Greener Gadgets, January 2008

February 1, 2008
New York City

“How many people here are designers?” 40% of the 300+ audience raise their hands. “How many people here are from consumer electronics?” Another 40% raise their hands. “How many are from the media or from a university?” The remaining 20%. No, this was not a mini Consumer Electronics Show (although CEA was one of the presenting sponsors). It was to learn about how to bring the consumer electronics “cool” factor into the green movement that has been gathering momentum over the past decade.

KeyNote

Chris Jordan, the opening keynote speaker, compared the green movement to a bicycle race where there is a tendency towards the end to ride in a pack and a hesitation from any one biker to take the lead (because he/she is worried that someone will pass them right towards the end). He said there seems to be a hesitation for anyone to take the lead and this hesitation has limited the ability for the green movement to reach critical mass. He said the consumer electronics industry, although slow to catch on, is in the best position to take the lead. They would bring the Michael Jordan “coolness” factor into environmental sustainability. Gadgets are getting cooler everyday and they can bring the concept of green as being cool to the masses.

One Laptop Per Child

After an awesome pictorial representations (must see) of mass consumption, Mary Lou Jepsen gave us a tour of the guts of her $180 “one laptop per child” machine. She created and meticulously designed every aspect of the laptop to dramatically lower cost and energy consumption. This was one of the highlights of the conference. The cause, design, engineering, and results were inspiring to everyone in the audience. Her most interesting remark was about getting fired up about this project. She said leaders in the field told her that it would be impossible to create a brand new laptop for under $100. The most interesting projects to get into, she said, are those that people say are impossible.

A few characteristics about the laptop:

• Uses 1W (idle) versus 20W used by regular laptops and 80W by desktops
• When parts/chips are not in use, they are turned off (duh!)
• Uses Linux OS with a footprint of 100 MB versus Vista that uses 12,000 MB (12GB). This inherently requires less “metal” to operate the machine (less hard drive, chip speed, and power)
• Designed for the “bottom” of the pyramid (of users, especially the mass concentration in developing countries)
• Designed for children with education as a key driver
• Comes with a built-in camera and each machine acts as a wireless router that can connect to other laptops or the internet (amazing!)

The laptop was packed with design and operational breakthroughs. Implementing only a fraction of these ideas into existing technologies could have a significant impact on the future of efficient computing. Mary Lou concluded by stating that manufacturers should use these breakthroughs to create gadgets that are longer lasting, repairable, lower power, lower weight and size, and robust. She also discussed the pilot distribution project outside Mumbai that was of interest.

Electronic Material Life Cycle

Mary Lou's presentation was followed by a panel of experts in industry and organizations on the topic of materials and lifecycle management of sustainability in electronics. David Conrad, Head of Environment for Nokia (North America), said this was an exciting time for people in his position. Prior to this, the idea of health, safety, and environment was a side issue that was in place to ensure compliance. It is now transforming into a critical role given the importance to the triple bottom line (economic, environmental, and social). Some of the major hurdles that the industry still faces, according to Renee St. Denis (Director of Product Take Back and Recycling at HP) include the issue of reverse logistics globally: it is extremely difficult to set up a system to gather the electronics and bring them back to point of creation. According to Sony’s Douglas Smith (Director of Corporate Environment, Safety and Health), it should be just as easy (and valuable) for consumers to give back their products as it is to purchase them through retail stores. At present, however, even the best collection systems for recovery and recycling in the world (Europe) recover only 30% of the products. There is a long way to go before we are close to creating a good solution worldwide.

A few interesting options were suggested by one of the panelists, Andre Dent (VP at Material ConneXion). What if we were to implement a leasing model (similar to cars) where users bring back their products for new ones every few years. Or how about a Netflix model where you pay a monthly fee to “rent” your equipment (great idea – I would pay a monthly fee to rent my plasma TV and trade it in every 6 months for another one. It would be a great exercise to develop this model to see what the numbers look like).

Insight into HP

All this and we were only half way through the session. After lunch, John Solomon (VP of US Consumer Business at HP) took us through a slide deck of HP’s commitment to the environmental sustainability. HP developed the first recycling system in the early 80s and has continued to innovate in the area. It was interesting to hear John talk about how people may think it is a paradox that HP is fighting environmental pollution while promoting gadgets (printers) that promote using more paper. He talked about steps HP has taken in reducing the paper consumption – an interesting concept was HP’s SmartWebPrinting that promotes better (less paper waste) ways to print from the internet. I tried this out.  It was an easy download and looks like a fairly intuitive way to print from the web (and avoid that annoying last blank page with one line on it). During his talk, John also talked about the Davos Question via You Tube that is worth checking out.

Electronics and Energy Efficiency

John was followed by a panel on Electronics and Energy efficiency that included Gregg Chason (Consumer Lifestyle Division) from Philips Electronics and Ryan Block (Editor-in-Chief) of Engadget. Gregg highlighted the work that Philips was involved with in this area and talked about the use of existing technological breakthroughs in the mobile space to drive energy efficiencies. The work by Mary Lou was brought up several times during the conversation.  This further demonstrated the magnitude of Mary’s achievements. Some very interesting recent developments in the electronics area include the Eco-Patent Commons (a platform-sharing alliance between companies like IBM, Sony, Nokia, and Pitney Bowes to release dozens of environmentally responsible patents to the public domain). An interesting patent released is the “Systems and methods for recycling of cell phones at the end of life” by Nokia. A general observation was that in order to continue pushing the frontier, all stakeholders need to become environmentally conscious world citizens.

Mobile Renewable Energy

The next panel was on new forms of mobile renewable energy, another great highlight of the conference. Here we got a glimpse of some very innovative solutions to renewable energy from entrepreneurs who have been leaders in this area. This included Peng Lim (CEO of MTI) who showed off a very cool technology that uses methanol within a tiny fuel cell cartridge (to replace the standard battery). We also saw Regan Warner-Rowe of M2E who has developed a highly efficient motion-to-energy system and is currently working with the military on this technology. Arthur Huang, founder of Hymini, presented the hand-held hybrid energy storage unit while Daniel Porras walked us through the success of Solio, a hand-held solar power unit, in developing countries. Very cool technologies that are sure to become mainstream in the coming decade.

xDesign

The day was wrapped up by Natalie Jeremijenko, an artist and director of the xDesign Environmental Health Clinic at NYU. Natalie has worked on some extraordinary projects but one that stuck out most was her “how stuff is made” exercise that she requires her students go through. “Does anyone here know exactly where something you are wearing is made?” When she posed this question to the audience, only 3 people knew exactly where one piece of their clothing (a shoe or sweater) was made. The visual essay concept is intriguing.  Here her students have to create a photographic essay of the process (say of making a fortune cookie) that requires the student to not only gain access to processing facilities world-wide (itself a challenge), but also take photographs and publish it.

Design Competition

Finally, Core77 presented a great set of slides displaying the range of entries for their design competition. The winner was a DIY power meter by EnerJar. The range of solutions, however, was amazing and I am hoping Core77 puts these up on their site for everyone to see the innovations.

Exhibits

Of course, the Exhibits outside the main conference area were also amazing. Exhibits that I found exciting:

• ReCellular: a company focusing on recycling cell phones
• Project H Design: a charitable organization led by Emily Pilloton. She showcased some great gadgets and systems all on one table (video worth viewing). She also displays some very cool Freeplay products.
• Solio: Hand-held solar devices
• My Bone Yard: an initiative to give consumers a value-added platform to recycle their gadgets
• Voltaic Systems: Creators of backpacks with solar panels to charge the backpack contents
• SunNight Solar: a company dedicated to providing solar powered flash lights to developing countries via its BOGO (Buy One Give One) program

There were also several media and publishing groups displaying their products (magazines) as well as Nokia and HP showing off their new environmentally friendly gadgets. And I missed a couple of great booths like Make magazine’s DIY USB charger (I definitely want to make one of these).

All in all, a great event that allowed people to connect and share ideas.  I want to keep an eye out (and get on mailing lists) for similar future events. There was definitely not enough time (as is the case with most great conferences) to learn about, network, and share all the great ideas in the room. But that is what makes future sessions all the more attractive to attend.