Recently Sony encouraged some ID students from China to think GREEN and come up with eco-friendly products that can be incorporated into everyday life. The results were amazing concepts like a showerhead kinda music player, a conductor’s baton-styled TV remote, a shoe clasp GPS device, a solar powered speaker dish and a bamboo work frame for a music system. Take a look at them in detail after the jump.
Sony Sound of Water: Bathman Shower Music Player
Students from Peng Shi-Nan Dong Hwa University have come up with this ingenious music system that mimics the flow of water from a showerhead. The basic premise for this design is this: while you shower, the force flow of the water is used to trap some hydro energy to power the Bathman Player. An invigorating flow of water results in some hard rock music coming your way while a gentle shower plays some soft mellow music. If you don’t like the selection of the songs, you can manually change the settings. A nice marriage of eco-sense and technology!
Sony Conductor TV Remote
Donghua University students have tapped kinetic energy as a source for powering the Conductor. This wand-shaped remote requires you to sway it from side to side to power it. The green LED lights fire up to indicate the power levels. To navigate, wave the Conductor left-right and change the volume, waving it up and down changes the channels and moving it in circular motion switches the TV on or off. A cool factor included is that the TV switches off automatically when the wand detects no movement for a considerable period of time.
Sony Green Walk Travel Companion
Walking is a good form of exercise and trekking through forests and mountains is even better. The Green Walk designed by Tongji University students looks at harnessing the kinetic energy generated by walking to power this Bluetooth enabled GPS gadget. It fits snugly across the face of your shoe and is discreetly connected to the sole. The gadget can be synced with your comp to download travel trails off the net and upload your walkathon details. By merely observing the LED lights on the device one can determine the distance left to the destination. A pretty neat feature in this gadget is that in case you are about to venture off the chosen trek or are lost, a vibrating sensor comes into play and guides you step-by-step by vibrating either to the left or right to indicate the correct direction.
The flip side to this particular feature that I can think of is, that incase the diversion is deliberate or intentional; the sensor will probably go crazy jerking your foot!
Sony Solar Speaker
“TransferJet“, is a Close Proximity Wireless Transfer Technology enabling the high speed transfer of large data files (photos, HD images, etc.) between electronic devices such as mobile phones, digital cameras, digital video cameras, computers and TVs. Using this technology, data can be sent at speeds of 560Mbps. So once you place your MP3 player or phone on top of this dish-shaped Solar Speaker, it pulls all songs and files wirelessly to play them, plus charges the device. Designed by folks at Southern Yangtze University, the unique feature included is a sensor that automatically tilts the solar panel face towards the sun for maximum energy absorption. A fancy looking iteration, this Solar Speaker will look groovy in any room.
Sony Bamboo Frame Music System
Advocating the benefits of using bamboo as a material for constructing a music system, the Bamboo Frame is a unique blend of modern technology and traditional craftsmanship. At the end of its life, this system’s components can be recycled thus justifying the eco-friendly tag. This system has been designed by students at the Zhejiang University. Unfortunately the tech-specs on this piece are very low. My apologies for that!
