Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 3 Jan 2012 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101020/11552911505/dailydirt-more-plastic-cars.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101020/11552911505/dailydirt-more-plastic-cars.shtml Pontiac Fiero was considered a "radical" car. If you don't remember it, the Fiero had a plastic body -- which some folks said made it unsafe (even though owners of it were more likely to be injured from an engine fire). Plastic cars have continued to improve, and here are just a few more car parts that are being made from environmentally-friendly plastic.

• Bridgestone has designed some air-free tires from recyclable plastics. These tires aren't quite ready for full-size cars yet, but maybe someday no one will have to check the air pressure in tires. [url]
• Replacing steel in cars with composite materials will make our four-wheeled friends lighter and more fuel efficient. Unfortunately, carbon fiber car parts are still a bit too expensive, but that could change.... [url]
• Car parts from mad cows? Does anyone want to drive a car made from infected cow skulls, brains, nerves, eyes, tonsils and spinal cords? Oh, Canada! [url]
• To discover more interesting car-related content, check out what's driving around StumbleUpon. [url]  

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101020/11552911505 Fri, 9 Dec 2011 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110203/05083912946/dailydirt-endless-rain-into-paper-cup.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110203/05083912946/dailydirt-endless-rain-into-paper-cup.shtml taste completely different. But changing the color of the packaging might have a similar effect? Here are some interesting packaging changes for some common beverages.

• Boxed wine has gained some acceptance with wine drinkers, but will a slightly smaller version of boxed wine sell well? Taking it to the next logical step, there should be "juice box" size wine boxes coming out, too. Who wants to sip wine through a tiny straw? [url]
• Some folks seem to hate plastic water bottles, so now there's a paper milk carton without milk, filled with water. Looks like ultra-skim milk -- 0% milk. [url]
• Drinking water from a paper cup is okay.. but a paper bottle? Paper water bottles haven't exactly taken over since they were introduced, so... [url]
• Coca-Cola has stopped making its 'White Christmas Cans' after a month of selling them because consumers don't like the new look of the can -- and some people think it tastes different. The white cans also look a bit too much like Diet Coke, so some drinkers are getting a few more calories than they expected. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110203/05083912946 Fri, 3 Jun 2011 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110210/13295413042/dailydirt-biodegradable-materials-are-good-cars.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110210/13295413042/dailydirt-biodegradable-materials-are-good-cars.shtml might make it into cars someday.

• Latex from dandelions can be used as a plastics modifier for various car parts such as floor mats, cup holders and interior trim pieces. That's nice, and dandelions can make a nice salad, as well... [url]
• Biodegradable car parts could be made with natural fiber composite materials. But will the cars biodegrade before or after 10 years or 100,000 miles? [url]
• Adding soy oil to rubber sounds like a good idea -- until little woodland creatures start chewing on your electrical wiring. Rabbits have been known to eat through that new-car wiring... [url]
• Getting the keratin from feathers into plastics could help turn a waste product into useful materials that aren't made from petroleum. But all the 3 billion pounds of leftover chicken feathers won't even put that much of a dent in petroleum-based plastics production. [url]
• To discover more interesting car-related content, check out what's driving around StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110210/13295413042 Wed, 6 Apr 2011 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110223/10571613233/dailydirt-making-lightweight-cars.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110223/10571613233/dailydirt-making-lightweight-cars.shtml

Coal ash is a cheap waste product, but it might also be a good filler material to make cars about 10% lighter. Coal ash added to steel or aluminum could create less dense metals that are still just as strong. [url]

Brazilian scientists are working on incorporating fibers from bananas, pineapples and other plant matter into plastic car parts to make them stronger and lighter and more renewable. Instead of wood paneling on old station wagons, there might be a faint fruity smell to car dashboards, bumpers and body panels. [url]

Injecting more air into plastic parts when they're created could produce more lightweight materials. The air bubbles have to be really really small, though, so that the structural integrity of the final part isn't affected too much. [url]

To discover more interesting car-related content, check out what's driving around StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110223/10571613233 Thu, 7 Aug 2008 14:23:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080806/1909201916.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080806/1909201916.shtml Slashdot points us to the latest absurd patent to get approval from the USPTO. IBM has been granted a patent on the concept of storing your packaging preference information on your customer card. Yes, basically, the act of storing whether or not you like paper or plastic bags on your customer loyalty card is considered such an original idea that it deserves a monopoly.

We've been having some debates over the last few days in the comments on the question of "obviousness." This patent hopefully demonstrates the point that many of us are trying to make. The defenders of the patent system will claim that this is a perfectly reasonable patent because no one has done it before (where's the prior art, etc?). But that doesn't get into whether or not this is actually obvious. Customer cards store all sorts of information. Should we give someone a patent on each and every one? The implementation isn't hard at all. If you were to ask your average (or, even below average) techie, how they would go about storing and retrieving such information, they would do so in an instant. It simply makes no sense to award a long-term monopoly on adding just another bit of info to your customer card. And, yet, that's the system we have these days.

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