+ Solar devices bring power to the powerless

Here in the US, solar gadgets like the Solio Classic or the Generator from Voltaic Systems are play toys of the eco-chic. While they are fun to use in the city, or perhaps even useful on a camping trip, Americans can plug into the grid anytime to power up and play on. With electricity so abundant, it is hard for us to imagine living a life that stops simply because the sun goes down. Just turn on a light, right?

For the nearly 3 billion people living in developing countries like India, Ghana and Kenya, the only lights available after sunset are from kerosene lamps, candles or battery powered devices. For families with limited incomes, these options are not only expensive, their range of use is very limited and they can be dangerous. Timbuk2 and Duron are two companies trying a more sustainable approach to providing these people with a few extra hours of reliable LED light, by using affordable solar cells.

Timbuk2 Designs along with the Portable Light Project and Poptech.org have come together to create what they are calling the FLAP bag (Flexible Light And Power). The key component of this design is a removable flap that contains a flexible solar panel (either 2-Watt or 4-Watt), battery and 2-Watt LED sewn in. A 3 or 6 hour charge will yield 10 hours of light, which can give ambient light from the metallic reflective surface on underside of the flap (watch this video). You can also charge electronic devices from a USB port. It will be available later this year.

The Duron system takes a more static approach. This $130 system, created by the energy company Duron, uses a 5-Watt solar panel to charge up a durable battery base station. A full charge takes a full sunny day. It comes with three ultra bright LEDs, that can be placed in different parts of a residence, for about 2.5 hours of reliable and more useful evening light. Like the FLAP bag, the base has a variety of plug-ins for charging cell phones.

Duron's website features a customer spotlight, Anil Singh, which not only shares his satisfaction with the Duron, but how easily these types of technologies will spread in the night sky.

Costing him more than $4 a day, kerosene was not only expensive, but also provided his home with inadequate and unreliable lighting. One day, he saw that one of the homes in his village was lit up by bright, powerful lights. It turns out that his neighbor, Santosh Singh, had heard about the DURON from a village gathering and purchased it at a nearby distributor.

Saving $4/day means the Duron pays for itself in just over one month. With such obvious benefits and word-of-mouth marketing, the FLAP bag and the Duron are likely at the beginning of a wave of products bringing power from the sun to the powerless.

Photos from duron.co.in, and Erik Hersman from afrigadget.com

+ Skiff Reader highlights content

The world of media is taking strides towards removing the trees away from the daily content people demand. Many companies have put their bets on e-readers as being today's must-have item, yet so far several seem like glorified Gameboys. They often have thick bodies and screens crowed by peripheral features. While many await Apple's entrance in this growing market, check out this Wiki matrix of the offerings out now - nearly 40 devices in all!

Of the e-readers we've seen so far, we've been most impressed by one of the latest to market, the Skiff Reader (Skiff LLC and Sprint partnership). At just over one pound and .26 inch thick, it will be the thinnest of the large readers currently available, and it might seem flimsy or fragile except for the magnesium housing. The full 11.5" touchscreen is the overall hero here, making it ideal for the transition from print, allowing users to be consumed in the content. The screen, developed by LG, is a flexible metal foil e-paper display that is shatter- and crack-proof, and the main reason the reader can be wafer thin. It also has the highest resolution in the e-reader market so far at 1600 x 1200 pixels.



A promised benefit of e-ink screens is far better energy efficiency than a traditional backlit displays. The Skiff reader combines a very large screen with a Lithium-ion battery to claim a full week of use between charges. Users can download blogs, magazines, newspapers and books from the Skiff Store using USB, Wi-Fi or even a 3G network connection through it's deal with Sprint. Although it was introduced at the CES, this reader will be available at an unknown date later this year.

While e-readers may not excite the laptop and netbook generation, this might be the perfect stepping stone for millions of baby boomers who prefer simple tech. The large screen is easy on the eyes and closer to a magazine than a paperback, and a touch screen is more intuitive than peripheral buttons. Depending on the price point, these might easily find themselves in your kids classrooms as well (similar to our concept Papyrus tablet).

Images from Skiff.com

+ Induction lamps lighting the way in 2010

The U.S. has not banned incandescent light bulbs, but there is a growing list of countries that are making the switch as greener options make their way to the market. Fluorescent bulbs and LED's are becoming more mainstream here, matching lower power use with longer lifespans. That combination is pushed even further with the next generation of lighting on the horizon, the induction lamp (or electrodeless lamp). By relying on a chemical reaction to the elements inside, induction lamps do not use electrodes or filaments, which expands their life to nearly 100,000 hours, or roughly 35 years at eight hours per day. The catch? Like compact fluorescent bulbs, they use mercury, but their efficiency, range of uses and long life may outweigh that drawback - time will tell.

This video from LVDinductionlamps.com explains a bit about their production and how they work. We're excited that this type of lighting has gained attention in commercial, municipal and residential applications, and hope it makes for a brighter start to 2010.

+ TGG celebrates Oktoberfest

Have you ever wondered why Oktoberfest starts in September? We're not complaining, but we wanted to stretch it out. To celebrate Kaleidoscope's 20th anniversary, we recently threw an Oktoberfest open haus. The party wouldn't be complete without some concepts, so here are just a few of our favorites. Let us know what you think!


Boom
Boom combines a simple, elegant form and a delightful detail: a small mushroom cloud blown into the base of the glass.


Beer Drop
Crying and drinking go hand in hand, in spite of society’s reluctance to accept it. This glass celebrates those who have the courage to wear their heart on their sleeve.


Beer Bell
Tired of being such a lightweight? Ashamed of getting drank under the table at your local watering hole? Awaken the sleeping drinker within with your very own set of beer bell glasses! Your set will include an 8, 12, 24 and 40 oz beer bell with corresponding cozies to keep your beer frosty and your grip strong! With a little will power and determination you’ll soon be pounding 40 oz brews with the greatest of ease!



Boilermaker
A popular happy hour special in New York City consists of a cheap shot and beer. You take your grimace worthy shot and chase it down with a cold brew. This concept brings a level of sophistication to the Boilermaker combo which consists of a shot of whiskey served in a solo cup and an ice cold PBR. Although, it still pays homage to the low brow nature of the drink by floating the shot in the foam of the beer. It’s a dirty drink for a dirty bar!


Blitzkrug
Drinking beer from traditional German glasskrugs is one of the most social ways to enjoy a brew. However, the glass vessels are extremely heavy and fail to keep the last few swigs cold, assuming you’re not chugging them. The aluminum Blitzkrug weighs less than glass and keeps beer colder for longer. Keeping tradition in mind, the design features a utilitarian aesthetic that places each toast at the center of attention. With each cheer, Blitzkrug becomes dented and scratched, creating a visual history of every celebratory smash. Prost!

+ Plug into the Smart Grid

Last month, Google hosted a panel discussion at their DC Office regarding the future of smart grid technology. Panelists from Google, their partner GE, utilities, and the government discussed how best to utilize the $11 billion (part of the $83 billion of the stimulus allocated to clean technologies) set aside for modernizing our electric grid. The panel also answered questions from the public submitted online. You can watch the entire discussion here.

“What does a world with smart power look like? As Washington develops the road map for a bigger, smarter electricity grid, how can we ensure that it provides every household in America with real-time energy information enables the scale up of hundreds of thousands of megawatts of clean renewable power and supports millions of plug-in cars and trucks?”

Part I: Envisioning smart power
Energy tools and technologies to empower people with information and choice

• Moderator: Bob Gilligan, GE
• Adrian Tuck, CEO, Tendril
• Ron Binz, Chairman, Colorado Public Utilities Commission
• Jeff Renaud, Director, Ecomagination, GE
• Ed Lu, Advanced Projects, Google
• Kelly Speakes-Backman, Principal, RE+GENeration Consultants LLC
• George Bjelovuk, Managing Director, American Electric Power

Part II: Accelerating the energy revolution
State and federal policies to drive smart power

• Moderator: Dan Reicher, Google
• Fred Butler, President, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners
• John Podesta, President, Center for American Progress (invited)
• Andy Karsner, Former Ass. Sec. for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy
• Chris Miller, Office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

On a related note, GE has rolled out an interactive site to help visualize the impact of smart grid implementation. If you have a webcam and access to a printer, you can take advantage of the “augmented reality” portion of the site and see the Smart Grid “come to life in your hands”.

+ Rethinking the Public Drinking Fountain

A 2007 article from Fast Company points out that North Americans spent $15 billion on bottled water. That's not only a lot of petrol to make the plastic, but also requires mountains of energy to transport the more than one billion bottles around the country every week. And on top of that, over 95% of bottles made in 2005 were single serving sized, which has one of the lowest recycling rates of other forms of plastic packaging.

There's a major, and costly, irony with the perception and reality of bottled water. Most people drink it because they think it's healthier than "free" tap water, when the reality is 24 percent of bottled water in 2005 was just filtered tap water packaged by Coke or Pepsi. Most people don't know that federal standards for tap water is higher than bottled, so in some cases it's not even cleaner.

And when you add in the economic strain of bottled, tap becomes much more attractive. A person keeping to the eight glasses a day would spend $2500 a year if they bought Aquafina, and upwards of $10,000 if you're springing for FIJI. The cost of the same amount of tap water is roughly $1.

Considering all that, it seems like a no brainer to stop hitting the bottle, and the people at triplepundit.com have a few interesting ideas about how to overcome the perception problem with the public watering hole.

What could be done to change this? What if the access point was moved away from the bathroom at the sake of being near plumbing and brought closer to a communal area? What if instead of being painting a dismal shade of beige it was modern like an Eames chair or designed by a Philippe Stark-esque type of icon? Perhaps these students could be educated to drink from the water fountain and making the fountain attractive and fashionable could enforce their behavior changes. At the very least, let’s make it a little easier to fill [personal bottles] rather than drink directly from the fountain.

An Eames-style iconic water fountain? Sign me up! Their article highlights this as part of a project and we can't wait to see the results.

+ New Products Visualize Home Energy Use

About a year ago, we created our Current State concept to visualize home energy use. Since then we've seen a growing interest in the subject and there are two interesting articles about products that make this concept more of a reality.

Make created Tweet-a-watt, an open source piece of hardware that posts your data to Twitter. Tweet-a-watt captures and documents energy use but takes the idea a step further, by letting your friends and followers also track your energy use. In theory, this could create competition among neighbors or family members to be the most responsible energy users. Tweet-a-watt is an entry to Core77's Greener Gadgets competition, so if you like it let them know!

Appliance Design also continues to be a great resource for us. Electronics: Powerline Potential discusses an affordable technology called PLC (powerline communications). According to the article, PLC allows devices to communicate through our electrical lines, so it's an existing, low-cost technology that we're beginning to use in a new way: precise and efficient energy usage for homes and buildings.