The psychology of design: John Roa shares a look inside AKTA
“The cruel truth is that I’m not even a designer today,” said John Roa, founder of AKTA design studio. But if he was never a designer, then what made AKTA one of Chicago’s most sought-after design studios, and Roa one of Chicago’s most influential entrepreneurs? Roa’s journey was riddled with successes, failures and a carefully [...]... Read More
Archive for the ‘Green Tech’ Category
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IKEA Uses Cardboard Digital Camera To Intro Green Furniture Line
BY: Corey CummingsIKEA has introduced a digital camera made almost entirely of cardboard to help promote its new line of green home furnishings. The camera will soon be available in stores, and will encourage customers to share pictures of their favorite IKEA pieces through a forthcoming website.
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LED Lightbulb With 20 Year Lifespan Now Available On Earth Day
BY: Corey CummingsThe lightbulb of the future has made its retail debut today to celebrate the 42nd annual international Earth Day. The new LED bulb was created by Philips and won a 2011 contest held by the US Department of Energy. The contest began in 2007, where Philips was the only company to submit a prototype of [...]
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Thermoelectric Coating Harnesses Wasted Heat Energy
BY: Corey CummingsPurdue University is working on a thermoelectric coating that will utilize the wasted heat energy given off by pipes and engines. The heat captured could potentially go back into powering connected devices, allowing engineers to harness the nearly 60 percent of energy wasted from heat emissions in the United States. The coating creates an electric current [...]
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Self-Sustaining Wind Turbine Creates 1,000 Liters Of Drinking Water Daily
BY: Corey CummingsFrance-based company Eole Water has been developing a new wind turbine concept that creates water from air.
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New Army Research Facility Is Its “Greenest Lab Complex” Ever
BY: Corey CummingsThe U.S. Army has opened a 30,000 square-foot facility this week specifically to develop green vehicle technologies. The lab is located right outside the former motor capitol of the world in Warren, Michigan, and is being touted as the Army’s “greenest lab complex.” Since 2008 congress has backed the creation of the lab with $40 [...]
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University of Delaware Forges Clean Fuel From The Sun
BY: Corey CummingsErik Koepf, a doctoral candidate at the University of Delaware, has created a method of harnessing the sun’s energy to create solar hydrogen, an entirely clean fuel source. The university is currently running a fuel cell program where it’s using hydrogen fuel to power its buses. The process for creating the solar fuel takes place [...]
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Airborne Wind Turbine Blows Pinwheel Turbines Away
BY: Corey CummingsThis week Altaeros Energies announced it has successfully tested a new airborne wind turbine. The turbine can climb to altitudes of 1,000 feet, capturing wind at speeds five times stronger than those found at standard wind turbine heights. In a press release the company described how the green technology was inspired by aerostats – a [...]
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Solar Powered Plane Plans 1,500 Mile Trip To Morocco
BY: Corey CummingsThis summer the Solar Impulse hopes to surpass its previous record by undertaking a 48 hour flight over more than 1,500 miles to Morocco, powered entirely on stored solar energy.
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Taiwan Focuses On Sustainable Energy, Fried Chicken
BY: Corey CummingsA Taiwan based company has created a fried chicken food cart that converts wasted gas generated from frying into electrical power
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New Concept Brings Frictionless Space Travel To Earth
BY: Corey CummingsEvacuated Tube Transport (or ETT) is a concept created in the 1990s by engineer Daryl Oster that would allow frictionless high speed travel.
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Celtic Renewables Creates Sustainability With Whiskey
BY: Corey CummingsScotland-based startup Celtic Renewables has figured out a way to produce biofuel from the byproducts of alcohol fermentation.
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Liquid Robotics Wave Glider Breaks World Record
BY: Corey CummingsLiquid Robotics announced this week that their ocean drone, the Wave Glider, broke the Guinness World Record for distance traveled by an unmanned wave powered vehicle.
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Solar Power Becomes Affordable With Wafer Thin Silicon
BY: Corey CummingsCalifornia-based company Twin Creeks has developed a system to mass-produce the thinnest and least expensive solar panels on the market today. Using a new process whereby silicon sheets are embedded with hydrogen ions that separate them into thin layers, the company can create a more affordable flexible photovoltaic panel that uses far less material than [...]
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Envia Electric Car Battery Lasts 300 Miles
BY: Corey CummingsIn a press release late last month energy tech innovator Envia Systems announced it has developed an electric car battery capable of lasting up to 300 miles. At 400 watt-hour/kilogram, the battery is claimed to be the highest capacity of its kind in the world. Up until now the average electric vehicle batteries lasted between [...]
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E-Waste Piles Up With Each New Apple Announcement
BY: Kathryn HoughApple’s iPad announcement today may move tablet technology forward, but it moves environmental initiatives backward. With each new product release, Apple diehards ditch their older hardware in favor of camping out all night at the Apple store to scoop up the newest model. But what happens to the hardware when we don’t want it anymore? [...]
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Glacier Tapping Towers, Garbage-Filled Skyscrapers Win Evolo Design Contest
BY: Corey CummingsArchitecture magazine eVolo held its sixth annual skyscraper design competition this year, showcasing some of the most incredible, futuristic design concepts for architecture around, including vertical landfills, a mountainside home for displaced communities, and a water storage tower in the Himalayas. Competing for $50,000, an eVole feature, and pride, designers from around the wold submitted 714 [...]
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From Airbnb to Zaarly: A Short History of Collaborative Consumption Startups
BY: Kathryn HoughI was born in the 1980′s. It was the decade in which Gordon Gekko proclaimed, “greed is good!”, teens were mallrats, and shoulder pads helped ring in the decade of the power woman. Community was put on the back burner as individual successes became the marker by which economic strength was judged. There’s a reason why [...]
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HAGENT Will Warm Your Heart (And Home)
BY: Corey CummingsOne day HAGENT will be your own personal heating assistant. HAGENT is a small, box-shaped robot that absorbs and redistributes heat throughout environments. The cube wheels itself around, guided by thermal and infrared sensors, in search of the excess heat given off by pretty much anything. It then stores that heat, using what its creators [...]
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The Power Of The Heartland
BY: Lindsay ONealMore often than not, the Midwest is thought of for its vast open prairies rather than technology or innovation. However, The Department of Energy says our topography actually primes MidWest to be a leader in clean technology. The Heartland’s strong, steady breezes makes it the most promising region in the country for producing wind power. [...]
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St. Louis City, County Join Forces To Support Entrepreneurs
Newsjacking: Bringing Companies Exposure With Viral Marketing
Hot Shot Email: Use your Domain Name