Swedish designer Peter Thuvander has come up with the iYo YoYo, a nifty green alternative way to charge your iPhone or iPod.
“To celebrate my new Iphone and the fact that darkness is looming over me. I´ve done this: An induction powered yoyocharger for Apple.
And since solarchargers don’t work at night or in Sweden half the year, this should be a smash hit.”
Thanks to a small Li-ion battery inside the yo-yo you build up a charge while you play with the iYo YoYo. Afterwards you can just plug in your iPod or iPhone and it will be charged.
Apple recently released their new line of MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops, which are mainly made from aluminium. They say that they are their greenest latops ever and claims that they are “highly recyclable and even more energy efficient”, and that they are “designed with the environment in mind”.
But really, how green are the new laptops?
Greenpeace, who is running a hard and successful campaign for greener electronics, says that the new laptops are “not quite the breakthrough” they “were hoping for”:
“A check of the full specs revealed the MacBook Pro, MacBook and MacBook Air – as well as the LED Cinema Display will now have internal cables free of PVC and will have internal components containing no BFRs. Not quite the breakthrough we were hoping for. These new MacBooks are currently on a similar level of toxics reduction to the Sony Viao laptop series on PVC, and the Lenovo Think Vision in monitors. The BFR free internal components represent an improvement from the bar set by the Vaio line.”
The Australian Consumer Association recently published a list on Computer Energy Costs for various home gadgets such as your computer screen, DVD player, cordless telephone, gaming console, laptop etc.
Interesting with this list is that it shows how much energy these gadgets consume weekly, monthly as well as yearly, even when they are supposed to be off.
According to the study, the Sony PlayStation 3 consumes 33.34 kWh (weekly consumption) when on and playing a game. That is more than a Plasma TV who uses 29.68 kWh when on and playing a DVD.
New York has decided to become greener and reduce their emissions by 30% by year 2030. The city has started an environmental campaign called GreeNYC to get the people engaged and active. So far so good.
But now the campaign has run into some problems. Apple, the computer company, doesn’t like the GreeNYC logo – which resembles an apple.
Apple has filed a formal opposition (.pdf) arguing that the GreeNYC logo will cause “mass confusion and ruining Apple’s good reputation.”
Apple is now “greener” than its rival Microsoft according to the Greener Electronics Guide from Greenpeace. But both companies have still a long way to go until they can beat Samsung and Toshiba who currently leads the “green race”.
Greenpeace recently released its seventh version of their Greener Electronics Guide where it ranks electronic companies based on their actions against e-waste and harmful toxic chemicals.
Apple has gained 0.7 points since the last update. Apple have gained more points because of new models have been introduced, mainly the new MacBook Air, that contains less toxic chemicals. But Greenpeace emphasizes their “takeback programme still needs to be global”.
The MacBook Air is Apple’s latest work of art. It’s slim and looks awesome. But what about the laptops green credentials then? Is it greener than the iMac?
Are you a frequent RSS-reader? Yes? No? It doesn’t matter! Now you don’t just have to read to get your weekly dose of green news, blogs and rants. It’s time to start listen. It’s time to discover the green podcasts.
The folks over at iTunes have collected some of the best environment related podcasts from around the web in one nice, free, corner.
You will find green podcasts from the famous Grist and TreeHugger to the Lazy Environmentalist and The Sierra Club.
To be able to subscribe to any of the podcasts you will need to download and install iTunes. It’s free and works on both Windows (XP or Vista) and Mac OS X.
Last week Apple released their brand new iMac to the world. Like always its one heck of a design and the computer looks great.
But how green is this new iMac? After a massive campaign where Greenpeace and thousands of Apple users demanded Apple to become greener and the growing global warming threat this is one hot topic these days.
Steve Jobs have said that “recycling has been kept in mind from the ground up” in the making of the new iMac. Steve has also posted a green manifesto where he talks about how green Apple will become.
But what about the new iMac then!? Well, to be honest it’s not much to hang in the tree.
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New York has decided to become greener and reduce their emissions by 30% by year 2030. The city has started an environmental campaign called 
