smarterplanet:

Secrets of the First Practical Artificial Leaf

A detailed description of development of the first practical artificial leaf — a milestone in the drive for sustainable energy that mimics the process, photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert water and sunlight into energy — appears in the ACS journal Accounts of Chemical Research. The article notes that unlike earlier devices, which used costly ingredients, the new device is made from inexpensive materials and employs low-cost engineering and manufacturing processes.

[read more] [paper] [via reddit] [photo credit: ACS]

thenextweb:

(via Apple’s Siri: Nokia Lumia 900 Is The Best Smartphone Ever)

mothernaturenetwork:

T-shirt charges your phone by absorbing ambient sound
Shirts made of piezoelectric fabrics could make charging your portable electronics easier than ever.

thenextweb:

Bloodnote is a simple app where you can track your blood pressure and control your health. Created by Peter Bajtala and Matt Ludzen, Bloodnote’s wonderfully minimal design turns a mundane task into something much easier on the eyes. (via Checking Your Blood Pressure Just Got Really Sexy)

newyorker:

The Resurrection of Nokia?

There is a good reason to root for the overdogs-turned-underdogs. One of the banes of the technology world is a lack of competition. Intel has a near monopoly in the processors that power our computers; Microsoft and Apple have a duopoly on operating systems; Google has a near monopoly on search. Facebook has a near monopoly on social networking. One of the strange aspects of Microsoft’s business is that people love the products that lose it money (think XBox) and hate the products that make it money (think Word and Windows). Why? Because it makes money on products with which it has monopolies—products that it doesn’t have to innovate. When Microsoft has to compete, it makes good stuff, as it appears to have done with the Lumia.

For most of us, it’s hard to fathom switching phones. We’re devoted to apps on the iPhone or Android that aren’t available through Microsoft. Tapping on a screen to type now seems as intuitive as kicking a soccer ball across an empty lawn. But the Lumia 900 will be something different, and it has the look of something good. iPhones are technologically marvellous, but they’re also expensive and irritatingly ubiquitous; Android can be confusing. The cell-phone market could use another competitor. It probably won’t be Research in Motion, which appears set on hara-kiri. But Nokia and Microsoft are genuinely trying to recapture the magic of that old N95.

- Nicholas Thompson on Nokia’s new phone, the Lumia 900: http://nyr.kr/HnDzdU

thisistheverge:

A billion more movies will be streamed this year in US than watched on DVDs and Blu-rays, according to researchers

People have been predicting the death of physical media for years, and now, according to research from the IHS Screen Digest, we may have finally reached the point when streaming video services have become ubiquitous enough to take over American households. The researcher forecasts that 3.4 billion movies will be legally consumed over streaming services this year, more than double the 1.4 billion that were viewed last year over the internet.

smarterplanet:

Wood stoves convert waste heat into electricity for charging small devices

Nearly half of the world’s population cooks over open wood fires, but such fires are inefficient, waste energy and create toxic smoke that’s a hazard both to the environment and to human health. Like Inyenyeri, New York-based BioLite aims to offer something better — specifically, stoves that use half the wood, emit only a fraction of the smoke, and capture excess heat to generate electricity for other purposes. READ MORE…

via springwise: