Belgrade Hosts First Public Solar-Powered Cell Charging Station 106
arisvega writes "Dead battery in Belgrade, Serbia? Head to the city's Obrenovac district, where a group of students has developed the world's first public charging station powered entirely by solar energy. Known as the Strawberry Tree, the structure's 16 ports support a variety of handhelds, allowing pedestrians to juice up their handhelds in just ten to 15 minutes, at no charge. Its built-in batteries can also store up to a month's worth of back-up energy, enabling the station to hum along at night, or even during Serbia's less sunny seasons. 'Energy from the sun is free, and it would be unethical to charge people to use the Strawberry Tree...We are trying to inspire young people to think about the source of the energy they use, and behave and act responsibly,' said the inventor Milos Milisavljevic (17 years old when he came up with the idea) and now, at the ripe old age of 22, is looking to plant new stations across other Serbian cities."
Re:Youth is wasted on the young (Score:5, Informative)
Why everything has to be all about money, money, money?
Yhea, it is very insightful to point the obvious - that the installation cost money. "No free lunch" can always get you some mod points. Please, introduce a mod +1 (conforming and mindlessly parroting the existing paradigm)
But you know what - you are surrounded by people giving things for free. Read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy [wikipedia.org]
Some excerpts to sharpen your appetite:
----There are many examples of how a gift economy works in modern culture within a mixed economy, such as marriage, family, friendship, kinship, and social network structures.
-----Traditional scientific research can be thought of as an information gift economy. Scientists produce research papers and give them away through journals and conferences. Other scientists freely refer to such papers. All scientists can therefore benefit from the increased pool of knowledge. The original scientists receive no direct benefit from others building on their work, except an increase in their reputation. Failure to cite and give credit to original authors (thus depriving them of reputational effects) is considered improper behavior.[27]
-----In his essay "Homesteading the Noosphere", noted computer programmer Eric S. Raymond opined that open-source software developers have created "a 'gift culture' in which participants compete for prestige by giving time, energy, and creativity away".[29] Members of the Linux community often speak of their community as a gift economy.[30]
------Millions of articles are available on Wikipedia, a free on-line encyclopedia, and almost none of its innumerable authors and editors receive any direct material reward.[31][32]