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TechnoratiBamboo Laptop Is Star of Computer Show
It's not often that computers are sold on their "spiritual warmth" and "refreshing fragrance" but the star of the world's biggest IT fair was something different. Instead of shiny plastic it was encased in laminated bamboo strips. The result, said its Taiwanese makers, Asus, was "both aesthetically pleasing and good for the environment".
The Eco Book was the answer, they said, to the growing concern about the use of plastics.
"Bamboo is the most sustainable raw material there is," said Jellent Sun, a senior director.
"It grows very fast and therefore we decided to combine bamboo with metal, and leave out the plastic." The resulting laptop is due to go into production in June.
The computer fair, CeBIT, which opened in Hanover yesterday, took on the green theme for the first time in its 36-year history. It was met with a mixture of praise and scepticism.
One company presented a notebook that claims it can "bring you to a healthier life", by "detoxifying, sterilising and exterminating the silent assassin viruses" in your working environment, thanks to its built-in ioniser.
"Admittedly the Anion computer is not going to save the planet," said Craig Martus of MSI, "but it will sweeten the air you breathe so that rather than being stuck in an office, you'll feel like you're in the mountains."
Until now it has been aeroplanes and cars which have taken the brunt of the criticism when it comes to environmental pollution. But now the IT industry is admitting that it has to cut users' energy costs - rising electricity bills are as much of an incentive as the environment - as well as improve its recycling capabilities.
"Green IT is hype," admitted Thomas Tauer of IBM Germany, "but it is an issue that will keep us busy for a long time".
The industry has coined such phrases as "ecolutions" - short for the rather long-winded eco-friendly and environmental evolution and solutions - "cooler
and cleaner," and "hi-tech, low carbon" in its attempt to plug the message that emissions can be reduced without computer users having to sacrifice functionality or style.
"Worldwide internet usage alone needs the equivalent of 14 power stations to run the required computers and servers, which means it's producing the same amount of carbon emissions as the entire airline industry," said Omur Canaltay, a marketing manager with Fujitsu Siemens.
He was presenting the world's first O-Watt monitor, which uses no electricity when in standby mode and is due to go on sale in the spring.
Use of similar products, he said, could reduce a family's electricity bill by 40%. Calculated on the grander scale of a multi-national company, the savings could run into millions.
The environmental pressure group Greenpeace was on hand to provide a healthy degree of scepticism about the industry's claims.
"We're here to cut through the corporate greenspeak and find out how much is real, and how much is just PR," said Omer Einaiem, Greenpeace International media relations specialist.
The organisation is using its presence at CeBIT to stress its appeal to the industry to eliminate toxic chemicals, boost energy efficiency and improve computers' life cycles so that old machines do not so readily land in unregulated and hazardous "recycling yards" in developing countries.
Today it will use the fair to present a list of the most environmentally friendly IT products on the market.
© 2008 The Guardian
13 Comments so far
Show All♦Bamboo sketched the first suspension bridges, roof tiles, fireworks, kites, bombs, guns, rockets, dirigibles, airplanes… ♦Helicopters derive from the Flying Dragon, a toy from China.♦
In its "grand period of growth" a bamboo from Japan was clocked at 48 inches in 24 hours. ♦
If the human race would just take 5, stand back and watch, bamboo would take over space vehicle earth and all significant glitches aboard. Problems it can't solve it will at least conceal behind a stunning hedge so you don't have to look at them first thing in the morning when you open your eyes. Propagated by tissue culture and properly planted, it could take over the White House, the U.N., the World Bank IMF, the Gaza strip and, well watered weekly, almost the whole Road Map by 2017. ♦ Yes, it would provide that sassy bum Ohsama Sasabambusa a good place to hide and make bombs, but it would also give us lots of habitat to hide from terrorists rather than foolishly offering our exposed pineal glands on a platter to the next lady with Downs to wander into our homehood with a backpack. ♦ WAIT.SIT DOWN. please don't leave before my final argument: Buddha chose to die in a bamboo grove because clairvoyant spiritual penetrations permitted him to foresee that bamboo would survive Hiroshima closer to ground zero than any other bit of biotica. ♦ Don't think twice it's all right, it sequesters 35 times more co2 than trees per ecoleaf and it sequestered me for 5 years to capture and conceal in separate paragraphs opinions of the world experts in a 1984 book of bamboo for sierra club. "Great Works are loot the muse of plagiary has hijacked from all centuries and left where an ace of tongues conceals, creatively, a hand that holds a native gift for theft."
Take a glanze or gaze at a copy in yr local library. ♦ Bamboo fans who understand will hold the book without a hand, and digging in their garden find it reading them, without a mind. ♦ Believe it or not, the UN is seriously on the brink of declaring a Year of Bamboo. ♦ Please don't knock bamboo until you've swallowed the myth whole before meals for 35 years, green like me. ♦ david farrelly
All that soddering could be done with gold sodder. It would be more expensive but you could be sure sure it could and would be recycled.
This is good. At my age I need some wood.
You can buy bamboo flooring, but beware of putting it on a concrete base. You can end up with serious speed bumps. It makes very nice furniture.
Looks like it would make a good cutting board too. :-)
I thought the pollution problem with computers were the chips n shit, not the plastic casing... im all for capitalists jumping on the eco-bandwagon if its gonna improve things a little but this just seems like useless frill for trendys drinking ethnic coffees at starbucks. With only so much space to dedicate to outlining the news of the day i wonder why commondreams chose to put that piece there.
It's all about appearances.
Next, the bamboo car …
catseyes,
dead on correct.
I hear Vista is green.
It doesn't run on too many computers.
good maketing.
Don't care how ecological bamboo is, I want a redwood burl case. Think it would be cool when they have gigabite bamboo memory chips. But want a monitor with carrot, beet, saffron and blueberry pixels. Yum! I'm hungry.
Wow, another clueless reporter who misses the whole point. I guess he got a free trip to the show, but it would be nice if he sounded like he knew something.
The plastic case is not the environmental issue about a computer, or any electronics. Its the boards and the bits inside. Europe has been passing some strict laws about what can be used in electronics and how to dispose of them after they are used. China and other countries are following suit.
So, for instance, traditional solder used for electrical connections is made of an allow with a lot of lead. When these rules start trying to limit the use of toxic metals like lead in consumer products started coming into effect a year or so ago, manufacturers started trying to find other ways of making electronics. There's lots of issues like this about the guts of electronics.
So, it isn't as cool looking as the 'bamboo' case on a computer. But since lots of manufacturers have been working on how to deal with these laws, there were probably computers at this show with guts that were more environmentally friendly than electronics in the past.
Of course, the reporter would have to actually read and know something to write about it. So he just took a picture of the bamboo case instead.
The good news for the reporter is that trade shows in Germany usually have free beer on the show floor! I suspect that's what he did after putting together this piece of BS.
From the article: "Green IT is hype," admitted Thomas Tauer of IBM Germany, "but it is an issue that will keep us busy for a long time".
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. And they want to keep us busy with it for a long time, too. That Thomas Tauer dude from IBM Germany, however, should probably get his butt fired for basically admitting on behalf of IBM that they're wasting time on hype. Funny, but pathetic.