Greener Gadgets Design Competition winners on display

You may have heard a little something about the Greener Gadgets Conference, a gathering in New York focused on cleaner, renewable, recyclable, or generally forward-thinking technology and design. At the end of the one-day event, Core77 editor-in-chief Allan Chochinov MC'd a showcase of entrants to a design competition held by the Greener Gadgets team, which were then vetted and discussed by co-organizer (and Inhabitat editor-in-chief) Jill Fehrenbacher, Valerie Casey of IDEO and The Designers Accord, and our own special-somebody, Ryan Block. When the dust settled, first prize went to crowd favorite Ener-Jar -- a DIY project which allows you to easily view how much energy an appliance is using. Second place was snapped up by the Gravia, a gravity-based lamp which generates its own power by slowly dropping a weight in its center. The third place spot was nabbed by the Green Cell Universal Battery, a standardized battery which could be swapped out in vending machines. Sure, they probably won't inspire you to trade in your gas-guzzling Hummer for a bike any time soon, but this stuff might at least get you thinking in the right direction. Check the video after the break to see how it all went down.