by: Ecofriend, 2012-02-17 11:41:04 UTC
Rahul Gupta:
If you have an iPhone, this is just the thing for you. Aptly named, the Aqua Tek S, the device is the first waterproof, solar charging case for your iPhone. The iPhone case is best suited for individuals having a rugged lifestyle. It is designed to protect the iPhone from falls, drops, and accidental spills.
The case also has built-in solar battery and solar charger.
The case is made out of sturdy polycarbonate material with rubber grips for extra protection. The case is a bit bulky, but it still provides full access to the phone camera, touchscreen, buttons and speakers. While camping, hiking, etc. you can charge your iPhone using the power of sun through built-in solar panel fixed at the back of the case. The case is also waterproof up to a depth of twenty feet.
The iPhone case is available in nine colors, including Leopard, Black Night, Desert Camo, Pink Camo, Navy Camo, Urban Camo, Jungle Camo, Reggae Camo and Singal orange. The price quoted by company for Aqua Tek S iPhone case is $100. The company has already launched many mobile cases on the market, but this case is specially designed for enthusiasts, who love mountaineering, snorkeling, skiing and spelunking. You can even dive down deep waters and take marvelous pictures of the underwater life with your iPhone as it will remain protected and double as an underwater camera.
We intentionally omitted one of our favorite iF Product Design Gold Award-Winners from Tuesday's roundup of a half-dozen notables because we had the opportunity to talk to two members of Motorola Solutions' design team. Scott Richards, a Senior Industrial Designer, and Mariah Levitt, a Human Factors Engineer for Motorola Solutions, made the trek from mild Florida to frigid Munich to accept the award on behalf of the telecommunications innovators last weekend. The two shared several insights into the premise and process of the APX™ XE Remote Speaker Microphone.
Image courtesy of Motorola Solutions
Core77: Let's start with a little bit of background about the device.
Scott Richards:It's a fire-specific microphone: it's called the XE RSM. "RSM" stands for "remote speaker microphone," which is a common phrase in the industry.
About four or five years ago, Motorola Solutions made a conscious decision to really invest in what is it that firefighters need that's unique from other public safety personnel. In a lot of research, a lot of times over the years, we had heard from firefighters, "The products that you're showing us and testing with us, really just seem to be adapted police devices. And we feel like we need products that are more specific for our needs.
In fact, that's really Mariah's specialty as a researcher... [her role is to] speak with literally hundreds of end users that are firefighters, and identify their needs when it comes to communications.
Mariah Levitt: [For our] research, we've done real fire training—gone in and understood what they deal with—and you come out and you have that emotional element of what you can and can't you do in that environment with current devices. You really realize what we need to work on, and [we've addressed] a number of those things in this device.
Some other things we did are in-person interviews and ride-alongs with firefighters. And we also used a lot of cognitive psychology techniques—predictive exercises and things like that—trying to get firefighters themselves to think about what would they ideally want.
All that stuff went into something like this, this speaker mic.
SR: Firefighters are all about wet, dirty... hot, and cold environments. And there's a condition that they have called situational disability, which simply means every user is disabled at one point or another, because of the protective clothing they're wearing, the noise in their environment, etc.
For example, when it comes to noise, this device is designed with an exclusive noise-cancelling system so that when the user is speaking into it, he's heard much more clearly on the other end. The team leader at the truck, or the dispatcher, is able to understand what they're saying, even with whirring fans and motors in the background, roaring fires and everything.
ML: And fire alarms in the building... It's 50% louder than our previous product.
This is the first microphone that has that. Before that, we had the radios that could [had noise-cancelling]... but as soon as you attach a speaker mic to it, [the signal is] only as good as what comes out of that speaker. So this is the first opportunity for us to actually make sure that the whole system has dual noise-cancelling.
Earlier this week, we took a look at some of our favorites from the iF Design 2012 Gold Award-Winners in the Product Design category. Here we have a selection of a few standouts from the other three categories, communications, material and packaging.
Communications Design was the second largest category, though it garnered only about a third of the entries as the Product Design category (1,054 vs. 2,923), with 275 earning the coveted iF label, of which 30 were gold winners.
The Product Interface subcategory saw a predictable range of several touchscreen implementations. We liked OYSTAR's "One HMI" is a single touch-based Human-Machine Interface "control concept and software design for 12 technologies, 36 machine types and 3 monitor sizes."
Print Media ain't dead yet: 11 of the 30 gold winners fell into this subcategory. Nevertheless, decodeunicode had an obvious digital age appeal for those of us who nerd out over well-designed reference materials. (Viewable here; hopefully they'll translate it into English soon!)
by: Reuters: Green Business News, 2012-02-16 19:11:30 UTC
LONDON (Reuters) - Dutch scientists have found a way of turning plant matter into the building blocks of common plastics using a nanotechnology process that offers an alternative to oil-based production.
by: Reuters: Green Business News, 2012-02-16 11:01:36 UTC
LONDON (Reuters) - A group of Nobel peace prize winners urged European leaders in a letter on Thursday to support an EU Commission proposal to class fuel from oil sands as highly polluting.
The Green Button Initiative is gaining traction with the launch of Green Button Connect, a web portal launched by energy-focused software developer, Tendril. One side of the site serves consumers who can upload their green button data and try out different applications to make sense of it. The other side of the site serves developers who want to develop applications for these consumers to use.
The voluntary Green Button Initiative, launched in 2011 by then-U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, asks utility companies to standardize consumer energy consumption data, and to make that data file available to each utility customer.
“Consumer should have access to their own energy usage information,” Chopra said at the initiative’s launch. So far, about 10 million utility customers in California have that access, and utilities in Texas and Maryland have publicly committed to the initiative.
However, “Data by itself is not going to liberate consumers,” says Kent Dickson, Chief Technology Officer at Tendril.
“We need developers to give consumers tools for using the data, and we need to give consumers choices in which applications make sense for them. Green Button Connect is the common place for developers and consumers to go to work on making that happen.”
Green Button Connect currently features two apps for consumers to use in making sense of their home energy use. Simple Energy takes an interactive gaming approach. The application says it “enables people to become more engaged with their own energy consumption by comparing their use with friends and neighbors on social platforms where they’re already spending time: Facebook, email and mobile apps.”
Green Carrot is one of 50 apps in development that will use Green Button data.
Tendril’s own application, Energy Insight, presents energy use data in easy-to-read charts that can be displayed in hourly, daily, monthly intervals, and those charts can be easily updated and sorted.
But clearly there is momentum behind the initiative. In late January, Tendril hosted an event in New York where, in 24 hours, teams of programmers jammed out prototype apps to use Green Button Data for home energy monitoring and analysis. Some 240 application developers have registered to use the Tendril platform through Green Button Connect, and at least 50 applications are in active development, according to Dickson.
Currently, the Green Button Initiative is focused on getting home energy use data to consumers in a useable form, but future developments hold even more promise. For example, applications are expected to come online that will suggest conservation actions based on usage data, and even make some simple decisions for you. Tendril is currently in a partnership with BMW in a project to allow home energy management systems to optimize the recharging of BMW’s forthcoming ActiveE electric vehicle.
GreenButtonConnect.com helps developers create apps for consumers to use in monitoring and managing home energy consumption.
With warnings that Europe is “too slow and too piecemeal” in developing a sustainable economy, the EU executive has unveiled plans to encourage development of the ‘bio-economy’ through investment and innovation.
The increasing globalization of culture, as well as of business, brings opportunities for companies to streamline production while also expanding their market reach.
by: Sustainable Design News, 2012-02-15 03:42:20 UTC Drylands Design, an exhibition to be held at the Architecture + Design Museum > Los Angeles (A+D Museum), will feature works by architects, landscape architects, engineers, and urban designers responding to the challenges of water scarcity in the face of climate change.
With a focus on the US West, the exhibition will present a portfolio of adaptive strategies large and small, rural and urban, high tech and low-carbon.
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-02-05 15:35:21 UTC
Revolutionary lightweight design
The innovative Audi Space Frame (ASF) is exceptionally strong but substantially lighter than a metal chassis. Safety ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-02-03 15:55:16 UTC
The UK government sponsors an organization that tries to find synergies among different industries. Looking for a market for waste products or by-product ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-02-02 19:17:20 UTC
This International Green Award winner generates power in a sustainable way
E-site® is a complete and proven turn-key solution that is extremely ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-02-01 07:25:24 UTC
Ivory palm tree nuts is a beautiful renewable material for jewelry and smaller details like button and knobs and the like. The hard inner core resembles ...
Image courtesy of iF Design Awards
Image courtesy of Motorola Solutions
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