copenhagenize

Angry Birds tangible slingshot controller lets you get hands-on

It's the app game that won't go away. Angry Birds Space is still sitting pretty on the App Store's top paid apps chart, but how many times can you pull back a virtual slingshot before you start pining for something more?

Students at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design have given Angry Birds a whole new dimension with the creation of a physical slingshot controller for the desktop version of the game. … Read more

Copenhagen: A city of SUV cyclists

COPENHAGEN--The Danes practice what I call green pragmatism.

It's the realization that people, even those who believe in the cost- and health-benefit analyses of going green, are not going to change their behavior unless the new option is both practical and convenient.

But presented with cool technology in the marketplace and education on why a change might be beneficial, people will adopt new best practices offered to them. It's why the Toyota Prius has become so successful, while things like CFL and LED light bulbs are still struggling.

This is certainly the case here in Copenhagen. The self-described &… Read more

Toyota demos augmented-reality-enhanced car windows

Toyota is toying with augmented reality to improve the view outside of its vehicles' windows.

A design exercise developed in conjunction with the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID), Toyota's "Window to the World" concept uses augmented reality to turn a car window into a glass canvas that lets the viewer interact with the elements outside the window.

CIID and Toyota Kansei Design Division engineers and designers came up with five potential uses for the new windows. Similar to the way kids draw shapes onto fogged-up glass, passengers can trace images on the window, but they appear … Read more

Affordable single-person rocket launched

Some machines are perfect for just one person. A Formula 1 car, for example. Or a Heat-1X rocket.

You haven't heard of the Heat-1X? I feel you might be missing out on something rather special. For this is a rocket built by a Danish nonprofit called Copenhagen Suborbitals. It's a rocket built for one.

You might be wondering if something of this sort might ever get off the ground.

So below I present video evidence of a test launch of the Heat-1X. The New Scientist tells me it cost about $69,000 to build, which is cheerily less than what it takes to buy one of the larger BMWs.

The economics of this project might sound a trifle idealistic. Indeed, last year, a launch went somewhat awry when a hairdryer malfunctioned. This would be a hairdryer that was being used to provide heat inside the rocket.

However, Friday presented us with empirical evidence that the Heat-1X could really fly.… Read more

U.S. seeks climate ideas after Copenhagen fell short

OSLO--The United States is asking for ideas about how to tackle global warming without raising expectations of breakthroughs in 2010 ahead of climate talks among the world's top emitters on Sunday in Washington.

A document obtained by Reuters on Friday listing U.S. questions to delegates from 16 other major economies shows the two-day talks will focus on the fate of U.N. climate talks, the non-binding Copenhagen Accord, and the Kyoto Protocol.

It does not answer key questions such as what the United States, the biggest emitter behind China, plans to do under any future U.N. plan. U.S. legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions is stalled in the U.S. Senate.

Instead it shows that major nations may have to go back to the drawing board after the Copenhagen summit failed to come up with a binding deal at the climax of two years of U.N. negotiations.

"The general focus of the meeting: what are the key issues that need to be addressed in order to have a successful outcome?" it asks of preparations for the next annual talks of environment ministers in Cancun, Mexico, November 29 through December 10.

"What is the outcome we are all seeking in Cancun? A set of decisions; a legally binding agreement; something else?" according to the document, signed by Michael Froman, deputy White House national security adviser, and U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern. … Read more

Obama says disappointment at Copenhagen justified

President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that disappointment over the outcome of the Copenhagen climate change summit was justified, hardening a widespread verdict that the conference had been a failure.

"I think that people are justified in being disappointed about the outcome in Copenhagen," he said in an interview with PBS Newshour.

"What I said was essentially that rather than see a complete collapse in Copenhagen, in which nothing at all got done and would have been a huge backward step, at least we kind of held ground and there wasn't too much backsliding from where … Read more

U.S. cap and trade looks out of reach in 2010

U.S. lawmakers face an uphill battle enacting a climate bill in 2010 that includes a cap-and-trade market in greenhouse gases, after this month's U.N. meeting in Copenhagen failed to hammer out a global pact on emissions cuts.

U.S. climate legislation remains likely as lawmakers feel pressure to help the country lead in production of low-carbon energy sources such as wind, solar, and nuclear power.

But the Copenhagen Accord did not include emissions targets. This will make it difficult for lawmakers to argue that the United States should have a cap while China, the world's top … Read more

U.N. climate talks end with bare-minimum deal

COPENHAGEN--U.N. climate talks ended with a bare-minimum agreement on Saturday when delegates "noted" an accord struck by the United States, China, and other emerging powers that falls far short of the conference's original goals.

"Finally we sealed a deal," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. "The 'Copenhagen Accord' may not be everything everyone had hoped for, but this...is an important beginning."

A long road lies ahead. The accord--weaker than a legally binding treaty and weaker even than the "political" deal many had foreseen--left much to the imagination.

It set a target of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times--seen as a threshold for dangerous changes such as more floods, droughts, mudslides, sandstorms, and rising seas. But it failed to say how this would be achieved.

It held out the prospect of $100 billion in annual aid from 2020 for developing nations but did not specify precisely where this money would come from. And it pushed decisions on core issues such as emissions cuts into the future.

"This basically is a letter of intent...the ingredients of an architecture that can respond to the long-term challenge of climate change, but not in precise legal terms. That means we have a lot of work to do on the long road to Mexico," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.

Another round of climate talks is scheduled for November 2010 in Mexico. Negotiators are hoping to nail down then what they failed to achieve in Copenhagen--a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. But there are no guarantees.… Read more

Does MIT's Copenhagen Wheel go the distance?

It's no secret that Portland, Ore., is one of the world's top biking towns. (Full disclosure: I live and bike here, and love both.) Thanks in part to a bike culture that has led to the development of hundreds of miles of bike lanes, ample signage, and rows of bright blue parking racks, Portland gets accolades for healthy people and air.

But it is Copenhagen, Denmark, home to the 2009 climate summit, that tops pretty much every list you'll find as the world's best biking city, with a whopping 36 percent of commuters going by bike. … Read more