Inhabitat’s Week in Green: stair-climbing vacuum cleaner, carbon dioxide diapers and a real 3D-printed face
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.
Just a few short years ago, 3D printing seemed like science fiction; we could grasp its value, but we didn’t yet have the ability to harness its power and put it to good use. Now, we’re seeing the technology advance every day — and it’s opening up new possibilities in medical science and other fields. This week, we shared the story of one British man who received a new 3D-printed face that gave him a second chance at life. In an equally amazing story, scientists at the University of Notre Dame successfully 3D printed the entire skeleton of a living rat. California-based Signal Snowboards unveiled the world’s first 3D-printed snowboard this week. And desktop 3D printing and scanning is getting cheaper every day — Canadian company Matterform is developing a lightweight 3D scanner called the Photon that’s cheaper than a tablet.
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Leave a commentMobile Miscellany: week of February 25th, 2013
If you didn’t get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we’ve opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought news of a new direction for Muve Music, the arrival of a budget smartphone at Sprint and a whole lotta LTE expansion. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of February 25th, 2013.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
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Inhabitat’s Week in Green: LED wine sellar, a ‘Breathing Bike’ and 3D-printed embryonic stem cells
For years, the potential of 3D printing has made tech geeks drool, but now we’re finally starting to see the technology graduate from a mere novelty into a highly useful tool. Take, for example, the story of the 5-year-old boy who was born without fingers on his right hand but recently received a 3D-printed prosthetic hand. Thanks to its quick turnaround speeds, the technology also enables scientists to test multiple designs at once. For example, in Australia researchers are using 3D printers to produce more effective tags that can be used to track large fish. At Cornell University, researchers are experimenting with using 3D printers to print food that could be eaten by astronauts in space, and scientists in Edinburgh successfully 3D-printed embryonic stem cells for the first time, demonstrating how 3D-printing technology could one day eliminate the need for organ donation. In related news, scientists were recently surprised to find children’s cells living in mother’s brains long after pregnancy.
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Leave a commentMobile Miscellany: week of February 4th, 2013
If you didn’t get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we’ve opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought the arrival of Cricket’s first waterproof smartphone and Three introduced an updated Galaxy S III known as the Ultrafast. Not to stop there, we’ll take a trip to India to highlight the latest value-oriented smartphone. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of February 4th, 2013.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile
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Inhabitat’s Week in Green: Tesla Model X, Wendy the pavilion and a robot named Baxter
It’s cold outside, but the cars at this week’s North American International Auto Show were positively sizzling — and Inhabitat sent several writers to report on the latest green cars to be unveiled at the show. Among the standouts at this year’s auto show were Acura, which unveiled its sleek new NSX hybrid sports car, and Tesla, which showcased its all-electric Model X. Also on display in Detroit was Cadillac’s 2014 ELR extended range EV with its gorgeous new interior. Want to see all the hottest rides from NAIAS 2013? Check out our roundup of the top seven hybrids and EVs from this year’s show.http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/20/tesla-model-x-wendy-pavilion-robot-baxter/
While we were mostly preoccupied with the shiny new cars in Detroit, there were also plenty of exciting green architecture developments this week. Ronald Lu & Partners just announced that ZCB, the first net-zero energy building in Hong Kong is now open to the public. Meanwhile in China, the 2013 Harbin Ice Festival just kicked off in Zhaolin Park near the Songhua River — and it features some absolutely stunning castles made entirely from ice. And Wendy, the spiky blue pavilion from NYC-based architecture firm HWKN, made its debut in Abu Dhabi, and an Inhabitat reporter was on the scene to tour it.
Last week was a good one for renewable energy news. Japan announced that it will soon build the world’s largest offshore wind farm near Fukushima to compensate for scaling back its use of nuclear power since the 2011 meltdown. Electronics giant Panasonic unveiled the next-generation Ene-Farm, which is the world’s most efficient home fuel cell. Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory developed a device that detects weak or defective silicon wafers, which could save the solar industry billions of dollars. And the California Public Utilities Commission announced that California installed an impressive 1 GW of solar power by the end of 2012 — the most of any state in the country.
Inhabitat also reported on a wide variety of green products last week, starting with the iRock, an ingenious rocking chair that recharges your iPad using kinetic energy. Industrial designer Max Gunawan unveiled the Lumio, a hardbound book that opens up to become a gorgeous low-energy lamp. A group of University of Toronto grads launched the NanoLight, which they claim is the world’s most efficient LED light bulb. Rethink Robotics, a Boston-based robotics firm created a $22,000 humanoid robot named Baxter, which the company thinks can help revive American manufacturing. And finally, in case you missed it, Inhabitat recently launched a photo contest with LightCollector — enter now for your chance to win $1,000!
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Refresh Roundup: week of December 24th, 2012
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!
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Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile
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Mobile Miscellany: week of December 10th, 2012
If you didn’t get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we’ve opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This past week, a company that you’re no doubt familiar with announced its departure from the smartphone business, a UK-based carrier put the Nexus 4 up for sale and Republic Wireless made good on a promise. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of December 10th, 2012.
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Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
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Refresh Roundup: week of December 3rd, 2012
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!
Continue reading Refresh Roundup: week of December 3rd, 2012
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile
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Inhabitat’s Week in Green: fluorescent bulb moon, fuel-efficient supersonic jet and a toxin-eating oyster park
Man-made technology is great, but Mother Nature is the greatest inventor of them all — and scientists are discovering new ways to take advantage of the tools found in nature. Take, for example, a team of researchers from Vanderbilt University who developed a solar cell using the photosynthetic protein found in spinach. In New York, Scape Studio has proposed to use the oyster’s natural cleaning ability to help clean up the contaminated waters of the Gowanus Canal. The firm has received funding to create Oyster-tecture, an oyster park at the mouth of the canal where millions of mollusks will “eat” toxins. Meanwhile, the US Forest Service has been deriving cellulose nanocrystals from wood pulp extract to create a material that’s stronger than Kevlar and carbon fiber.
Inhabitat’s Week in Green: fluorescent bulb moon, fuel-efficient supersonic jet and a toxin-eating oyster park originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Sep 2012 10:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Leave a commentMobile Miscellany: week of September 3rd, 2012
Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you’re like us and really want to know what’s going on, then you’ve come to the right place. This past week, AT&T revealed grand plans for LTE expansion that’ll continue through the end of the year and the Galaxy Reverb for Virgin Mobile officially went up for preorder. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of September 3rd, 2012.
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Mobile Miscellany: week of September 3rd, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Sep 2012 21:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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