ST/ Blogs

Guidelines for a sustainable internet

Jorge Luis Zapico — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:11:46 +0000

I gave a seminar yesterday about my ideas of how internet could be more sustainable, both from an environmental perspective, both also from a personal / society perspective.
In the website sustainableinternet.org you’ll find all the guidelines and the possibility to comment and participate!
Here is the presentation:

Jazz Calculator

Jorge Luis Zapico — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:32:12 +0000

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.

Presentation about Carbon Literacy

Jorge Luis Zapico — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:16:16 +0000

The usability of carbon dioxide information from sustainablecommunications on Vimeo.

Small presentation part of the World Usability Day 2009 activities. Disclaimer: I was sick so I was a bit slow and drowsy.

Linking to the source

Jorge Luis Zapico — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:44:19 +0000

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.

The fun theory

Jorge Luis Zapico — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:45:37 +0000

Using persuasive techniques for (short term) beavioral term. Well done (at least as ad stunt). Check the video.

Via webbsverige

Solar e-reading

Jorge Luis Zapico — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:52:30 +0000

5 hours of sunlight => 1 extra day of reading. I like it. It is however confusing if it’s a hack to the existing sony reader (I would like that) or if they are working in their own device.

Via Engadget

Good Guide

Jorge Luis Zapico — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:09:55 +0000

Good Guide, empowering consumers, making data transparent through ICT. I like it. Check their iphone app too.

(Met some of the people working there when at Berkeley last spring)

Carbon sins

Jorge Luis Zapico — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:45:29 +0000

Carbon guilt is a common problem these days. I’m still wondering around how to balance the fact that we actually need to change pretty radical with scaring away people with a guilty feeling.

At greengaged they set up a confession cabin for lightening our environmental souls. I think it is a pretty interesting topic they are pointing out.

Photography by Travis Drever

Info at : Greenengaged.

Carbon.to

Jorge Luis Zapico — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:56:05 +0000

In our everyday life we are increasingly exposed to carbon dioxide information for our everyday life. From the grams CO2 the burger we ordered produced to the tons our travel created. I am exploring the concept of carbon literacy, our knowledge to interpret, understand and relate carbon dioxide information. My hypothesis is that ICT applications can be used to to improve carbon literacy , and so to make better decisions to reduce our carbon footprint.

Together with Henrik Berggren and David Kjelkerud I participated in the 24h development camp Ecomo09 inLondon. The ideas was to spend 24 hours, from 6.pm to 6.pm developing an application from scratch, in this case with an environmental theme. After some brainstorming sessions we decided to focus on an application to improve transform carbon information between different units.

Hacking at 3.a.m

The result is carbon.to a web application that allows to:

Transform carbon dioxide information to other units for example km of train.
Compare different footprints for instance how many apples footprints equal a 4 hours flight
Use as an API to transform CO2 information and present it in your own service in another unit. For instance: carbon.to/apples?co2=10 gives you back an XML with how many

Screenshot

We will keep in updating the service and we will also try to analyze the impact and what it needs to be improved. Have a look and play around with it!

Asus eee-reader?

Jorge Luis Zapico — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 10:28:24 +0000

As seen in timesonline (via engadget) asus confirmed the release of a cheap double sided e-reader. Would it be an explosion as the netbooks? In the picture it can be seen that it have color screens and in the article is mentioned: Whereas current ebook readers have monochrome screens, the Asus would be full colour. It doesn’t specify which type of screen technology, but if it isn’t e-ink or equivalent it just misses the whole point of an e-reader! Without it it is not comfortable to read a whole 1000 pages book on it, nor sit outside in full sun. I will call this a tablet optimized for web reading, but maybe it’s probably the beginning of hybrid reading devices. Let’s see how it keeps developing.