Green Options

A new water dispensing technology created by UK designer Oliver Craig could change the way that European shoppers and commuters drink water, and it’s a technology that could help eliminate water bottle waste that’s cluttering international landfills greatly due to increased convenience.

We live in an era where compute capability is ubiquitous, whether it be on a smart phone or mobile computer, and where “the cloud” can be accessed from anywhere.

In parallel, the ever-improving energy and carbon-efficiency of computers creates new opportunities to trade off atoms for bits, also known as de-materialization, and to substitute carbon-intensive activities, such as transportation, with tele-presence.

Here in Intel’s Eco-Technology group, we’re trying to learn precisely where these trade-offs exist, and under what conditions society can achieve net-positive outcomes, by harnessing technology in more environmentally beneficial ways. To that end, together with Microsoft’s sustainability group, we asked Dr. Jonathan Koomey, visiting professor at Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and an expert in energy conservation technology, economics, policy and global climate change, to undertake a study of the environmental tradeoffs, between purchasing music in the traditional fashion (on CD from an online or brick and mortar store), versus purchasing and downloading the digital files.