cylinder
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Digital music may not have saved the environment after all
Logic would suggest that music downloads and streaming are good for the environment. You're not buying physical copies, right? Not so fast -- there's a chance things could be worse. Researchers have published a study suggesting that greenhouse gas emissions are higher now than they were when physical media was all the rage. While going digital has reduced the amount of plastic, the combination of extra power demands and the sheer popularity of music (you can listen to virtually anything for $10 per month, after all) may have offset other gains. Where vinyl produced 346 million pounds of greenhouse gasses at its height in 1977, downloads and streaming are estimated to pump out 441 million to 772 million pounds.
Apple, Steve Jobs win patents for Shanghai Apple Store design
Apple is constantly adding patents to its portfolio of intellectual property, many of which are not directly associated with the design or operation of the consumer electronics products the company makes. Patently Apple reported today on a patent awarded to the company and late founder and CEO Steve Jobs for the design of the Apple Store, Pudong in Shanghai, China. Like the 5th Avenue store in Manhattan, the Shanghai store is primarily underground, with a clear glass structure above ground. Instead of a giant glass cube a la 5th Avenue, the Shanghai store features a large glass cylinder. The store was designed by architectural firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Architects, but Apple and specifically Steve Jobs were singled out for the idea of the giant curved glass panels that make up the cylinder. Other Apple notables listed as inventors on the patent include senior director of Real Estate and Development Benjamin Fay and ex-VP of Retail Operations Ron Johnson. Steve's fascination with large curved glass panels in architecture is also reflected in the design of the still-to-be-constructed world headquarters in Cupertino.
Nokia has a laugh with cylindrical cellphone patent application
You kvetch enough about that ultrathin candybar taking up too much room in those über-tight Emo-style jeans -- we know you'd throw a fit if you had to tote around a mobile akin to a rolling pin. Nevertheless, that's not stopping Nokia's wildly imaginative R&D team from throwing out a patent app for a cylindrical cellphone. Granted, we are digging the movable materials and the potential for a fairly wide display, but unless we get some sort of spray can holster from The Home Depot, how else are we supposed to carry this thing without embarrassing ourselves?
MET's BauXar Marty101 custom designed speakers
Japan's MET Corp. bring us these new BauXar 6-Watt cylindrical speakers "for the life with nudie sound," whatever the hell that might mean. Ok, ok, the speakers themselves aren't new, we're just getting a few new colors and a custom-fit, MartyWear service which gives you the privilege (for an extra ¥20k Yen or about $170) of dressing up their ¥30k/$260 Marty101 speakers in a custom kit of your liking. And if we're reading the machine translation correctly, the custom designs they offer aren't limited to a catalog. Oh no, MET designers will slap whatever image your freakish interests might crave onto that 12-inches of cylinder -- just send in a drawing or photograph and they'll take care of the rest. As to the 360-degree nudie sound these speakers tout? Well all we can tell you is that as usual, a pair is required.[Via Impress]
