Sustainable and renewable energy sources has been the main source of various efforts on both designing as well as scientific levels. Over the years, the development in this field has been subtly pushing forward to more feasible as well as practical applications in offices, homes and also small outdoor efforts. The Solar Pod featured today, however, takes a step forward towards more commercial applications with an architectural twist. The pod came forward while working for greener solutions in context of not domestic but rather public gatherings which requires a certain degree of sophistication united to functional utility of stored renewable power. To bring alive such dreams and amalgamate futuristic power technologies to a greener aesthetic context, the Solar Pod brings forth a metallic flower facade lined inside with thin film solar collectors which symbolically holds forth the fruit for effective future replacement of fossil fuels.

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Apple Inc. has a number of patents, a couple of them really seem to be interesting. These were filed recently in February 2011. Apple is doing research in methods, which help in harnessing the solar energy to run all the portable devices. Five of these patents have been covered in this article. The first one is regarding assembling integrated circuit. The second one is about various methods to use the sunlight in-order to illuminate the display screen. The next patent is about the display screen, which is light sensitive. The fourth patent is to make all the Apple devices made in the future, to be grease and fingerprint resistant. The last patent is about integrating solar energy for all media players. Have a look:

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The US Patent and Trademark Office just revealed that Apple has been granted 20 new patents which focus on next generation solar technology. According to PatentlyApple, the patents not only cover solar technology being used to extend the battery lives of personal devices, but will also see the development of a cool new product – a specialized back panel reflector that uses sunlight to illuminate laptop screens.

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Given that it typically gets hottest outside when the sunlight is most direct, it would make sense to have air conditioners that were powered by the thermal energy from solar rays. Unfortunately, collecting enough of that energy in a cost-effective manner can be challenging. Now, however, a team of University of California, Merced students have created a solar thermal collection system that is said to be significantly simpler, cheaper and more efficient than anything that’s come before.

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