Phyto Kinetic: Green Roofs for City Buses and Improved Urban Ecosystem

Source: Urban Gardens
With his project, Phyto Kinetic, Marc Grañén aims to energize drab public buses with vibrant, gardened roofs that he hopes will contribute a bit to improving the urban ecosystem. Grañén utilizes a lightweight, 7-centimeter thick hydroponic foam which is much lighter than soil, thereby significantly reducing the overall weight of the Phyto Kinetic roof. The foam retains humidity and is extremely flexible, making it easy to install regardless of the shape of the bus roof. Read More..
Phyto Kinetic: Green Roofs for City Busesbr /and Improved Urban Ecosystem

SERCO: The Biggest Company You've Never Heard Of

Serco Group are the world's leading outsourcing company with a vast and diverse portfolio of government contracts. These contracts are worth billions of pounds each year and means that the control of public services are passed to this privately owned company.  Among its operations are public and private transport and traffic control, aviation, military and nuclear weapons contracts, detention centres and prisons and schools. Serco has seen a large amount of criticism involving its private prisons and detention centres.

This video from the Hungry Beast, broadcast on Australia's ABC network, give's a brief introduction to Serco and the services they run across the world.

Another video from RT examines their role in public services across the world.

Could the Government Get a Search Warrant for Your Thoughts?

Source: The Atlantic

We don't have a mind reading machine. But what if we one day did? The technique of functional MRI (fMRI), which measures changes in localized brain activity over time, can now be used to infer information regarding who we are thinking about, what we have seen, and the memories we are recalling. As the technology for inferring thought from brain activity continues to improve, the legal questions regarding its potential application in criminal and civil trials are gaining greater attention.
Last year, a Maryland man on trial for murdering his roommate tried to introduce results from an fMRI-based lie detection test to bolster his claim that the death was a suicide. Read More... http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/could-the-government-get-a-search-warrant-for-your-thoughts/278111/

Peru To Provide Free Solar Power To 2 Million Of Its Poorest Residents

Peru has initiated a new solar panel program that will provide electricity to more than 2 million of its poorest residents.

Currently, only 66% of Peru’s 24 million people has access to electricity, according to the country’s Energy and Mining Minister Jorge Merino. By 2016, the plan is to provide electricity to 95% of residents through The National Photovoltaic Household Electrification Program.

“This program is aimed at the poorest people, those who lack access to electric lighting and still use oil lamps, spending their own resources to pay for fuels that harm their health,” he said.  Read More..
http://www.the9billion.com/2013/07/18/peru-to-provide-free-solar-power-to-2-million-of-its-poorest-residents/

Dalston House: where every visitor becomes Spider-Man

(Source: The Guardian)
 A Victorian terrace has popped up in east London that lets you swing from its ledges, run up its walls and generally defy gravity. Architecture critic Oliver Wainwright hangs loose at Dalston House, the novelty installation by Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich.
 Leandro Erlich's Dalston House is at 1-7 Ashwin Street, London E8 3DL until 4 August

We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists Say

What’s the number one reason we riot? The plausible, justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk to fight back are many—poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc—but the big one is more primal than any of the above. It’s hunger, plain and simple. If there’s a single factor that reliably sparks social unrest, it’s food becoming too scarce or too expensive. So argues a group of complex systems theorists in Cambridge, and it makes sense.
In a 2011 paper, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute unveiled a model that accurately explained why the waves of unrest that swept the world in 2008 and 2011 crashed when they did. The number one determinant was soaring food prices. Their model identified a precise threshold for global food prices that, if breached, would lead to worldwide unrest.

The MIT Technology Review explains how CSI’s model works: “The evidence comes from two sources. The first is data gathered by the United Nations that plots the price of food against time, the so-called food price index of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN. The second is the date of riots around the world, whatever their cause.”  Read More...
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/we-are-now-one-year-and-counting-from-global-riots-complex-systems-theorists-say--2#ixzz2UZHy1OUO

Jib.li connects people who need to send something, somewhere, with those travelling that way.

 

Jib.li connects people who need to send something, somewhere, with those travelling that way. Jibli is pronounced dʒi:b li: which means Bring Me in Arabic.

Founded in Dec 2011 and based in Paris, Jib.li is a social platform that connects people who are travelling, with those who want to ship something. The site was designed and developed by two young Algerian information technology engineers. Jib.li is based on social networks to build trusted relations between people. It could be to send your keys to your roommate who lost them when you're on holidays, or maybe a sudden desire to taste your grama's delicious cookies. You can also just carry stuff for people to make some money.

The newborn site provides a platform for those seeking to get round the classic excess baggage weight problem. A search engine allows users to see who is available to transport certain objects, what routes they are travelling on and the price offered for the service. Similarly, those who may have some spare room in their suitcase can post an advertisement stating their departure and arrival cities and can search for objects to transport.

The concept is simple and easy to use and is just a way of formalising a practice which is already in vogue among those who are often led to travel, especially young passengers.

Link to jib.li

FreshWall Indoor Vertical Garden Purifies the Air While Growing Plants and Fresh Veggies

FreshWall is a vertical garden that redefines indoor agriculture while maximizing the air purification ability of plants. The innovative green wall combines high-end technology with Scandinavian design aesthetics to encourage a green and healthy lifestyle.

It is an affordable, automated green wall for the urban dwellers, which does not take too much of the floor space. FreshWall brings vertical gardening indoors and requires minimal maintenance. All you need to do is to put the plants into the pot, plug it to your FreshWall and add water to the reservoir. Plug in the cord and the FreshWall takes care of the rest.

Moreover, each plant in FreshWall purifies air as well as 100 normal plants. FreshWall combines the best of hydroponics and aeroponics to help you grow plants throughout the year. The integrated watering system delivers the right amount of water and nutrients to all the plants. As the air circulates through the plants root systems, plants grow healthier and faster. Currently the product is mainly for business use, but the team just launched an Indiegogo campaign with the goal of making it available to everyone.