Pomme::TAB

Seen today on Boing Boing, strange and beautiful photos:

(Via Boing Boing.)

A compilation of alternative accommodation, trendy because labelled as “green”.
I actually like the Loft Cube (too easy to mispronounce as ‘Love Cube’) , and if installed on the rooftop of a London building, the views from all side must be amazing and I quite see myself in such dwelling. It’s not expensive, especially compared to London prices.
It also happens that the first Loft Cube has been installed in London, on the 8th storey of a building near Tate Britain …
Now, if only the cube could come with an instruction manual on how to approach local authorities and building management companies …


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UK’s CIS Solar Tower garners 390-kilowatts from the sun: “

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

We’re not entirely sure if Manchester’s CIS Solar Tower will be the world’s grandest solar tower, but in terms of buildings have moved beyond the drawing board, it definitely packs a punch. Reportedly, the flaky construction led to dilapidating walls, which were then replaced by a much greener solution — 7,244 Sharp 80W photovoltaic panels, to be precise. Curiously, only 4,898 of the modules are actually functional, but they still soak up enough sunlight to generate 390-kilowatts of energy, or in layman’s terms, enough juice to ‘power 1,000 PCs for a year.’ Additionally, the roof is home to two dozen wind turbines that generate 10-percent of the total power used in the building. Of course, such an endeavor did ring up at a steep £5.675 million ($11.4 million), but we’re pretty certain this solar panel makeover was concerned with matters other than dollars and cents. Click on through for a top-down shot.

[Via MetaEfficient]

Continue reading UK’s CIS Solar Tower garners 390-kilowatts from the sun

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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(Via Engadget.)

This month has been rich in news/articles about solar technology in the blogosphere.

Below are two more links

• Sliver
• 3D solar cells

That’s great news for renewable energy!

Solar Power-Cell Breakthrough: “An anonymous reader writes ‘Researchers from the Nanomaterials Research Centre at Massey University in New Zealand have developed synthetic dyes that can be used to generate electricity at one tenth of the cost of current silicon-based solar panels. These photosynthesis-like compounds work in low-light conditions and can be cheaply incorporated into window-panes and building materials, thereby turning them into generators of electricity.’

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(Via Slashdot.)

At the beginning of the month Digg reported on an article on how to make your own biodiesel.

It’s quite interesting, especially since you can get waste vegetable oil from restaurants for free. It’s a pity the yield is not as great as producing biodiesel from algae, but then again algae is not that freely and widely available.

Alternatively you can also build your own nuclear reactor.

I found myself browsing Wikipedia a few times this week:

• First I got interested in toilet technology: what is a porta-potti and the principles of chemical toilets and composting toilets
• Then I became fascinated by bio-diesel which led to a site warning people of the environment risk of some bio-diesel
• Through an article on Digg, I landed on the wikipedia page explaining what is an Air car

For those of us who are concerned about their energy footprint either for the sake of the planet or just because of the electricity bill at the end of the month (or both), this is an interesting article.
The fact that the Wii easily won is almost incidental to me. When you buy a washing machine, the consumption of water and electricity of models are often detailed and compared in the catalogues. Unfortunately, that seldom happen in consumer electronics. So if this article opens a new era where power consumption is a major criteria in a review of consumer electronics device that’s excellent news.

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I know there are species of spiders that can jump, now spider can fly, sort of.
This is a short article, but there’s two elements I’ll remember from it:
First, finding has been obtained through collaboration between disciplines (math, biology, physics, ecology).
Second, they mention briefly that this phenomenon could be used by farmers as natural pesticide (as spiders feed on insects, a flock of them could be “airborne” on target fields).
That’s cool.

You thought crawling ones were bad enough. Researchers have developed a new model that explains how spiders are able to ‘fly’ or ‘parachute’ into new territory on single strands of silk â�� sometimes covering distances of hundreds of miles over open ocean.

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This map is supposed to represent the quietest and loudest places in London.
Interesting? not at this resolution, as it kind of states the obvious: the quiet places (black) that can be easily noticed are … the parks and gardens. What a suprise.
It would be more interesting if the statistical data could be mapped on Google Earth which allows you to zoom in. That way you can really spot the quietest urban areas and maybe follows the noise trails.

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