4 posts tagged “worldchanging”

This is an email I sent to the friendlycrowds.com mailing list a few months ago:

The other night I went out for a drink with a friend, he is the
technical director for a UK startup that deals with car industry
data. A few pints in and I was raving about how I wanted to park my
car and then download the days car data to my computer (bluetooth,
wifi whatever).

I want to know how far and where i have driven (ok, that I can get
from a GPS) but how about other data, how much fuel has been used,
maybe the temperature of the engine over the day (capture problems
before they arrise).

Now my friend reckons no one would really want that. In theory the
car manufacturers could offer this (look at the data that pours out
of formula one racing cars) but they dont want to open up access into
the car network. I can understand why, someone standing on a motorway
flyover could, maybe through a bad bit of code bring all the Fords to
a halt on that bit of road. Probably not good ;)

But I reckon that people would be interested in being able to get
that data. Not everybody but a lot and increasingly so. In five years
time a lot of people would want this. Maybe it will only be the
middle class car owners, but then they are often the families who own
more than one car.

What does everyone think? would you want to be able to access this
information? would it be useful? would you, maybe agree to parts of
the data being aggregated (how about you got a discount on the London
Congestion Charge if you shared more of your car telemetary).

Maybe I need to persuade him it should be his next start-up.

I had a couple of responses, B.K. DeLong has been thinking about this a bit and has a couple of blog entries:

http://www.brain-stream.com/blog/archives/001837.html
http://www.brain-stream.com/blog/archives/001838.html

and Andrew Turner sent back a nice set of links to help build some stuff:

You can get OBD modules (bluetooth, usb and/or logging) which will
record this data and you can either stream it to a computer or
handheld device in the car.

Logging & USB: http://www.davisnet.com/drive/products/drive_product.asp?pnum=08221

Bluetooth: http://www.vitalengineering.co.uk/

Others:
http://www.qcontinuum.org/obdgauge/
http://www.scantool.net

This is definitely already doable - just a DIY solution right now.
Here's a cool demo Interface for this kind of solution:
http://www.37signals.com/better/motors/after.html

Also - Make magazine is putting out a controller board that includes a
CAN interface - so that could be really neat for doing this kind of
thing:
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/05/make_controller_kit.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

Of course, no companies are doing this yet, it is still the realm of car hackers and data gatherers. I still think this is a ripe business area, one that can produce lots of benefits.

Stimultated by the Wattson (is that allowed), will we soon see this?

Boutique energy companies, will you pay a premium for someone to manage your energy needs?

A BEC would come into your home and carry out energy surveys for you, suggest solutions and oversee and project manage the installation of various energy saving systems (insulation, solar water heating, wind turbine).

They will also install an equivallent of the Wattson, maybe each plug and light fitting in your house will have a chip in it that makes it unique, they will be able to monitor your electricity usage (and maybe gas if you use that for heating or cooking). They would be able to report annomolies and also find you the best energy supplier on as 'on the fly' as it is possible in the energy world.

They will balance cost and the eco damage of the suppliers, maybe shifting around.

When you move house, they will come in and remove your tags (or leave them with a calling card for the next occupant, though switched off. The option for removal will be important, for the next 10 years at least people will be paranoid about people spying on their energy usage).

First buy a house. Its an old, 1930's mid-terrace. It needs some work but for family reasons we want a house.

Next realise that you want to be as green as possible. For all sorts of reasons, if nothing else keeping the bills low makes the whole proposition seem saner.

That is what we are doing. Hopefully by the end of the year we will be in a new home. If you want some horror stories of home hunting , just visit the site homeplotting.com that we started.

A 1930's mid-terrace dos not cut it on the eco stakes though. A few years ago we visited BedZed, thinking abouy buying there but the development felt isolated after living a short walk from a high street and mainline train station and actually walking around the rooms (albeit unfinished) they felt small and some dark, burried at the back of the house.

Yet this is the situation that many house buyers and owners are in, houses that have not been built to the latest eco blueprint. Should we not bulldoze them all down and build anew. Well no, that probably would not help either.

We an do lots to our existing infrastructure, retro-fit and make good, insulate and monitor and that is what we plan to do.

There is a set of work that needs to be done on our house to make it livable by us.

1. The kitchen needs updating / replacing.
2. The house needs re-wiring.
3. The roof needs making good. (in a couple of years maybe overhauled completely but for now made good).
4. Insulate.

At this stage I see nothing but opportunity, rewiring means cable and cable means networking. A new kitchen has lots of possibilities, the roof space once fully insulted has lots of potential.

So if I am putting cable around the place, what else can I put in there? Sensors for every room. Measure the temperature and toxicity of the air. If I am putting in new plug sockets all over the place should they not remind me of how much power they are pulling?

What technology is there that I could put into the house that will help green it?

What on earth brought this on? Well watching the flickr stream of CubicGarden I stumbled across an image of an 'electricity meter'. It was at the Digital Well Being installation earlier this year. The device was a Wattson, made by DIY Kyoto.

Wattson is an ambient device that shows you, numerically or ambiently (or connected via your computer, online) what your electricity consumption is. The unit is hadn made from recycled wood and acrylic and costs an impressive £350.

What it does though is make something visable that was previously hidden, usually under the stairs in a UK house. The continual motion of the numbers on your electricity meter.

When Bruce Sterling started his Viridian Design mailing list, one of the ideas that he called for were the products that saved the planet whilst looking good, making the invisible transaction of eco-poisioning for each key press on his laptop visible. Now in the shape of WorldChanging.com and objects like the Wattson his original call to action is coming to the fore.

But I and many like me are not moving into the latest BedZed derived eco housing development, and the pre-fabs from Inhabitat are not pop-ing up anywhere around here. We can though create our own Centre for Alternative Technology here in the city, where these technologies need to be applied.

So if you know of any new technologies for retrofitting into an existing house, the most efficient yet eco friendly insulating material. the best way to design a kitchen for the 21st century that does not burn its way through natural gas, using solar to heat a home and water. Let me know, add a comment and send me an email.

What I intend to do is record and log all of this, so we can all see the energy saved (or not), what the costs are both up front and over time. Will putting a wind turbine in make a difference for example?

If you are greening your home then maybe you can join in and record the efforts, create showcases and studies in the real world.

join in the greenhouse project.

Worldchanging.com has had a redesign and on first glimpse it looks lovely. With their book about to hit the shelves they are ramping up for (hopefully) even more traffic and interest than they already have.

If you do not regularly read this blog, then get to it right away. Some of the brightest and most exciting world changing ideas are flagged there.