It's not the first time Sanrio's famous mouthless export has shed its pink to go green. But if you love the cat and the environment in the same breath, this latest solar charger on a strap could let you and your Kitty pals squeal "kawaii neh!" collectively over it and feel good about the planet all at the same time. Fortunately for the rest of the less enamored crowd, this Kitty solar charger retails mainly in Japan. It takes 7 to 11 hours of sun worshipping before our feline is fully powered up, and about 40-60 minutes on mains through the supplied AC adapter.
Read more »
Going by the axiom that action speaks louder than words, the Singapore authorities have on Monday unveiled the country's first Zero Energy Building as a project to test the waters. The Government has tasked itself with developing green technologies to meet the goal of making 80 percent of all buildings in the island state green by 2030.
This is also the first such green building in Southeast Asia. Read more »
More clever ideas to incorporate solar panels into your home, the Some Shine Solar Energy Storage System by designer Ming-Ching Hsueh hangs, literally, at the window. There's a lot of common sense at work here, which should appeal to the pragmatic Asian homeowner. To harvest all that sun power, a battery pack plugged at the base of the hanging soaks up those solar energy to be used later juice up your gadgets via USB.
Read more »
We first saw the Samsung Blue Earth earlier this year during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. In June, we had a hands-on with the product when the chaebol showed it off at CommunicAsia in Singapore. Today, the Korean company released full specifications and availability. Aside from the integrated solar panel, its main differentiating factor, this handset comes with HSDPA connectivity, a full touchscreen display, 3.2-megapixel camera and even Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
According to the press release, the Samsung Blue Earth ships first to Sweden this month and "will soon launch" in other parts of Europe and Asia, though no pricing information was given. More specifically, Singapore will get the phone in November with other parts of Asia to follow thereafter. Click here for more details and our first impressions.
In Japan, for one week a year the spotlight of this gadget-obsessed country is shifted from the urban neon oasis of Tokyo's Akihabara neighborhood and trained on an expansive convention hall an hour's commute outside of the city.
On Tuesday the purveyors of TVs thinner than a credit card, cell phones pressed with 3D screens, humanoid robots, and the latest in electric car technology descend, along with media, analysts, retail buyers, and industry executives for the opening of the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies, known by the acronym Ceatec.
It's the Japanese equivalent of Las Vegas' CES and Berlin's IFA, and like those two shows earlier this year, attendance is expected to be good, if slightly contracted as companies have cut back on expenses in light of the current economy. Read more »