[kublikhan]

From Popular science, Best of What's New 2012. I highlighted a few of the entries below.

Pixel
This carbon-neutral office building has the highest LEED rating ever. Pixel, a 12,300-square-foot, carbon-neutral office building in Melbourne, Australia, is arguably the most sustainable workplace ever. Designed by the architectural firm Studio 505, Pixel captures, cleans, and recycles all of its water on-site. Solar panels and wind turbines on the roof generate all the electricity the building needs. This year, the U.S. Green Building Council awarded it the world’s highest LEED rating—105 out of 110 possible points.

Al Hamra Firdous Tower
The great stone giant. At 1,353 feet, the Al Hamra Firdous Tower in Kuwait is the tallest building in the world with one side made of stone. Before the advent of steel frames, which made glass curtain walls possible, masonry helped buildings stand tall. Instead of choosing stone for its strength, though, engineers and architects at SOM chose it to help keep the building cool. The tower’s monolithic facade faces south, where stone helps mitigate heat loading from the broiling sun. The rest of the building is covered entirely in glass, maximizing views across Kuwait City.

Grand Award Winner: Nest Learning Thermostat
An intelligent thermostat. A thermostat has tremendous power: It controls heating and cooling, the most expensive, energy-guzzling system in a house. Until the Nest, thermostats wielded that power blindly. The Nest learns a household’s schedule and preferences after just one week and programs itself (and if those preferences change, the Nest adapts accordingly). It uses activity, humidity, and temperature sensors to monitor the indoor climate and adjust it for maximum efficiency.
The Nest can also shut down the air conditioner’s compressor a few minutes early to make the most of the cool air still available after it cycles off. The homeowner can always adjust the device from home or the road, but will rarely need to—which makes this the first thermostat truly compatible with people’s lives.

Switch Lighting Switch75
An LED bulb with liquid-silicone cooling. The Switch75 is the most convincing proof that LED technology can replace the traditional lightbulb. The LED bulb provides the same warm light as a 75-watt incandescent while consuming 75 percent less energy—and it can be used with dimmers and in recessed fixtures. The secret to its efficiency is a liquid-silicone cooling system that transfers heat across the entire bulb’s surface. The Switch75 is only available to commercial users now, but the company will release a consumer bulb by the end of the year.

Grand Award Winner: DyeCoo Textile Systems
Dyeing sans water. It takes between 25 and 40 gallons of water to dye 2.2 pounds of fabric. Multiply that by the millions of T-shirts, track pants, and other textiles made each year, and you get two huge environmental problems: millions of tons of chemical-laden wastewater and depletion of freshwater.

Instead of H2O, DyeCoo’s process uses supercritical carbon dioxide, which has fluidlike properties. The fabric absorbs nearly all the dye while generating no wastewater, and 95 percent of the CO2 is recycled into the next batch. Plus, reduced energy and chemical use cuts production costs 30 to 50 percent. Nike, which has a partnership with DyeCoo, used it to dye an Olympic singlet for Kenyan marathoner Abel Kirui, and Adidas put its first 50,000 DryDye T-shirts on sale this summer.

Makerbot Replicator
3-D printing for all. The Replicator is the most versatile consumer-grade 3-D printer available, bringing closer a future where anyone can print toys, car parts, and household items in the living room. Small enough to sit on a desk, it’s capable of printing in two colors of melted plastic. And with nozzles that deposit layers only 270 micrometers thick, it can re-create 3-D models in the minutest of detail.

Best of What's New 2012

[Plantagenet]

My top pick for 2012 would be the various kinds of electric skateboards---the world's smallest and lightest EVs.

[Pretorian]

Affordable 3d printer in retail gets my vote. Hopefully it will reduce amounts of plastic crap coming from China.

[Pretorian]

By the way I'm surprised by the amount of commentaries in these articles , considering that probably a half of them are from the writers themselves. Boy do we get spoiled nowdays. Soon we will be sending the bill to the writers/tv/movies producers instead of getting one I assume.

[dorlomin]

The untippable motorbike
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/c ... 776325.stm

Aimed at people downsizing to more fuel efficient transport without getting too wet.

We shall see if it comes to fruition.