Coffee Shops Getting Tired of Wi-Fi Squatters

Uh oh. This is troubling news for anyone out there that is used to finding the nearest Starbucks and sitting down to browse the Web on a laptop. While free public Wi-Fi is fun to use and often shopped as a selling point among many businesses, it seems that coffee shops in particular are getting a little bothered by the growing number of Wi-Fi squatters out there.

The Wall Street Journal has posted an interesting read about this trend. Over the last several years, the amount of people with Wi-Fi enabled devices has been steadily on the rise, as well as the number of businesses that offer wireless access points to its customers. However, this has also attributed to non-paying customers simply loitering and crashing the property of many local owners, without even buying anything.

Even though I for one love to partake in some free Wi-Fi whenever I can get my virtual hands on it, I do have to say that I understand why a shop owner would be upset about non-paying customers just hanging around all day. What are your thoughts about coffee shops clamping down on Wi-Fi squatters? To read more, visit the Wall Street Journal.

New Ways to Make Your Cup of Coffee a Little Greener

If you ever find yourself pondering your carbon footprint over your morning cup of joe, these clever new coffee-based inventions might just be for you.

Jeon Hwan Ju’s radical new printer concept named RITI would allow you to save the Earth and your wallet at the same time. Instead of traditional ink, RITI uses spent coffee or tea grounds to slash printing costs and waste. Taking eco-friendliness one step further, the printer uses human power to move the cartridge over the paper, meaning you won’t have to plug it into an outlet. While RITI is still on the drawing board at this point, if and when it comes to market people will finally have an alternative to costly and wasteful ink cartridges, not to mention delicious-smelling documents.

If you’re willing to plan out your coffee needs 12 to 24 hours in advance, the Hourglass Coffee Machine can help you cut down on both counter-space and electricity costs. Using no electricity whatsoever, the gadget brews up an environmentally-friendly coffee concentration that can be stored in the fridge for weeks and mixed with hot water when needed. As a bonus, the manufacturer claims the resulting brew tastes better than traditional coffee since the process both reduces acid content and retains essential oils lost in heating.

As for how to transport your coffee, Australian-based KeepCup has a great alternative to the endless flow of disposable take-out coffee cups. Sure, reusable cups are nothing new, but what sets the KeepCup apart is its shape. Available in three barista-standard sizes, the KeepCup is able to fit under the nozzle of an espresso machine, meaning it doesn’t have to be filled via a wasteful paper cup like its taller competition. Other green features include a recyclable and virtually indestructible Polypropylene #5 construction, low embodied energy, and a silicone band that allows owners to permanently brand their cup with their coffee preferences.

Your Next Cell Phone May Be Made of Corn

Believe it or not, Sprint and Samsung announced on Thursday that they are planning to roll out a cell phone made with corn as an ingredient. Called the Reclaim, the phone will cost $50.00 after rebates and be one of the greenest phones on the market.

Corn-based bioplastic will make up 40 percent of the phone’s casing, helping to cut down on both greenhouse emissions and hazardous waste. Bioplastics currently make up only about five percent of the plastic market, but that number should grow as more people become concerned about their carbon footprint and as oil prices continue to rise.

It’s not just the phone itself that’s eco-friendly, though. Packaging will be made from 70 percent recycled material and soy-based ink, the traditional paper manual will be swapped for a virtual version and the phone’s charger will be about 12 times more efficient than normal chargers. Also, Sprint will donate $2.00 to The Nature Conservancy’s Adopt an Acre program for every Reclaim sold.

You can pick up the Reclaim from Sprint starting August 16th in either “Earth Green” or “Ocean Blue.”

Cable Industry: Triple Play Good for Consumers!

According to a recent study commissioned by the National Cable & Television Association, cable’s decade-plus investments in modern digital networks, which they say allows consumers to choose among a wide variety of products and bundled services – including digital high-definition video, high-speed data, and digital voice – provides about $35 billion in annual consumer benefits.

"Consumers as a whole have unequivocally benefited from the transformation of the cable industry over the past ten years and its investment and entry into voice and high-speed data markets,” the report states. “The benefits can be attributed to the cable industry’s massive investments in deployment of advanced communications infrastructure, which enables provision of new digital video, data, and voice services.  Consumers have voted with their feet by subscribing to these new services in ever-increasing numbers.” 

The study, prepared by Microeconomic Consulting & Research Associates, Inc. (MiCRA), found that about 60 percent of cable customers subscribe to broadband Internet service, 26 percent subscribe to digital voice service, and the penetration of each service continues to grow steadily.  The triple-play bundle of digital video, broadband, and digital voice service continues to attract a larger share of cable customers, which provides the greatest opportunity for consumer savings. 

The researches used bundled service figures from the top three cable operators, Comcast, Time Warner and Cox. According to those three, 23% chose a triple play of cable, Internet and phone, in 2008, up from around 10% in 2007.

For more information, download the incredibly detailed PDF of the whole survey. Or just find a triple play bundle available in your area. 

Sustainability: The Final Frontier

Like you, businesses and government agencies are looking to cut energy costs. To help curb their energy appetite, NASA is planning on building the most energy efficient building in the entire federal government. The building, to be named Sustainability Base, should essentially power itself and use just 10 percent of the water that similar sized buildings use.

To hit those targets, plans call for eco-friendly choices like solar panels, geothermal wells, fuel cells, and water recycling. Managing everything will be a control system based on the computers that control NASA uses to control its spacecrafts. The system can take into account the weather, how many people are in the building and other factors to dial in the perfect amount of heating and cooling, which helps save big on energy consumption.

While it’s unlikely that you will have the opportunity (or funds) to build your own multi-million dollar green building from scratch, some of the advanced systems found in Tranquility Base (or smaller scale versions of them) should start showing up in new houses in the near future, so keep an eye out.

Do You Know Where Your Trash Ends Up?

What we throw away doesn’t just end up in landfills. A lot of trash ends up being swept up into the ocean, and into massive floating colonies of junk. The largest of these collections, the Plastic Vortex located between Hawaii and mainland United States, is estimated to measure twice the size of Texas and weight over 100 million tons. Animals end up eating the garbage, which is great at soaking up pollutants, transmitting toxins up the food chain that can eventually work their way into humans.

Never heard of this toxic floating dump? Neither have most people. Douglas Woodring, an ocean conservationist based out of Hong Kong, is on a mission to change that. With the help of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Douglas has just started an expedition, called Project Kaisei, to the Plastic Vortex in order to document and research the formation.

How can you help fight the Plastic Vortex? One of the best ways is to become more eco-friendly by reducing, recycling and reusing. You can also pitch in by following Project Kaisei on Twitter (http://twitter.com/ProjectKaisei) and spreading the word.

Comcast First to Launch HBO On Demand® HD

Comcast announced last week that it is now the first cable provider to offer the full HBO On Demand service in HD. The company says that its original programming, as well as its movie collection, content which has not been offered in HD On Demand before by any provider, is now available to Comcast On Demand customers who subscribe to HBO.  

HBO programming currently available includes original series as True Blood®, Entourage®, The Sopranos® and The Wire® as well as popular movies like The Dark Knight, Mamma Mia!, American Gangster and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix..

Comcast says this initiative with HBO and all of the choices available On Demand are part of Project Infinity, the company’s commitment to innovation and the delivery of exponentially more quality content on TV, including more HD. Currently, Comcast’s On Demand library offers more than 10,000 entertainment programs each month.

If you are not a current subscriber and want access to this new content, find Comcast plans and pricing available in your area. 

Intel, Pepsi and Whole Foods Top EPA List of Green Power Purchasers

In the most recent release of Top Partner Rankings by the Environmental Protection Agency, Intel Corporation, PepsiCo and Whole Foods Market were named the top three green power purchasers. 

These three companies and the rest of the Top 50 are recognized as the best at helping reduce the environmental impacts of electricity use and supporting the development of new renewable generation capacity nationwide. Purchase amounts reflect U.S. operations only and are sourced from U.S.-based green power resources. Organizations can meet EPA purchase requirements using any combination of three different product options (1) Renewable Energy Certificates, (2) On-site generation, and (3) Utility green power products.

Combined, the top 50 largest purchases amount to nearly 12.3 billion kilowatt-hours annually, which represents more than 70 percent of the green power commitments made by all EPA Green Power Partners.

The Houston, Texas was the top city the list at 6, followed by Dallas, Texas and Chicago, Illinois at number 12 and 16 respectively. 

For more information, check out the EPA's Top Partner Rankings, which includes the Top 50 overall, as well as the Top 20 Colleges & Universities, Fortune 500 rankings,  and state and local government rankings.

Mobile Internet Use Increases Sharply in 2009

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that 56% of adult Americans have accessed the Internet by wireless means (laptop, mobile device, game console, MP3 player, etc). The most prevalent way people get online using a wireless network is with a laptop computer, with 39% of adults having done so.

The report also found rising levels of Americans using the Internet on a mobile handset. One-third of Americans (32%) have used a cell phone or Smartphone to access the Internet for e-mailing, instant-messaging, or information-seeking. This level of mobile Internet is up by one-third since December 2007, when 24% of Americans had ever used the Internet on a mobile device. On the typical day, nearly one-fifth (19%) of Americans use the Internet on a mobile device, up substantially from the 11% level recorded in December 2007. That’s a growth of 73% in the 16 months between surveys!

The report also found a growth in a broader measure of mobile engagement, as more Americans in 2009 were turning to their handheld for non-voice data activities. The activities probed were: sending or receiving text messages, taking a picture, playing a game, checking e-mail, accessing the Internet, recording video, instant messaging, playing music, getting maps or directions, or watching video.

For more on the findings, check out Mobile Internet use increases sharply in 2009 as more than half of all Americans have gotten online by some wireless means.