Technology Nirvana

This week Inhabitat peered into the future of green tech as we liveblogged the most exciting moments from this year's Greener Gadgets Conference. The highlight of the day was the on-stage live-judging and announcement of this year's Greener Gadgets design competition winner, the AUG/Living Goods Program. Renowned industrial designer Yves Béhar also wowed us by unveiling a brand new design for a "Hackable" solar-electric car that is composed of modular components. (Engadget liveblogged it here.)

Speaking of sun-powered vehicles, Hungarian auto company Antro has just unveiled plans to create an out-there yet undeniably cool solar-powered car that splits into two vehicles. And for those looking to ride the seas in style, take a long, hard look at this giant solar boat. Then again, why ride a conventional vehicle when you could hop aboard this insane futurictic crawler town on wheels? Too bad it's made out of LEGOs.

Finally, we brought to light several illuminating energy projects: researchers have found a way to generate electricity by shining light on tiny gold nanoparticles, opening the door for self-powered molecular machines, and Phillips unveiled a blooming solar street lamp that soaks up energy during the day and uses it to light up the night.

Inhabitat's Week in Green: Solar cars, solar boats, solar... gold? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you work for Motorola, cover your ears and say "Blur Blur Blur Blur" at the top of your lungs over and over again for the duration of this post, because what we're about to present is an unholy marriage the likes of which neither Sanjay Jha nor Peter Chou ever intended. It's not the first time we've heard of a version of Sense finding its way onto Motorola hardware, but developer "thegeektern" over on AllDroid has posted a bunch of video and stills claiming to have ported an HTC Desire's (née Bravo's) Sense-enabled firmware to Moto's beast -- and what's more, he's got some footage of it running Flash. Bear in mind that the speed at which Flash is running here looks downright painful -- and we fully expect official Flash support on the Droid later this year anyhow -- but anyone conflicted between the Droid's muscular lines and HTC's lovely skin might want to keep an eye on this project. It's still very early in development, but the most important part of the port has already been finished: it shows the proper Droid logo on startup. Follow the break for video.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading HTC Desire's Sense UI ported to Droid; HTC, Motorola cringe

HTC Desire's Sense UI ported to Droid; HTC, Motorola cringe originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So, the Sony Vaio P has a clone. Congrats, Sony! Too bad the mimicry ends with the aesthetics:

The appearance is spot on, but the insides are decidedly sub-par. The Atom processor is a less powerful than the processor offered in the Vaio P, and the memory maxes out at 1GB. If you're comparing, that's a full GB short of the original.

Since this is a clone however, the price is really the only area where one could say it "competes" with Sony's premium-priced Vaio P.

The clone offers a 160GB for about $300, as well as a $380 model with 350GB storage, 2Gb ram and 3G.

Aaand scene. [Gizchina - Thanks, Andi]

Remember Nokia? They make cellphones (still!), and at CeBIT they're hinting hard that two more, possibly the C5 and C6, are about to join their ranks.

The hint was packaged in the Nokia Conversations newsletter. C if you can figure out what it is:

"Of course, we don't comment on rumours or leaks, but we are looking forward to C BIT for the next series of Nokia announcements. Right we're off to pack our rucksacks and lederhosen, C you there."

Do you C? Because they're laying it on pretty thick (and so am I!). So coy, that Nokia. Too bad they're doomed. Maybe these phones will help. Otherwise, C ya later. [Engadget]

Viliv's S5 MID, the little machine that packs the Vaio P's Z520 processor in a legitimately pocketable form-factor, just got a breath of fresh air. It's an HID (human interface device) driver for Windows 7, boosting the machine's touchscreen abilities and enabling the breadth of Windows 7's tablet functionality. According to Uber Tablet this greatly enhances usability by, amongst other things, presenting the Windows tablet keyboard rather than relying on the accessibility version and enabling better calibration. The driver being used here is legitimate according to reports we've read, but it is not signed and doesn't appear to be an official release from Viliv, so you may want to exercise a bit of caution before you install -- but don't wait too long. This sounds like a pretty tasty update.

Viliv S5 MID gets accuracy-boosting HID driver for Windows 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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"Larry, your new speakers look great, really they do. But...something's off. I can't put my finger on it, but they just sound, I dunno, kind of wooden. You know?"

Because they're inspired by trees! Haha. I kill me.

Anyway, really, designer Marcos Ignacio Madia must have gone all Sigourney Weaver in the jungle from Gorillas in the Mist on us, because he just went and designed a line of speakers that look and grow (by stacking) like trees. There's a woofer, midrange and tweeters, all of which you can stack and...hrm...grow as you expand the collection.

You can even, theoretically, turn the speakers to face different directions as you experiment with sound. Which is just like regular speakers except birds won't accidentally nest in those.

It's just a design at the moment, so you audiophiles will just have to put those woodies away for now. [Home Tone Coolest Gadgets via DVICE]

The truth is that cats will make themselves comfortable anywhere. On a bed of coals, or atop Mount Doom, or hurtling through space at 99% of the speed of light, a cat will somehow find a way to curl up and doze off. So the idea of including a special place for your cat to sleep underneath a perfectly good cat bed (in this case a glass coffee table) seems redundant. But let’s be honest — are you going to let a little redundancy keep you from buying a cat hammock?

Alas, like most things worth having, the cat hammock is not real. Sure, there’s one somewhere in Japanese designer Case-Real’s warehouse, but I don’t think they’re going to let you have it.

I think I’m beginning to fall in love with Case-Real — they also designed this stunning amplifier from a few months back. Check out the other stuff on their site; maybe we can convince them to start getting it manufactured.

[via 1designperday and Geekologie]

If passed, something called the Digital Economy Bill over in the U.K. could do the unthinkable in this, the digital age: Ban open wifi spots.

The ban comes as part of a bill that seeks to limit copyright infringement, or something. In summary, schools, small businesses and even libraries would have to effectively become their own ISP and manage the wifi hotspot—or face hefty fines. Even if a shop password-protected their wifi and posted the PW publicly (as they probably should be doing anyway), this "management" would also entail detailed record keeping, as the bill requires that hotspot providers log users who've been on their network. Sounds fun!

I'd love for any UK-based small business owners to weigh in on this debate, and the bill. Is it really as annoying as the ZDNet article makes it sound? Are daily, detailed user records really too much a burden for the corner coffee shop to bear? Light those torches and brandish your pitchforks in the comments! [ZDNET]

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