Big cities these days have little space for trees and we have little time to care about their absence. We just meander on without really worrying about stuff like that, apart from the few times when we see a moving documentary on television. Even then, you move on the moment you switch to another channel. But Mario Caceres and Cristian Canonico of Influx Studio have decided to add vegetation to urban settings; and this is not your conventional green!

The Treepods are more like alien-designs that dropped out of Hollywood. But the fact is that they could not be more earth-like, if they tried. Inspired by nature (Biomimicry), the designs imitate the look of a Dragon tree. While it would be great to have such trees line-up the city roads, we really are not going to see that happen anytime soon. So, in come the Treepods!

The Treepods sport photovoltaic panels that generate solar energy, which can be used to power up local communities. They are fitted with LED lighting that allows the Treepods to dazzle in the dark in a multitude of colors. The base is utilized as a recreational center with swings, see-saw and other installations that convert kinetic energy into electric energy as well!

This simply begs the question of why those thousands of parks across the globe are not tapping into toddler-power and making energy out of the swings, slides and more. Either way, Treepod gets that done. The most important use of the Treepods is their ability to convert CO2 into Oxygen (just like natural vegetation) by using the latest ‘Humidity Swing’ Technology.

In short, we just love the Treepods. Now if they can only shrink into tiny little pins the moment they feel threatened... You know, like the ones in Avatar!

Via: e-architect

A high-tech coating used on military aircraft could make commercial planes more aerodynamic and allow them to fly more efficiently through the air. Budget airline EasyJet has applied the coating, invented by TripleO, to eight of its aircraft and will compare their fuel consumption to the rest of the fleet over the course of the year. If successful, all 194 of EasyJet’s aircraft will be coated. Experts say the coating could cut fuel costs by 2 percent, which would save EasyJet £20 million each year.

Read the rest of EasyJet Coats Airplanes With Ultra Thin Paint To Reduce Fuel Consumptionhttp://www.inhabitat.com/wp-admin/ohttp://www.inhabitat.com/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=better_feedptions-general.php?page=better_feed

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: aerodynamic aircraft, easyjet aircraft coating, easyjet airline, efficient aircraft, fuel efficiency, green transportation, innovative design, nano-technology aircraft coating, tripleo, tripleo aircraft coating, uk airline easyjet, ultra thin aircraft coating, ultra thin aircraft paint

Trees naturally filter and clean our air, but in today’s heavily polluted world, it’s just too huge of a task to expect Mother Nature to take care of herself. Taking this into account, designers Mario Caceres and Cristian Canonico have designed a set of beautiful air-filtering trees for the SHIFTboston urban intervention contest. Called TREEPODS, the designs harnesses biomimicry to efficiently emulate the carbon filtration qualities of trees.

Read the rest of TREEPODS: Carbon-Scrubbing Artificial Trees for Boston City Streetshttp://www.inhabitat.com/wp-admin/ohttp://www.inhabitat.com/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=better_feedptions-general.php?page=better_feed

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: "solar energy", air cleaning, air purification, biomimicry, boston, Cristian Canonico, de-carbonization, Dr. Klaus Lackner, kinetic energy, Mario Caceres, TREEPODS

What if you had a swimming pool that could change shape according to your needs? Enter the Hydrofloor, a multitasking pool floor that can actually rise and lower to different levels. The pool can even disappear entirely to form a floor! This neat disappearing trick is also a huge energy saver, as the pool water is insulated and retains heat when not in use.

Read the rest of Hydrofloor: Disappearing Pool Saves Energy and Spacehttp://www.inhabitat.com/wp-admin/ohttp://www.inhabitat.com/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=better_feedptions-general.php?page=better_feed

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: adjustable floor, adjustable pool, disappearing pool, eco pool, energy saving pool, green pool, hydro floor, hydropool, sustainable pool, transforming pool, transforming room

Microscale accelerometers are electronic components that can detect quick negative acceleration in a vehicle, can tell if a collision has occurred (and the severity of the collision), and are used in all airbag deployment systems. The silicon-based microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) singlehandedly changed airbag deployment in the mid-90s (from a larger, clunkier deployment system) and now the industry may be in for a new change. Researchers at Harvard have come up with a MEMS force sensor that’s made from paper — and it costs a throwaway 4 cents.

Read the rest of New Paper Accelerometers Hold Promise for Airbags, Medical Systemshttp://www.inhabitat.com/wp-admin/ohttp://www.inhabitat.com/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=better_feedptions-general.php?page=better_feed

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: accelerometer, air-bag deployment, George Whitesides, havard research, iphone movement detection, mems silicon chips, Microscale accelerometers, paper accelerometer, sensor detector, silicon accelerometer

Plastic bags have been the enemy of environmentalists for pretty much as long as they have existed.  Not only are they made from oil, but they clog our landfills for hundreds of years.  Many cities, states and countries have banned plastic bags altogether, but for most of the world, they'll be hanging around for a while longer.

In an attempt to deal with the millions and millions of plastic bags used every year, Japanese inventor Akinori Ito has created a machine that can turn plastic bags into fuel in a carbon negative process.  The machine, which is now being sold by the inventor's Blest Corporation, heats the plastic and traps the vapors in a system of pipes, where the vapors are cooled and condensed into crude oil. The crude oil can be used in generators and even some stoves, but with one more refining step, it can be used in gasoline.

The very efficient machine can process two pounds of plastic (including polyethylene, polystyrene and polypropylene) into a quart of oil using only one kilowatt of electricity.

Obviously, once the fuel is burned, it will release CO2 into the atmosphere, but it's allowing the oil that created the plastic to be used twice instead of just once and then sent to a landfill.  That cuts down on the amount of oil we need to extract and keeps plastic out of landfills.

The machine is meant for households, but it currently costs $10,000, which is pretty steep.  Ito hopes that the cost of the machine will drop as production increases.

via CleanTechnica

Image via Blest Corporation

Porsche has recently emerged as an unlikely champion of the electric vehicle, first with the 918 plug-in hybrid Spyder supercar, then with the 918 RSR hybrid (a modified Spyder), and now with the all-electric Boxster E. It's official: Porsche owns the sexy concept electric supercar sector.

The Boxster E features 240 horsepower, goes from 0 to 60 in 5.3 seconds, and contains a 29 kWh battery pack that allows for a 100-mile range before recharging, according to Autobloggreen. Porsche plans on testing three Boxster E's in Stuttgart, Germany, in the next few months, treating them as so-called rolling laboratories for electric technology.

The Spyder and RSR hybrids are set to be released commercially in the coming years, but Porsche hasn't revealed its plans for the Boxster E. That's unfortunate--we would rather see the electric Boxster E on the market than the RSR, which is more focused on performance than fuel economy. If Porsche's tests with the Boxster E go well, however, technology from the vehicle will almost certainly be used in future Porsche EVs.

Follow Fast Company on Twitter. Ariel Schwartz can be reached by email.

Chances are, you live near a body of water polluted by carcinogenic chemicals (if you don't think you do, this list of polluted rivers from the Environmental Working Group might change your mind). But what if all the contaminated sediment lingering in, say, the Mississippi River, could be used for good? STABCON, a consortium of Swedish and Norwegian companies and researchers, have figured out a way to turn all that lead and mercury-polluted soil into a concrete-like substance that can be used for construction.

After extensive testing at Oxelösund, a Swedish port, the STABCON team discovered that dredged-up soft sediment strengthened with cement and Merit 5000 (a product used in steel-making), hardened into a safe material that could be used as a building block. ScienceDaily claims that the material is both durable and safe--after building a new harbor with the material at Oxelösund, researchers found that chemicals didn't leak into surrounding waters.

So far, STABCON only has plans to use the new process in Sweden, with multiple local ports interested in seeing their contaminated sediments dredged up. Soon, though, STABCON will extend its research throughout the entire Baltic Sea region.

And after that? If STABCON can prove that its concrete-like substance doesn't degrade over the years and start leaking toxic materials back into the water, ports everywhere might consider turning their dirty soil into construction projects.

Follow Fast Company on Twitter. Ariel Schwartz can be reached by email.

SmartPlanet's got an interview up with Pattie Moore, one of the mothers of Universal Design. Most of us that have gone through ID programs learned that way back in 1979, when product design was a lot less enlightened as a field than it is now, Moore began disguising herself as an elderly woman and traveling the country to learn firsthand about the challenges she'd face as a result of poor design. A resultant Reader's Digest article and Today Show coverage put her three-year project on the map and added an important element to the industrial design profession, most famously encapsulated in the Smart-Design-designed Good Grips line of products for Oxo.

Today Moore runs MooreDesign Associates, and in addition to doing research and consulting, she lectures at schools all around the world.

Here's a snippet from the interview:

What makes good functional design?

Design can't just be about the technology, the material science, the widgets and wow factors. It has to be holistic, it has to be human, it has to speak to us. We know the perfect little black dress when we see it. Everyone's in search of the perfect mattress and has their special favorite cup. Things become an extension of what we're able to do.

So design is a combination of technology and know-how and sensitivity and know-why. It's like pornography--you can't really define it, but you know it when you see it.

Read the rest here.