Laundry detergent that creates pollution-eating clothing moves towards commercialization

How do you like the idea of cleaning up the environment simply by going about your day? The UK’s University of Sheffield together with the London College of Fashion have been working on their CatClo pollution-busting laundry detergent for some time, and this week revealed they are currently in talks to commercialize the product.

While the suggestion of pollution-eating clothing may at first sound a little fanciful, or even utterly absurd, the fact is that thanks to the development of a special liquid laundry additive, it’s already a reality.

The latest news is that scientists behind the pollution-busting creation are in talks with a manufacturer of environmentally friendly cleaning products in a bid to bring a detergent containing the additive to market.

The additive, called ‘CatClo’ (short for Catalytic Clothing), is the result of a joint effort involving the UK’s University of Sheffield and London College of Fashion. Additional help came from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The revolutionary additive contains minuscule pollution-eating particles that its inventors claim could have a real, identifiable impact on air quality.

To turn your clothes into pollution-fighting garments, all they require is a single wash in the special additive. Tiny particles of titanium dioxide attach to the fabric during the wash which, when you’re out and about, work to oxidize harmful nitrogen oxides when they come into contact with the treated fabric. The harmless oxidized substances are then removed in subsequent washes.

The scientists behind the product estimate that a person wearing clothes washed in the additive would remove approximately 5g of nitrogen oxides from the air during a typical day, roughly the same amount which is emitted by an average-sized family car in the course of a day.

Cleaner cities

Professor Tony Ryan of the University of Sheffield believes the additive could make a discernible difference to the quality of air in a town or city, provided enough people wear treated garments.

“If thousands of people in a typical town used the additive, the result would be a significant improvement in local air quality,” Ryan said. “This additive creates the potential for community action to deliver a real environmental benefit that could actually help to cut disease and save lives.”

Coming to stores

While CatClo has been in development for some time, those who created the additive believe it is now ready to be commercialized.

“We’re now working closely with a manufacturer of environmentally friendly cleaning products to commercialize our laundry additive,” Professor Ryan said.

“We believe that using the additive in a final rinse with a full washing load could potentially cost as little as 10 pence (16 cents) – a small price to pay for the knowledge that you’re doing something tangible to tackle air pollution and increase the life expectancy of people with respiratory conditions. We’re confident there’s a really big market out there for this product.”

Do you like the sound of CatClo? Would you buy it if it only cost a little more than your regular laundry detergent?

[EPSRC via Tecca] [ Top image: James Weston; bottom: Ljupco Smokovski / Shutterstock]

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Topshop and Facebook join forces for unique London Fashion Week event

If you're into fashion, Facebook and online shopping, you might be interested to hear more about Topshop's plans for its catwalk event at London Fashion Week this Sunday....

Fashion retail giant Topshop has joined forces with Facebook for a unique event at London Fashion Week this Sunday.

Working with engineers from the social networking site, Topshop is for the first time offering armchair fashionistas a ‘front row’ live-stream view of its catwalk event, giving viewers the chance to customize and even purchase garments and accessories worn by models as they appear on stage. It could well be the most intense shopping experience you ever have.

Those who join the live stream will be able to switch the color of the clothes worn by the models, take screenshots to share immediately with Facebook friends with the aid of a special on-screen button, share video clips, buy the show’s soundtrack from iTunes and purchase garments and accessories worn by the models. Shoppers will be able to receive the clothes well before they appear in stores.

“Fashion enthusiasts are sharing the things they love on Facebook more than ever,” Joanna Shields, Facebook’s vice-president and managing director, told the Guardian. “This is where the conversation happens, it’s among friends and it’s where great brands need to engage.”

The live stream from London will be broadcast on the fashion retailer’s Facebook site as well as at Topshop.com. On top of that, the event is set to be shown on big screens at Topshop’s flagship store on Oxford Street in central London, as well as on the websites of over 200 of its media partners.

“We want to take the energy and the excitement of our iconic Oxford Street store to millions of people all over the world through Topshop.com,” says Justin Cooke, chief marketing officer of Topshop. “It’s social, it’s commerce and it’s entertainment all rolled into one.”

The special event could prove to be a decent money-spinner for Topshop, as online shopping addicts and fashion lovers flock to its site on Sunday (10am ET) in search of a new kind of retail experience.

[via Guardian / Mashable]

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

[Infographic] The history of Fashion Week and the evolution of its tech

With New York City's Fashion Week approaching on September 6, this infographic by Eventup will give you a crash course on fashion.

Fashion Week has lately been evolving as technology is increasingly being adopted by designers, editors and enthusiasts alike, and it will be intriguing to watch the new tech used this Fashion Week season in New York City. And with only just days away from  models strutting down the catwalk for Spring/Summer 2012, we’ll give you a crash course on the evolution of Fashion Week.

Surprisingly, despite the guise of being a forward thinking industry, fashion has been slow to accept the introduction of new technologies developed by start-ups, and it’s been the designers who are at fault. You’d think that adopting new tech strategies would help quell the chaos of the Fashion Week shows. Among the older generation of designers, there’s an inherent fear that it may instead complicate matters for the non-technologically savvy.

In recent shows, some designers have offered bar-coded guest lists and iPad-controlled seating arrangements, which streamline the process of shuffling attendees through the door. Other designers have integrated the bells and whistles, whether it’s a holographic projection or giant LED screen, for garnering the “oohs” and “ahhs” from the attendees.

Designers like Narcisco Rodriguez on the other hand, for this year’s Fall/Winter 2012 New York Fashion Week, ended up simply sending out paper invitations.

Still the industry is becoming vogue with technology, and you have to give credit to the concerted efforts over time of many designers and event organizers. For example the live streaming of Fashion Week shows is now a normal occurrence for many designer’s shows, and the GPS event-planning and inventory system, Credit Fashion GPS, was adopted by IMG in 2010. There are even services like Eventup that enable the smaller designers to scout locations other than Lincoln Center or Milk Studios for shows during Fashion Week. It’s evident that the future wherein fashion and technology cannot be without the other is arriving at a quicker pace.

But before we get ahead of ourselves and talk about the future of fashion and technology, Eventup has provided Digital Trends readers with a brief history of Fashion Week in infographic form.

Some notable information includes Fashion Week’s maiden year in 1943, its beginnings in Milan, and its eventual spread across the globe.Today you’ll find the fashion week movement in cities across the world including Beijing, Brazil and even Iran. With the most attended and venerated Fashion Week locations still being held in London, Milan, Paris and New York City.

For the contemporary fashion scene, New York City has been the home of fashion royalty including Vogue’s Editor in Chief, Anna Wintour, designer Marc Jacobs, who were also among the most Tweeted about individuals related to Fashion Week in 2011. Others fashion elite that were popular, based on Tweets, are fashion designers, Victoria Beckham and Oscar De La Renta.

So behind the scenes just how much does setting up Fashion Week cost? According to Eventup, Designers will on average spend between $30,000 and $100,000 to rent a space and slot on the Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week podium. The maximum price for the rental of a slot was $500,000.

You can check out the rest of the infographic below.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Flipboard rolling out six curated video channels to boost content

Flipboard is rolling out curated video channels for its popular news reader app, covering subjects such as news, science, music, fashion and cooking.

A day after announcing it now has 20 million users, Flipboard is introducing curated video channels to its news reader.

The hugely popular app, which presents news content in an attractive magazine-style format, is rolling out six new TV sections, powered by popular YouTube channels.

Topics include news, science, music, fashion and cooking, among others. The existing video sections, provided by an array of sources, will of course continue to be available to users.

“Whether you enjoy inspirational talks, science experiments or live music, these curated video sections are guaranteed to entertain and inform, wherever your interests lie,” Flipboard said in a post on its blog.

At the time of writing, the channels weren’t showing in its ‘contents’ section and could only be accessed via links on its blog post about the new feature (through ‘Inside Flipboard’). If the new section is being added via an app update, it hasn’t shown up for iOS users yet. Android users should be able to update already, according to the version showing in the Google Play store.

Stats revealed by Flipboard on Tuesday show that three billion pages have been flipped in the two years since the app became available, with users spending an average of 86 minutes a month perusing its content.

Channel info

Here’s a full list of Flipboard’s new curated channels:

Cooking TV: For foodies and aspiring home chefs, these how-to cooking videos can add skills to your culinary repertoire. Learn the basics like Chow.com’s “How to Make the Creamiest, Cheesiest Mac ‘n Cheese” or try quirky recipes like Food Network TV’s “Chicken and Waffles on a Stick.”

Influencer TV: Hear about big ideas from leading innovators and creative thinkers. Influencers TV includes a TED Talks lecture on creating awe by Rob Legato, the Visual Effects Supervisor for “Titanic” and “Hugo.” For shorter fare, check out Big Think videos on “The Search for Life on Mars” and “Seeing Sound, Tasting Color: Synasthesia.”

Music TV: Keep up with what the kids—and hip people of all ages—are listening to these days. Watch the latest indie music videos on Noisey and follow NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert series for intimate sessions with emerging artists. Pitchfork TV catches live show moments, including “Bjork Dedicates ‘Declare Independence’ to Pussy Riot.”

Science TV: Feed your curiosity with cool experiments and surprising scientific facts. VSauce will answer “What if the Earth were Hollow?” and “What If Everyone Jumped at Once?” On SciShow, find out “Why Our Brains Love Junk Food” or other scientific explanations for everyday dilemmas.

News TV: With News TV, stay updated on current events via leading news outlets. Get storm and earthquake alerts from Associated Press and ABC News. CBS News follows the 2012 presidential campaigns and Al Jazeera provides international news.

Catwalk TV: Get the latest fashion trends, fresh off the catwalks in Paris, Milan, Tokyo, New York City and more. YouTube channels like Fashion TV and Videofashion cover global runways and rising models. See new campaigns from individual designers, like Alexander McQueen’s “Menswear Autumn/Winter 2012.”

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Not quite ready – WaveRider hypersonic test flight ends in failure

It was always meant to end up plunging into the Pacific Ocean, but not quite in this fashion. A test flight of the hypersonic WaveRider jet ended in failure Tuesday, before its hypersonic engine even had a chance to fire up.

Dreams of long-haul flights taking a fraction of the current time crashed and burned along with the hypersonic plane itself on Tuesday as a test flight of the WaveRider aircraft ended in failure.

The plan had been to send the unmanned jet on a five-minute flight above the Pacific at speeds of up to 4,500 mph.

However, as the LA Times reported, some 15 seconds into the flight – before the WaveRider’s hypersonic scramjet engine even had a chance to fire up – a problem with one of the aircraft’s control fins was spotted. Before anything could be done, the plane lost control and ended up in the ocean.

The failed test will come as a bitter disappointment to those behind WaveRider’s development, including the US Air Force, Boeing and engine maker Pratt and Whitney. The project is financed by NASA and the Pentagon.

Charlie Brink, program manager for the Air Force Research Laboratory, said in a statement on Wednesday: “It is unfortunate that a problem with this subsystem caused a termination before we could light the scramjet engine. All our data showed we had created the right conditions for engine ignition and we were very hopeful to meet our test objectives.”

Following take-off from Edwards Air Force Base in California’s Mojave Desert, a B-52 aircraft carried WaveRider to a height of 50,000 feet beneath one of its wings. After detaching from the B-52, a booster rocket engine was to have powered the aircraft across the sky, before separating to allow the hypersonic scramjet engine to fire up. But unfortunately it never happened.

It’s not the first time a WaveRider test flight has failed to go to plan – in June last year, the aircraft’s engine was forced to shut down due to an airflow problem.

Engineers working on WaveRider say the aircraft’s technology could be used in next-generation space aircraft, military aircraft, missiles, and passenger jets too – but first they need to make it actually work.

Following Tuesday’s failure, the future of the WaveRider program isn’t clear. What is certain, however, is that the reality of passenger flights between North America and Europe taking an hour seems as far away as ever.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com