His collection of 30 hauntingly similar shots show what adult birds are feeding to their young: bottlecaps, lighters, spray bottles and, in one case, a piece of what looks to be a headphone.

From the photographer:

On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

It’s gross stuff, to say the least. Hopefully, if you’re buying every USB foot warmer cigarette lighter that Brando releases, you’re disposing of your plastics in a more sustainable way. (But really, in case it wasn’t clear, we don’t expect you to actually buy any of this junk…) [chris jordan via Treehugger]

Last month, an Apple Insider source said the MacBook update would also include a “restructured internal architecture”. It’s now believed that could include Apple’s latest internal battery technology.

Definitely a lot of maybes there, so don’t get too carried away. With that in mind, though, refreshed low(er)-cost MacBooks and iMacs would make sense going into end of year shopping season. And with it all supposed to go down any time between this week and mid-October, it might be worth waiting if you’re in the market for one…just in case. [Apple Insider]

CNET caught up with Doug Freedman, an analyst for AmTech who has been speaking to device manufacturers:

Early production units being built in plastic, with the bottom case being plastic, are cracking…So, to get that really thin form factor that they’re after, they’re probably going to have to go with a metal case.

The obvious issue here is that they can’t go with a metal case, or else they’ll almost certainly cease to be “budget” laptops. As Mark noted in his review, the MSI X340—on the high end of this particular category already—suffered from an alarming flimsiness. Switching the case to aluminium would solve this problem; it would also push the laptop’s price even closer to the MacBook Air, effectively eliminating its entire reason for existence.

To be fair, most of the laptops announced in the category haven’t even started shipping yet, and problems like this could conceivably be conquered with some clever industrial design wizardry. Sometimes, though, there’s a reason a particular product niche—especially an obvious one like this—hasn’t been cracked before. [CNET]

Simply put, the Teflon-coated back just feels and looks a lot better than the iPhone’s—now crappy looking, I admit—plastic back. The Hero’s polytetrafluoroethylene—the technical name for DuPont’s Teflon—coating feels perfect in your hand. It doesn’t appear to get any skin oil at all. No apparent fingerprints, no shining, just a perfect matte finish no matter how much I touched it. It feels and looks like a white thermal tile out of NASA’s shuttle.

The iPhone’s plastic finish, on the other side, is a fingerprint magnet that looks as cheap as any Chinese knockoff after holding it for a few seconds. The Hero wins hands down on appearance, even while its front is too complicated for my taste. For a company like Apple—which takes such pride in their design and manufacturing—this is bad. Very bad.

“They are getting so boring”

Once upon a time Apple used to break new ground in the use of plastic materials. Those were the times in which they experimented with the iMacs and PowerMacs. But apart from the unibody manufacturing—which is just a form of aluminium manufacturing, a material that has been used forever in consumer products—their materials innovation is stagnated.

I’m not the only one saying this. About a month ago Matt Buchanan and I asked the top executive of one of the most important industrial design firms in the world about his thoughts on Apple’s design. After seeing Objectified—and watching Dieter Rams saying that Apple is the only consumer electronics company that counts when it comes to industrial design—I was expecting an ode to Jon Ive. Instead, he replied:

They are great, but we all think they are getting so boring. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they got the use of aluminium perfected now… but what happened with the excitement that they used to generate with new materials? We all [him and his colleagues in the industrial design world] expect a lot more from Apple.

He is right. But not because Apple should use new materials for the sake of it. That won’t be right, of course: They should use whatever materials fit the product technical needs. But to me, one of these needs as a consumer is that the product should look good at all times, and not just look good in the box or behind a glass.

The need for new materials

The iPhone has this problem. They have tried to fix part of it with the oleophobic coating on the front part—something that the HTC Hero also has—but the overall effect keeps being the same: Its back still looks cheap until some time.

We were all hoping for a matte back in the iPhone 3GS, but apparently Apple decided not to release for one reason or the other. I don’t know and I don’t care. What I do care about is that, after playing with the Hero, my iPhone feels like crap. And I don’t even like Android.

The USB Cereal Spoon will never get soggy in milk, because it’s completely covered with several layers of glue. Yum!

It works, as you can see in the video, but if I owned one of these I’d rue the day I came home plastered from the bar and tried to eat it. So, yeah, basically every night. I’m a writer, you see.

[Techeblog via Geekologie]

Do we want tens of plastic guitars, skateboards, drums, balance boards and light guns cluttering up our living room space? No, of course not. But ponder these simple questions.

1) Would you rather be pushing buttons in time to music with your Xbox 360 controller, or strumming along with your fake guitar and hitting a drum pad?
2) Would you rather be pushing buttons to make your character do a 720, or actually tilt your body on a skateboard?
3) Would you rather be pushing buttons and tilting a stick to shoot something on the screen, or point a gun at the screen and physically shoot the screen?

It’s simple; most everyone would rather be simulating the act because it gets them closer to the experience of actually playing the game and mimicking what the character is doing on screen. And that’s just the way we’re headed. The first controllers had a joystick and one button, and technology’s progressed along until we’re actually getting 1:1 motion detection.

But where is this all going? The endpoint, in our minds, is something like the Holodeck from Star Trek. A room that, although finite in reality, has the mechanical and optical abilities to simulate just about anything you can program. But we’re a long way from that. What we can do is take steps toward that goal, by simulating the experience with plastic instruments. But there are many steps between here and there, and hopefully the next one won’t cause us to fall down because there’s a plastic guitar in the way.

Boxed milk and juices are a supermarket staple, but one company is now selling boxed water.

Boxed Water Is Better sells water in cartons, ditching the plastic bottles while reducing the overall carbon footprint of packing and distribution by 80%.

20% of the company’s profits are passed along to reforestation (10%) and water relief (10%) while you sip on the sweet hydrogen/oxygen nectar of Minnesota and a few parts per billion of paper pulp.

But while Boxed Water is undoubtedly more sustainable than bottled water, I can’t help but think the product’s absurdity does less to open a new market than close an old one. In other words, Boxed Water is a ridiculous solution to an even more ridiculous problem—that we’d rather buy packaged water than drink it for nearly free out of the tap. [Boxed Water via Cool Hunting and image]

Currently 12,000 to 16,000 2-litre soda bottles are being collected to fill in the twin hulls of their Plastiki vessel. Each bottle with be pressurised using dry ice powder that will sublimate into carbon dioxide gas. If all goes as planned, the vessel will carry four crewmembers on a 17,700km journey starting this April from San Francisco to Sydney only to be broken down and recycled at the end of the trip. Apparently, only the masts of the ship are metal, leaving the remaining 90% as recycled material.

Sure it’s dangerous, but the design is obviously more professional (and less risky) than the paper bottle boat that his 22-year old predecessor cobbled together with his father. My guess is that the outcome will be much better this time around. [CNN and Architecture for Humanity]

Starting in Spring 2009, Sears will start selling the suits, dubbed EcoGir, for fashionable males, which are made from 100% recycled plastic bottle chips and wool (or 100% recycled polyester). It takes about 13 2-litre bottles to get enough material for one suit and can be washed at home (as opposed to dry cleaned. The suits will cost $US150 and almost assuredly will not win you any style awards. [Flickr Photo courtesty of Kodama]

SEARS LAUNCHES FIRST-IN-THE-WORLD TAILORED CLOTHING MADE FROM RECYCLED PLASTIC BOTTLES
Available This Spring at Select Sears Stores and www.sears.com

New York, NY (February 18, 2009) – According to The Clean Air Council, Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles per hour. That would amount to about 60 million bottles thrown out per day by Americans.

Now imagine having a use for these discarded bottles- in apparel. That’s right. Apparel can be designed using a blend of fibers, made from plastic bottle chips and wool, that results in a fabric that drapes beautifully, looks elegant and feels luxurious. Bagir Group Ltd. is the only tailored clothing company in the world to have adapted this fabric into fashionable suits that appeal to the eco-conscious customer under the EcoGIR™ name. The collection is only available at Sears under the “Covington Perfect Wardrobe” label beginning in the spring of 2009.

“Bagir has again turned the clothing industry on end,” states Moshe Gadot, president of global marketing and development for Bagir. “Responding to the public’s concern for sustainable practice, the company has taken unprecedented steps to deliver superbly tailored clothing that respects the environment. We are proud to introduce the first and only collection of tailored clothing that appeals to the eco conscious customer by features fabric created from recycled plastic bottles.”

It takes approximately 13 two-liter plastic bottles to make one full suit whose fabric contains 54% recycled post consumer materials. In addition, the collection also offers a sports coat made out of 100% recycled polyester. This approach benefits the environment as apparel made of recycled material can help save energy and consumption while striving to reduce carbon footprints and diverting waste from landfills.

EcoGIR™ by Bagir provides today’s consumer with clothing that reduces impact on the environment. This eco friendly collection lessens the carbon footprint as it is made from partially or 100% recycled post consumer materials. Apparel made of recycled material saves energy, and reduces carbon footprint by reducing CO2 emission when compared to petroleum based material. In addition, this collection can be washed at home eliminating the use of airborne toxins and harsh chemicals used in dry cleaning.

In addition to the “green” characteristics, the collection is enhanced by Bagir’s performance attributes. All of the pieces in the collection feature Bagir’s innovative AeriFlex® technology, featuring a component that helps improve the suits’ comfort factor. The styles have been designed with daily activities in mind. Stretch has been added to the fabric, providing all-over flexibility with concentrated attention to elbows and underarms, along with a unique EZ Hook expandable waistband in pants for more give in the waist. The suits will have an introductory price of $149. Customers wishing to purchase the jacket and pants separately will find the an introductory price of $99.99 for the jacket and $50 for the pants.