S. Cafe Shirts Are Made From Coffee Grounds

"One medium cup of coffee can make two T-shirts," according to the general manager of Singtex, makers of S. Cafe shirts. More »

Firewinder Wind Light, or Photon Tornado?

In practice, the Firewinder wind light won't look quite this extraordinary. But God bless slow shutter speed photography all the same. [via Inhabitat]

Samsung Blue Earth Phone: Solar Powered and Made from Water Bottes

On one hand, Samsung's upcoming Blue Earth smartphone is obnoxiously eco-hip. On the other, it resembles the Palm Pre and can run off sunlight.

Solvatten Solar Jerrycan Purifies Water Using Nothing But Sunshine

Providing clean water is an integral part to any effort to raise third-world living standards. Solvatten, a Swedish-designed water purifier, does its job using nothing but a couple of hours in the sun. More »

Christmas Tree Powered By Bikes, Supposedly

In Barcelona, anyone passing by is invited to lend some stationary bike exertion to a cause—lighting a tree to create a true Christmas miracle. It's a neat idea, if you believe it.

Nokia Smart Home Solution Puts Power of Control Onto Your Cellphone

With energy conservation and easy eco-friendliness on just about everybody's agenda these days, one of the most popular concepts is the “Smart Home,” a living environment that knows just how much power you actually need to be comfortable and gives you not a drop more. Nokia's hopping on that wagon with its new Nokia Home Control Center, a Linux-based platform that will control your house's resources via your mobile phone. More »

Mathmos Glowing Wind Lights Probably Best For Breezier Locales

Mathmos' eight-inch tall windlights are pretty simple—just a generator, 2.4-inch propeller and two LED lights—but that doesn't stop them from having their own cute, glowing eco-charm. Basically when the wind blows strongly enough, they light up: dot them about your garden and you'd have a great display, but only if the wind is blowing. If you're in London, Jason Bruges Studio has arranged hundreds of them into a 45-foot high Aeolian Tower scultpure at the Southbank which is showing until November 16th. But if you want just one, it'll cost you around $18. [Technabob]

Rainforest Fungus Makes Biodiesel, Not Soup

Environmentalists who say we shouldn't cut down the rainforest as it harbors potentially useful lifeforms are finally right: there's an amazing fungus that can produce biodiesel better than any current methods. Gliocladium roseum was found in the Patagonian rainforest, as a by-product of antibiotics experiments. The scientists were amazed that the fungus was putting out a mist of hydrocarbons and hydrocarbon derivatives. "This is the only organism that has ever been shown to produce such an important combination of fuel substances," according to one professor, who added that G.roseum can even make fuels from cellulose. With a little genetic tweaking, the team think it's possible the fungus could become an important green fuel source. [Physorg]

Eco-Friendly BamGoo Car Is Meal on Wheels For Pandas

Researchers at Kyoto University recently displayed an eco-friendly electric car made almost entirely out of bamboo, one of the fastest growing materials available. The single-seat “BamGoo” weighs about 130 pounds, can only run about 30 miles on a charge, and probably won't pass any safety tests, but it sure is cute! Let's just hope that there aren't any wandering pandas about. [Daylife]

Black and Decker LightsOut IR Gizmo Turns Lights Off For Lazy, Green Types

My old office used to have those irritating IR-sensor lights, so if you were working late and popped out—say to the loo—for more than a few minutes, you'd be welcomed back to uninviting darkness: now you can have the same facility in your home thanks to Black&Decker's LightsOut. Well, actually it's quite a neat gizmo—it's battery powered, and simply mounts directly over a light switch, which it then throws for you if it doesn't detect movement in front of its sensor. Plus it turns the lights on when you enter. You can even change the "off" preset delay time, up to 30 minutes. Handy if you forget to switch the light off in your garage—like I often do. No word on pricing yet. [NewLaunches]

BioBot Makes Bio Diesel at Home!

You would think that making your own Bio Diesel at home would be a tough, multi-stepped procedure that has a few dangerous spots to misstep. Well before the BioBot, a system that makes Bio Diesel from old cooking oil, you would have been right. Unfortunately, after the BioBot, you would have been right, too. Here is their simple, 8+ step process to make gas at home. And don't worry, that chemistry beaker is just for show! More »

High Five Power Generator...It Could Happen

Look, I'm no engineer. That's just not what I do. But these rough schematics of a high five power generator, which we see could fuel an entire sandwich shop, look pretty solid to me. After all, who couldn't use an extra high five to get them through the day? And who doesn't like a delicious sandwich? This one-two punch of sustainable happiness could usher in a better tomorrow. Though if such high fiving technology were to fall into the wrong hands...may God help us all. Concept by [Cunning].

CO2 Scrubber Sucks Up Emissions From Cars, Home Heating

University of Calgary scientists are working on a machine that would pull carbon dioxide from the air in an attempt to scrub out emissions from diffuse sources, such as car exhaust and home heating. These “diffuse emissions” account for roughly half of the CO2 that goes up into the sky every day, contributing to global warming. More »

Google Claims Most Efficient Data Centers Ever

Responding to criticism for its secrecy over its data centers, Google has lifted the veil a little on how much energy its information hotbeds use. The world's largest search engine insisted that Google-designed data centers used nearly five times less energy than conventional facilities, and launched a website to inform environmentally-bent customers on their 5-step approach to efficiency. More »

The Styrobot Wants to Rule Your Cups and Packaging

There's really nothing great that can be done with Styrofoam other than not produce it in the first place, but in lieu of recycling it or throwing it away, one man and his son, inspired by this artwork, took 5 years worth of Styrofoam packaging and did the next most logical thing—built a giant robot. More »

Australian Student Invents Cheap Solar Using Nail Polish and a Pizza Oven

An Australian PhD student has found a cheap way to make solar cells with nail polish, a pizza oven and an ink jet printer. 23-year-old Nicole Kuepper's invention, named iJET, doesn't require the pricey clean rooms and high-temperature ovens of traditional solar panel manufacturing plants, thus dramatically lowering the cost of solar and paving the road for introducing the technology to third-world countries. More »

Kid-Invented Water Watcher Keeps Close Eye On Your Shower Wastage

Aw, here's a cute piece of news: 12-year-old inventor Elizabeth Rintel has won the grand prize in a “Going Green Challenge” by youth media company By Kids For Kids with her “Water Watcher,” a device that measures and monitors water usage in the shower. The gadget, which can be fastened to any shower or faucet, sounds a beep and signals a red light every time a half-gallon of water is used. Cutting your shower short by just one minute could save 1,000 gallons of water per year, no small amount as our world possibly approaches the days of Peak Water. More »

Greencore Semi-Solar-Powered Units Use Both the Sun and the Grid

AC manufacturer Greencore has come up with a long-awaited solution to the inherent problem in solar-powered air conditioning units—solar panels are still not efficient enough to power the energy-gobbling machines on their own. The company's 10200 model uses a single 170-watt solar panel during the day and electricity from the power grid during the night to charge its batteries, leading to massive energy savings even if the solution isn't 100% solar. More »

Lamp Made Out of its Own Packaging

Reviewing gadgets on a normal basis, you really come to realize how incredible wasteful all the packaging is. Something is shipped to you in a box that's packed with styrofoam. Inside it, you find another box packed with more styrofoam and whatever good you ordered. But this Package Lamp is different. It has no extra packaging because it is the packaging. More »

Biodegradable Flash Drives Were a Long Time Coming

Electronics manufacturer Hoshino has just announced "the world's first biodegradable USB disk." It's constructed of the corn-based plastic polylactide, and just in case you forget that fact, they've shaped the drive like an ear of corn. We don't have a lot of information on the device, but it appears they've figured out how to make the entire drive biodegradable, not just the casing (though that cop-out is certainly a possibility). Since most of our electronics we're using right now won't be part of our daily arsenal in two to three years, it's good to see manufacturers at least considering how we'll dispose of all this junk. [Hoshino via Gearlog]

ESL Bulbs Are Better Than CFLs and LEDs, Says Company

Another contender has stepped into the ring of energy efficient lighting: called ESL (electron-stimulated luminescence), this new type of bulb works by using accelerated electrons to light up a phosphor coating on the inside of a glass bulb. ESLs can turn on instantly, can work with dimmers, and creates a light quality that's similar to incandescents and halogens. More »

NASA Wind Map Shows You Where The Greatest Gusts Blow

In an effort to figure out the best areas to harvest wind energy, scientists from NASA's Earth Science Division have used several years of QuikSCAT satellite data to produce some pretty awesome looking wind power density maps. According to them, if the areas with high wind power—an average wind of greater than 30 knots (45 miles an hour)—were tapped, they could potentially supply 10 to 15 percent of the world's energy needs. More »

Solar-Powered LCD Brings TV to Anywhere the Sun Shines

As part of Sharp's recent efforts to shove itself to the forefront of solar innovation, the company is showcasing a prototype of a 26-inch LCD Aquos TV that can be powered entirely by the sun. Now even the 1.6 billion people on earth without electricity won't have an excuse to miss the next season of Lost. More »

Sony Ericsson Wins Greenest Electronics Company Award

Congratulations, Sony Ericsson, for winning what was ultimately a barely challenging competition to become the greenest electronics company around. Our favorite Swedish-Japanese conglomerate rose to the top of Greenpeace's Greener Electronics Guide by exceeding Energy Star requirements, making all its models PVC-free and banning the most harmful chemicals from phones launched since January 2008. Unfortunately, it was valedictorian in a class whose scores have plummeted all around. More »

Cardboard Bicycle Costs Just $30, Don't Leave It Out in the Rain

A 21-year-old student from the UK has designed a cardboard bicycle that he has dubbed "the ultimate green machine." Supporting anyone up to 168 pounds, the frame, which costs around $6 to make, is made from the cardboard used in industrial packaging, whilst the wheels and chain are standard bike issue, and will cost around $24. More »

MIT Students Build Solar Dish that Can Melt You, Your Family

MIT students have spent the past several weeks assembling a 12-foot mirrored dish that can concentrate sunlight 1,000 times over. In the picture here, we see the panel instantly igniting a plank of wood in its path. As for lighting your house—no problem. More »

Sony Brings Out Energy-Efficient 32-Inch LCD in Japan

The Bravia KDL-32JE1 is an energy-efficient TV from Bravia which consumes just 89W of power, compared to 160W on an equivalent Bravia. It also uses plastic parts recycled from other Sony departments, such as the plastic waste from collected TVs, polystyrene packaging and the waste from the optical film from LCD TVs. Available on July 25 in Japan, the KDL-32JE1 has 1366x768 resolution, HDMI interface, 2500:1 contrast ratio and 178-degree view angle, and comes in two colors, Champagne Gold and Silver. It will cost the equivalent of $1,390 in Yen. [Impress]

Westinghouse Throws Its Support Behind Universal Adapter Concept

Even if it's not keeping up with other types of LCD technology, Westinghouse is at least throwing its support behind a solution for an age old problem. The budget electronics maker said that it had committed to using a "universal adapter" made by start-up Green Plug that will power everything from cell phones to television sets. More »

Electricity Generator Gets Its Power From Waste Heat

Dallas' Southern Methodist University is now recycling energy with one of the first commercial electricity generators that use thermoelectricity—the act of drawing power from waste heat. The machine operates by using heat given off by other processes (such as manufacturing) to boil liquids, which then turn into steam, which then turns an electricity-generating turbine. More »

Used Cars Are More Eco-Friendly Than Hybrids?

Here's a simple, compelling argument we read in Wired that shows a used car may be a more ecologically sound choice than a new Prius: More »

These Prius Solar Panels Should Come Standard

While the Prius is more practical than high efficiency solar vehicles, why not add some solar to the Prius anyway? This solar kit from SEV seamlessly installs onto a Prius' roof and claims to add up to 20 miles per day of electric mode driving/increase fuel economy up to 29%. Compatible with Prius models from 2004-06, I'm enough of a cynic that I figure if the installation worked that well, the panels would have come standard in the first place (though we've heard that they are under consideration for next gen models). Then again, the 2-3 year "break even" scenario that SEV pitches on their website may have something to do with it. [SEV via Jalopnik]