This week Inhabitat peered into the future of green tech as we liveblogged the most exciting moments from this year's Greener Gadgets Conference. The highlight of the day was the on-stage live-judging and announcement of this year's Greener Gadgets design competition winner, the AUG/Living Goods Program. Renowned industrial designer Yves Béhar also wowed us by unveiling a brand new design for a "Hackable" solar-electric car that is composed of modular components. (Engadget liveblogged it here.)

Speaking of sun-powered vehicles, Hungarian auto company Antro has just unveiled plans to create an out-there yet undeniably cool solar-powered car that splits into two vehicles. And for those looking to ride the seas in style, take a long, hard look at this giant solar boat. Then again, why ride a conventional vehicle when you could hop aboard this insane futurictic crawler town on wheels? Too bad it's made out of LEGOs.

Finally, we brought to light several illuminating energy projects: researchers have found a way to generate electricity by shining light on tiny gold nanoparticles, opening the door for self-powered molecular machines, and Phillips unveiled a blooming solar street lamp that soaks up energy during the day and uses it to light up the night.

Inhabitat's Week in Green: Solar cars, solar boats, solar... gold? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Can anyone think of a good way I could link two laptops and one monitor into a productive super-machine?
• Can anyone give me a very brief tutorial on how to run a cron job script once a day?
• Any advice for someone interested in but a little scared of Lasik eye surgery?
• What's a good music and media manager for my new Droid? (I'm not happy with the default Motorola software.)
• Any suggestions for a set of sturdy headphones for someone prone to abusing headphones?
• Anyone have any suggestions for a hosting provider for a small (10-15 person) company?
• Windows7's built in firewall: good enough or full of holes?

A

Windows only: Free utility Disk Space Fan analyzes your hard drive usage to help you determine what's taking up space on your hard drive, representing it all with fancy visualization eye candy.

Disk Space Fan joins a long line of disk visualization tools, from the classic WinDirStat to DriveSpacio, Disktective, and others. WinDirStat has always had a special place in our hearts when it came time to visualize our hard drive usage and knock off space-wasting files, but it's not the most attractive tool in the toolbox. Disk Space Fan does the same sort of disk analysis, but it's also very attractive in addition to being very functional.

Eye candy aside, it's scans are fast, and the Explorer integration makes it open up any file or folder for a closer look. You can click any slice to drill down further (and yes, it has fancy animated transitions when you do the clicking), and you can open or delete any file or folder directly from the app.

Disk Space Fan is a free download, Windows only. (Mac users, check out previously mentioned GrandPerspective.) A Pro version is available with a few more features, the but core that makes it great is available for free.

A

If you work for Motorola, cover your ears and say "Blur Blur Blur Blur" at the top of your lungs over and over again for the duration of this post, because what we're about to present is an unholy marriage the likes of which neither Sanjay Jha nor Peter Chou ever intended. It's not the first time we've heard of a version of Sense finding its way onto Motorola hardware, but developer "thegeektern" over on AllDroid has posted a bunch of video and stills claiming to have ported an HTC Desire's (née Bravo's) Sense-enabled firmware to Moto's beast -- and what's more, he's got some footage of it running Flash. Bear in mind that the speed at which Flash is running here looks downright painful -- and we fully expect official Flash support on the Droid later this year anyhow -- but anyone conflicted between the Droid's muscular lines and HTC's lovely skin might want to keep an eye on this project. It's still very early in development, but the most important part of the port has already been finished: it shows the proper Droid logo on startup. Follow the break for video.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading HTC Desire's Sense UI ported to Droid; HTC, Motorola cringe

HTC Desire's Sense UI ported to Droid; HTC, Motorola cringe originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is a giant Alien queen statue made out of scrap metal. She's scary as hell and will give you the worst kind of STD if you try making love to her: penis tetanus. NO LOCKBALLS FOR ME THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

The recycled sculpture is an assembly of over 4000 individual parts, who prior to being consolidated into this sculpture where constituent elements of automobiles, boats, televisions and basically anything that had steel worth recycling and weighing in at 550kg (1,210 lbs) and standing tall at 2.4m (7'10") this alien queen will definitely make her presence felt anywhere she goes. With all this intricate detailing and ingenuity put into this design it's no surprise that the sculpture sells for €4500 (~$6,100), which is pretty reasonable for a work of art of this calibour.

You know what -- maybe I was being too harsh. I think I'll take the scrap queen out for a date after all. STRAIGHT TO THE RECYCLING CENTER! You gonna make me rich, queeny! Hit the jump for several more of the no thank you.

So, the Sony Vaio P has a clone. Congrats, Sony! Too bad the mimicry ends with the aesthetics:

The appearance is spot on, but the insides are decidedly sub-par. The Atom processor is a less powerful than the processor offered in the Vaio P, and the memory maxes out at 1GB. If you're comparing, that's a full GB short of the original.

Since this is a clone however, the price is really the only area where one could say it "competes" with Sony's premium-priced Vaio P.

The clone offers a 160GB for about $300, as well as a $380 model with 350GB storage, 2Gb ram and 3G.

Aaand scene. [Gizchina - Thanks, Andi]

This month we highlighted 10 Google settings you should know, detailed how to set up a fully automated media center, stopped Google Buzz from showing the world your contacts and cluttering your inbox, and a whole lot more. Here's a look back.

• Top 10 Google Settings You Should Know About
  As the outcry over Google Buzz's privacy has shown us, it's smart to explore settings in Gmail, along with other places you're sharing data with the search giant. Let's take a look at 10 privacy, convenience, and annoyance fixers you should know.
• Where Can I Watch the Olympics Online?
  Dear Lifehacker, I'm a huge fan of the winter Olympics and I don't want to miss a minute of coverage. Where can I watch the games online?
• Set Up a Fully Automated Media Center
  We love a good media center almost as much as we love automation, so self-confessed media geek Alex Ward's fully automated media center caught our eye. It's all the benefits of an awesome media center without all the hassle.
• Stop Google Buzz From Showing the World Your Contacts
  Whether you call it a huge privacy flaw or just an annoyance, Google Buzz can put the contacts you automatically follow-a.k.a. those you most frequently email or chat-on a public profile page. Here's how to undo that.
• LookInMyPC Is a Must-Have Tool for Computer Troubleshooting
  Windows only: LookInMyPC generates a complete report of what's going on in a computer-from hardware to software, and everything in between. After playing around with it, this writer wouldn't start troubleshooting a PC without it. I'm not kidding.
• Become a Gmail Master Redux
  Gmail is easily the most popular email application among power users, and with good reason: It's an excellent app. But if you haven't gotten to know its best shortcuts, tricks, Labs features, and add-ons, it's time you made Gmail sing.
• Five Best Start Pages
  Your start page is the first thing you see when you open your browser or load a new tab-your gateway to the rest of the web. Get the most from your start page with one of these five favorites.
• Which Media Center Is Right for You: Boxee, XBMC, and Windows Media Center Compared
  Want all your downloads, streaming video, and other techie media stuff on your TV? Wondering which media center works best for you? Here's a look at the biggies in chart and Venn diagram form, followed by some lengthy breakdowns of each.
• Hide/Remove Google Buzz Updates from Your Gmail Inbox
  If you just don't have the bandwidth to manage one more set of social notifications automatically hitting your Gmail inbox, you may not be all that excited about this morning's Google Buzz announcement. Luckily banishing Buzz from your inbox is easy.
• Make Images 3D sans Goofy Glasses
  3D pictures are interesting, but they rely on glasses that alter the way your left and right eye perceive images. This cool 3D image-creation technique doesn't require glasses but still produces a 3D illusion.