Educating Through Interaction Design To Save The Planet

(See video at end of post)

Reducing C02 emissions in the fight global warming is a battle to be fought on many fronts. The more varied efforts employed the better. Other than the design of energy efficient cars and research into alternative eco-friendly fuels there are additional ways to reduce our individual CO2 footprints. One of the easiest and most immediate is simply to drive better. Applying a few changes to the way we drive can bring about significant reductions in fuel consumption. However educating people to drive better seems a boring and thankless task.

However, designers at Ford have proposed an interesting solution to this issue. In addition to all the standard driving information we are used to, such as speed, revs and engine temperature, their new high definition digital dashboard screen also displays a plant to the right of the screen. The plants health depends on the quality of the driving. The more fuel efficient a driving style, the more leaves the plant will grow.

The use of a plant is an emotive visual metaphor. Drivers with a forest growing on their dashboard will sleep sounder in the knowledge that they are getting the most out of the fuel they burn and that they have at least had less impact on the environment due to their actions.

Perhaps even more effective is the way it adds a kind of gameplay to driving. With ever more of us likely to have been brought up on a diet of computer games, this kind of solution appeals to our more competitive nature, and may just motivate drivers with a small shoot lacking in leaves to see if they can grow a better plant. Eventually the idea could be developed into a real game, where families with multiple drivers compete against each other to grow the best plants, or even a networked community of cars competing with each other, offering prizes to the most efficient drivers.

The digital gauge tackles the problem directly at it's source, in the moment when people are actually driving, and able to make a difference, and will be far more effective than other means of educating drivers on fuel efficient driving. With the rise in fuel costs many people are probably eager to have such useful fuel saving advice in order to save some money as well as the planet. By taking the advice of the in car computer you could save $1,000's over the lifetime of the car.

Personal Flying Saucers

Not the most practical or safest way to get to work, but looks like a lot of fun, and may be a good way to over come traffic jams!

X Prize for Automobile Industry

The X prize foundation, the organization behind the prize, today launched a new prize for the Automobile industry. The prize aims to award the first successful car that achieves super fuel efficiency compared to todays typical production models, with the aim of breaking our dependence on oil with the aim of reducing environmental impact and global warming. The winners will receive a multimillion dollar cash prize. The winning car will have a fuel economy of at least 100 MPG (or equivalent), and must be viable for production of a run of at least 10,000 units.

The actual set of requirements to win the prize are posted here

The requirements have gone through many revisions and have been drawn up by industry professionals, but the final criteria is open for discussion and comments from the general public - so if you have anything to add you can do so via the Auto X Prize site.

About the X Prize Foundation:
"The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational non-profit prize institute whose mission is to bring about radical breakthroughs in space and technology for the benefit of humanity. On October 4th, 2004, the X PRIZE Foundation captured world headlines when Mojave Aerospace Ventures, led by Burt Rutan and Paul Allen, built and flew the world's first private craft to space twice in two weeks to win the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE. Because of the dramatic nature of the achievement, the X PRIZE Foundation is now widely recognized as the leading model for fostering innovation through competition. In October 2006, the Foundation launched the $10M Archon X PRIZE for Genomics for the first team to sequence 100 human genomes in 10 days."
Visit the X prize foundation site for more info.

Telsa Roadster - Ferrari Beating Electric Sportscar

Reading about the Telsar roadster and you would be lead to believe that it was a traditional luxury sports car. However it has one fundamental difference. It is electric.

With all of the performance issues of other earlier attempts at electric cars answered, such as low top speeds, or having to recharge every half an hour, all of the benefits of the electric car seem to make our future car driving experiences look much more enjoyable. According to the Telsar site there are hundreds of heavy components required to power a standard petrol engine, all of which need regualr maintainance and are prone to failure. By comparison the Telsar engine has only one moving part, the rotor.

The motor is so light a person could carry it. It is this fact that means that the car is capable of beating traditional super cars in the performance stakes, with a 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds.

The battery, which is the cars biggest innovation, demonstrates that the biggest challenge for all electrical cars is being overcome, as it stores enough energy to power the car across 250 miles. A first for any electric car. It is clear that with continued research in this area, advances and breakthroughs will only continue to make electrical cars far more desireable than their fossil fuel equivalents.

I think that it is an intelligent plan of theirs to concentrate on developing high performance electric cars, to push the boundries of the technology and then let this advances eventually work their way down to more accessable cars.

The car also includes some other interesting 'digital' design features, such as being PIN protected, so that only those with the pass key can drive the car, and valet parking mode, that when accessed, permits the car to be driven at only low speeds.

The best aspect of the car, being electric, means that it is more environmentally friendly. The energy used to power the car is generated by efficient power plants that do not burn oil, rather using more environmentally friendly fuels, and the amount of energy used to generate the electricity is a lot less than a traditional car would use to power itself, as the electric car is much more efficient in turning its power source into energy.

The first deliveries are due for late 2007, but these are all sold out. If you want to get your hands on one you will need to wait until 2008!

View more here

Lamborghini Murcielago - Edition Versace

Lamborghini revealed an special edition of their Murcielago model designed by Versace, designed to coincide with Paris fashion week. Each of the 10 examples come with a modified interior featuring Versace designed patterned fabric and a silver numbered commemorative tag. The car also comes complete with Versace luggage and watch. As if either of the brands are not in themselves the image of over indulgence and extreme luxury, I guess that this partnership will no doubt get themselves talked about that little but more!

Audi R8 Interactive Video

Audi's new R8 sports car is due to be launched in the early part of 2007 in Europe. Their site designed to introduce the new car pushes the envelope in emersive web design, featuring vast amounts of integrated interactive video. It is not much more than a very slick brouchure, but it certainly does a great job of presenting the car, making it desireable and is in a class of it's own, when it comes to generating video for the web.

Take a lookhere
(You may need to launch the site from one of the links presented in the page, depending on if you use a pop up blocker.

Ornithopter

One of the last remaining aeronautical breakthroughs occured recently. I heard about this story on The World podcast, a technology based weekly update made in collaboration with the BBC, WGBH Public Radio Boston and Public Radio international.

Like so many breakthrough discoveries they are so often down to the relentless passion and dedication of a few individuals that seem to persevere no matter what. A wonderful example of someone continuing to fight against all the odds and achieve their dream is in the case of Dr James DeLaurier of the University of Toronto's institute for Aerospace Studies. who for his entire career had made it his goal to prove that it was possible to create an ornithopter. Together with the students of his university classes (of which saw many unsuccessful prototypes and failed attempts), he finally realised his vision.

He set out to prove that despite successul flights to the moon, hypersonic flight and travelling around the world without refueling, that the unfulfilled promise of ornithopter flight was possible. That is to say, a plane that it propelled by flapping wings, much like a giant bird.

After more than 15 years fo research and failed attempts the record was finally broken.

July 8th 2006, saw the first successful flight of an ornithopter. Reaching a speed of just over 50 mph, the ornithopter took off and flew for 14 seconds, travelling 1/3 km distance in the process. The momentus flight ended in an abrupt fashion, rolling left and collapsing into the runway in dramatic fashion.

One wonders if DeLaurier or his partner Harris will get the same level of recognition as the Wright bothers, or if their design for planes will get much further off the ground than their first ornithopter. One thing is for sure, and that this is a wonderful story and an inspiration to everyone to keep on plugging away in pursuit of your vision and dreams.

Check out video of the historic flight and images of the ground breaking plane here.

Fuel Efficient Car For The Future

The Loremo is a facinating concept car that aims to provide a fun and sporty transport solution with greatly reduced fuel consuption - upto 1/5 of normal fuel consumption according to their figures - making it an interesting proposition for our globally warmed future that by all accounts is heading our way.

Wildlife - Kinetic Car Projection

Created by Karolina Sobecka, WildLife is a project that involves projections from moving cars being shone on the buildings downtown. Each car projects a video of a wild animal. The animal’s movements are programmed to correspond to the speed of the car: as the car moves, the animal runs along it speeding up and slowing down with the car, as the car stops, the animal stops also.

Cheap Space Travel Anyone?

If you have a spare €150,000 and are bored of the usual holiday locations on this planet, why not go into space. Said to take off in 2008, this will become the ultimate experience of the 21st century.