Antonio Pasolini

For its entry in the 2012 Solar Decathlon Europe, a group of Brazilian architects, designers, students and researchers has taken its cues from the native Tupi-Guarani people, one of the largest aboriginal nations in Brazil. Called Ekó House, the project scales up Ikea’s self-assembling concept and combines it with solar power, rain collection, natural lighting, a dry toilet and a system to turn sewage into garden fertilizer.  Read More

Solar power is up there as the quintessential clean energy and there’s a race worldwide to develop better solar cells to overcome current challenges related to cell efficiency, manufacturing costs, durability and materials, among other things. One of the latest developments in the sector comes from Northwestern University where researchers have developed a stable dye-sensitized solar cell that may one day prove cheaper than silicon-based cells.  Read More

These days, Flash memory is almost the defacto standard for data storage in consumer devices, being found in everything from PCs and digital cameras, to smartphones and USB thumb drives. But a team of researchers at University College of London (UCL) has developed a new type of memory chip that is much faster than Flash memory, while also offering greater storage densities and requiring much less power. Could the days of Flash memory's dominance be numbered?  Read More

Los Altos-based start-up Electric Imp is looking to make putting the "things" into the Internet of Things both cheaper and simpler with Imp - a Wi-Fi equipped card designed to connect appliances to the internet so that users can remotely monitor and control them.  Read More

In the most economically excluded regions of the world about 1.5 million children die of dehydration every year. When patients get to hospital for IV therapy, there may not be enough staff to monitor the drip, and the child may die from receiving the wrong amount of fluid, which is also potentially fatal in cases of over-hydration. In order to help health care workers in those places, engineering students at Rice University have developed a prototype of a technically simple yet ingenuous IV drip system that adds an element of automation to the process.  Read More

In a bid to mitigate the risks associated with fuel transportation and to make soldiers’ work less technically complex, U.S. military scientists have started to test microgrids that would provide clean energy to soldiers in the field. Since 2009, scientists from the Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) have been developing two systems – RENEWS and REDUCE – which are being tested at the Fort Irwin National Training Center in California, and by U.S. Africa Command.  Read More

Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, whose body of work is mostly based on light installations, last week presented a small solar powered light during the World Economic Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Olafur collaborated with engineer Frederik Ottesen to create Little Sun, which they hope can help bring indoor lighting to those people who lack access in developing countries.  Read More

Foodies who've ever dreamed of having superhero-style vision that could analyze what they are about to eat should keep an eye on the upcoming Sensor+Trade fair in Nuremberg. Scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute of Photonic Microsystems (IPMS) will be exhibiting a tiny prototype spectrometer that can measure factors such as water and protein level in foods, meaning you won't make the mistake of buying fruit that looks good on the outside but is rotten at its core.  Read More