elimina il fantasma Al Gore
Sul numero più recente, di settembre, trova un nuovo utilizzo pratico una tecnologia che permette di trasformare in nobile energia elettrica il calore residuo altrimenti disperso nell’ambiente. A tale proposito, si può recuperare anche il calore generato da processori migliorando nel contempo le prestazioni dei calcolatori. Car engines waste a lot of heat. According to some estimates as much as 60% of the potential energy contained in petrol can be expelled or radiated as heat by an engine. Although some of this may be blown into the car to warm the occupants on a cold day, much of it is lost. This is why BMW has fitted a thermoelectric generator in the exhaust system of the test car.
The generator converts heat into electricity using the Seebeck effect, named after Thomas Johann Seebeck, a physicist who discovered in 1821 that applying a temperature difference across two adjoined metals gave rise to a small voltage.
A imitazione di Wikipedia, altre iniziative possono sorgere e mettere insieme organizzandoli i tanti utenti di internet disposti a fare un poco di lavoro di volontariato. The compilation of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia written and edited by its users, is the best-known example of crowdsourcing, but there are many others. The Library of Congress asked users of Flickr, a popular photo-sharing site, to identify unknown people in its old photo collections and so on .
I touch screen stanno diventando sempre più popolari. I loro costi si abbassano e in futuro permetteranno manipolazioni di oggetti tridimensionali o di più oggetti contemporaneamente finora impensabili con gli odierni mouse. Microsoft has already demonstrated a prototype of Windows 7, the next version of its flagship operating system, based around “multi-touch” capabilities, which allow a touch screen to sense more than one finger at once. As well as being able to press buttons, tap icons, call up menus and scroll windows, users will be able to rotate and stretch on-screen objects using two fingers at a time, as they already can on the iPhone.
Bioarchitettura, edifici ecocompatibili, celle fotovoltaiche ed altro sono sempre più di moda. Una descrizione di come si certifica la qualità ambientale degli edifici, il diverso rigore dei vari schemi di certificazione può chiarire le idee in questo campo ostico. Greenery can be hard to define, so the emergence of credible certifiers is clarifying things. The most stringent form of certification is the German Passivhaus standard, which applies to buildings that reduce their energy requirements so dramatically—by 90% compared with standard construction—that they can forgo heating and cooling systems. In 2007 the United States Green Building Council released a version of its LEED green-building standard that applies to homes .
Si introduce Amory Lovins che da molti anni costituisce un esempio insolito di ambientalista. Predica il risparmio energetico o meglio la frugalità ma senza metterlo in contrapposizione all’economia di mercato che sola può rendere queste scelte attuabili con particolare efficienza. But history has proved Mr. Lovins right. Thanks to a combination of high prices and public policies aimed at encouraging efficiency and conservation, America’s energy use did decouple from economic output in the wake of the oil shocks of the 1970s. Crucially, this happened without impoverishing the country, proving his once-controversial thesis that growth and greenery can indeed go hand in hand.
Buona lettura!
Good reading!
