Spore

So this is a little more geek than eco, but I guess so am I: the Internet is all abuzz with news of Will Wright's (Sim City, the Sims, etc.) upcoming computer game, Spore. The game starts at the microbe level and you move your little microbe around in search of nourishment. As you move, the microbe evolves.

It responds to input from you and when it lays an egg, you get the next step in evolution. Maybe you'll add a fin or a tooth. You carry on adapting your microbe to its environment in this way until it becomes a more complex organism. Now you're locked into certain of your creation's characteristics, but you can still change it drastically by adding or subtracting limbs, changing the way it walks or eats.

Eventually, you're locked into what kind of creature you have, and it becomes the dominant species. Now you're trying to help your tribe of these little creatures survive and excel and it takes on somewhat of a primitive SimCity feel. And so on. Of course, I could have saved you the time of reading that vague description by providing you with this link to Will Wright explaining his own game, but I didn't.

We'll keep following the development of this game -- no release date is set yet -- but here are some links to check out if you want to know more about how Spore could save game publisher Electronic Arts, see Wired's interview with Wright, or revisit early 90's gems SimEarth and SimLife.

Spy Pigeons in the Sky

H.G. posted about robotic fish that could eventually be used to monitor the environment with cameras and meters. We might be even closer, though, to using cyborg blog pigeons to monitor air pollution.

Okay, maybe they're not cyborgs so much as they are pigeons with naked network cards strapped to them. But the idea of sending 20 pigeons into the air above and around San Jose, Calif., each bearing GPS receivers, smog detectors and cell phones for texting back their findings is still futuristic in a very unique way: this is the first piece of technology that I'm aware of that may actually defecate on our heads.

If these pigeons spread to other states, I hope somebody makes a GoogleMaps plug-in so we can keep an eye on where these pigeons hang out and avoid the area entirely.

iRex iliad eBook

Continuing the path towards paperless books...

iRex has released it's specs for it's iliad ebook reader and I'm pretty excited. The only available ebook reader, the Sony Librie, has nothing on the next generation (of course, it has been three years since the Librie came out).

Same as Librie: High Resolution - MP3 plaer / audio jack - low energy consumption - monochrome display.

Better than Librie: Even Higher Resolution - No DRM - Reads TXT XHTML and PDF - 16 levels of gray (librie has 4) - wired and wireless internet - touchscreen - higher contrast ratio - compact flash, USB, and SD card inputs - the buttons are in ENGLISH! (the librie was only released in Japan.)

No word on the screen refresh rate (one of the major drawbacks of E-Ink,) we'll let you know as soon as we get our hands on one. As for the price, probably around $300 or $400.

We'll keep you posted as more Iliad information is available.

w00t w0000t...Hybrid Train - Next Year

The East Japan Railway Company will be introducing the world's first hybrid train in 2007. And I mean, why not? The energy needed to stop a behemoth commuter train can't be trivial.

The train runs soley on litium ion batteries until it reaches 30 mph. The deisel engine then kicks on and provides the boost needed to get the train really moving, and re-charge the batteries, if needed. Of course, the train's breaking also recharges the batteries, and the engine automatically shuts off when the train is in idle.

The hybrid system reduces particulate and NOx emissions by around 60% and improves the overall efficiency of the train by around 10%. The Railway Company is also hoping that fuel batteries will become a viable alternative to fossil fuel engines, and has created the train with the specific intent of eventually replacing the deisel engine with fuel batteries.

From the Japan Times

330 MPG at $20,000

Who can argue with a car that goes 70 mph with a one-cylinder engine for 330 miles on one gallon of gas. This car works almost entirely by being extremely aerodynamic. There's not a lot of space for actually stuff inside of it, but it's big enough to seat two with a couple of laptop bags. The Aptera is a deisel electric hybrid that weighs around 850 lbs and can get up to 65 in around 11 seconds.

So Ford poured $100 billion into R&D in the last 20 years and they come up with a hybrid SUV. Some guy gets bored at work and we get the most fuel efficient vehicle ever created.

The major problems will arrive upon saftey testing and trying to fit the groceries into it. Also, it'll be hard to get people to drive a car that looks like a three-wheeled fish.

Green One-Pot Chemistry

A couple of EcoGeeks over at Georgia Tech. might have made a discovery that will make both large chemical manufacturers and environmentalists happy.

There's not a lot of common ground between chemical manufacturing and environmental protection since the byproducts of chemical manufacturing are generally second only to nuclear wastes in deadliness and longevity.

But, really, Dupont doesn't like byproducts either. Every liter of waste is a liter they don't make money off of, and have to pay to properly dispose of. These guys over at GT are using magnetic nanoparticles to introduce catylists into a reaction, remove them in a pure form, the introduce another catylist for the next step in the reaction, then remove that one in a pure form, until the reaction is complete.

Basically, every extra step they can do in one 'pot', could potentially save dupont and the environment from the creation of millions of tons of useless toxic waste. And that is the power of the ecogeek!

From Science Daily

DRM bad for Environment?

OK so I know we hate DRM, at least when it's done poorly (which, overwhelmingly, it has been). But it's never been an environmental issue, so I've never brought it up. But Digital Rights Management's constant checking are re-checking that everything is up-to-date and unpirated lowers the efficiency of laudably low-energy devices by up to 25%. Windows DRM reduced play time by 20% to 25% on all the devices that CNet tested. Macintosh DRM, because, yes, Mac is less evil than Microsoft, drained only around 8% of power.

I'm all for DRM, really, I want the media download buisness to completely annihilate the hydrocarbon heavy CD creation and shipping buisness. But these companies need to think a lot more about what the user needs, and less about what will make them the most quick cash.

via CDFreaks

Power Consumption and the Modern Geek

The computer is my house's biggest power drain, I know this, but still it stays on all night (it's busy OK, and I don't want to interrupt its constant stream of doing my work for me) . But it bothers me, I feel bad about it. I could go solar if it weren't for this beast. Computer power drain is becomming a bigger deal, especially as prices continue (and will continue) to rise. At least until we get that cold fusion thing worked out.

Those of us who are concerned about that kind of thing should definitely check out Power Consumption and the Modern Geek, a report from the folks at Extreme Tech. They've done a pretty comprehensive survey of the most significant power drains geeks are most likely to face, and what can be done to limit these juice-hungry boxes without limiting their power.

Ecotainment

AOL's teamup with TimeWarner hasn't brought us much, but they're finally getting the gist of what they really can do!

In2TV is the first ever actual online television network. It's easy on the ads, and the HiQ mode is as good as television ever was back in the 80s. Best of all, it's absolutely free. I don't really understand the buisness model here, but since AOL owns the servers and TimeWarner owns the content, it doesn't really cost them much to provide it.

It's a sweet deal for us, commercial free classic TV online, but any product that doesn't take up physical space is a sweet deal for the environment too, especially when the products (Perfect Strangers / Growing Pains) have existed decades already. Squeezing every dollar out of already created products that don't physically exist and can be shipped through fiber-optic cable. Now that's how we make growth sustainable.

True geeks will be pleased to hear that the first nine episodes of B5 as well as Kung Fu (TOS) are available and more is to come. That should balance out your displeasure when I tell you that the HiQ application only works with Internet Explorer.

Happy viewing!

Ecological Code

The lessons we learn from nature...
Zach Barth has coded a simple package that can be used to create evolving algorithms. When introduced to a certain environment, the algorithm pays attention to what works best, randomly alters itself with Zach's code, and when something works out better, it keeps the change. The rapid response of computers makes this a much faster process than traditional evolution, making me fear for the superiority of the human race.

Luckily, these programs generally more interested in increasing WiFi signal strength than in multiplying endlessly until all of the resources of the world are consumed.

Just in case all the real fish Die

Ryomei Engineering, part of Mitsubishi, has created a robotic fish that will, no doubt, repopulate the oceans after that apocalypse we keep hearing about. Seriously though, the thing actually does serve a purpose. It swims around, samples water quality and takes pictures. If they mix that in with a satalite uplink, some pretty powerful AI and a GPS, and we're on our way to a robot that can keep us more informed on the state of the world's oceans.

Retro Stonewashed Denim Jacket.....of the future?

Don Bogner Jeans' solar jacket and you have the power. The power to charge your iPod anyway. The jacket has several integrated solar patches, an internal battery for storing charge when none of your devices are low on juice, and Bogner promises that it delivers enough power to charge a laptop computer. yes, it is marginally environmentally useful, and solar powered clothing certainly seems geeky, but Bogner's execution strays wildly from cool and into unfortunately fashionable, ensuring that the Jacket's target demographic spends more time at the stylist than at LAN parties.

Kudos for a good idea, but I'll hold off on my purchase until they make one that looks like it will go well with my collection of Homestar Runner shirts.

via Denim News

Monitizing Google Books

"To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Once upon a time, all the world's stored information was in hefty volumes of bleached tree bodies. A lot of it is still locked up in there, not universally available, and less useful than we've come to expect. Google has beeen working on this problem, and they're a step closer today.

Google books has, for some time now, allowed users to search the full text of thousands of books, read a few related pages, and then buy hardcopies from booksellers. But now Google is allowing publishers to sell full-text books online. There's still a ways to go, but Google is bringing the paperless book closer to reality. I'm stoked. To Google Books