Who knew bar codes could be works of art? That may be stretching it a bit but Cliff Kuang’s article in Fast Company highlights barcodes in the shape of someone winking, wind turbines, a city skyline, someone washing her hair, and more. See them at In Japan, Even the Barcodes are Well Designed.
There has been a slew of EU (European Union) nano public awareness/engagement announcements in the last few days. A new nanotechnology consumer product inventory has been created by two consumer oganisations in Europe, the European Consumer’s Organisation (BEUC) and the European Consumer Voice in Standardisation (ANEC). Not a complete listing of all nanotechnology products available in Europe, the inventory is meant to give consumers a good overview of what kind of nano products can be found in Europe. You can read more about the inventory and follow links from the news item on Nanowerk.
It’s unclear to me how they compiled the inventory of nano products. Did they get information from the people at the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies who have their own well established inventory of products? Did they interview manufacturers in Europe or read product advertising and/or labels? I checked (very quickly) both consumer organisations’ sites but was unable to obtain any details.
The European Commission has announced a public consultation to get opinions about a Nanotechnology Research Code of Conduct. Opinions and comments can be made until January 3, 2009. You can read more from the news item on Nanowerk or you can go here to participate.
There’s the final international Conference of the FramingNano FP7 Project coming up on Dec. 15, 2009 at the Sheraton Brussels Airport Hotel. The topic is governance. From the news item on Nanowerk,
Many involved stakeholders share the opinion that the benefits promised by nanotechnologies will fully materialise only if their development takes place responsibly.
With this in mind, businesses, researchers, civil society representatives and regulators involved or interested in nanotechnologies are invited to take part in the final International Conference of the FramingNano FP7 project (registration free of charge) whose primary objective has been the development of a sustainable governance framework for nanotechnologies.
The OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) held a Conference on Potential Environmental Benefits of Nanotechnology: Fostering Safe Innovation-Led Growth in July 2009 in Paris and the presentations have just been posted online. You can read about the conference and get a link to the presentations here.
I was surprised and encouraged to find Canadians making presentations at this conference. Edward W. Manning (professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada and president of Tourisk, Inc.) made a presentation about sustainable solutions. After viewing his presentation, I have the distinct impression that Manning doesn’t know much about nanotechnology so what he offered were some very good points based on his work in the field of environmental management and community-based planning. From one of Manning’s slides,
A key issue is the actual users often do not know enough to understand how to ask for help or even where to go.
That’s a very important point about implementing any kind of solution and it’s often forgotten, particularly with large projects.
Another presentation came from Brian O’Connor (of FP Innovations) about cellulose nanofibres. I recently posted about FP’s potential nanoscience and business breakthrough here. At the OECD conference, I was happy to see that O’Connor’s presentation concentrated on safety and risk assessment issues and I found out that Canada has ‘new substances notification regulations’.
Hopefully, I will have the time to look at more presentations soon, although some of the more science-based ones may be too advanced for me.