SwirlBall
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Inhabitat's Week in Green: photovoltaics, footballs, and Greener Gadgets
The Week in Green is a new item from our friends at Inhabitat, recapping the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us. This week at Inhabitat we saw several hot advances in solar technology that stand to shape how our buildings are built and how we power the electronics in our lives. CASE in point: this beautiful glass photovoltaic system can be affixed to windows and actually magnifies the available sunlight inside into tiny solar chips to create electricity. In other photovoltaic news, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania just unveiled the world's first solar-powered circuits. These tiny chips may one day be integrated directly within computer touch screens, essentially transforming them into multitasking solar panels. We're also excited to see that the finalists of the 2010 Greener Gadgets Design Competition have been announced. Two of our favorites right off the bat are these wind turbine streetlights that harvest energy from passing cars and Rocco, the kinetic energy-generating rocking horse. Check out all the entries and vote for your favorite! This week was a big week for efficient aviation as we learned of Portugal's plans to replace PVC airplane parts with lightweight cork and watched as Seymourpowell floated a fantastic plan for a fuel-cell powered luxury airship. Finally, the states may be getting charged for Super Bowl Sunday, but youth in Africa are kicking around a different kind of football -- one capable of generating energy in off-grid locations. We also saw a similar concept called the swirl ball that makes doing laundry a blast - fill it full of clothes and water and then kick it around until they're clean.
