Jazz calculator is a flash web site advertising the new eco-fuel VW Passat. It compares its low carbon emissions with the emissions a jazz band generate while playing (breathing generates CO2..). Even if the comparison is quite absurd (that’s the point) I think that its persuasion intent, to show how small the car emissions are, is pretty effective. This idea is quite in line with some of the discussions we’ve had at persuasion, and in line with carbon.to.

By DDB stockholm

The same agency developed a similar idea for the iphone, where your breathing emissions when blowing in the iphone mic were compared with how many km the car could drive emitting the same.

I saw the idea of linking to the source that was one of the prototypes from my master thesis in one anime serie (Net Ghost PiPoPa). The basic idea is the same, to use ict to create a link between the individual product and its producer in the moment of buying.

The food is tagged, in this case a QR code.

The screen at the shop plays a video of the producer telling the story behind the food.

I’m back at work and getting update with what have happened during the last month I’ve been offline. I’ve found some pretty interesting new projects.

First, two environmental applications of google maps (google maps API must be the single most important generator of web applications with environmental purpose). One comes from a collaboration between google and UNFCC, showing climate change emissions data in a neat way.

Sad to see Sweden and Spain in that awful purple meaning they have increased their emissions instead of reducing.

You can play with the map and the different data sets here.

Via Treehugger  

The second, TapIt, comes from New York, and it is a list of places where it’s possible to refill your bottle with tap water instead of jumping into the closest 7eleven and buying one yet more plastic bottle. (Of course they have an iphone app too!)

Via Treehugger

Then I watch a quite unexpected video from UK’s prime minister Gordon Brown in TED, advocating for the use of ICT as a tool for change. Worth watching (as usually in TED)

Finally, via treehugger too, I found a report from Vodafone about the use of mobile technology with sustainability purposes that I should have to have a deeper look into. And an article about the sustainability potential of cloud computing, that is one of the things we have started to think about too.

Lot’s of things going on, lot’s of energy to start the semester, lot’s of ideas for new research.

David Wolman wrote an article in Wired about how we should get rid of physical cash and just use digital money. I have always wondered why we don’t accelerate the dematerialization of the micro-payments. This is happening in places as Japan and Korea, and at a growing rate in african countries where previously ad-hoc mobile banking solutions have become a primer way of economic exchange. In the western countries it seems that we are still attached to our heavy euro coins and thick dollar wads.

From the environmental perspective, using mobile phones, RFID, smart cards.. we could save energy and materials in both production, storage and transportation of money. However a good life cycle analysis would be needed to actually estimate the real savings and see if there is any rebound effect that would be needed to be minimized.

Illustration: Stephen Doyle for Wired

An interesting white paper from Ericsson, about how to achieve energy-efficient, sustainable mobile communications through network optimization, site optimization and alternative energy sources.

Ericsson projects regarding sustainability includes the use of renewable energy for both network equipment and also some other small projects as solar power mobile chargers.

One example is with China Mobile, running 252 wind and solar sites in Inner Mongolia. Photo from Ericsson.

Solar powered mobile charger. Photo from Ericsson.

In my opinion, this type of work is a good example of the relation between ICT and Sustainable Development, both by:

+ ICTD: Providing connectivity in developing rural areas, closing the digital divide.

+ Green IT: Reducing the environmental impact of  ICT infrastructure.

In my research I am looking at how internet, mobiles, and new ICTs can be used for making a sustainable society. Social media is one of the key technologies that I see can have (is having) a deep impact. Social media tools are allowing new ways of organizing, of creating content, develop ideas, create change… in a grassroots way, horizontally, but in a huge new scale that was not possible before. A change in scales:

• geographically (allowing global interactions)
• temporal (changes and ideas develop much faster)
• in size (a change from the concept of participation from the greek agora, limited by the size of the public space, to a global participation, only limited by technological access , and remember that 60% of the world already owns a mobile phone)

Kiva.org is one of the key examples I always mention. It uses technology to link entrepreneurs in needs of small amounts of money in developing countries with people all over the world that can loan it. It takes the microfinance movement to a new scale, allowing a more personal interaction between entrepreneurs and lenders, and allowing millions of users worldwide to help towards reducing poverty and contributing to a more socialy sustainable society.

Interesting concepts from kiva:

• Peer to peer financial systems in a global scale.
• Promoting entrepreneurship, reducing poverty.
• Making it personal: linking individual entrepreneurs with individual lenders.
• Creating community: groups of lenders, local groups…

I just loaned to this group in Peru.

And example of optimization enabled by the pervasiveness of mobile phones.

Why having the lights on all night? Why not turning them on just when someone needs them? Some communities in Germany have used different mobile phone based system just for that. Walking home at night? Just call a number and your route will illuminate for a limited time. The system is used also for more concrete applications as illuminating sport areas.

Image from http://www.dial4light.de

Possibilities of using near field communications for that? combination with more simple movement sensors?with route planning? With renting bikes systems? Problems with privacy? Advantages of letting know your position when walking home at night.

A fine example of optimization using ICT.

Via Treehugger.

Dial4Light