Blogs

The gadget that constantly judges you

Don Willmott , Forecast Earth Correspondent — Fri, 09 May 2008 11:28:15 PDT

Swedish company Manodo, has developed a gadget you install at home to, as Gizmodo puts it, "tell you everything you'll ever want to know (and maybe some things you don't) about the resources you're consuming," thereby making you "OCD" about your energy habits.

As EcoGeek describes it,

The device gives household residents all the facts about how much and what is being used, right down to the number of pounds of CO₂ emissions from your last bath. Imagine having Al Gore living in your house reminding you each time you forget to turn off the lights. The intent is to keep residents aware of how much resources are being consumed through daily activities... and maybe guilt them into changing their ways. The monitor also provides current information like the weather and when the next tram is scheduled to arrive at the nearest stop. Now being tested in the hallways of 15 apartments, the Manodo project isn't all about negative feedback. When good green levels in the apartment are reached, a green smiley face appears on the display.

TreeHugger calls it "the Big Brother of energy saving," and Ubergizmo says it "pulverizes your brain with facts about just how much power... your home currently sips."

I'm a sucker for useful information, and if constant feedback could help me change my habits in ways that would save me money, I wouldn't complain.

Don Willmott's blog posts are provided by LifeWire, a part of The New York Times Company.

Keep tabs on your consumption

Peg Fong — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:05:03 PDT

You're feeling pretty good about yourself these days. Walking to work? Check. Cycling around town? Check. Recycling bottles and cans? Check.

But if there's a nagging feeling that you could be doing more, then here's the device to help you maintain that guilt complex. The Manodo Display from a startup company in Sweden puts green habits to the test.

The device gives household residents all the facts about how much and what is being used, right down to the number of pounds of CO2 emissions from your last bath.

Imagine having Al Gore living in your house reminding you each time you forget to turn off the lights! The intent is to keep residents aware of how much resources are being consumed through daily activities ... and maybe guilt them into changing their ways.

The monitor also provides current information like the weather and when the next tram is scheduled to arrive at the nearest stop.

Now being tested in the hallways of 15 apartments, the Manodo project isn't all about negative feedback. When good green levels in the apartment are reached, a green smiley face appears on the display.

How else are you supposed to know if you're a good person?

Huddler's new green shopping community

Hank Green — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:37:35 PDT

There are a lot of product recommendation engines in the world. In fact, one could make a pretty good case that there are too many. But Huddler may have actually gotten it right this time.

It's launched a service with a green spin at greenhome.huddler.com. The site is a blog, a social network, a wiki, and a recommendation system all rolled into one. I've spent the last hour on it, enjoying myself tremendously.

I've written reviews of a few green products I own (like the Earth LED CL-5), and I marked a few items as things that I very much want to own (like the Chevy Volt).

The system is extremely simple to use, not to mention pleasing on the eyes. There seems to be a pretty good community growing up inside of the site, plus a huge amount of information on thousands of green products. You can subscribe to users, discussions, topics, anything! It's a joy to use.

Of course, like all social sites, there is a battle to be fought for participation. It will only be a truly enjoyable and robust platform if a large community adopts the site. In order to entice folks, they've got a giveaway going on right now, which you enter yourself into every time you do anything on the site. So that's nice.

But we'll have to wait and see if Huddler can somehow create a chicken without an egg.

Watch a tree grow on Google Earth

Hank Green — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:43:11 PDT

You can't say there's anything wrong with paying someone to plant a tree in some corner of the Earth. But it's not exactly the most rewarding thing.

The buyer assumes the tree is out there, but it's quickly forgotten and impossible to actually imagine. But the World Wildlife Fund is hoping to chance that with a little help from Google Earth.

Your $5.50 donation will buy a tree, its lifelong care and feeding, scientific study of the forest that it becomes a part of, and the exact coordinates of where that tree is on our big beautiful planet. Linking that data with Google Earth shows the precise location of the tree on the island of Borneo, as well as the tree's hundreds of neighbors.

Unfortunately, the map resolution needs to be increased significantly before you can see your very own tree, but even now the context is nice.

You can buy trees that will be planted in Indonesia today at MyBabyTree.org. PayPal integration makes the whole thing a breeze.

I planted two of them myself and received the following message in my inbox:

Your baby tree will be planted in the next few days. Once that is done, we will mail you the exact location, and you will be able to see your tree on Google Earth.

Via Google Earth Blog and the WWF

Putting clean-tech on the map

Hank Green — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:09:05 PST

OK, you might have to be a serious EcoGeek to spend hours with this Google Maps powered clean-technology start-up map. But even for people who are just slightly curious, it should be fun.

Earth2Tech created the map which features all the major clean-tech start-up sectors. Electric vehicles, solar, lighting, biofuels, and even bioplastics are marked here.

Obvious take-away: San Francisco and Los Angeles are the places to be for everything clean-tech.

But the detail is where the real meat lies. Click on any of the icons, and you can find out more about the company and see links to recent news on the companies.

Welcome to the beginning of the clean-tech boom! Earth2Tech is going to have its work cut out for it just keeping this thing up-to-date. And that's good news for all of us.

Via Earth2Tech

Greenpeace's EfficienCity shows the future

Hank Green — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:40:49 PST

Every once in a while it's nice to pretend. Personally, I'm still a huge fan of building fake cities in Maxis games and making everything as beautiful and sustainable as possible. But Greenpeace has done me one better with a marvelous Flash application: The EfficienCity.

Take a tour of what a real sustainable city would look like, complete with wave power, combined heat and power plants, high-speed rail, and (if you look really closely) Smart Cars.

The city gives you information on all of these beautiful, sustainable aspects of itself. You can zoom into the city and learn about wind power, small-geothermal power, bio-gas, and solar, wave, wind, and tidal power. The amount of information hiding in this little city is staggering.

If you want to give yourself a taste of living in an EcoGeeky city, this is a great place to start. But don't dive in if you don't have a few minutes to spare. It'll suck you in.

Via Greenpeace

Googling pollution

Hank Green — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 21:35:44 PST

Google Earth rocks. We've seen it monitor illegal coal mining, keep tabs on reforestation, and inform the masses about environmental issues all over the globe.

But now the US EPA is using it to display nation-wide pollution sources and levels. You can zoom right in on your neighborhood and check out carbon monoxide levels and see the major sources for pollution in the United States.

The one major source of pollution not displayed on this map is transportation. As there are so many cars, and they're always moving around, the EPA can't keep tabs. But everything else is right there at your fingertips. Check out your town and see who your major polluters are.

Via Inhabitat

Google Public Transit launches

Billy Shih — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 01:27:49 PDT

We've reported on Google Transit in the past, but now it is official. Transit works like Google Maps, but instead of driving directions, it lets you know how you can get where you're going without a car. Type in your start and end points plus date and time and it gives you where to walk, what bus to take and when.

It's even integrated into Google Maps, meaning if you search for directions using Maps, just click "Take Public Transit" and it will switch to Transit mode, showing you the next 3 upcoming bus departures. I typed in my daily busing commute and it found the same exact route.

Currently it works for various areas in 9 states and even in China and Japan. Wish I had this when I was in China! This is great for current bus riders and getting new people to take the bus. Although my hometown of Seattle already has something like this, this will only help spread the word that transit can be just as easy (and a heck of a lot cheaper) than driving.

Google Transit

Via TechCrunch

How walkable is your hood?

Hank Green — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:35:00 PDT

Is your house close enough to the amenities of life to be car-free? What about your next house? A new web site promises to help you figure out how walkable your neighborhood really is by rating how far you have to go on foot to do your errands and have a good time.

Walk Score, which is essentially a Google Maps mash-up, has you enter your address. It then shows for you on a map how close a variety of services, ranging from restaurants to schools to drug stores, are in terms of realistic walking distance. This overall closeness is rated as a Walk Score through a special algorithm, with five categories from "Walkers' Paradise" to "Driving Only."

While they admit the Walk Score isn't the final say in what makes a neighborhood walkable, it's nice to see sites like this sprouting up to help us determine the right neighborhood to live in if the desire to leave your car in the garage is important.

EcoGeek's writers' houses ranged from WalkScore 15 (eek!) to WalkScore 75 (very walkable.)

Via: Triple Pundit

Tic-tock goes the carbon

EcoGeek — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:22:00 PDT

Lou Grinzo, at The Cost of Energy, often has some of the best commentary on energy issues out there, succinctly catching key elements of major reports and articles from all over the spectrum. He also provides tools of interest, such as the Energy Clock. Want a real time running on your desktop, tally of electricity generation, natural gas usage, wind power generation, CO2 emissions, and much more for the U.S. and the globe, Lou has the tool for you.