Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Filed under: Household

We’ve seen electricity-monitoring / controlling devices similar to the EnergyHub before, but few have provided such a handsome interface or modular, expandable options. The device uses a touchscreen control panel (familiarly referred to as a “dashboard”) to help gauge and adjust energy levels for satellite outlets that it communicates with. The data will be accessible and adjustable online, and users will also be able to compare their stats with other eco-tweakers or neighbors. The company claims the devices could reduce energy costs by 20 percent for homes that employ the system. There’s no word on a release date or pricing, but we’ll keep you abreast of any exciting developments.

[Via Inhabitat]

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

We have green everything today, from gadgets to re-usable shopping bags, but organic lingerie? Eco-Chick (”Because Mother Earth is a Women”) turned us on to this French company, g=9.8, which makes the first underwire bra that’s made from recycled pine fibers.

Starre, who runs Eco-Chick and is just as glamorous as the name implies, swears it’s comfortable.

Check out the lovely French site, buy some pretty under things and feel good about sustainable development. That’s what we call a Win/Win.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

Yes, I’m serious. Yes, I am now singing “Let’s go fly a kite, up to the highest heights” in my signature off-key way.

The Guardian newspaper reports that scientists from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, one of Europe’s top research institutions, were able to harness wind energy by flying a 10-sq metre (107.6 sq feet) kite tethered to a generator. They produced ten kilowatts of power, enough to power ten family homes. And I bet they had a great time, too!

The scientists now have plans to harness even more power from an even bigger kite. Could we soon see fields of kites flying high, instead of the traditional wind farm? Let’s hope so.

You can read more and watch a video by clicking here.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

After finally realizing that the slow 3G connection on my new iPhone 3G was due to some clever network manipulation by AT&T, I’m now thrilled with my very fast new phone. The new iPhone looks almost identical to the original, but the tiny bit of extra width means that the cases for the original will no longer fit. I stuffed my iPhone 3G into a leather case meant for the original, and while I just managed to get its slightly wider load inside the case, after a few hours, the leather cracked. If you want a perfect fit, you’ll have to upgrade your case as well.

Disappointingly, I haven’t found a single case yet that I think is worthy of the iPhone. They’re all clunky and chunky and either add a lot of bulk or a flimsy silicone skin. Generally I would never think of buying a phone case that costs very nearly as much as the phone itself, but Miniot’s beautiful iWood tempts me. The iWood is carved from a single piece of wood, and comes with a personal engraving so you can brand your phone. In five beautiful wood finishes, from Cherry to the actually much redder Padouk, every iWood is slightly different due to the natural material. It’s sleek but the form-fitting style offers excellent protection as well. You can also purchase an optional matching wood dock.

The iWood for iPhone is about $125 (€ 80) and available from Miniot.

And hey, if your company is making cases for the iPhone 3G, something a little unusual or stylish, we’d love to review them. Please contact us, or forward review products to
Popgadget, Attn: Mia Kim
4189 S. Four Mile Run Dr.
Suite 202
Arlington, VA 22204.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

For those of us plagued by thoughts of waste when contemplating ditching our old iPhones to upgrade to the 3G iPhone, there’s a bit of good news, as it turns out that the packaging for the new iPhone to be released on July 11th is made of recyclable potato starch. Dutch company PaperFoam, maker of carbon-friendly packaging, is providing millions of paperfoam packages to Apple.

Via The Register, by way of textually.org.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

That’s the headline on this look at the awesome house that New Jersey engineer Mike Strizki hath wrought.

It’s not what you thought the future would look like.

Strizki converts sunshine into electricity using photovoltaic panels - and then uses the electricity to wring hydrogen for fuel out of ordinary tap water. The result: For two years Strizki has bought no electricity, no gas, no fuel for his several vehicles. The home-made system cost more than half a million dollars to put together, so his reward is satisfaction rather than savings. But still.

The article, written by David Biello, was just posted on the Scientific American web site. Be sure to check out the accompanying slide show, guaranteed to startle. Whatever its undeniable virtues, this is not the sleek, shapely, clutter-free House of the Future we’ve all been raised to expect from 21st Century solar and hydrogen power.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

Filed under: Desktops

Remember that tidy little bamboo-encased mini PC Dell showed off in April? Well apparently the company is at work on a variant of the diminutive system, dubbed the Studio Hybrid. In addition to forgoing the eco-friendly wood for what appears to be a sleek, orange Plexiglas shell, the system boasts an Intel chipset, 4GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, WiFi, a DVD+R drive, five USB ports, an HDMI port, S/PDIF, DVI, and a memory card reader. We’re not sure exactly when Dell plans to unleash these on consumers or what the final cost will be, though previously the company had stated plans to offer it later this year for between $500 and $700. Check the gallery below for a few more (blurry) shots of the device.

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Yesterday I paid more than $50 for a tank of gas for the first time. I had been feeling cocky and virtuous - virtuous by U.S. standards at least. I got through our unlikely June spate of high 90s temps without turning the car air conditioning on, except for one trip home from the grocery store. (Just conserving the milk and yogurt, friends.) With prices predicted to hit $5/gallon by fall, more strenuous measures are required.

Going without A/C was easy. I don’t commute, and I give thanks daily for my good fortune. My driving consists mostly of running local errands a couple of times a week. I have always ganged them together to save time; saving gas too, along with the planet, is a bonus I began to appreciate only a few years ago. Even if the car and the parking lot are broiling, going from building to ridiculously ice-cold building keeps you cool enough.

I already coast down hills so I can coast up the next one, and I coast when slowing for a light or a turn too, traffic permitting. My tires are properly inflated. A more abstemious car is not possible. So what’s next?

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

We got a look at one of those new Philips Eco LCDs today, along with some other miscellaneous gadgetry from Philips and its DLO subsidiary. Of note was the DLO HomeDock HD, which will be released in August for $250, and has a bit of an updated look from when we saw it last — and some pretty snazzy menus for its type of product. That DLO iBoom JukeBox is also getting an August release for $200, along with the Rhapsody-friendly Streamium NP1100, a Network Music Player that’ll be out in July for $150. We didn’t get a chance to listen in to the Eco’s “invisible” speakers, but the principle is simple enough: there are two speakers mounted on the back of the TV that bounce sound off the wall. That sound is then dispersed by the curved acrylic frame around the edge of the device. Our advice? Buy some real speakers.

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Original post by Paul Miller

If you can’t sleep at night thinking about the environmental damage caused by your need to have a new cell phone every six months, you’ll be glad to know that eco-friendly cell phones made of corn flour are about to be launched in Korea by Samsung Electronics. The Samsung SCH-W510 has a battery cover and other parts made of bio-plastic constructed from corn starch and other environmentally friendly materials. The W-510 is the first of its kind from Samsung, and, according to PCWorld, the handset contains no heavy metals (lead, mercury, cadmium). Apparently, the high price of oil is partially responsible for this renewed interest in using plastics made of corn in manufacturing.

Via Telecoms Korea, by way of textually.org.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

On my recent jaunt to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx to see the Darwin garden, I was too early for more than a few of the blooms in the Botanical Garden’s huge formal rose garden. It’s named for Peggy Rockefeller, source of the river of gold required to keep it going, but the rose garden’s true designer is landscape architect Beatrix Ferrand.

Ferrand worked her garden magic early in the 20th century. A woman in what was at the time a man’s profession, Ferrand is not as well known as she should be. No Wikipedia entry! A perfect project for some feminist green soul out there. Ferrand is not mentioned on the Botanical Garden website either — I learned that she designed the rose garden from a recorded tour guide.

A formal rose garden may not be your style. Not mine either; I like my roses rambling rather than clipped and managed to a fare-thee-well. But June in this enormous rose acreage is the best possible time and place to plan your own rose growing.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

Maybe because it’s spring, season of green, here in the Northern Hemisphere. Or maybe because of climate change or the parlous state of the world’s finances — unless you’re a citizen of, say, Saudi Arabia. But the sudden interest in ecoproducts and other greenmatter is pretty astonishing.

Here’s an entry that could hardly be more homely. Blogger DLTK lists 101 things to do with an empty cardboard toilet paper roll.

Most of these are kid items, like making bowling pins for a birthday party game. But a few are suitable for a kid-free household that’s nonetheless undergoing both greenmindedness and frugality.

For example, pencil cups. Wreaths (using 14-16 rolls per each, which is a lot of TP for a kid-free household. My condolences.)

Or what about holiday-themed napkin rings? Although that raises a perhaps insoluble issue in parts of the world overrun with applicances. Which is more ecologically sound: paper napkins? Or cloth napkins that must be laundered in hot water (and possibly, horrors, dried in a fuel-slurping dryer)?

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

About to pay $4 for a gallon of gas, as I am? Or maybe you’re already beyond that particular sticker shock? If you’re in Europe, of course, you’re chortling merrily at the thought that gas-hogging Americans are getting their comeuppance at last.

Anyway, you and I want to cut back on driving. Here’s one way. Cut back on trips to the grocery store. Blogger Garlic Breath tells you how.

My first question: what about the food shopping not carried out at a grocery store? What about all those lovely local vegetables, like the fat purple asparagus that got us through much of May? And the strawberries. And the peas? Peas, please, even though they must be shelled. And the tiny summer squash and blackberries and sweet corn that will arrive in July?

All of which must be purchased afresh every few days from farmers that are local, but not quite local enough. Decidedly not within walking distance.

Garlic’s answer to that is Grow Your Own. Easy for her to say, I whine, my yard gets no sun. Knowing full well there are ways around the sun problem, like community gardens, if I only wanted to Grow My Own. But, sorry to say, I don’t.

So I’ll compromise. I’ll try to plan ahead and stock up so I can skip the supermarket more often. I will keep driving to farmer’s markets, but will tell myself I’m saving fuel because at least my lettuce isn’t shipped across the country from California.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

The garden gnomes at London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, have built a walkway through the trees nearly 60 feet off the ground. Dang. The exchange rate is probably going to prevent me from treetop walking this summer at least, but it’s got to be an extraordinary experience.

The walkway is also structurally extraordinary. The walkway design, carried out in steel, is said to be based on the Fibonacci number sequence. (Starting with 1, each new number in the sequence is the sum of the two before it: 2, 3, 5,8,13….. No prize if you can figure out the next one.)

Here’s what the Kew says about it:

The ratio provides a perfectly proportioned growth pattern. This sequence is used for the spacing of the connection points for the diagonals of the walkway trusses. The 12m long trusses are connected to circular nodes which are in turn supported by pylons. It provides a seemingly random, natural appearance that in fact comes from a clear underlying geometry.

A slightly spooky aspect of the Fibonacci number sequence is that it’s not uncommon in nature, for example in plant branching patterns and number of petals on some flowers.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

If you’ll be in or near New York City in the next few weeks, please go where I went last weekend. Here’s why:

At the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, the garden gnomes have re-imagined the 19th century English garden that changed the world. This particular garden led pretty directly to the 21st century genetic technology that feeds us, discovers and cures our ills, and could eventually cure this century’s ills too. Some of them, anyway, like climate change and pollution.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women