England supermarket is powered by shoppers’ kinetic energy

Now here's a novel way of 'stealing' peoples' power..... by harvesting the kinetic energy of shoppers! A recent article reports that

An English supermarket is deploying a green energy system that allows it to harvest energy from the natural movement of its shoppers.

Sainsbury, England’s third largest supermarket chain, has decided to deploy a road plate technology developed by AEST from California that generates electricity whenever pressure is applied on it, for example, a car running over it.

AEST says that a system of 20 plates can generate about 10,000 to 12,000 kWh of energy per day, and cost $2.5 million. The system generates energy which allows saving of approximately $300,000 a year.

The Sainsbury system will generate 30kW per hour, which is enough to power the store’s lighting and computers.

Read more at 'England supermarket is powered by shoppers’ kinetic energy'

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World's megacities ripe for 'megadisaster'

According to the UN's humanitarian chief in a recent speech, some of the world's biggest cities are at growing risk of "megadisasters". He also warned that climate change was behind a rising number of natural catastrophes:

"We are going to see more disasters and more intense disasters as a result of climate change," said UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes.

"The trends in disasters particularly from climate change are of enormous concern. We can only expect that this trend is going to continue," he told journalists on the sidelines of a conference on reducing disaster risks.

Some 90 per cent of disasters are of climatic origin, caused by storms, floods, drought or other extreme weather conditions, according to the UN's weather agency.

Holmes said some of the world's biggest cities housing millions of people were highly exposed to disasters, being located in coastal areas that would be threatened by rising sea levels, or in earthquake zones.

Read more at 'World's megacities ripe for 'megadisaster''

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GPS phones could spy on swine flu sufferers

Now here is a worrying development.... as health authorities in Japan think they might have the answer to tracking and blocking the spread of swine flu - keep an eye on the population through mobile phones!

The idea is to track every individual on their phone's global positioning system (GPS).

Then people can be warned if they have crossed paths with anyone diagnosed with a highly contagious illness.

Radio Australia's Connect Asia program reports the scheme is part of an initiative to promote new uses of internet and mobile technology.

It is funded by the Government and will be carried out by Softbank, a big internet and mobile phone provider.

Trials are due to start in a Japanese school in the next few months, but some people are concerned the technology will not be able to keep up with the mass of data to be collected.

Read original article - 'GPS phones could spy on swine flu sufferers'

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Virtual Smart Home Controlled By Your Thoughts

ScienceDaily has a post on how 'light switches, TV remote controls and even house keys could become a thing of the past thanks to brain-computer interface (BCI) technology being developed in Europe that lets users perform everyday tasks with thoughts alone'. The post continues by saying:

The technology, which was demonstrated at CeBIT in Hannover in March, provides an innovative way of controlling the interconnected electronic devices that will populate the smart homes of the future, granting increased autonomy to people with physical disabilities as well as pleasing TV channel-surfing couch potatoes.

“The BCI lets people turn on lights, change channels on the TV or open doors just by thinking about it,” explains Christoph Guger, the CEO of Austrian medical engineering company g.tec that developed the application.

Read more at - 'Virtual Smart Home Controlled By Your Thoughts'

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PACHUBE

Usman Haque has launched a terrific project called Pachube. It's a service for sharing and monitoring real time sensor data between remote buildings, devices, and environments, both physical and virtual. The idea is to facilitate remote interaction, open source home automation, sensor logging, environmental data visualisation etc.

See more at - http://www.pachube.com/

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Camera grid to log number plates

A national network of cameras and computers automatically logging car number plates will be in place within months, according to this BBC post:

Thousands of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras are already operating on Britain's roads.Police forces across England, Wales and Scotland will soon be able to share the information on one central computer.

Officers say it is a useful tool in fighting crime, but critics say the network is secretive and unregulated.Kent's Chief Constable, Michael Fuller, commented: "We've seen an increase of some 40% of arrests since we've been using this technology.

"I'm very confident that we're using it properly and responsibly, and that innocent people have nothing to fear from the way we use it."

A number of local councils are signing up their Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) systems to the ANPR network. As long as the cameras are technically good enough, they can be adapted to take the software.

Well, not a complete surprise... just another rung on the ladder towards Total Awareness (similar to the US program); yet using the issue of personal mobility as the 'vehicle'.


Read more at - 'Camera grid to log number plates'

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AFTER THE CAR - Now published!

KINGSLEY DENNIS & JOHN URRY - After The Car

Finally the book has hit the streets... and currently sits in various off-line and on-line stores:

• A provocative exploration of a possible future without the car, from two leading sociologists.
• Examines the impact of global warming, global population increases and the peaking of oil supplies, among other things, on the future of how we travel.
• Argues that there will come a time in the future where, by necessity, the present car system will be‘re-designed’ and‘re-engineered’.
• After The Car will interest sociologists, policy makers, industry, as well as the general reader. It will be of interest to every ‘car user’.

Let us hope the book gains some mobility through human energy!

And any reviews would be welcome...

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Amsterdam Schiphol airport has taken delivery of an electric car

Some good news in that an airport is trying to compensate for its energy pollution by introducing electric cars. Here's the news:

Amsterdam Schiphol airport has taken delivery of an electric car. The Th!nk City vehicle will be test-driven by employees of the airport for the next twelve months. If the electric car proves successful, the airport plans to buy more. An electric re-charging point has been installed outside the head office of the Schiphol Group.

According to an official statement "Amsterdam Schiphol Airport places great value on the introduction of sustainable transport as a contribution towards the improvement of air quality". The electric car isn't the first environmentally-friendly vehicle at the airport. Since May 2008, electric scooters have been used on the airfield, and ten percent of the wagons at Schiphol use biodiesel.

The Th!nk City is an urban car with an electric motor of about 40 hp which runs on sodium or lithium batteries. It has a top speed of around 100 km per hour and can travel up to 180 km on a single charge.

Schiphol wants its own activities to be climate neutral by 2012. By 2020 the airport hopes to provide at least 20 percent of its energy needs though the generation of sustainable energy.

Read original article here - 'Amsterdam Schiphol airport has taken delivery of an electric car' - (thanks to RA!)

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Doctors of Tomorrow

Now it seems that family doctoring is going Facebook style into online networking. A new neighbourhood doctor outfit called Hello Health says on their website:

"Once upon a time, going to your doctor was simple. You knew his first name, or perhaps just called him 'Doc'. He lived just down the street and made house calls. And if you were sick, you would see him that day, because, well, you were sick. Then things started to change. Although medicine has made some amazing advances in keeping us healthy, we now have to contend with dietitians, insurance premiums, running shoes, deductibles, HMOs,OTC drugs, specialists, fat-free salad dressing, and therapists. Daunting, isn't it? But don't worry, we've made going to the doctor easy again". Hello Health combines the virtues of the old-fashioned neighbourhood doctor, with new tech platforms. "We love technology, the Internet, and especially our iPhones", say Hello Health; "You can talk to us like you're talking to a friend: through

emails, texts, phone calls, instant messages, or face-to-face conversations. Also, everything's online, from making appointments to accessing your records. It also helps we're close by, living and working in your neighborhood". Anyway, the whole thing is quite brilliant - and to cap it all, Hello Health's principal communication platform is a video on YouTube:



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Social Innovation Camp

The organisers of Social Innovation Camp claim that it is 'an experiment in creating social innovations for the digital age', and they are currently looking for the best ideas for web-based tools that can change stuff that matters. A camping weekend in Glasgow brings together some of the best of the UK's software developers and designers with those at the sharp end of social problems. Their mission is to turn six back-of-the-envelope ideas that could change the world into social start-ups - complete with working software. And all in under 48 hours - and there's only one week to go!!:

You’ve got until Friday 22nd May 2009 to send us your idea that uses the web to create social change and you could be joining 100 other participants to try and make it a reality.

And this week, we’re really pleased to be able to announce some of our prizes for the weekend.

At the end of each Social Innovation Camp, we run a Show and Tell where everyone pitches what they’ve built in the weekend.

We’ll be awarding some prizes to the ideas we think have shown most promise. And this time around, we’re lucky enough to be supported by our partners Firstport, IfLooksCouldKill and O Street.

Go to their website

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The future does not have a driver

It seems that driverless public transport is the new hype in the Netherlands, and Rotterdam has the scoop for so far!

A driverless suttle bus in Rotterdam follows a magnetic strip embedded in a concrete roadway. Photo Dirk-Jan Visser

The main disadvantage of public transport is that it requires drivers, and the driver is not only the most expensive but also the most dangerous part of the equation. "Computers are cheaper, they never get tired and they are much better drivers," says Jan van Dijke of the Dutch research institute TNO Automotive. "Nine out of ten traffic incidents are the result of human error."

Van Dijke is in charge of the European Citymobil project, which studies the advantages of driverless public transport, among other things. One current experiment is in Rotterdam, where for the past few weeks a driverless bus has been shuttling passengers from the Kralingse Zoom metro station to the Rivium industrial zone. The shuttle is a miracle of efficiency and punctuality. It follows a magnetic strip embedded in a concrete roadway. The shuttle started running four years ago but the project was halted after a frontal crash, which the technicians assure was due to human error.

Driverless public transport is on the rise in many other places. Amsterdam plans to do away with metro operators from 2014.

Read more from original article here (thanks to RA)

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The city and the crowd

Here's an interesting video-post from over at Space & Culture that looks at early city film montage from 1928:

The city montage from King Vidor’s 1928 silent film, The Crowd

The montage of the busy city streets, enormous crowds, and speeding trains that is Johnny’s introduction to New York City is frantic and a bit awe-inspiring, especially the great shot that climbs the side of the building where Johnny works. Many of the crowd shots were done with a hidden camera, and in one scene, when a traffic cop seems to tell us to move along, he was actually instructing Vidor and his crew to move.”

From 'The city and the crowd'

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Virgin Galactic’s Test Flight

Looks like Wired's 'Autopia' managed to get its hands onto Virgin Galactic's latest - so the trip's still on! (if you can afford it, of course)

Space junkies and wannabe astronauts rejoice - we’ve got exclusive video of Virgin Galactic’s recent test flight in the Mojave.

Wired.com got its mitts on the first official cockpit video and other footage from the recent test of Virgin Mothership Eve at the Scaled Composites skunkworks operation in sunny SoCal. Scaled Composites and Virgin tend to keep the test results hush-hush but say “several recent published articles have been sufficiently inaccurate and negative” to make them “set the record straight.”

They could be referring to reports by FlightGlobal that VMS Eve, the prototype of the White Knight 2 that took to the air, suffered a tail strike during an April 20 flight and experienced rudder problems. Scaled Composites, in a statement (.pdf), called the test “very successful” and said, “we only needed to adjust the rudder forces.”

Read more here - Virgin Galactic’s Test Flight

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Another EV supercar

It seems that the Silicon Valley trend for expensive EV supercars continues...

Another day, another start-up promising an electric car with awesome range.

This time it’s EV Innovations, the same guys behind the Inzio electric supercar we told you about a few weeks back. The Inzio is billed as a Tesla-beater and has a $139,000 price to match. That’s a lot of scratch, which is why the company says it’s working on an electric commuter car that’ll carry a $34,000 sticker price when it goes into limited production in a year.

It’s called the Wave, and EV Innovations says it will have a range of up to 170 miles and a top speed of 80 mph. That’s a bit shy of the top speed claimed by the Aptera 2e. But Ron Cerven, director of product development at EV Innovations, says anything the Wave gives up to the Aptera in terms of speed it makes up for in size.

Read here for more -Riding the EV Wave

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Energy and equity: a beginner's guide to designing a zero carbon transport system

An inaugural lecture to be given at York University byProfessor John Whitelegg on 18th May 2009. Anyone can attend and it will also be streamed on the Internet. Those people familiar with Whitelegg's work will know he has been involved for many years in campaigning for better designed transport systems in terms of urban renewal and energy.

Title: Energy and equity: a beginner's guide to designing a zero carbon transport system

Abstract: Currently there are about 750 million vehicles on the planet. A prominent German forecasting organisation has predicted this will rise to 2.3 billion by 2030. Ivan Illich wrote "Energy and Equity" in 1974 and demonstrated the absurdity of our dependence on oil for routine daily trips and the illogicality of human behaviour devoting 1600 hours each year to service the demands of the car in order to travel 7500 miles at an average speed of 5mph. 25 years later the absurdities noted by Illich are now global and intensifying with very large year on year increases in car ownership and use in India and China. Each day our global mobility requires 5.8 million tonnes of oil and kills 3000 mainly poor and non-motorised citizens. This is expensive and requires very large public subsidy and is intimately linked with poor health outcomes ranging from obesity to hospital admissions as a result of poor air quality. This inaugural lecture explores the intimate geography of oil dependent transport, its global trends, its links with climate change and peak oil and explains its grip on society and decision makers and charts a new transport revolution that at a low cost will deliver socially just accessibility to our destinations at a zero carbon cost.

Venue - University of York, P/L001 Physics 1730 on 18th May 2009

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Fatwa Issued Answering Cell Phone during Aayat

Textually.org has some revealing information on how mobile phones - ringtones, sms - are intervening with Muslim traditions:

A Muslim organization has issued a fatwa over using verses from the Koran as ringtones, saying that answering the call while the aayat (verses from the Koran) is going on is a sin. It argues that people answer calls midway through the aayat, leave the verse incomplete. TechTree reports via Channel 4.

The panel of clerics in Kanpur India, also said that taking a cellphone to the toilet as it rings is a sin because aayat cannot be heard in a toilet. They also condemned the habit that people have of keeping cell phones on vibration mode while attending prayer services.

A fatwa in the Islamic faith is a religious opinion on Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar.

Other cell phone related Fatwas:

-- A Fatwa Against Ringtones - An imam at a Mosque in Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa against mobile phones after one rang during prayers on Saturday, playing Arabic pop music.

-- Fatwa: No pictures of the bride by SMS - Cheikh Abd Al-Muhsin Al-’Obikan, a member of Saudi Arabia's Shura Council and advisor to the Ministry of Justice, has issued a fatwa forbidding a fiancé to look at pictures of his fiancée uploaded online by SMS, for fear that others could see her before their marriage.

Read original post - 'Fatwa Issued Answering Cell Phone during Aayat'

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Ringing in the Vote: Mobile Phones in the 2009 Indian Elections

With the Indian elections underway, there is bound to be some 'mobile' news on the events. Here's one such interesting post:

The world's largest democracy, India, is holding its general election this year. The month-long elections to the 15th Lok Sabha, the Indian Parliament, will be held in five phases between April 16th and May 16th when the final results will be announced.

As India's 714 million voters prepare to elect their 543 representatives, they are witnessing a range of digital initiatives from political parties, civil society organizations, media houses and even corporations. In fact, some observers are calling this India's first digital elections.

Leading the packed ballot is 82-year-old Lal Krishna Advani, the prime ministerial candidate of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, who has embarked on an Obama-style new media campaign. Part of the campaign are a blog, a blogger outreach program, one of the most aggressive online ad campaigns ever seen in India, and an ambitious SMS campaign that will reach 250 million of India's 400 million mobile subscribers.

Rajesh Jain's Netcore Solutions, which is running the SMS campaign for BJP, has bought an inventory of 1 billion SMSes for the campaign. Rajesh is also a part of the Friends of BJP group, which is running a social network and an opt-in MyToday-based SMS channel to support BJP's campaign (Indian Express).

Read more on this at 'Ringing in the Vote: Mobile Phones in the 2009 Indian Elections'

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Electric Peapod now available!

Today - April 22nd - is Earth Day...and so the Peapod makes its appearance... tempted?

The long-awaited, often-advertised Peapod will be available for order on Earth Day, April 22. Coincidentally, the 22nd also is Administrative Assistant's Day. We expect to see a lot of greenies and maybe some secretaries tooling around in their $12,500 Peapods at no more than 25 miles an hour.

While the Peapod prototype had clear driver and passenger doors that looked like a Dyson vacuum cleaner, the production version (shown above) of the neighborhood electric vehicle resembles George Jetson's Deux Chevaux. Company director and brand guru Peter E. Arnell, whose initials inspired the company's name, told Treehugger.com the car's appearance was inspired by "Japanese bullet trains, storm troopers from the film Star Wars, space helmets and turtles." There's also a very prominent "smile" to the car's grill, but what else would you expect from a man whose firm devised Pepsi's new logo with the Cheshire grin and laughably pretentious backstory?

The feel-good vibe continues with a glance at the in-dash iPod (sold seperately). Edmunds says every trip concludes with a carbon-footprint analysis, while another app tells you exactly how much money you've saved by leaving the family truckster at home.

Read more at 'Smiling EV Debuts on Earth Day'

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P.U.M.A. - the Future of Urban Transportation?

Wow - here's the new Segway mobility vehicle...it's their PUMA - “Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility”- and you have to admit, it does look nifty

Is this the car of the future? For more photos, check out this photo gallery by Autoblog. (Image via Gather.com)

Last week, General Motors and Segway unveiled the much-hyped Project P.U.M.A, which stands for “Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility,” an electric two-wheeler prototype vehicle that is supposed to transform the way city-dwellers move around. The 300-pound, lithium-battery-powered, pod-shaped vehicle can go up to 35 miles per hour in a 35-mile range with a 35 cent charge.

The New York Post says it is “a vision of how to combat difficult future urban planning and development as urbanization increases and green technologies becomes more important.” (See a video of PUMA in action, riding around New York City, here.)

Read more over at 'GM, Segway Unveil P.U.M.A. as Future of Urban Transportation'

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New Pew survey on Internet use in US 2008 election

Smartmobs has a post on The new Pew survey which shows that, for the first time, the Internet is the primary source of political news for a majority of Americans during a national election:

It’s not just about getting news — citizens actively debted, blogged, organized online. That’s not news insofar as so many of us suspected this — but the empirical evidence always trumps punditry, whether it is online or not:

Some 74% of internet users–representing 55% of the entire adult population–went online in 2008 to get involved in the political process or to get news and information about the election. This marks the first time that a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey has found that more than half of the voting-age population used the internet to get involved in the political process during an election year.

Several online activities rose to prominence in 2008. In particular, Americans were eager to share their views on the race with others and to take part in the online debate on social media sites such as blogs and social networking sites.

Read more at - 'New Pew survey on Internet use in US 2008 election'

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