Fastmac.com has come up with a great idea! They’ve combined a standard 110V three prong dual wall socket with 2 USB ports for charging gadgets without an adaptor. It’s called the U-socket.

They are supposed to begin shipping in October ’10. They’re waiting on final safety approval.

These are available for pre order for only $19.95, and can be installed on any existing wall outlet.

The USB ports only draw power when something is physically connected to the port, so that no vampire draining occurs.

Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre at Ecovative Design have started producing an amazing product called Mycobond. This is a product they have developed using conventional waste products such as seed husks, and bind them together using mycelium (mushroom roots). “We don’t manufacture materials, we grow them” stated McIntyre to the media recently. The result is a white material that looks and feels a lot like Styrofoam. Since the materials are all natural and fully compostable (they can be tossed into the garden to begin composting), high performance and low cost is the result.

Mycobond uses 1/8^th the energy and 1/10^th the carbon dioxide that standard foam materials require.

They have gotten a lot of support from various sources such as the EPA, the NCIIA (National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance) gave them a $20,000 grant and they recently won $250,000 from the Post Code Lottery Green Challenge.

Their goal is to completely eliminate all petroleum based foams and packing materials. Foam waste takes up the highest mass in our landfills- but it doesn’t break down, and we’re running out of landfill space.

GO GUYS!

EcovativeDesign.com

Ecovativedesign- greensulate insulation

Porsche unveiled the new 918 hybrid spyder earlier this year. It boasts 0-62 mph in 3.2 seconds with its mid engine 500 horsepower V8 (with 2 electric motors) and claims 78 mpg.

Top speed is suggested to be 198 mph, although I’ve also read that it will do over 200 mph.

As far as anyone knows, the specs are from Porsche and there is no indication of independent testing yet. Based on the Porsche RS Spyder, the estimated cost to own one of these will exceed $600,000 USD, and production could begin in about 2 years.