Airnergy

“This little box has, inside it, some kind of circuitry that harvests WiFi energy out of the air and converts it into electricity. This has been done before, but the Airnergy is able to harvest electricity with a high enough efficiency to make it practically useful: on the CES floor, they were able to charge a BlackBerry from 30% to full in about 90 minutes, using nothing but ambient WiFi signals as a power source.”

via benjaminpalmer : ianwestcott :OhGizmo

Manufactured Landscapes

Midway

http://www.midwayjourney.com/

Mushroom Packaging

Marcin Jakubowski: Open-sourced blueprints for civilization

Nuage Vert / Green Cloud

A laser ray is used to trace the vapour emmisions of the Salmisaari power plant in Helninki, transforming it into a giant environmental sculpture.

The emission cloud is tracked using a thermal camera that can see the hot air even on a foggy day. A powerful laser then traces a dynamic green cloud shape on top of the real cloud, while adjusting the size according to the current levels of electricity consumption by local residents.

The installation was on display in February, 2008, and was subsequently awarded the Ars Electronica Golden Nica in the ‘Hybrid Art’ category.

Check out a video of the installation:

First 30 seconds of Green Cloud goes online from HeHe on Vimeo.

More info and several videos can be found on the official website.

Via Gizmodo.

The Internet of Things: What is a Spime?

World-renowned Science Fiction writer and futurist Bruce Sterling will outline his ideas for SPIMES, a form of ubiquitous computing that gives smarts and 'searchabiliity' to even the most mundane of physical products. Imagine losing your car keys and being able to search for them with Google Earth.

This same paradigm will find you "wrangling" with product-lifecycle- management systems that do for physical objects what the iPod has done for music. These and other radical ideas are delivered in Sterling's latest book`Shaping Things'.

Also worth checking out his lecture When Blobjects Rule The Earth

Free Spirit Spheres

"Spheres can be hung from the trees as shown or from any other solid objects like buildings or rock faces. A web of rope is connected to any strong points available. This replaces the foundation of a conventional building. A suspended tree house uses the forest for its foundation. The occupants have a vested interest in the health of the grove. The supporting web also mirrors our connectedness to our surroundings. Each sphere has four attachments on top and another four anchor points on the bottom. Each attachment is strong enough to carry the entire sphere and contents."

Found on everyoneforever.com

Passengers to generate electricity at train stations

The East Japan Railway Company (JR-East), as part of research aimed at developing more environmentally friendly train stations, is testing an experimental system that produces electricity as people pass through ticket gates. JR claims that this sort of human-powered electricity generation system may provide a portion of the electricity consumed at train stations in the future. This started back in 2006. Not sure what the outcome has been so far.

Found on pinktentacle.com

Energy Generating Dance Floor

Britain’s first eco-nightclub is to open this summer qith plans to install an energy-generating dancefloor, which would harness power from the pounding of clubbers’ feet and convert it into electricity.

Read more on interactivearchitecture.org

GreenPix

GreenPix is a ‘zero energy media wall’ situated at the Xicui entertainment complex in Beijing, near the site of the 2008 Olympic Games. Using the days solar energy to illuminate the screen after dark. It also apparently features the largest color LED display worldwide and the first photovoltaic system integrated into a glass curtain wall in China. “The Media Wall will provide the city of Beijing with its first venue dedicated to digital media art, while offering the most radical example of sustainable technology applied to an entire building’s envelope to date. The building will open to the public in May 2008, with a specially commissioned program of video installations and live performances by artists from China, Europe and the US.”

From eyesponge

Pollution-sensitive clothing

Stephanie Sandstrom’s EPA dress, uses clothing as an interface to express air quality. Embedded with sensors that read the atmosphere, when poor air quality is detected, the fabric itself crumples up. Currently being exhibited at San Francisco’s 2nd Skin exhibition, which is all about exciting, experimental future textiles.

From eyesponge