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Flowers as Wi-Fi hotspots sprout across US

Daniel Terdiman | Sep 17, 2009

Poetic Kinetics' Wi-Fi flowers
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO--A pair of Los Angeles artists have teamed up with Toyota on an unusually functional art project: A set of large, colorful flowers that have been providing free Wi-Fi and power outlets in public places around the country.

Currently on display in San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens, the flowers--the creation of a company called Poetic Kinetics and its principals, Patrick Shearn and Cynthia Washburn--are part of a campaign for Toyota's newest generation Prius.

Brightly colored by day and lit up with LEDs at night, the flowers have been on tour around the country for several weeks. According to John Lisko, the executive communications director for Saatchi & Saatchi, Toyota's ad agency on the project, the flowers have gone through Boston, New York, Chicago, Seattle, and will shortly be departing for Los Angeles.

Inspired, at least in part, by a set of giant, mobile flowers Shearn built for Burning Man in 2005 and 2006, Toyota commissioned the project to reflect the theme of the new Prius: Harmony between man, nature, and machine.
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Filed under: Green Tech, PC & Peripherals
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Lithium, the next energy source from the desert?

CBS Interactive staff | Sep 11, 2009

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Nothing grows in Chile's Salar de Atacama desert. It's the driest place on the planet, and one of the most remote. But to Tim McKenna, what's underground is paradise. He calls it, "the best place on earth".

McKenna's company produces Lithium, the world's lightest metal. And Lithium powers the batteries in the cell phones, BlackBerrys, and laptops that, in turn, power the world.

In Chile, the extraction process comes naturally: Melting snow from the Andes Mountains runs into underground pools of salt water--or brine. That brine's pumped out. In a network of ponds, the desert sun evaporates out other salts, leaving Lithium brine.

McKenna says: "The sun basically does all the work."
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Save your hair, save the earth

Darius Chang | Sep 09, 2009

(Credit: Tom Van Cakenberghe/Barcroft Me)

Did you know that in most cases, the hair you chop off at the stylists do not end up in the bin? Instead, most of them are recycled as wigs for the trichologically challenged. However, a teenager in Nepal has found a way to change the world with your shorn locks.
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Filed under: Future Tech, Green Tech
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Solar Roadways could replace asphalt one day

Juniper Foo | Sep 09, 2009

(Credit: Solar Roadways)

It's hard to imagine paving the streets of Asia with solar glass panels when you think of our tuk-tuks, bicycles, scooters and family sedans crunching roughshod over something so brittle-sounding. But it's an audaciously bold idea that Solar Roadways founder Scott Brusaw (video below) has dreamed up. And that concept is about to be translated into reality with a US$100,000 grant from the US Department of Transportation (DOT) for a prototype.

The beef? Each panel, meant to replace pavement on roads and parking lots, is capable of generating 7.6 kilowatt hours of energy per day. On a larger scale, a 1-mile section could essentially power up to 500 homes and still have enough left over for illuminating the embedded LED lane markings and warning signals.
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Study shows e-book reader more environmentally friendly than paper books

Martin LaMonica | Aug 31, 2009

(Credit: Cleantech Group)

Claims that the Amazon Kindle electronic reader is more environmentally friendly than paper books hold up, according to an analysis by the Cleantech Group.

The research and media company drew on existing studies to do a lifecycle analysis and found that the carbon emissions from electronic books are far lower than traditional book publishing.

Taking into account the manufacturing and mining required to produce an electronic device still gives the Amazon Kindle a significant edge, according to the study which was done by Emma Rich.
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