Inhabitat's Week in Green: 'Plantscraper' vertical farm, new wave energy and a battery-powered iPhone case

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/19/inhabitats-week-in-green-plantscraper-vertical-farm-new-wav/

Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green.

Groundbreaking green architecture burst into life in Sweden this week as Inhabitat reported that Plantagon began construction on the world's first 'Plantscraper' vertical farm. We also marveled at artist Yayoi Kusama's dazzling Infinity Mirror Room, which shines with the reflections of thousands of LEDs, and we shared the bubbly modular AMPS living wall system. Meanwhile, the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program announced that HWKN's bright blue spiky sea-urchin shaped pavilion will be popping up this summer, PinkCloud.DK unveiled plans to transform oil refineries into giant energy positive communities and the UK granted planning commission for its first amphibious house.

We also showcased several amazing applications for LEGO bricks this week: a NYC apartment renovated with 20,000 plastic bricks, a gigantic LEGO-inspired church in the Netherlands and a remarkable fully articulated prosthetic LEGO arm. Speaking of next-gen prosthetics, this week Israeli scientists demoed a real-life "Star Trek" VISOR that enables the blind to see, and Nike took the wraps off a prosthetic running sole for amputee triathlete Sarah Reinertsen.

This also marked a heated week for energy news as solar power heavyweight Sunpower sued Solarcity over stolen data, and Aquamarine Power geared up to connect its new wave energy generator to the UK's national grid. We also got ready for rough days ahead with the waterproof, armageddon-ready, solar-charged, battery-powered iPhone case, and we got things cooking with Biolite's brilliant new camping stove, which converts waste heat into electricity for USB gadgets. Last but not least, we were wowed by several amazing new applications for discarded tech: Sean Avery's astounding animal sculptures made from shattered CDs and Paola Mirai's elegant jewelry fashioned out of discarded computer circuits.

Filed under: Science

Inhabitat's Week in Green: 'Plantscraper' vertical farm, new wave energy and a battery-powered iPhone case originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MinION USB stick decodes DNA in a matter of seconds

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/20/minion-usb-stick-decodes-dna/

If you happen to be "special," then this $900 USB device is just about the worst thing ever. The aptly named MINion serves its masters by interrogating the cells of living organisms and rooting out their genetic secrets. We won't pretend to know exactly how it works, but it starts by pulling a strand of DNA through a razor-like nanotube that unzips the double helix. The nucleotide bases are then electrocuted one by one until they give up their code. The resulting sequence is stored like a ticker-tape readout, for the whole world to see. The MinION can complete its task in seconds and, unlike most other DNA sequencers, it's portable and simply plugs into a laptop. Luckily, it has so far only been shown to work on very short genomes, like those belonging viruses and bacteria, so for now you're probably safe.

MinION USB stick decodes DNA in a matter of seconds originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Premium cable TV comes to XBMC, GoodPlayer and more via InfiniTV 4 tuner

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/20/premium-cable-tv-comes-to-xbmc-goodplayer-and-more-via-infinitv/

In the olden days of CableCARD circa 2004, only a select few devices and software could leverage the card's power to watch premium cable TV, but not today. Today just about any adventurous dev can take advantage of the fact that an OCUR is a network tuner and access premium cable TV -- as long as the content is marked Copy Freely, that is. The latest to unleash that power is XBMC which also helps extend the functionality to iOS via GoodPlayer and Buzz Player as well as any UPnP client with the help of a Serviio media server. Essentially this custom code is acting as a middleman, but fulfilling the dream that any software could directly control and stream from a CableCARD tuner like the InfiniTV 4 is within reach. The only drawback left is that even with the current sale price of the InfiniTV 4 at $199, it still isn't as low as the cost of entry of something like a ClearQAM tuner.

Premium cable TV comes to XBMC, GoodPlayer and more via InfiniTV 4 tuner originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Feb 2012 03:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel Launching New Atom-Based Processors With Digital Wi-Fi [Intel]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5886463/intel-launching-new-atom+based-processors-with-digital-wi+fi

If you thought Intel's Atom processor line was dead, think again: the company is launching a new version of the silicon, code named Rosepoint. Don't be too quick to dismiss it, either, because it sounds like the new mobile processor could mean business.

Wired reports that the new line of chips should bring significant reductions in power, cost, and size to Intel-powered smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Perhaps most interestingly, the chip has Wi-Fi built in as part of the digital chip. Current Wi-Fi chips tend to be analog, and a digital version should in theory be easier—and cheaper—to scale down. Indeed, Intel Chief Technical Officer Justin Rattner told Wired that the digital Wi-Fi chip should scale with Moore's law and has "state of the art power efficiency."

Even though Intel is officially announcing the chip in San Francisco this week, it won't be commercially available for at least two years. Given that it currently supports just 2.4GHz and Wi-Fi, that seems a little odd—though apparently versions with cellular data and built-in radio antennas are in development. [Wired]

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Could This Be The iPad 3's Guts? [Rumors]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5886465/could-this-be-the-ipad-3s-guts

Last week we saw what might be the iPad 3's high-res display. Now, MacRumors is suggesting that the logic board of the new iPad is out in the wild. How likely it is to be real is, obviously, up for debate.

This photo, originally posted at Chinese site WeiPhone, shows what is claimed to be the iPad 3's logic board, including an "A5X" system-on-a-chip. We're expecting a new processor in the next iteration of the iPad—though we thought an A6 would be the next logical step. If this photograph is real, the A5X model name may suggest that this piece of silicon is a bridging step.

According to Mac Rumors, the date code on the chip—"1146"—indicates that it was "manufactured in the 46th week of 2011, which would have corresponded to November 14-20". Elsewhere on the board are a pair of 16 GB flash memory chips from Hynix and a rectangular Apple-branded chip similar to the power management chips found in previous iPads.

As ever, it's difficult to say whether we can definitely expect the A5X chip to appear in the new iPad. One thing is certain: there isn't long to wait in order to find out. [Mac Rumors]

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