Follow @theurbancountry on Twitter Find us on Facebook Subscribe to theurbancountry.com via e-mail Subscribe to theurbancountry.com via RSS
Follow @theurbancountry on Twitter Find us on Facebook Subscribe to theurbancountry.com via e-mail Subscribe to theurbancountry.com via RSS

Future of Electronics

As new technology perpetually increases power efficiency in electronics, the future of living “off the grid” becomes increasingly more attainable.

While shopping for gifts this Christmas I came across a self-powered camping lantern that never requires batteries and never requires bulbs. The Freeplay Indigo lantern is powered by LED lights that have been tested for 100,000 hours. That means you could leave the light continuously powered for 11 years, 24 hours a day before the LEDs wear out.

A 60-second wind-up provides up to 2 hours of light on the lowest setting. It converts 74% of your kinetic energy into stored electricity and includes a lantern setting as well as a flashlight/reading light setting.

This is the direction that technology is heading: Increasing efficiency and self-powered sustainability. This is a small step that will create many great opportunities in the future.

The Ginger Ninjas, a rock band that traveled 5000 miles on bicycle for their “Pleasant Revolution” concert tour employs the same principles of living off the grid. They hauled all of their equipment via bicycle and they actually generated the electricity required for their concerts from their bicycles. They played 80+ shows without ever plugging into the wall.

From their website: “The Pleasant Revolution is a set of evolving ideas, a loose set of principles designed to help answer the question, “What next? How do I live fully and restore the planet in the process?” Some principles of the Pleasant Revolution:

  • slow is beautiful, local is profound sustainable living is richer
  • we can free ourselves from the culture of fear that drives our consumerism and apathy
  • fundamental change is necessary and possible to change the world, we must change our own consciousness and lifestyle
  • humanity now, perhaps more than in any previous time, has an opportunity to create a new, saner, more loving world the bicycle liberates

A bicycle can free your soul. Watch the video of the Pleasant Revolution band tour:

Eco-Light

Eco-Light2

Leave a Reply