Water crisis has become one of the biggest issues in today’s’ world. In order to combat this successfully, inventors have come up with several innovative products. Read on to know about some most innovative conceptual products conceived to reduce water consumption at home:
Powerful and Eco-Friendly Filterbrella
Conceptualized and designed by Andrew Leinonen, this potent yet trouble-free device is one of the most discussed ways to decrease water consumption at home. As the name suggests, Filterbrella combines the functions of a filter and an umbrella. It is equipped with an environmental canopy made of compostable polylactic acid plastic blends. There is also an empty rod in the device, which comprises an activated carbon filter for the purification of water. When rainwater passes through it via the canopy and flows into the bottle attached to the handle of the device, we get clean, pure, and portable water.
Unique Phyto-Purification Bathroom
Four designers – Jun Yasamoto, Olivier Pigasse, Vincent Vandenbrouck, and Alban Le Henry, came together to bring the initial blueprints of Phyto-Purification Bathroom. This mini ecological unit based on natural filtering principal not only helps in reprocessing and restoring gray water, but also assists in generating added oxygen. A hydraulic system in this ‘living shower’ initiates the phyto-purification process by canalizing wastewater through a group of plants planted in the sand. At first, the water is roughly cleaned by the sand. As it passes through different parts of the plants, it is cleaned gradually. Finally, bacteria and other heavy metals are eliminated when it moves across the plant roots.
Innovative Removable Kitchen Sink
Hughie Products Pvt. Ltd., a well-known company in Australia, has made the conservation of water easy and hassle-free with its modern innovative kitchen sink. It is basically a removable kitchen sink that prevents almost eighty percent of the wastewater from going down the sewer, and stores it for the future use, such as garden watering, car washing, etc. The exceptional sink has also won the ‘Product of the Year 2008′ award.
Exclusive Ban Beater Device
The creator of this versatile device is Dominic Flinton. ‘Ban Beater’ is basically a huge siphon with a couple of hoses connected to it. With the help of a single upward pull, the siphon can be put into action. The siphon sucks up the water that we waste during a bath, and the hoses are filled gradually. Once the process is over, the entire device is taken outside for using up the stored water.
Effective Washit System
‘Washit’ is a perfect combo of a shower and a washing machine. It includes a unique pump system that allows users to take a bath and rinse their clothes simultaneously with their shower run-off. As a result, the water does not get wasted during bathing and cloth washing.
Most innovative conceptual products designed to reduce water consumption at home
On the surface, it appears that the electric vehicle industry has had a rough go of it these past few years. Fisker Automotive dealt with a very public collapse. Sales of the extended range electric Chevy Volt have declined 11% since April 2012. Tesla’s Model S sedan received a beating in a New York Times review of its performance.
But things are looking up. The electric Nissan Leaf had a record-breaking month in March. And this week, Tesla announced that it’s profitable for the first time.
In a shareholder letter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that the company turned a profit of $15 million. Sales also received an 83% lift from last quarter, with $562 million in total revenues--a record for Tesla. The Model S also beat sales of both the Nissan Leaf (3,695 sold) and the Chevrolet Volt (4,421 sold) to become the best-selling EV, with 4,900 vehicles sold. Tesla has proven that top-notch branding can overshadow price in the EV world (the Model S is more expensive than both the Leaf and Volt), at least for now.
One important note from Tesla’s shareholder letter (hat tip to Quartz): 12% of Tesla’s first-quarter revenues came from selling zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) credits to manufacturers who haven’t reached California’s requirements for selling a certain number of zero-emissions vehicles. Musk writes: "We expect this to decline significantly in future quarters, as ZEV credits will only apply to about 1/6 of worldwide deliveries, versus roughly half of US deliveries, and the price per credit has declined."
Nonetheless, Tesla expects its gross margins to hit 25% by the fourth quarter of 2013, proving that the Department of Energy investments in EVs aren’t all duds. As Tesla rolls out the Model S in Europe later this year and releases even more affordable vehicles--as the company has long promised--chances are high that its economic situation will continue to improve.
3-D veneer technology is giving chair designers a way to reinvent the classics.
Stackable chairs drudge up memories of cafeterias, or maybe events held in high school gyms. They’re typically clunkier, heavier, and more orange than they need to be. The Buzz chair, which made its debut at the Milan Furniture Fair, has none of those problems. Netherlands-based Studio Bertjan Pot designed the Buzz, for Dutch furniture brand, Arco to be as lightweight possible, ditching dense plastic for a paper-light seat made of wooden veneer.
Until recently, opting for the style and warmth of a real wood chair meant choosing seriously heavy furniture. By the same hand, wooden veneer has suffered a longstanding reputation for cheapness. Now, 3-D veneer technology means that more precise forms can be crafted from all-natural materials, like beech or oak (seen here, on the Buzz). "Normal veneer only curves in one direction at a time," Bertjan Pot tells Co.Design. This veneer, "is more flexible and can curve in two directions at the same time and is more '3D.'" The technology works like this: Rather than mold an entire sheet of wooden veneer into the proper seat shape--it would crack under the pressure--the material is sliced into spaghetti-thin strips during manufacturing. The strips are meticulously pieced back together in production so that the grain matches. It looks the same to the naked eye, but the composite structure means that the seat has a new found flexibility, and can take on a more bodacious bend. For the Buzz, that means a snug and economical fit around its aluminum chair legs.
Bertjan Pot isn’t the first studio to use 3-D veneer technology: Last year, Herman Miller introduced the iconic Eames Molded Chair in a wooden veneer. Half a century ago, the deep cradle of that classic was especially difficult to draft in a wooden expression. Thanks to the new technology it worked, and the trend is taking off. Which is good news for high-school graduations everywhere.
Consumer Reports recently tried out the Tesla Model S electric car, and after all the testing was done, the magazine found that the Model S outscored every other car in their ratings. “It does so even though it’s an electric car. In fact it does so because it is electric,” Consumer Reports stated. Consumer Reports gave the Model S high marks for its impressive power, overall balance and comfortable ride.
Despite the clear cost benefits of being more energy efficient, many conservatives won’t buy in to something so closely associated with the liberal agenda. To get around that requires some marketing tricks.
It remains a mystery why energy efficiency isn’t more popular. Given the provable savings of investing in things like home insulation and higher mpg cars, you might think that the whole country would be banging on the door to get its share.
Turns out that energy efficiency remains a hard sell as much for political and cultural reasons as economic ones. Simply put: people are more likely to embrace energy savings if they have a "liberal" political outlook, and identify with a Democratic party agenda. The question is why, and what marketers of energy efficient products can do about it.
Research by Dena Gromet and Howard Kunreuther at the Wharton School and Rick Larrick at Duke University shows that marketing based around monetary incentives or energy independence may play better than appealing to environmental issues. In particular, messaging around climate change is the least effective, studies shows.
The researchers conducted two experiments. In the first, they asked 657 adults aged 19 to 81 the relative value they placed on reducing CO2, energy independence, and how much energy costs (for them). By a significant margin, more conservative participants were less likely to see efficiency as a priority.
"More politically conservative individuals are less in favor of investing in energy efficiency than are those who are more politically liberal, a finding driven primarily by the polarized psychological valuation of carbon emissions reduction," the paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says.
Following the first experiment, the researchers wondered if labeling a product as "environmental" would actually deter buyers of a particular persuasion. They found that it could. Working with 210 participants, aged 18 to 66, they offered two lightbulbs: an incandescent bulb and a compact fluorescent light (CFL). They priced the higher efficient CFL light at $1.50 and less efficient incandescent one at 50 cents, telling the participants that the former would last longer and cut energy costs by 75%. Then they added “Protect the Environment” stickers to half of the CFLs, but not the others.
The result: self-identified conservatives happily chose the more expensive bulb without the sticker. But when the CFL bulbs were labeled, they were less likely to buy it. Across all participants, 60% chose CFLs. With the stickers added, only about 30% of "more conservative participants" chose it.
"These findings indicate that connecting energy-efficient products to environmental concerns can negatively affect the demand for these products, specifically among persons in the United States who are more politically conservative," the researchers say.
Marketers therefore would be wise to either tailor messages to different audiences, or come up with statements of "trans-ideological appeal." "Different messages may be needed to reach different groups, and we think it is also important to identify more unifying messages," Gromet says, in an email.
New numbers released by the corporate giant show the incredibly cost-saving benefits of pursuing cleaner policies.
Mega-corporation Unilever, owner of everything from Ben and Jerry’s ice cream to Dove soap, announced that it has managed to make massive cuts to its carbon emissions while shaving millions off its operating budget.
Manufacturing activities provided the bulk of the savings, shedding 838,000 tonnes of CO2, while improving the efficiency of its logistics operations helped Unilever cut emissions by a further 211,000 tonnes since its 2008 baseline. […]
The new measures include the widespread installation of combined heat and power systems that have reduced CO2 from Unilever’s European operations by 50,000 tonnes while cutting energy bills by €10m, the deployment of biomass boilers, and the creation of regional transport hubs that have served to slash the distances covered by the company’s lorries.
The company’s sustainability director for manufacturing, John Maguire, echoed the sentiment that sustainability can be a force for cost-saving, as opposed to an added new cost. He said in a statement: "Eco-efficiency isn’t just about reducing the environmental footprint it also makes good business sense … Since 2008 our eco-efficiency programmes have avoided more than €300m of costs--almost €100m in energy; €186m in materials; €17m in water; and €10m in waste disposal. The benefits are very clear in a world where energy prices are increasing."
In a report released last week, the company described how brands that "have made sustainability central to their brand proposition or product innovation have accelerated sales during 2012," including one of its laundry detergents. By 2020, the company plans to "halve the environmental footprint of its products across the value chain" and source all of its agricultural raw materials from sustainable sources. (Currently, one-third of its products come from sustainable sources.)
The company’s progress thus far is a potent reminder that big companies can often find business incentives--like savings on energy costs--to pollute less.
Using nanobeads that strip out anything bad in your blood, this machine could be a solution to deadly blood infections, especially in places far from a hospital. Which is why the military is very interested.
Sepsis is a whole-body inflammatory nightmare caused by an infection of the blood, and it’s not only deadly, but difficult to treat, according to Don Ingber, director of Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, at Harvard.
Not knowing the specific pathogens causing the condition, doctors will often use broad spectrum antibiotics that have only limited chance of success. And treating the condition is a race against time. Ingber says for every hour patients are on the wrong drug, their mortality rate increases by nearly 10%. Sepsis eventually shuts down the body’s vital organs.
Blood infections have been a particular problem for the military in Afghanistan and Iraq. Which is one reason DARPA, the famed research group, is keen to find a better treatment. It recently awarded $9.25 million to the Wyss Institute, because it believes it might have one.
Its so-called "Spleen-on-a-Chip" is a blood cleaning device a little like a kidney dialysis machine. Blood goes out through one vein, and back through another. The key is what’s introduced by syringe beforehand: magnetic nano-beads coated in a protein that binds to bacteria, fungi, parasites, and some toxins. When the blood flows through micro-channels in the device, it pulls the pathogens free with a magnet, leaving the fluid clean.
"The idea with this therapy is that you could use it right away without knowing the type of infection," says Ingber. "You can remove pathogens and infections without triggering that whole cascade that gets worse and worse."
The technique also takes out dead pathogens (killed by antibiotics) that can also cause inflammations, if there are enough of them. And it can be used in combination with antibiotics at the same time.
Wyss is currently testing the "biospleen"--the channels mimic the structure of a real spleen--on rats. The DARPA money will now allow it to trial it with bigger animals, like pigs. Ingber says a fully serviceable device could be ready within five years.
It’s one of more than a dozen organs-on-chips that Wyss is developing, including a lung-on-a-chip and a gut-on-a-chip. The larger aim, says Ingber, is to raise the effectiveness of drug testing, and improve understanding of how the body reacts to disease.
Two wheelbarrows with everything you need to cook--and dine--alfresco.
These days you can find all sorts of options for food on the go. There are food trucks pretty much everywhere you look in today’s cities, many specializing in dishes you’ve probably never even heard of. And yet, as delicious as all this new sidewalk cuisine is, it does leave us with a pressing question: Where are we supposed to eat this stuff?
That’s one of the things addressed by Mobile Hospitality, a project by Austrian designers Ania Rosinke and Maciej Chmara. The duo’s two-wheelbarrow system not only has a full mobile kitchen--a food cart that specializes in a home cooked meal, you could say--but also includes a dining table with seating for 10.
For the designers, the carts were a chance to reinvigorate public spaces around their city--places that were increasingly overlooked in today’s eyes-glued-on-our-smartphone society. As Rosinke explains, the real joy wasn’t in designing the kitchen-on-wheels (though it does cleverly pack in room for pots and pans, a small herb garden, some burners, and cooking utensils) but in actually putting the thing to work, having a spontaneous sit-down meal with the first 10 people to cross their path.
"The reactions were really great," the designer says. Some of their impromptu guests brought them post-facto hostess gifts the next day, like bottles of wine and homemade marmalade. Other diners, Rosinke recalls, actually followed the chefs to the next city over in hopes of scoring another complimentary meal. I guess that’s the danger of being too hospitable.
Italian designer Fabio Novembre has introduced a sleek new collection of outdoor furniture for Vondom called F3 (F3 = Form Follows Function). The curvy pieces are based on mathematical surfaces that flow from one piece to another when placed together.
The modular, stackable designs can be configured together any way you like with the various pieces in the collection that include a chair, table, armchair, coffee table, and sun bed.
The design is simple but required accurate engineering to achieve the rotomolded shape.
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