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MikeChino writes:
Elon Musk is ready to make you a deal. In the mercurial magnate’s latest efforts to drag Twitter into profitability—or oblivion—the company is auctioning off loads of furniture and equipment from its downtown San Francisco space. While you might not have room in your kitchen for a Combitherm electric oven or an Electrolux commercial vegetable drier, you can also bid on an authentic Eames chair, or a Knoll sit/stand desk—all for well below retail.
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MikeChino writes:
In Tabasco, Mexico, a family living below the poverty line recently visited their future home: a 3D-printed, 500-square foot structure with two bedrooms, one bath, a wraparound cement patio, and an awning over the front porch. It’s one of two fully furnished homes—printed in about 24 hours and finished by local nonprofit ÉCHALE—that will soon make up a larger community of 50 dwellings with green spaces, parks, amenities, and basic utilities.
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MikeChino writes:
Online shoe retailer Zappos has partnered with geodesic dome start-up Geoship to build a community of homes for the homeless in Las Vegas. The homes be built with water-activated ceramic cement, which can withstand raging forest fires with temperatures up to 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit. The material is nontoxic and recyclable; it can withstand salt, mold, and rust; and the structures have a shelf life of over 500 years.
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MikeChino writes:
The 1974 UN World Food Conference deemed algae "the most ideal food for mankind”—so why aren’t we eating more of it? To encourage the uptake of this superfood, RISD grad Hyunseok An has developed a home farming kit that puts algae on the menu. The simple, attractive, automated system consists of 16 bioreactors that regenerate with algae twice a week.
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MikeChino writes:
Yves Béhar, ICON, and New Story just unveiled plans to build the world’s first 3D-printed community this summer in Latin America. The project will provide over 50 homes for impoverished families who typically live on less than $200 per month. ICON has developed a portable printer that will print the walls of each home in just 24 hours with nearly zero waste.
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MikeChino writes:
The world’s first home designed, planned, and built with mainly digital processes just opened its doors in Switzerland. Developed by eight ETH Zurich professors, DFAB House is a pilot project showcasing futuristic building technologies that may someday work their way into our homes—and it’s topped with a solar array that generates, on average, 1.5 times more energy than the unit needs.
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MikeChino writes:
Casper, the company that reinvented how we buy mattresses, now wants to transform our sleep habits with Casper Glow—a new connected bedtime light. In 2017, the company launched Casper Labs, which employs 50 researchers, scientists, and engineers to explore sleep research. Powered by a 2,700 kelvin LED light, Glow will fade over 45 minutes at bedtime (adjustable) and then gradually brighten in the morning, using its ambient light sensor to determine how bright or dark a room is before tuning on.
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MikeChino writes:
Over its 50 years, CES has traditionally focused on "black box tech" (televisions, home entertainment, and gaming devices), but the emergence of home tech has brought a lot more color to the Las Vegas Convention Center—and this year was the year of the stylish smart home. Sleek design meets smart technology. Innovative solutions produce stylish results. And of course, there are robots and talking toilets.
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MikeChino writes:
Is Apple branching out into clever clothing? On January 1, 2019, the tech giant was awarded an original design patent for "Fabric.” First filed for in September 2016, the "Fabric" patent shows a swatch of a ridged material in gray, dark gray, and white to represent contrasting appearances. Apple has filed for several patents in the last few years related to combining technology with fabric, but this is the first glimpse we’ve had at what that fabric might look like.
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MikeChino writes:
Julian Melchiorri, a London-based designer and engineer, created an extraordinary living chandelier that not only lights up the room, but also actively purifies the air around it. The Exhale Chandelier features glass leaves filled with green algae that absorb CO2 and release oxygen.
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MikeChino writes:
Researchers in the Netherlands have developed a process for making conventional solar panels bright green — and they’re working on developing other colors as well. A team at AMOLF developed the green solar cells by imprinting them with silicon nanopatterns. Because the color can be adjusted by altering the geometry of the nanoparticles, the researchers have started planning imprints that create red and blue solar colors. After the three primary colors of light are developed, they will be able to create any color — including white.
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MikeChino writes:
After 558 hours of total flight time, a solar-powered airplane just finished a record-shattering trip around the world. The Solar Impulse landed in Abu Dhabi at 4:05 am this morning, completing the final leg of an adventure spanning 43,041 kilometers. Upon landing and exiting the cockpit, Piccard said: “This is not only a first in the history of aviation; it’s before all a first in the history of energy. I’m sure that within 10 years we’ll see electric airplanes transporting 50 passengers on short to medium haul flights."
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MikeChino writes:
Three-bladed wind turbines may soon become a thing of the past — Danish wind turbine company Vestas recently unveiled a wind turbine with four rotors and 12 blades. The gigantic turbine will cut installation and transport costs while generating more power per structure.
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MikeChino writes:
Solar Roadways are finally gaining traction in the United States. The energy-generating panels are designed to withstand the weight of cars, and now they're coming to a section of the historic Route 66 highway in Missouri.
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MikeChino writes:
A new study backed by the U.S. government suggests a link between cell phone use and cancer. The $25 million study, overseen by the National Institutes of Health, found “low incidences” of gliomas in brain glial cells and schwannomas in the hearts of some of the male rats used in the study; female rats did not yield a similar association.
