Green Options

It’s no secret I am against media for children under three-years-old, so when we received a press release today announcing iPhone Pacifier, I couldn’t resist bashing this use of technology. Sure, I can get behind energy saving apps, but an app claiming to educate children ages 1 to 3?  No way!

I’m coming to the conclusion that there’s very little that’s sustainable about the company known as GM.

It’s frustrating and sad, because I was raised in the auto city and had family members who worked in the industry.  I even spent a summer at the GM Tech Center (working for then EDS as an intern at the time).  I’m perplexed by the company’s name which most of us recognize only as a vehicle company.  But it wasn’t always this way.

There was a time when GM was diversified, and innovative.  I was amazed by the poor decision making at GM when it recalled and promptly crushed their all-electric EV1s after bringing them to market in 1996.  I drove an EV1 in California; it rocked!  The company used to also make refrigerators starting in the 1920s under the Frigidaire brand and airplane components during WWII (my grandfather was an engineer who worked on a few).

So when, exactly, did the General Motors Corporation stop becoming a “generalist” industrial powerhouse making motors and instead, devote all its energies to making only motors in transportation vehicles and to lesser extent, but profitable one, vehicles for the military — you know, Humvees and the like?

Unless you’ve been laid up in bed all this week, you’ve heard that Apple is releasing a new iPhone 3G-S with an amazing array of features But one you may not have heard of is a brilliant bridging between the iPhone and Zipcar.

These two are as they say peas in a pod, technology enhanced life(style) enhancements, for a demographic that I imagine likes that they get to both have what they want, when they want it, and do good by [...]

It is with pleasure that I write this review of special children’s book written by our Green Options colleague and Eco Child’s Play contributing writer Joe Mohr, aka Mean Joe Green!  Not only is Joe a great political cartoonist, he’s a children’s author too.  His new book Go Out!  Go Out! is unique not only because it comes from Joe, but it is also a short book (14 “pages”) designed for your iPhone using istorytime.

From kite-flying to corndog buying, Go Out! Go Out! is a rhyming story that shares a small sample of the wonderful experiences that are waiting for us just outside our own front door.

Joe believes it is important kids get outside, no matter where they live!  I couldn’t agree more, and my family spends most of their days in the great outdoors.

Apple fanboys might still be drooling from yesterday’s iPhone 3Gs announcement, but I bet they never saw this coming: an electric superbike with an iPhone for all its instrumentation!

Heck, I was happy to finally get MMS support!

The MotoCzysz E1pc is one of the many entries in the TTXGP race this Friday. How the iPhone is integrated into the bike is still a mystery but features like its native GPS will surely be used. And whether it wins or loses, it definitely gets points for creamy white geeky goodness.

Citizen journalism, open government, status updates, community building, information sharing, crowdsourcing, and the election of a President.

Editor’s note: This is first guest post from Max Gladwell.

Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they’ll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.

What’s most profound is that these represent parts of a greater whole. They represent a shift in power from centralized institutions and organizations to the People they represent. It is the evolution of democracy by way of technology, and we are all better for it.

For most of us, social media has changed our lives in some meaningful way. Collectively it is changing the world for good. Given the pace of innovation and adoption, change has become a constant. Every so often we find the need to stop and reflect on its most recent and noteworthy developments, hence the following list.

This post is, in Rob’s words, part of a grand social media experiment to publish the first collective, simultaneous guest blog post from Max Gladwell. Our goal is for it be published simultaneously on 100 blogs, thus inspiring 100 simultaneous conversations from various points of view. We have more than 70 confirmed with some of the biggest and coolest in the blogosphere.

Mokugift is sponsoring 3rd Whale’s “Greenest Person On The Planet” contest, a search for the greenest person on the planet (Latin America, North America, Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceana)

This new iPhone App actually makes a ton of sense. Instead of having to print out coupons or clip them from mailers, you can just get the store clear to scan your iPhone. Check out how it works:

“We know that paper coupons will not be completely replaced, but providing consumers and retailers with an outlet for mobile coupons is a positive start towards reducing the waste created by the mountains of mail we all receive,” said Luke

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Italian car company Pininfarina have announced plans to launch the first car in the world to use an iPhone as a remote control.

The Pininfarina Bluecar is an all-electric vehicle capable of travelling 155 miles on a single charge and a top speed of 80 mph. But get this - drivers will be able to use their iPhone to remotely check up on battery charge levels and ‘pre-heat the car’s electric drive system,’ very swish (more pics after the jump).

In a sampling of two thousand recycled mobile phones, 99 percent were found to have sensitive data like banking information and confidential emails.

The sampling was done by Regenersis. They processed over 2 million handsets in 2008; that’s one handset every 15 seconds. During a random sampling in December they discovered how many mobiles had not been wiped clean: a lot!