about that - at least in part - and so they've announced the AT&T ZERO Charger, a PSU that apparently has no standby draw whatsoever. That means you can unplug your cellphone when it has finished charging but leave the ZERO Charger itself plugged into the mains, without worrying about how much current it might still be drawing.  So far the AT&T Zero isn't available for sale, but you can sign up for more information and the carrier will get in touch when they're in stock. Read The Full Story

Scosche solBAT II solar-powered cellphone battery

, Feb 3rd 2010 Discuss [2]

There's money to be made from earth-friendly gadgets, and there's an iPhone-owning audience out there crying out for extra juice in their smartphones, so trust Scosche to put the two together.  The Scosche solBAT II is, daft punctuation aside, a reasonably sensible solar-powered external battery, which comes with both a windshield mount and a universal carabineer for easy positioning. Read The Full Story

Recompute cardboard computer now in production

, Jan 13th 2010 Discuss [2]

PC manufacturers often treat environmental friendliness as something that begins and ends with using recycled materials for the packaging, but what about the average desktop PC casing itself?  Recompute's "sustainable computer" concept has been making the rounds since last year, but the company have just announced that the first of the cardboard-chassis PCs are now going into production. Read The Full Story
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