Tag: TREE

Yesterday, Google unveiled the latest edition of its Google Earth digital atlas, which the company heralds as "the next generation of realism." The new Google Earth 6 sports a more highly integrated Street View feature, which allows users to zoom in from outer space directly to specific street corners or addresses. Taking a virtual stroll around a particular location is also substantially ...

The Internet may be moving us ever closer to a paperless existence, but, according to a newly released study, it's still not that great for trees. As Mac World reports, the study was commissioned five years ago by the Dutch city of Alphen aan den Rijn, after officials noticed that many trees in the area were exhibiting inexplicable abnormalities, including bleeding and fissures in their bark. Such ...

If a tree speaks in the woods, and nobody's there to hear it, does it make a noise? According to Engadget, some guys from EOS Magazine and Happiness Brussels have rigged a 100-year-old tree with devices that monitor environmental conditions and then post the data to sites like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr via text and photo updates. Talking-Tree.com is the hub for your peek into the daily life of ...

Share Back in the day, all you needed to break open a court case was some modicum of logical argumentation, and Gregory Peck's voice. Fast forward to 2010. Exit Atticus Finch, and enter Google's Street View. As Wired reports, Margaret Burnyeat, of Vancouver, Canada, was charged last year with the illegal removal of trees, after allegedly hiring a company to chop down some 23 cedar, cypress ...

Thanks, MIT. Why don't you just make the rest of the world feel a little more useless. Every week or so, we're forced to stare at yet another amazing invention coming from your doors; to be frank, it's just downright unfair. All childish angst aside, the latest idea to come from the institution is one that could certainly be put to good use: a self-sustaining sensor network that taps into trees ...

If you're anything like us, you've dreamed of living like Robinson Crusoe -- in the trees, using what nature provided to make the tools necessary for survival. Well, we may soon be able to fulfill part of that dream. According to scientists from Tel Aviv University and MIT, we could see homes grown from trees within a decade. The new technique is far from your traditional topiary: Scientists use ...

Marketing geniuses at Japan's Aqua Toto Gifu Aquarium have caught the attention of both the marine-life lovers and the media with a holiday display that uses a unique source of clean renewable energy -- an electric eel, otherwise known to us geeks here at Switched as Electrophorus Electricus. The aquarium placed its "E-Tree" next to tan electric eel in a tank. Inside the tank, copper wiring has ...

Even though listening to the Backstreet Boys version of 'Christmas Time' every hour on the hour -- at least while we're out shopping -- makes us want to seal our eyes and ears with a caulking gun, we still like to get into the holiday spirit... we just want to do it on our own terms. So, for those of us who want to spruce up our cubicles for the holidays and would rather skip those lame snow ...