Today is National Bike to Work Day, and all across America, people are ditching their cars and trucks for a cleaner, healthier journey via bicycle. Our friends at Voltaic Systems joined in the fun to support NYC’s Bike to Work Day, and it’s no surprise that they added their own solar-powered flair to the day’s festivities. Company staffers decked out a commuter bicycle and with a custom-built bike trailer carrying 60+ Watts of portable solar panels, 180 Watt hours of charging capacity, and lots of connectors to charge up smartphones, tablets and even a MacBook, in an effort to show New Yorkers how much fun can be had when human and solar power are combined.

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Post tags: bike commuting, bike to work day, bike trailer, solar charger, solar panels, Solar Power, voltaic systems

After weeks of submissions and an intense week of online voting, we’re excited to finally announce the two winners of Inhabitat’s Lighten Up! Lighting Design Competition. We received hundreds of entries featuring projects that employ LEDs in innovative and interesting ways, ranging from a colorful art installation that reacts to changing light to a restaurant donning beautiful ceiling lamps to a research campus adorned with LED back-lit wood walls. We narrowed all the entries we received down to just 30 finalists, and then left it up to Inhabitat readers to decide which two designs were most deserving of $1000 prizes from Elemental LED. So who won? Now the moment you’ve all been waiting for…

Drumroll Please……….

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Post tags: "wind power", 3D printed lamp, 3D printed light, 3D printing, aerodynamics, Air Turbine, Air Turbine Light, diTTo design, diTTo’s LED Acoustic Cloud Installation, green design, green interiors, green lighting, inhabitat competition, Inhabitat Design Competition, interior lighting design, LED Acoustic Cloud Installation, LED lighting installation, Lighten Up, lighten up competition, Lighten Up LED Lighting competition, Lighten Up LED Lighting competition commercial winner, Lighten Up LED Lighting competition residential winner, lighten up lighting design competition, lighten up lighting design winner, lighten up winner, lighting object, margot krasojevic, Rolluda Architects, wind-powered light Lighten Up LED Lighting competition

Citing high costs and extreme resistance from the mobile phone industry, San Francisco has dropped a law that would have required a radiation warning label to be placed on all new mobile phones sold within the city limits. On Tuesday, the city Board of Supervisors voted to settle a lawsuit with the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association by accepting a permanent injunction against the right-to-know cell phone ordinance. However, the city was quick to point out that legal fees prompted the action, and that fears about the health risks posed by phone radiation still exist.

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Post tags: cell phones, health hazard, mobile phone industry, radiation, safety, San Francisco, smart phones

NVIDIA’s massive new headquarters is set to rival those of California tech giants Apple and Facebook. The 250,000 square foot triangular structures conceived by Gensler, are designed to facilitate the flow of people and information. The project will be built next door to the company’s current headquarters in Santa Clara, California and the first building is scheduled to break ground in June.

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Post tags: "office building", apple campus, california architecture, company campus design, Facebook headquarters, faceted glass roof, Gensler, google headquarters, headquarters, Nvidia, Nvidia Headquarters, sustainable corporate headquarters, tech moguls architecture, triangular buildings

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Post tags: avocado, beauty products, cucumber, DIY, eczema, face care, face mask, honey, organic beauty, rosacea, Skin, skin care, yogurt

Read the rest of Foster and Partners Unveil Updated Bike-Friendly Plan for Apple’s Cupertino Headquarters

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Post tags: Apple Cupertino Headquarters proposal, apple headquarters, Apple Headquarters pedestrian friendly, Bike Paths, eco design, Foster and Partners, green design, sustainable design

Just under a year ago, the brains over at the Morpholio Project released Morpholio, a mobile and web-based app that created a new platform for presentation, critique and collaboration. They then followed this up with Trace, a digital design tool that allows creatives to instantly draw on top of imported images or background templates and layer comments or ideas to generate intelligent sketches to be shared. Now they’re back again with Morpholio 2.0, a new suite of seven forward-thinking design tools. The app re-imagines the portfolio as a design utility, providing a means to share, discuss and get feedback on work from a global community of users.

Read the rest of Morpholio Builds on Their Design App with the Launch of ’7 New Tools for the Creative World’

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Post tags: 7 New Tools for the Creative World', architecture portfolio, columbia morpholio, custom portfolio, design a portfolio, design portfolio, digital portfolio, drawing apps, drawing software, modern portfolios, morpholio, morpholio 2.0, portfolio app, portfolio software, portfolios for architects, presentation and portfolios, presentation app, presentation for architects, trace, trace app, trace by morpholio, tracing apps, tracing software

Apple and pear trees are often at risk for fire blight, but unfortunately by the time a tree shows signs of disease it’s too late and surrounding arbors have already been infected. Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology have found a way to detect the early onset of fire blight with the help of bees. After bees visit the blossoms on fruit trees, they then return to the hive, bringing the fire blight bacteria with them. Scientists can then test the hive for fire blight DNA, catching the disease before it ravages entire orchards.

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Post tags: bees, eco design, fire blight, fire blight prevention, green design, sustainable design, Vienna University of Technology

Read the rest of America’s Favorite Sustainable Craft Breweries of 2012

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Post tags: alaskan brewing co, america's favorite craft breweries, beer, bells beer, boulevard brewing co, craft beer, craft brewery, eco beer, Green Beer, harpoon brewery, new belgium brewing, Sierra Nevada, Sustainable beer, sustainable food, top 6, top us craft brewing companies

Read the rest of KAUST’s Breakwater Beacon is a Naturally-Cooled Lighthouse in Saudi Arabia

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Post tags: "sustainable architecture", contemporary lighthouse, eco tower, eco-art, green architecture, green art, Green Building, green design, KAUST, kaust beacon, kaust breakwater beacon, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, lighthouse, naturally cooled tower, saudi arabia, Sustainable Building, sustainable design, uap, urban art projecs

Apple is rumored to be working on a major overhaul its retail stores – and according to sources close to the project, the company has hired Foster + Partners to redesign its cool minimalist retail outlets. The architecture firm is already working with Apple on the tech giant’s new spaceship-like campus in Cupertino, California, which is expected to break ground in June.

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Post tags: apple, Apple Campus 2, apple design, Apple Norman Foster, Apple patents, Apple retail stores design, design trademark certificate, Foster+Partners Apple HQ, patents, store design, US Patent & Trademark Office

Read the rest of Take a Virtual Tour Through the 2013 HGTV Smart Home + See How You Can Win It!

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Post tags: energy monitoring, energy usage, green home, green interiors, green technology, hgtv, HGTV Sweepstakes, home monitoring, ipad home, Jack Thomasson, Jacksonville, Jacksonville Beach, know your carbon footprint, locally sourced materials, native plants, paradise key, reclaimed wood, recycled carpet, Savant Systems, smart home, Smart Home 2013, Sustainable Building, sustainable design, zero-voc, zeroscaping

Beer lovers beware: Researchers in Germany have found traces of arsenic in hundreds of tested beer samples. Many beers are filtered with diatomaceous earth, a mined sedimentary rock that contains iron, metals and can contain arsenic and makes the beverages clear. The beers tested were found to have levels of arsenic, some at twice the amount allowed in drinking water.

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Post tags: Arsenic in beer, diatomaceous earth, eco design, green design, Mehmet Coelhan, Reinheitsegebot, sustainable design, weihenstephan

Just a few months before his death in 2011, Steve Jobs announced plans to build a new corporate campus for Apple in Cupertino City, California. Since then the initial $3 billion price tag for the extravagant spaceship-like development has jumped to an estimated $5 billion, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Apple’s new HQ, designed by Foster + Partners, will cost more than the $3.9 billion being spent on the new World Trade Center complex in New York – an estimate which triggered criticism from the business community and company’s shareholders.

Read the rest of Apple’s Extravagant New Spaceship Campus Could Cost $2 Billion More Than Expected

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Post tags: Apple architecture, apple building plans, apple campus, Apple Campus 2, Apple HQ Cupertino, Apple Spaceship Headquarters, energy efficient buildings, green masterplan Apple, Steve Jobs, steve jobs new campus, Sustainable buildings

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Post tags: architecture portfolio, columbia morpholio, custom portfolio, design a portfolio, design portfolio, digital portfolio, drawing apps, drawing software, modern portfolios, morpholio, portfolio app, portfolio software, portfolios for architects, presentation and portfolios, presentation app, presentation for architects, trace, trace app, trace by morpholio, tracing apps, tracing software

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Many of us thought Google had the market cornered when it came to driverless cars, but Apple made a shocking announcement today with news that they would be releasing a new device and app that can transform ANY vehicle into a driverless one! Dubbed the iDrive, the system can be installed without the help of a professional and simply needs an iPhone or iPad to operate.

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Post tags: "april fools", apple car, apple driverless car, apple robot car, driverless cars, Google driverless car, idrive, idrive app, robot cars

If you’ve always dreamed of getting around like Marty McFly, you’ll definitely want to head to the Big Apple next month. The city just approved the roll-out of a new fleet of super-futuristic DeLorean taxis that will carry passengers around the city. Unfortunately, the plug-in hybrid cars won’t be able to take anyone back to the future, but they will be able to take you back to Queens if you like.

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Post tags: "april fools", Back to the Future 1985, back to the future taxi, delorean, Delorean NYC Taxi, delorean taxi, Mike Lubrano, movie gadgets, Nooka Advertisement, NYC yellow cabs, science fiction vehicles

The Apple rumor-mill is buzzing again, this time over plans for a new device that will really have legs. Actually, mostly arms: Apple’s iBot is still in early prototype stages, and focus has centered on the robot’s extraordinary upper body dexterity, which will enable it to be used not only in the Apple manufacturing process, but the device will also be made available to consumers themselves as an extension of Apple’s move into the home entertainment market.

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Post tags: "april fools", apple, apple ibot, Apple robot, apple robots, kid robots, manufacturing robots, robots, robots take over world

Just when you thought that your phone was the only gadget you need to worry about, the battle is beginning to heat up over smartwatches. Samsung recently revealed its plans to release a wristwatch-style computer; Sony released an Android-powered model last April; and rumors of an Apple producing an “iWatch” are running rampant. The question of whether smart watches will be as indispensable as their handheld counterparts still remains to be seen, but tech companies are eager to explore this relatively untapped market.

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Post tags: Apple watch, computer watch, digital watch, eco-fashion, high-tech fashion, high-tech watch, iWatch, Samsung smartwatch, Smartwatch, Sony smartwatch, wristwatch