Designing and building greener PCs is a noble thing but having reported on a vast number ‘green’ PC concepts and competitions, I’m sad to say that very few make it into production.
This week it’s the 2008 “Regeneration: International Green Computing Design Competition,” sponsored by Dell and it’s down to the last 5. According to the organisers:
“It was conceived as a means for Dell to facilitate a broad public dialogue around design opportunities and trade-offs regarding environmentally-responsible design (including the entire lifecycle of computing technologies & products). The team set rigorous requirements for the competition, and had more than 500 design students and professionals from across the globe participate. The jury of six internationally respected sustainable design experts worked independently to evaluate and cull the initial range of entries and then assembled in Austin to select the top 5 Finalists.”
Trackback: http://blogs.vnunet.com/app/trackback/100042
Honda Motor has developed a walking assist device that could help the elderly and those with mobility problems to get around a lot easier.
Based on technology gleaned from its Asimo humanoid robot, the walking assist device weighs just 2.8Kg, is designed to be worn simply with a belt around the hip and thigh and can cope with different body shapes. The belt applies cooperative control based on information obtained from hip angle sensors. The motors provide assistance to the user by lengthening their stride to more than they could normally achieve.
Trackback: http://blogs.vnunet.com/app/trackback/100041
Hitachi’s anorexic LCD TVs are coming to Comet next month. The 32in, 37in and 42in models in the company’s Wooo UT range, measure just 35mm from front to back - excluding stand - and make certain rival LCD tellys look like Jade Goody.
Since none of us will be able to buy big, ridiculously thin and expensive OLED TVs until 2009 or 2010, we’ll have to make do with LCDs on a diet. As well as being very thin the new Hitachi models, according to the company, are up to 50% lighter than rival LCD TVs with the 32in model weighing in at a fraction under 11Kg – very light indeed.
Bill Moir, Comet’s Head of Brown Goods, said:
Trackback: http://blogs.vnunet.com/app/trackback/100040
In an effort to make getting from A-to-B even easier, NDrive has launched the G280 and G800 sat nav devices which have swapped out interactive drawings for real 3D photos of UK cities.
Well, not all of them, but enough to make these devices more interesting than your run of the mill sat-navs. NDrive’s photo mapping is currently available for many of the UK’s biggest cities, including London, Birmingham, Manchester, Aberdeen, Liverpool, Cardiff, Leeds, Glasgow, Newcastle and Sheffield, among others.
According to the company, photo maps make it easier to see where are going and you get to actually see your destination before you set off.
Trackback: http://blogs.vnunet.com/app/trackback/100039
Short of wearing tinfoil on your head, allegedly, there's not too much you can do to hide from all those spy satellites in the sky tracking your every move. Of course, I may scoff, but then I really don't care how many times some GPS tracker sees me going to the bog.
Some of you though might like some privacy from GPS trackers so you could do worse than investing in something like the GPS Tracker Defence. Take this adapter and plug into the cigar lighter in your car and within 1 minute you will disable all GPS trackers within a 5-metre range by preventing them from getting a satellite fix. You can just picture baffled spies in a van freaking out - if only in your head.
Trackback: http://blogs.vnunet.com/app/trackback/100038
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
