EcoRIO

I like using majuscules, no matter what modern designers will tell me. Maybe it's a vestige of being raised under stricter teachers. Well, anyway...

I don't know if I've ever blogged about it here before, but I've definitely thought about it an awful lot -- about the environment. I downloaded saw Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, and it only echoed a few things I already had in mind. General air quality of the world, and how the developed nations are kinda ruining it for the rest of the world. (Air being moved by wind, so pollutants produced in North America, Europe and Asia end up poisoning the air for the inhabitants of South and Central America, Africa, and any other place that's been formerly colonised.)

Against the context of saving the world from the ravages of man, shopping for a new pair of shoes suddenly feels quite empty. So anyway, a good and long-time friend of mine (recently graduated from my university!) with four other [engineering] buddies decided to enter Google's Android competition and won! But before I go into plugging my friend's product, I feel I should explain something. Despite the intelligence and stigma that usually accompanies an engineer graduate, my friend is also intelligent in other areas as well. He's rather artistic, and has an extraordinary ability to pick up languages [and drop them] in a remarkably quick amount of time. He's also socially competent, so no awkward silences with him. And now, back to our regular programming.

Their product is called EcoRIO (where the RIO stands for Reduce, Inspire, Offset). It basically tracks the user's carbon footprint, and suggests ways that it can be reduced. There's also a user-to-user section, where people can share their own eco-friendly strategies. Very utopian ideals. When I heard that my friend had won (an entire $275'000 USD!!! ... but shared among a team of five boys), I was immensely happy, both for the environment, and for my friend.

So, being curious about the competition, I decided to see what the other winners were. Remember, this is being compared against an application that'll help save the environment. So what I found were applications that would help you shop faster, find services more quickly, or spend more money on useless items. One even tracks the traffic of night clubs. Personally, I hate night clubs, if only because of the volume at which they blast the music. I guess I should integrate myself more with the deaf community. I like silence, and I also like practising sign language.

So in my mind, they're the only real winners. XD Check it out! The site isn't particularly geeky either.

http://www.ecorio.org/