Shell aims to be a net zero emissions business by 2050

Shell is the latest oil giant to commit to carbon neutrality. Following BP’s announcement earlier this year, Shell has now unveiled an ambitious set of targets that aim to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 or sooner. Simply put,...

Facebook is financing a massive solar farm in Texas

Facebook is investing heavily in a massive solar farm in Texas as it rumbles towards its goal of running entirely on renewable energy by the end of next year. Renewables company Longroad Energy has started building the Prospero Solar project in Andre...

The Shell sofa explores volume without weight, and is perfect for humans and cats!

With a voluminous yet hollow frame, the Shell sofa is instantly visible. It is, in a strictly physical sense, minimalist (because it’s mainly hollow), but visually, the Shell sofa is almost pillowy, spacious, and a treat to look at. The sofa is a frame that curves from the left to the back and to the right, with space in between for cushions, or even two side tables if you remove the cushions at the extreme ends. It’s visually imposing, but still manages to look light and airy, thanks to its wickerwork of metal rods. The interwoven rods also create this moire effect that creates a dynamic optical illusion, making the Shell sofa’s body incredibly interesting to look at… and while we’re on the subject of interesting, the sofa comes with two small openings at the beginning and end of its structure, making it perhaps the most entertaining play area for a domestic cat. Good luck getting it out though once it goes inside!

The Shell Sofa is a winner of the A’ Design Award for the year 2019.

Designer: Natalia Komarova

3D Printed Hermit Crab Shells Let Crabs Carry Tiny Cities on Their Backs

If you are a hermit crab, your home is whatever you find for your shell. Artist Aki Inomata makes 3D printed shells for hermit crabs to set up their homesteads inside of. These shells have little buildings and cityscapes on top. So these crabs are living in these various cities. Or under them.

Aki starts with a CAT scan of an actual hermit crab shell to make sure it’s an acceptable shape for a little crab to fit in, then she 3D models and prints the shell with a building or cityscape on the back. Do these crabs even know how cool their new shells are? Do they know that they are carrying cities on their back? Do they feel the weight on their shoulders and in their soul? Actually, they don’t have shoulders. My bad.

These shells are very nicely detailed. Congrats to Aki for giving nature’s creatures some cool new bling. These creatures don’t even need to shell out any money. Get it? I guess they have the world under their feet and a city on their back. Wait… Technically they are wearing the world beneath them. We all are. Whoa. Mind blown. I’m shell-shocked.

[via The Awesomer]

Shell backs Alphabet’s power-generating kites in latest renewable bet

Alphabet is turning yet another one of its X projects into a business, but this time it's enlisting the help of an unusual ally. Makani Power, a venture making electricity-generating kites (see above), has become a full-fledged subsidiary of Alphabe...

This small stick is a 2 terabyte SSD!

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Remember just around a decade back when 32GB pen drives were all the rage? I remember owning one from Transcend, and it was the size of my thumb. It was a gift I got myself before going to college, and for the longest time, had all my college work stored on it until I had enough money to chip in for an external hard drive (these were the Bittorent days).

The Fledging Shell is slightly larger than that 32GB pen drive I owned back in the day. It also happens to have a storage capacity of 2 whole terabytes! Built with an SSD inside, the Fledging Shell is designed to provide universal compatibility, and file transfer speeds that border on a gigabyte per second without heating up. Its innovative build (featuring an aluminum outer body acting as a heat sink) and internal cooling system keep the Fledging Shell cool as a cucumber as you transfer incredibly heavy files to carry with you on the go, or even take multiple backups of your data to the offline SSD… and unlike other SSDs, the Fledging can be opened and customized, giving you the power to choose the capacity, or switch between different SSDs. Did I also mention how incredibly small and compact it is!?

Designer: Fledging LLC

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E-cig makers have 60 days to show they aren’t targeting minors

The Food And Drug Administration may force several e-cigarette brands to stop selling flavored products if they can't prove they can keep their products out of minors' hands. The brands -- Juul, Vuse, MarkTen, blu and Logic -- have 60 days to convinc...