Sooner or later, the device you're reading this on will either be sold, donated, recycled or otherwise disposed of; and unless you're particularly nostalgic about old gadgets like us, you likely won't ever give it much more thought. But no matter how you get rid of it, that device doesn't just vanish off the face the Earth. It's that extra life that got the folks from MIT's SENSEable City Lab thinking, and the Backtalk project is what they've come up with. Part research project and part art exhibition (now on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York), the effort involved using GPS tracking devices to trace where things like cellphones, batteries and printer cartridges end up after being discarded -- and, in the case of 40 netbook computers, some tracking software and their built-in webcams, which recorded data and images that were sent back to MIT at regular intervals (with the new owners' consent, of course). Some of the results can be seen in the video after the break and the site linked below, but you'll have to check out the exhibit first-hand to see the full scope of their findings.

We know it's been said before, but it's worth saying again: over-packaging is, by almost everyone's judgment, rampant and ridiculous. Nearly two years after Amazon introduced its "frustration-free" packaging -- with a few hiccups -- only 600 of the millions of products on Amazon.com have been modified to reflect the simpler packaging needs of online customers over their retail counterparts (no need for theft deterrence or making products stand out on the shelf). It's a big hit with customers: when manufacturers switch to more streamlined wrappers their products earn a whopping 73% reduction in negative feedback. Amazon is trying to take this message directly to product manufacturers: Philips, for example, recently saw success with downsized packaging for its Essence toothbrush and plans to "expand [its] frustration-free packaging options with Amazon." Happy online shoppers still don't seem to be enough to make a lot of the big dogs cut down on packaging, however. Even though streamlined wrappers save oodles of resources up and down the supply chain, the bottleneck towards making the switch seems to be in the glacial pace of change in packaging design and distribution at big manufacturers and retailers like Target and Walmart. Le sigh. If we were running for office in 2012 -- which we can neither confirm nor deny at this point -- we'd fast-track wrapper downsizing faster than you could say "I just slashed my wrist trying to open this bubble pack of ball-point pens."

[Image credit: boltron~'s flickr]

Researchers at the University of York have discovered a possible use for discarded LCDs which should come as a relief to anyone familiar with the world's rampant e-waste problem. According to the report, which will be presented today at the Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference in Washington, D.C., a process of heating, then cooling and dehydrating the PVA (polyvinyl-alcohol, the key component of LCDs) with ethanol produces a surface area of mesoporous material with great potential for use in biomedicine. The resultant product's anti-microbial properties can now be enhanced by adding silver nanoparticles, producing something which is anti-bacterial and can kill things like E.coli. The potential application of course, is that hospital surfaces could be made of it in the future. This is just one (major) step in a long-term project, so don't expect to see it in real life anytime soon.

HP, Lenovo, and Dell haven't fared too badly in some of Greenpeace's previous e-waste reports, but it looks like three companies have fallen well short of the organization's expectations this time around, with each getting called out for failing to live up to their promises. Specifically, all three had said that they would eliminate vinyl plastic (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in their products by the end of this year, but they've now apparently told Greenpeace that they won't be able to meet that timeline, and only Lenovo has come forward set a new deadline (the end of 2010). The big winner, on the other hand, is Philips, which has jumped from 15th place to 4th as a result of some new recycling initiatives, prompted at least in part by public pressure. And, as you can see above, Nintendo is once again dead last, although we're pretty sure that's simply a result of sheer mass at this point.