This is the gyro-stabilized, two-wheeled future of transportation.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired
(Source: Wired)
China and India account for the majority of new mobile connections, and in developing countries mobile saturation hasn’t yet hit and is still experiencing double-digit growth.
This rapid growth most recently driven from the developing world is surprising when you consider that for the average mobile user, procuring the device costs a few months’ salary. Sustaining this connection generates tremendous value and meets many user needs as they continue to invest often over 10 percent of their monthly income in staying connected.
The explosive growth of mobile in developing countries over the past five years is what prompted us at UNICEF to leverage mobile to strengthen our programmes in 190 countries and territories. Many of UNICEF’s programmes now use mobiles for a variety of purposes. One program ensures that infants are tested for HIV and put on treatment if necessary. Another gathers direct feedback from communities on everything from water sanitation to access to essential medication.
For those in Silicon Valley, it’s hard to imagine that 70 percent of all handset shipments are feature phones. Most of these phones go to developing countries. The vast majority of the world, especially in low income and rural areas, is still living the mobile revolution through the constraints of voice, SMS and asynchronous connection.
These connectivity constraints fuel tremendous creativity. For many communities, simple voice and text connections have brought about revolutions in access to financial, health, agricultural and education services and opportunities for employment. For example, many farmers in rural areas in Africa and Asia use SMS services to to find out the daily prices of prices of agricultural commodities. This information allows them to improve their bargaining position when taking their goods to market, and also allows them to switch between end markets.
Another successful example in this space is UNICEF’s RapidSMS initiative: a scalable SMS-based open-source framework for dynamic data collection, logistics coordination and communication. UNICEF currently supports governments across six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and over 200,000 RapidSMS users in some of the most underserved and rural communities. Frontline health workers who each serve hundreds of women and children make up many of these users. Success in this space is quantified by time, money and lives saved. It is widely used by governments and the international development community, and has also taken off in business communities. For example, in Ghana, a local entrepreneur uses RapidSMS to monitor the sales of cook stoves around the country.
In many countries where the majority of people are unbanked, airtime has become another form of currency. Imagine you need to get a small amount of money to your sister who lives in a village that’s ten hours drive away. The easiest way for you to do that is to buy some airtime, but instead of topping up your own prepaid mobile service you top up hers. For a small fee, she can now go and cash out this airtime with an agent that sells airtime.
M-PESA, a project out of Kenya that was initially set up to distribute micro-loans to and collect payments from the poorest rural communities of Kenya, has now become a large-scale multi-country mobile cash transfer system run by Safaricom in East Africa and Roshan in Afghanistan.
If you like the idea of getting free energy from the sun, but don’t want to deal with the complications of installing a solar array on your roof, Umbrosa has created a lovely backyard sun shade that does double-duty—turning those rays into electricity. As umbrellas go the Eclipse’s design is striking, but it isn’t really an umbrella at all… (via Stylish Sun Shade Is the Easiest Way To Harness Solar Power For Your Home | Impact Lab)
A virus that creates electricity
A virus called simply M13 has the power (literally) to change the world. A team of scientists at the Berkeley Lab have genetically engineered M13 viruses to emit enough electricity to power a small LED screen. M13 poses no threat to humans — it can only infect bacteria — but it could one day serve humanity by powering your laptop, or even your city.
Illustration by Iaroslav Neliubov via Shutterstock
(via wildcat2030)
A very innovative approach to a typical problem in the Netherlands (and of course because Leeuwarden is next door to Groningen where I stay, I thought it interesting).
This is a real bridge spanning a canal in northern Netherlands. More pics, here.
The bridge of Leeuwarden in the Netherlands. Looks like something from a Transformers movie. See the originals in Mark van Reesk’s Flickr.
Uniqlo ‘Wake Up’ Social App.
Japanese clothing brand, Uniqlo have launched an innovative new social alarm app that aims to make waking up every day an enjoyable experience. The alarm music, which is automatically created based on the weather, time, and day of the week, was co-written by 51st annual Grammy nominee Cornelius (Keigo Oyamada) and Yoko Kanno, who is active in songwriting across a wide range of genres including video games and anime (COWBOY BEBOP, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Macross).
The app allows users to share a record of their awakening – specifically, the time, weather, and temperature at the moment they stopped the alarm – via social media channels including Facebook and Twitter. In addition, the “wake up records” shared by users around the world are displayed in a part of the app via its World Wake Up function.
Available to download now, free of charge for Android and iPhones. Head to uniqlo-wakeup.com to find out more.
(via thenextweb)
Tomas Saraceno - Cloud Cities, 2009
Inspired by structures found in nature, Cloud Cities is comprised of 20 giant bubbles suspended by wires, “investigating new spatial and cultural modules for living… A utopic world of inflatable domes and levitating gardens.”
(Source: likeafieldmouse, via wildcat2030)
