Americans Against Obama care

42 Beauty Deals & Steals

1. Hold a beauty swap meet. Countless women have makeup in their drawers that never sees the light of day. You'll save money and put unused makeup to good use.
—Paul Innis, makeup artist, N.Y.C

2. Don't pump your mascara brush — this lets air in and dries out the color. Instead, try twisting the wand as you draw it out.
—Eve Pearl, celebrity makeup artist, N.Y.C.

3. Think pink. Pale pink eye shadow is a multitasker: Apply under the eyes before concealer to neutralize dark circles, beneath the brows to shape them, and on top of cheekbones for a perfect highlight. Try Bourjois Ombre Stretch Eye Shadow in Rose Elastique ($15, Ulta).
—Daphne Rush, makeup artist, Sephora Pro Beauty Team, Birmingham, AL

4. Go green. Origins will give you a complimentary skin-care sample when you bring in empty products to be recycled. Or, get a free lipstick when you return six M.A.C. containers to a M.A.C. counter.
—Jenna Hipp, celebrity manicurist, L.A.

5. Sample first. Before buying foundation at a department store, ask the makeup-counter saleswoman if she'll put some in a travel-size bottle for you to try at home.
—Debra Jaliman, M.D., dermatologist, N.Y.C.

6. Extend your lipstick's life. There's often about a quarter-inch more in the tube you can't see. Use a brush to scoop out an additional three weeks' worth of color. Or add a bit of lip balm to make a sheer tint.
—Daniel McFadden, makeup artist, Privé Salon, L.A.

7. Keep an old toothbrush on standby to gently buff lips. Moisten the brush and apply some granulated sugar for extra exfoliation.
—Sharon Ronen, aesthetician and founder, Haven Spa Studio & WellSpa, L.A.

8. Try double-dipping. Dunk an eyeliner brush into your mascara tube for a lasting, instant liquid liner.
—Daniel McFadden

Save On: Hair Care
(At Home)

9. Make your haircut last longer. As soon as you step in the shower, put conditioner on your dry ends, then wash and condition as usual. This move helps prolong a cut on the verge of looking grown out.
—Kevin Mancuso, Nexxus creative director, N.Y.C.

10. Use a natural-bristle brush, which pulls scalp oils through hair. Doing this daily is like giving your locks a conditioning treatment.
—Eva Scrivo, Eva Scrivo Salons, N.Y.C.

11. Hide forehead lines with bangs instead of Botox.
—Mario Russo, Salon Mario Russo, Boston and Stowe, VT

12. Save on frizz fighters. If you have coarse or curly hair, instead of rinsing out every bit of conditioner, leave 10 to 20 percent in (hair will still be a little slippery).
—Tom Brophy, Tom Brophy Salon, Beverly Hills

13. Touch up your own roots. Rather than returning to the salon every six to eight weeks, try tinting your regrowth at home.
—Jon Charles, Jon Charles Salon, Minneapolis

(At the Salon)

14. Get a layered look. It's hands down the lowest-maintenance style. Bobs that have blunt lines need the most upkeep.
—Kevin Mancuso

15. Ask for a free trim of your bangs. Many salons offer them between haircuts.
—Tom Brophy

16. Add a few pale highlights in the cool-beige family around your face if you have light hair. They help blend in grays and stretch the time between salon visits.
—Eva Scrivo

17. Wait before coloring. Hold off until at least 24 hours after shampooing hair; the natural oils will help your new hue last longer.
—Tracey Cunningham, Redken creative consultant for color, Beverly Hills

18. Request subtle highlights starting about a half inch from your roots so the regrowth will be less obvious.
—Tracey Cunningham

19. Barter for beauty services. For example, use your design skills to make a business card for your stylist, or even offer to babysit.
—Jenna Hipp, nail expert who regularly trades two manicures/pedicures for her salon cut and color

Save On: Skin Care

20. Don't be fooled by packaging. If a product looks expensive, you may be paying extra for fancy bottles or boxes, rather than ingredients.
—Jenny Frankel, cocreator, Cover FX Skin Care, Inc., Toronto, Ontario

21. Skip the eye cream. But if, after putting on face lotion, your eye area still feels dry, apply some Vaseline Petroleum Jelly or Aquaphor.
—Heidi Waldorf, M.D., dermatologist, N.Y.C.

22. Hit the kits. Look for value-priced beauty sets. Skin-savvy bonus: The products are designed to work together. One to try: Yes to Carrots Delicious Moisture Facial kit, which includes $30 worth of pampering face products ($20, Walgreens — out this in September).
—Jenny Frankel

23. Buy facial-peel pads from a dermatologist, presoaked with high percentages of active ingredients (such as 20 percent glycolic or salicylic acid). A 60-pad jar provides 60 skin-clearing peels for less than the cost of one facial.
—Dr. Jaliman

24. Scrimp on facial cleanser. You'll get more benefits from the active ingredients in creams that you don't wash or wipe off. Instead, try a works-for-everyone, inexpensive face wash such as Cetaphil Daily Facial Cleanser ($11, drugstores).
—Dr. Waldorf

25. Squirt a little lemon juice into your favorite face scrub to boost its natural brightening power and exfoliating action.
—Marcia Kilgore, creator of Soap & Glory for Target, London

26. Brew green tea in a pitcher and chill it in the fridge. Immerse two cotton rounds in the tea and smooth over your face to decrease redness and shrink pores.
—Christy Coleman, makeup artist, Venice Beach, CA

27. Sprinkle Epsom salts into warm bath water for a soothing soak. Add a few drops of essential oil: Lavender is great for relaxation; eucalyptus relieves congestion.
—Sharon Ronen

28. Buy spa-treatment packages instead of individual services to stretch your dollars. At Red Door Spas, you save 10 percent when you buy any six treatments, including manicures.
—Cornelia Zicu, chief creative officer, Red Door Spas nationwide

Save On: Hands & Feet

29. Skip pro manicures and pedicures during the winter months and buff nails instead. Or switch to nude nail polish. You can return to the salon less often — and studies show nude hues make hands appear younger.
—Claudia Vieira, manicurist, Salon Capri, Newton Highlands, MA

30. Seek out specials. Ask your nail pro about discounts midweek, when business may be slower.
—Patricia Yankee, celebrity manicurist, Dashing Diva, Deer Park, NY

31. Check your medicine cabinet for unused face creams with anti-aging ingredients or alpha hydroxy acids. Instead of tossing them, repurpose as hand or cuticle creams that smooth and exfoliate.
—Patricia Yankee

32. Warm a quarter cup of olive oil, then stir in the contents of a vitamin E capsule and some lemon juice for a soothing/sloughing hand or foot soak.
—Joanna Czech, celebrity aesthetician, Sava Spa, N.Y.C.

33. Apply hand lotion and cuticle oil, then put on a pair of light cotton gloves under rubber gloves before you do housework. The heat you generate will help the cream and oil penetrate better.
—Patricia Yankee

Try These Big Deals

The next time you're at the warehouse superstore or drugstore stocking up on value-priced essentials like paper towels, toss these supersize beauty basics into your cart as well. Bulk is cheaper, and you can always use them to refill smaller containers or repackage them in chic bottles from shops like The Container Store.

34. Aquaphor Healing Ointment ($17 for 14 oz.) also moisturizes chapped lips and mixes with color to make gloss, tames brows, softens hands and feet while you sleep, smooths rough elbows, and hydrates under the eyes.

35. Q-tips Cotton Swabs ($3.19 for 285) also corrects makeup mistakes, subs for those tiny eye shadow brushes, helps take off tenacious mascara under eyes (dip one into eye makeup remover first)

36. Lubriderm Daily Moisture Lotion ($12.73 for a three-pack totaling 45.2 oz.) also can be used as face lotion, helps shaving go more smoothly (compared with soap), controls frizz (dab on palms, then run them over hair), and hydrates hands without making them slippery

Luxury at the Drugstore

These bargain brands have done studies to prove they can outperform their pricier peers:

37 & 38. Pantene Pro-V Nature Fusion Smooth Vitality Shampoo and Conditioner ($4 each, drugstores): In a blind test, salon-brand users tried these hair products for two weeks; 69 percent reported that they were as good as or better than their current salon shampoo and conditioner.
You save: about $18 compared with salon shampoo and conditioner

39. Aveeno Positively Radiant Tinted Moisturizer SPF 30 ($16.59, drugstores): In a head-to-head comparison with the best-selling department-store tinted moisturizer, participants said Aveeno provided a more natural-looking and radiant finish.
You save: about $25

40, 41 & 42. Olay Professional Pro-X Deep Wrinkle Treatment, Age Repair Lotion SPF 30, and Wrinkle Smoothing Cream ($42 each, drugstores): A six-month clinical study of this regimen found it performed as well as the leading prescription 0.02 percent tretinoin wrinkle treatment, reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles by more than 20 percent.
You save: about $140 (compared with the average cost of a prescription wrinkle cream plus doctor's fee)

Shop Smarter: Store Brand vs. Name Brand
We wanted to know: What are we really getting when we purchase a store-brand or private label beauty product that claims it "compares with" a better-known national brand? To find out, we talked to industry experts and did our own testing.

The Good Housekeeping Research Institute performed blind comparisons of name-brand beauty products with store-brand equivalents in three categories: anti-aging facial moisturizer, body lotion, and two-in-one shampoo/conditioner.

Science for a Hungry World

Megan Fox Goes Brazilian

Transformers" star Megan Fox recently popped into the diNeila Brazil swimwear shop in Beverly Hills -- and Luxe knows what she bought and where you can find it online!

When in Los Angeles, checking out the adorable Brazil-inspired swimsuits at diNeila Brazil is a must! You'll find curve-fitting feminine pieces that are both elegant and comfortable. While you're there, don't forget to check out her beautiful sustainable stunning jewelry. For the luxury eco girl who wants to look both eco sophisticated and youthful.

Photoshop in your Eyes

Algae Life

How Green Is Your Computer?

We're so dependent on our computers these days that most of us would be lost without them. They make communication, work and entertainment much easier — yet their negative effects on the environment are often overlooked.

The energy used in producing and operating personal and workplace computers is huge. Corporate IT equipment alone uses more than 22 billion kilowatt-hours per year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a branch of the Department of Energy.

But it's not only computers' energy consumption that's noteworthy; the manufacturing process and the materials involved are also important factors.

About 4.6 million tons of computers and consumer-electronics waste are dumped in landfills each year in the U.S., according to Greenpeace, and fewer than 12 percent of discarded computers are recycled.

Aware of this problem, PC manufacturers are trying to go "green" by minimizing the use of toxic components such as lead and mercury and making the machines more energy-efficient.

But how can you know how green your computer really is?

Green Computers, or 'Greenwashed' Ones?

If you're looking for a new computer and are unsure about which models are eco-friendly, a good place to start is the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), devised by the Green Electronics Council based in Portland, Ore.

Devised for both companies and individual users, EPEAT's online database evaluates desktop computers, monitors and laptops based on their environmental features. Its criteria include:

— Reduction of use of hazardous substances such as cadmium, lead, mercury and flame retardants;

— Elimination of non-recyclable paints and coatings;

— Minimum of 65 percent recyclable or reusable parts;

Google Announces Upgrade to its Ad Empire

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc. is counting on the crown jewel of its online advertising empire to burnish a diamond in the rough.

Hoping to take an even bigger bite out of ad budgets, Google has melded the technology powering its lucrative search marketing network with a system that it bought 18 months ago to sell online billboards and other more visual commercials, including video.

The long-awaited combination poses another threat to Yahoo Inc., whose profits have been sliding the past three years. Yahoo is the Internet's largest seller of display advertising, a mantle that Google has set its sights on. Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL also operate large exchanges that help manage display ads.

The upgrade announced Friday has been something Google has been working toward since it bought DoubleClick Inc. for $3.2 billion a year-and-a-half ago. Google prized DoubleClick largely for its tools for selling and serving display ads.

Although they are more dynamic, display ads so far haven't proven to be as popular as the text ads that appear alongside search results.

Last year, online search advertising sales in the United States totaled $10.5 billion, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, with most of that money going to Mountain View, Calif.-based Google. The Internet's U.S. display ads totaled $7.6 billion.

"The display market today is probably not really living up to its full potential," said Neal Mohan, a Google vice president of product management.

Google is betting it can sell more display ads by drawing on the science, simplicity and ease-of-use that has made its search advertising system so profitable. The marriage will open DoubleClick's display advertising system to hundreds of thousands of advertisers and Web sites that belong to AdWords and AdSense — the cornerstones of Google's commercial search.

"We are going to be bringing a lot of the know-how and a lot of the efficiencies of the search market to the art of display," Mohan said.

DoubleClick's display exchange matches up advertisers with Web sites trying to sell some of the empty space on their pages.

It's an approach pioneered by four-year-old Right Media, which was bought in 2007 by Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo for $526 million. Yahoo says Right Media remains the Internet's largest display advertising exchange, processing 9 billion daily transactions for 120,000 buyers and sellers around the world.

Yahoo doubts Google will be able to dominate display advertising like it has search advertising.

"We fully expect the display market to be fragmented and for there to be other exchanges," said Frank Weishaupt, Yahoo's vice president of North American marketplaces. "We welcome these exchanges, and look forward to working with them and integrating with them for our partners.

PRIDE OF BRAZIL

Massa escaped blindness by a millimetre

Felipe Massa has explained that a distance as small as one millimetre was all it took to decide whether he had or had not lost sight in his left eye following his Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying crash. Thankfully, the Brazilian is on the road to making a full recovery following his freak accident in Budapest 45 days ago.

Whilst approaching the Hungaroring's Turn 4 on Saturday 25 July, Massa's helmet visor was struck by a flying metal spring - weighing 800g and at speeds of approximately 160mph - which had detached itself from compatriot Rubens Barrichello's Brawn car.

"You need to think about luck in different ways," Massa told The Guardian after being asked whether he considers himself lucky to be alive or unlucky to be involved in such an incident. "I was actually very unlucky with the spring in my face," he laughed.

"But I was very lucky as well. Every doctor said the same: if the spring had gone one millimetre to the right, I would have lost my sight. One millimetre to the left and who knows? I could have been brain damaged. So I was very lucky and this is more important because it is my life.

Cosmetic surgery for Massa (in the region of the left eye socket) proved successful on Monday and the Ferrari driver now continues to recover at home in São Paulo with the target being to return to the Formula One grid next year.

Men need women

We cannot indisputably say that this world would have been a better place without women. Men need women. sometimes, women also need men. A Magazine for men also needs women. Behind every men’s magazine there is a gorgeous woman. Well, not one, many. This spot for P Magazine, a typical magazine for men, tries to build the brand image by poking fun at poor men.



In this spot, we can see a group of men storm into a building. After the robbery one man comes near the gorgeous looking woman and hands over his phone number and tells her to call him. Then the spot ends with this moral- “Can’t blame a man for being a man.”

Louisiana preps hurricane-resistant home

Green home runs on solar power.

After working for two years on a home that gets powered by solar energy, students at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette have finally unveiled their solar-powered home designed for the Solar Decathlon competition to be held next month.

Dubbed BeauSoleil, the home will be one of the 20 homes that will be competing in the competition. More than 500 partners supported the projects through donations ranging from $4 to $100,000, along with tools and professional help.

The BeauSoleil home incorporates the outdoors to maximize the space. A wrap-around deck offers an additional 1,700 square feet. The hurricane-resistant dwelling uses hardwood harvested from a sustainable forest, out of which nothing was wasted.

Fruit of the gods

We've always enjoyed pomegranates for their sweet, tart flavour, but now there's a new reason to embrace this robust-looking red fruit. They're being touted as a nutritional powerhouse, and they're popping up in everything from cocktails to body lotion.

The pomegranate, with its edible seeds inside juicy sacs, is high in vitamin C and potassium, low in calories (80 per serving, which is just under one-third of a medium fruit), and a good source of fibre. Pomegranates are especially high in polyphenols, a form of antioxidant purported to help reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease. In fact, pomegranate juice, which contains health-boosting tannins, anthocyanins, and ellagic acid, has higher antioxidant activity than green tea and red wine.

According to the American Dietetic Association, studies involving mice and humans show that eating pomegranates may help prevent clogged arteries. In addition, a recent study from Jonsson Cancer Center at UCLA found that levels of PSA (prostate specific antigen), a protein marker for prostate cancer, increased 35% more slowly in men with recurrent prostate cancer who drank 8 ounces of pomegranate juice daily after surgery or radiation. (The study also found that it took 54 months to double PSA levels, compared to 15 months in men who did not drink the juice.) Increasing the time it takes for a man's PSA levels to double may postpone cancer recurrences and reduce his need to have other cancer treatment procedures, such as surgery or radiation, in the future.

Pomegranate juice also appears to suppress the growth of cancer cells and cause prostate cancer cells to die. It is believed that the antioxidants in the juice - particularly ellagic acid - are behind this beneficial effect. There are also some very early research being conducted to find out how pomegranate juice may be used to treat breast cancer and osteoarthritis.

There are many ways to enjoy this succulent fruit. Pomegranates are delicious on their own, and their seeds can be tossed in salads and sprinkled over cooked dishes. The juice can also be used to make jellies, sorbets, sauces, and wine, and as flavouring for baked apples, cakes, and other treats. Pomegranate syrup is used to make grenadine, which adds flavour and sweetness to mixed drinks.

At the moment, Canadians are enjoying a bumper crop of pomegranate-based products. Last summer, it even debuted at Starbucks in the form of a frappuccino. The pomegranate buzz has also made its way to our neck of the woods. Canadian retailers are happy to announce that pomegranate juice sales have dramatically increased in 2006, and Canadian consumers are taking the initiative to look for pomegranate products on their grocery excursions.

The pomegranate may be the fruit du jour, but it also has an incredibly rich and storied pedigree. It's native to Iran, the Himalayas, and northern India. It starred in the Greek myth of the Earth Goddess, Persephone, whom Hades tempted with the fruit's jewel-like appearance (unfortunately, when she ate it, she was sent packing to the underworld). The ancient Egyptians considered the pomegranate an aphrodisiac, and also buried the fruit with their dead. Many of the world's cultures and religions have also embraced the pomegranate as a symbol of abundance and fertility. Artwork featuring a ripe pomegranate is a popular gift for Chinese newlyweds, and Greek brides might toss the fruit instead of a bouquet.

Science is just beginning to uncover the pomegranate's potential, but many cultures have used the fruit medicinally for centuries, especially for gastroenterological ailments. In a particularly prophetic move, the pomegranate appears in the coats-of-arms of several medical associations, including the British Medical Association and Royal College of Physicians in London.

Prefab Home Models by Place Houses

Place Houses are affordable, green, architecturally designed prefabricated kit homes designed by Place Architects. The homes come in four sizes; tiny, small, medium and large, and offer several interior customization options.

Lightcatcher

Lightcatcher structure to bring in natural light and ventilation to the Whatcom Museum.

Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects have designed the “Lightcatcher” at the Whatcom Museum in Seattle, which will add 42,000-square-feet of space to the museum, which will be used to house state-of-the-art galleries for art exhibitions.



The structure is made from a translucent wall, 37-feet high and 180-feet long and captures sunlight to illuminate the interiors in an ecofriendly and energy-efficient manner. The $11.6 million addition gently curves to form a spacious exterior courtyard, bridging the museum’s interior and exterior spaces. After dark the translucent wall glows with changing colors of the structure’s interior illumination

garden furniture

Furniture made from recycled garden waste.

While garden waste is no more than trash for most people, who mostly hide it behind a bunch of plants, Craig McPherson is one designer who brings this trash to the limelight in the form of garden furniture.

The designer is exhibiting his work, the “Mulch Chair,” which has been made entirely from garden waste. The materials have been bonded with latex, which also gives the chair a rubber cushioned feel.

Google's concept phone allows call canceling without lifting a finger

Eduardo Altamirano Segovia

As far as concept phones go, this one has got to be the most unusual amongst the ones we have seen in quite a while. For starters, it’s a Google Android Phone concept. And if that fact wasn’t enough to make it outlandish already, then its bizarre curved-like-a-vase front frame will have you cringing for sure.

What’s Innovative?
Featuring an OLED screen, the G-Phone concept also features an accelerometer that can detect the handset’s position to help you hang up a call or choose “yes-no” or “up-down” options without lifting a finger, which sounds a tad weird because the curved surface of the phone apparently is suppose to enhance the interaction of the screen’s center line with the user’s thumb.

About the Designer:
Eduardo Altamirano Segovia is an award winning professional 3D Artist and is currently based in Mexico City.

Prefab Homes Shipping container

Though ugly on the docks, shipping containers can be turned into something beautiful. The SG Blocks Harbinger Prefab is constructed of five containers. That means the steel frame can withstand hurricanes and earthquakes. Its also eco-friendly with FSC-certified woods, solar panels, rainwater recycling and a resource monitoring system from Agilewaves. Best of all, this funky home took under five hours to assemble after a month of fabrication, and it doesn’t look too much like the raw materials. To call one of these your home, it would take a day and a crane to install up to 12 containers, and the Lawrence Group, who designed the SG Blocks home, says it costs 15 percent less than a typical home constructed of wood.

Blue Sky Prefab Homes prototype in Yucca Valley

The pitch on this prefab prototype in the desert actually came from AEP Span, the company that manufactured the roof. The design is a prototype from Blue Sky Homes, which touts the light-gauge galvanized steel frame as a less costly alternative to some of the custom structural steel modular designs winning magazine spreads. The design, by Palm Springs-based o2 Architecture, is a kit of parts assembled on site and meant to be both site-specific and flexible enough to work in other settings. For more details on the cost and construction time -- and for more photos -- click to the jump.

Prefab home gets ground-up restoration

Modular housing may seem like a new trend, but a 1950s house under renovation shows just how long L.A. has dreamed of its potential.

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World's First Mobile Phone made from water bottles

Motorola and Fido offer Canadians another way to put the environment first with today’s launch of the MOTO w233 Renew, exclusive to Fido customers. Renew is the ideal mobile phone for the eco-conscious and budget-minded. This high-quality wireless device is eco-friendly in several different ways, offering: 100 per cent recyclable phone housing; an in-box postage-paid recycling envelope; Carbonfree® certification; best in-class talk time; and efficient post-consumer packaging.

“As the wireless savings company that cares, not only about our customers but about the environment as well, we are proud to exclusively offer the MOTO w233 Renew,” says Sylvain Roy, senior vice president and general manager, Fido. “With the availability of Renew, the first mobile device in Canada made using 25 per cent recycled plastics, our environmentally-conscious customers have yet another reason to feel good about being a part of Fido, at a budget-friendly price point.”

A first of its kind, the plastic phone housing for the Renew is made from recycled five-gallon water bottles. In fact, a run of 1,000,000 w233 Renew phones will consume enough five-gallon water bottles that stacked end-to-end would extend over five times the height of the CN Tower.

Renew is also the world’s first certified CarbonFree® mobile phone on the market

Nepalese teenager replaces silicon with human hair for cheap solar energy

Solar panel made using human hair costs 75% less than conventional solar cells.

Milan Karki, born in one of the poorest countries in the world - Nepal, has tried to end energy crisis in the country and the world with a solar panel that is about 75% cheaper than industrial made solar panels of comparable capacity.

The secret to this low-cost solar panel is not as hi-tech as one would imagine as all the teenage inventor did was to replace the expensive silicon normally used in solar cells with a comparably cheaper product – human hair. The young inventor says that human hair due to the presence of Melanin is sensitive to light and also acts as a type of conductor.

human hair solar panels_2

The panel produced using this technique costs around £23 and produces 18W of power at 9V.The inventor believes that if the product is mass produced, the panel could be made available in developing countries at half that price, which would make it four times cheaper than other panels available on the market today.

Eco-Luxury Sedan

Zero emission concept electric vehicle harnesses solar power to extend its range.

While the world is looking forward for cars that are inexpensive and run on clean fuels, industrial designer Ankit Prashar has something in store for the upmarket custromers as well. A graduate of Coventry University’s Transportation Design course, Ankit has come up with a concept car aimed for the Citroen brand, which will definitely lure people with deep pockets.

The Citroen Eco-Luxury Sedan utilizes lightweight materials to better the vehicle’s overall efficiency. The propulsion system of the car includes a hydrogen fuel cell element, which charges the car’s onboard battery pack. The zero-emission vehicle also makes use of photovoltaic panels integrated into the bodywork to charge the batteries on the move.


The interior of the Eco-Luxury Sedan boasts a 1+2 seating layout, since most luxury cars are chauffeur driven and carry a maximum of 2 passengers on the rear seat.

Now Blind can use Mobiles

With the rapid growth in mobile technology, mobile phones have become an essential tool of modern existence. And there is no reason that the visually impaired should remain detached from the necessary communication device. Designed by Siwei Liu, the “Tactility” is an innovative mobile phone that allows the blind to join the band of modern mobile phone users. As suggested by its name, the keyboard of the Tactility is based on Braille, so the visually impaired users could make or receive a call on their own. Based around a single function, commonly used for making and receiving the call, the special cellphone attaches a circular ring at the bottom, letting the users hang the phone around their neck for quick and easy accessibility.

Electronic Tree

Researchers harness potential difference between a tree and the soil to power tiny electrical circuits.

Trees are known to provide cooling, oxygen and shade, but a new research conducted by scientists at the University of Washington has proved that trees can provide something that not many would have thought of before – electricity. The scientists have successfully powered tiny electrical circuits with nothing more than the energy they harnessed from bigleaf maples.

A similar research conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that plants generate a voltage of about 200mV when one electrode is placed in the plant and the other in the surrounding soil. The UW team carried the research forward by connecting a custom boost converter that works for input voltages of as little as 20mV and produces an output of about 1.1V, which is enough to run low-power sensors.


While the new research won’t end the energy crisis anytime soon, it can be used as a low-cost option for powering tree sensors that might be used to detect environmental conditions, forest fires or simply the health of the tree.

T-shirts with the green message

Are you struggling to find the right way to get the green message across? One of the best ways to show and promote green values is a T-shirt with a green message imprinted. The shelves today are flooded with T-shirts with the green message and you can simply spread the word by wearing them. Here are a few T-shirts that encourage green living for a cleaner environment and a better tomorrow.

Melbourne Rectangular Stadium

Sustainably designed stadium harvests rainwater and natural light.

Trying to grace the sports world with a green stadium, Cox Architects has designed the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium that combines state-of-the-art engineering with sustainability. The stadium has a bubble-like façade and is expected to be completed in 2010.


The stadium will have enough space to seat about 30,000 spectators and features a unique cantilever design, which coupled with a triangular panelized façade uses 50% less steel than a typical cantilevered roof structure.

The envelope will be composed of a combination of glass, metal and louvers, and the architects are planning a photovoltaic thin-film integration that will help power the stadium’s LED lighting units. The dome will also feature a rainwater harvesting system, natural lighting and natural ventilation to lower the structure’s dependence on grid electricity.

Nature furniture for fresh indoor air

Indoor furniture equipped with air plants for air purification.

The rise in outdoor pollution has made health conscious homeowners make use of the hi-tech air purification systems that are good for their own health, but not actually so good for the environment, especially because of the amount of energy they consume to keep the air inside your house clean.

When it comes to air purification, nothing beats nature, and industrial designer Mingling Wang has tried to bring nature inside your house to provide fresh air to the inhabitants. The Oxygen of Green indoor furniture concept is designed by combining air plants with a living room table.



The system produces a decent amount of oxygen, especially after dark and does that at the place where it’s most needed – the center-section of the house. Air Plants (Tillandsias) grow without soil, since water and nutrients are absorbed through the leaves and absorb CO2 from the air and produce oxygen in the night time.