innovation
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Solving the problem of the city, scientifically
Anyone who thinks that cities are key to the future of a sustainable human presence on the planet -- and anyone who thinks the contrary -- should read Jonah Lehrer's fascinating piece in yesterday's New York Times Magazine, "A Physicist Solves the City."
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The most secure bike lock in the world (16-second video)
The drawbacks seem to be (1) it looks a little heavy to carry around and (2) if I were a bike thief, I can't imagine a challenge more fun to take on than stealing a bike suspended 20 feet in the air in broad daylight.
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Find out where your city is most walkable with Walk Score's new heat maps
Walk Score rolled out new heat maps for the 2,500 largest American cities, providing a quick way to get a sense of where cities are most walkable.
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The future we want
It's tough to make compelling drama out of a happy-green-prosperous future -- even if that's where we want to live.
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American overwork and German “short work”
The German concept of Kurzarbeit, or "short work," encourages employers to reduce hours rather than lay workers off when business is slow.
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A small venture that could generate big results
Imagine a program that turns a relatively small initial investment into billions of dollars of U.S. economic growth, thousands of new Americans jobs, and groundbreaking technologies that change the way we use energy in this country and around the world. It's called the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy and it is about to be given the bureaucratic equivalent of a death sentence.
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The case for super-ambitious Living Buildings. A talk with Jason McLennan
Seattle architect Jason McLennan created the Living Building Challenge, a standard far more demanding than the widely used LEED standard. Here's why.
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Running bike-sharing networks through smartphones
Useful innovation or U.N. conspiracy? It's tough to tell.
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Walk Score team unveils Transit Score and two more apps
First there was Walk Score, the web tool that calculates how walkable a neighborhood is and ranks it on a 100-point scale. Today the same developers release Transit Score, an app that ranks how well-served a location is by buses and rail lines.