Wednesday 18 September 2013

Things.info - An online home for everything?


Imagine something like Google Maps, but instead of streets, buildings, rivers and mountains are things – objects made and used by humans. This is the essence of Things.info – to create a web platform, where you can learn about the origin, usage and recycling of man-made objects.

It's also meant to be personal – you can create a catalog of your things, make some of them public, that you want to give away, lend out or sell. If you want to get rid of something, for example an old fridge, books etc, you can find the nearest places in your neighbourhood where these items can be recycled. Or a company interested in collecting old fridges will contact you and take it away for no cost.



We all buy things – from everyday food to mobiles, cars and furniture. More often than not we are interested in some aspect of the history of this unique thing we are considering buying. It could be the composition, for instance whether a food product contains allergens, or it could be the place of origin or quality or impact on nature and the people who produced it. It could be also the ownership history, especially in the case of more expensive devices like electronics and cars.

Every  thing ever produced has potentially a unique ID in the Things.info database. This enables anyone to drill down to the details of its production history, follow its ownership trail and finally to help achieve a circular economy, where all the waste goes back into production, thus achieving a zero waste world economy.

Things.info is inviting volunteers (email team@things.info) and crowdfunding (you can "adopt a thing").

Full disclosure: Wayne Visser is on the Things.info Advisory Board.

Friday 13 September 2013

Robeco SAM: Country Sustainability Rankings



Robeco and RobecoSAM have worked together to develop a comprehensive and systematic ESG ranking framework for countries, designed to complement sovereign bond ratings developed by traditional rating agencies. By focusing on selected ESG factors such as aging, competitiveness and environmental risks – which are long term in nature – and taking into account a country's position in the economic cycle, the country rankings offer a view into a country's strengths and weaknesses that are not typically covered by rating agencies.


Used in combination, standard sovereign bond ratings and RobecoSAM's country ESG rankings can be a powerful tool to enhance risk analysis for government bonds, enabling investors to make better-informed investment decisions. Country level ESG rankings also offer an additional perspective on the stability of the environments in which companies operate and could therefore be incorporated as an additional tool used in company analysis.


Source: RobecoSAM

Thursday 12 September 2013

Galapagos biodiversity goes online with Google Street View



This week marks the 178th anniversary of Darwin's discovery of the Galapagos Islands. This volcanic archipelago is one of the most biodiverse and unique places on the planet, with species that have remarkably adapted to their environment. Through observing the animals, Darwin made key insights that informed his theory of evolution.


In partnership with the Directorate of the Galapagos National Park and Charles Darwin Foundation, Google is launching the 360-degree images from the Galapagos Islands that they collected in May with the Street View Trekker. Now, you can visit the islands from anywhere you may be, and see many of the animals that Darwin experienced on his historic and groundbreaking journey in 1835.

Friday 6 September 2013

SpaceX demonstrates the future of design


SpaceX is exploring methods for engineers to accelerate their workflow by designing more directly in 3D. They describe their innovation as follows:

"We are integrating breakthroughs in sensor and visualization technologies to view and modify designs more naturally and efficiently than we could using purely 2D tools. We are just beginning, but eventually hope to build the fastest route between the idea of a rocket and the reality of the factory floor." Here's a demo by SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk:



SpaceX gives special thanks to Leap Motion, Siemens and Oculus VR, as well as NVIDIA, Projection Design, Provision, and to everyone enabling and challenging the world to interact with technology in exciting new ways.

Source: SpaceX