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Inhabitat's Week in Green: 9/11 Memorial designs, an electric helicopter and laser headlights
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. Today a day of reflection dawns in New York as the city recognizes the ten-year anniversary of the September 11th attacks with the official unveiling of the National 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero. Tranquil though the memorial may be, it has had a tumultuous past - this week we showcased seven unrealized designs for the WTC site that will never see the light of day, and we took a look at what happened to Daniel Libeskind's original plans for the WTC Freedom Tower. We also saw green buildings soar as Sydney unveiled Australia's greenest office tower, we learned that the new Batman movie may be filmed in a salt mine in Transylvania, and we spotted an amazing replica of the Trump Tower built from 65,000 LEGO bricks. It was also a record-breaking week for green transportation as the world's first manned electric helicopter took flight and scientists developed the world's tiniest electric motor. Meanwhile, pedal-powered transportation got a major boost as Hertz launched an electric bike rental program in London and Silverback unveiled a series of bikes with built-in USB chargers for your gadgets. We also brought you the latest news from the Frankfurt Auto Show as Rimac teased the unveiling of its 1,000 horsepower electric supercar and Audi and BMW both unveiled vehicles endowed with ultra bright next-gen laser headlights. Speaking of shining examples of green design, this week we brought you a first look at the Samsung Galaxy Skin concept phone, which features a flexible AMOLED display that can fold to fit inside your pocket. We also saw several inspiring ways to reduce waste as scientists worked on a fuel cell that generates power while cleaning up nuclear fallout, Think Geek brought us a clever set of Fridgeezoo icebox pets that encourage kids to save energy, and we looked at Sloan's innovative AQUS grey water toilet system that recycles your sink water. Finally, we brought you the state of the art in wearable tech as we reported that scientists developed a Terahertz "Invisibility Cloak" and researchers discovered a coral reef secret that could lead to sunscreen in a pill in five years.
WoW Rookie: Saddle up your mount at level 30
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.UPDATE: Progress gallops forward and mount requirements have changed ... Visit our updated WoW Rookie mounts post for the latest mount information.Hitting level 30 is a major milestone in today's World of Warcraft: the level at which you get your mount. Up to this point, you've spent plenty of time hoofing it, getting to know the lay of the land. On the back of your trusty steed, you'll be able to zip across increasingly larger zones and quest areas in style. You'll start off on a standard ground mount, such as a Horse, Wolf or Kodo. Later, you can upgrade to faster versions of those creatures and eventually to mounts that can fly (in Burning Crusade and Wrath content).Mounts used to become available at level 40. Now that the game extends to level 80 and early character progression has been sped up, you get to speed up at an earlier level, too.
Video Marketplace HD blowout
Major Nelson posted the latest releases for Video Marketplace yesterday evening. Items worth noting include nine of the movies released are available in glorious High Definition. This week also introduces Lionsgate Films into the growing list of Video Marketplace partners. LGF happens to be based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, right next to the Fanboy Igloo HQ. Finally, Skyland from Nicktoons is available with the show's pilot episode FREE to download until 11:59 PST on Monday, January 29th. Later this week you'll be able to get your hands on Barnyard and World Trade Center. Full list of the title available after the break.
BenQ apologizes for WTC ads, kind of
So Ben Chu, BenQ America's President, has apparently sent out an apology letter to people who wrote in to complain about the totally tasteless WTC ad from the other day. While we'd have liked to have seen BenQ be a little more forthright with its apologies and maybe send them to, say, media outlets that covered the flub, at least Ben was kind enough to draft a boilerplate and send it en masse to the offended. Thanks. Text after the break.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
BenQ uses WTC & 9/11 imagery to sell devices
We're not exactly what you'd call sanctimonious -- we try not to take ourselves or what we're doing too seriously -- but we feel obligated to call BenQ out for using an image of a crumbled World Trade Center in an ad for its new MusiQ campaign. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they don't understand how wrong it is to use the imagery of 9/11 to push products, but ultimately what they're doing is simply not acceptable. BenQ, do us all a favor, focus on your namesake ("Bringing Enjoyment and Quality to life") and don't ever try to be this kind of "hopeful" again.
