Atlantica - 01.01.2006, Side 15

AT L A N T I CA 13
It’s a strange, strange world
Atlantica raises its glass to a few ambitious, good-hearted, and potentially misguided ways the world has put technology to work in 2005.
PARADISE, 24/7
Synthetic environments come and go. Japan’s enormous snow dome, called SSAWS, an acronym for “Spring, Summer, Autumn,
Winter: Snow,” closed after not attracting enough skiers in Tokyo. Ski Dubai, which will simulate an Alpine slalom experience in
the Mall of the Emirates, is going to try its luck next. The latest creation in the fake climate biz is Tropical Islands, an encased
tropical paradise outside Berlin. Tropical Islands, which occupies a space big enough for the Eiffel Tower to be laid down in it,
is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The sun rises and sets, giving way to a starry night sky, and the temperatures flatline
between a balmy 25 and 28°C. (Unless you’re near the South Seas beach, where it can get up to 30.) Tropical Islands is home
to 500 species of plants in its rainforest, 6,000 cubic meters of water, and examples of “tropical village” architecture from
Thailand, Borneo, Bali, Samoa, the Amazon, and Kenya.
KILL OTHER PEOPLE’S
TELEVISIONS
A fine if somewhat controlling gadget to come
out this year is TV B Gone, a remote control
device that slips onto your key chain and
puts you in charge to turn off the game in
the bar once it’s evident your team is going
to lose, turn off the maudlin soap operas and
daytime talk shows in the dentist’s office, or
just generally wield power in your own and
other people’s environments. Think of it as a
public service.
THE $100 LAPTOP
It’s been done, but it’s not for you. One Laptop Per Child, a non-profit
initiative working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has
come up with the design for a durable, rubber-encased laptop that
costs $100 to manufacture for distribution to children in developing
nations. The “green machine,” as it’s nicknamed, has limited memory
but a full color screen and a hand crank as an alternative power source.
It can be used as game console and television. The laptops are not yet
in production, but even when they are, they won’t be for sale. They will
be distributed directly to ministries of education and will go straight to
the kids who need them. COFFEE BEER
We’re just going to have to wait a little longer. This year, an arm of the
Swiss candy giant Nestlé filed for a patent on the mysterious thing
that we may come to know one day as coffee beer, a fermented, non-
alcoholic coffee drink that pours like a beer with a foamy head while
retaining its heady coffee aroma. But while Nestlé owns the technology
that foams coffee into a beer-like drink, the good people there have
decided to keep it to themselves. “We decided this particular product
does not have a chance on the market,” says François Perroud, Nestlé’s
press officer. “Either you love coffee or you love beer. But the idea of
mixing the two together? That sounds strange.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF TROPICAL ISLANDS
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Airmail+OTF ATL106.indd 13 16.12.2005 12:13:06