You may (or may not) recall that last year we ran a virtual home makeover design contest with Comcast Town, where the grand prize was a sweet collection of new home entertainment electronics and a green room makeover by yours truly – the editor and (LEED-AP designer) of Inhabitat.com. The lucky winner of the Comcast Town contest was a certain Howard J Dudy (aka Richard), and we headed down to his pad to give him a sweet green home renovation. For anyone who was wondering what happened with this eco renovation, we are thrilled to say we FINALLY have our video of the project all edited down to a nice watchable 5 minutes for your viewing pleasure. Here is our snapshot of the eco-renovation – hope you enjoy! Feel free to leave a comment – we’d love to hear what you think!

+ Comcast Town
+ Comcast Town Contest

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The Greener Gadgets Competition Deadline is January 7th 2009!

Can you believe that it’s 2010 already? That means that the Greener Gadgets Design Conference is rapidly approaching on February 25th, and the Greener Gadgets Design Competition deadline is ALREADY UPON US! We’re looking for innovative designs that chart the future of green tech, so if you’ve got a great idea for a greener gadget and want to win up to $5000 in cash prizes, enter the Greener Gadgets Design Competition today!

We’re looking for the best and brightest ideas for renewable energy generation, energy reduction, socially-empowering gadgets, greener communication, and anything else that makes consumer electronics greener and cleaner. Check out some examples of past years winners here and here.

THERE ARE ONLY 2 DAYS LEFT – so get crackin!

ENTER THE GREENER GADGETS COMPETITION HERE >

Welcome to 2010! The start of the new year is the perfect time to reflect upon the past, make resolutions for the future, and think about what the new year will bring. With this in mind, we’ve asked several of our favorite designers, editors and all-around-big-thinkers for their green predictions for the coming year. We received a lot of interesting forecasts for the coming year: from more greenwashing to a revolution in social design, from the rise of heirloom goods to a shift towards systems and services — read on for the our panel of experts’ green design predictions for 2010.

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As the new year rapidly approaches we’re all thinking about what lies ahead, and and this is the time that many of us start to think about New Year’s resolutions. I’ve shared my personal New Year’s resolutions here, and we’ll be bringing you all the Inhabeditor’s resolutions soon. But it is not just people that can have New Year’s resolutions – websites can have them too! Our little website Inhabitat has big plans for 2010 and would like to share then with you! Watch the video above to find out more about Inhabitat’s resolutions for 2010… and then tell us what you think! What do you want to see Inhabitat do in 2010?

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Hi Inhabireaders! Since we’re getting to that time of year when everyone starts to think about the New Year and reflect upon the changes they would like to make in their lives, I’ll confess to you my New Year’s resolution. Despite being an avid greenie and nature lover, I spent WAY too much time in front of my laptop — an unhealthy amount of time actually. (What do you expect, I publish 3 websites that regularly post 8-12 stories every day in total!) My family and friends complain about it all the time. So this year I’m resolving to break the laptop shackles and reclaim my (non screen) life. Anyone else facing a similar conundrum? Any words of advice? Leave ‘em in the comments please – I need help!

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ATTENTION GADGET GEEKS – SOME EXCITING NEWS!

The 3rd annual 2010 Greener Gadgets Conference is rapidly approaching, and we’re thrilled to announce that this year’s keynote speaker will be industrial design star and Fuse Project founder Yves Béhar! Yves is one of our favorite product designers out there and has masterminded an incredible range of innovative products ranging from the LED leaf lamp to the Mission One motorcycle to the OLPC “$100″ laptop. Yves will be talking about green gadgets, how to improve product design, and about the BRAND NEW XO 2.0 laptop, which will be released spring of 2010. You won’t want to miss out on this exciting keynote presentation by one of the world’s most renowned designers, so register today for Greener Gadgets 2010!

And stay tuned for more announcements about Greener Gadgets shortly — we have a lot more news coming soon!

REGISTER FOR GREENER GADGETS 2010 >

Want to go green this holiday season, but concerned that eco-friendly gifts are going to cost you an arm and a leg? Think again! There are plenty of affordable ways to give the gift of eco-conciousness this year that will actually help you SAVE some green in the process. In order to help out the budget shopper (and aren’t we all this year), we’ve compiled a list of our favorite cheap and cheerful green gifts that put the “eco” back in ECOnomical. For those of you looking to get the biggest bang for your buck, we’ve put together some great lists of green gifts under $20 and green gifts under $50. And if you’re looking to get crafty, our Make-It-Yourself Gift Guide will show you clever ways to use what you already have to whip up the perfect gift for everyone on your list. Now you have no excuse not to give green!

+ GIFTS UNDER $20 >

+ GIFTS UNDER $50 >

+ MAKE-IT-YOURSELF GIFTS >

+ GIFTS OF TIME >

Inhabitat readers might remember that we interviewed San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom back in October over a live webcast that was open to any of our readers who wanted to attend. The finale of our Green Talks series of live chats with green thought-leaders, this interview touched on subjects such as mandatory composting, electric vehicle infrastructure and political leadership in CA. Our interview with Mayor Newsom was provocative and inspiring, and was a can’t-miss bit of Inhabitat journalism, if we do say so ourselves. Happily, for those of you who missed this amazing interview – we finally have the videos together of the interview in its entirety. We’ve chopped the full 35 minute transcript down into 4 shorter, themed segments for easier viewing. Enjoy!

PART ONE: The Big Picture & Mandatory Composting & Recycling

PART TWO: How to Make Your Cities (And Your Politicians) Greener

PART THREE: Renewable Energy & Electric Car Infrastructure

PART FOUR: How to Get to Carbon Neutrality in 2020

Let us know what you think in the comments below!

PS- Big shout out to the awesome band Tanlines who provided us this great audio track for our videos. You can find out more about Tanlines here >

Do you like the green / health benefits of cycling, but are concerned about the safety of biking in your city? Would you like to see your city made more safe and convenient for cycling? If you care about bicycles and the urban landscape (and we hope most of you do!), then be sure to JOIN US today at 3:30pm est to talk to Boston Bike Czar Nicole Freedman. We’ll be discussing Boston’s new bike initiatives, including the new bike sharing program - which will put 3000 rentable cycles on the streets of Boston to enhance public wellbeing.

Nicole is the driving force behind Boston’s new bike love, and what will be the biggest bike-sharing system in the United States, so she definitely knows a thing or two about the topic at hand. She’s also a former Olympic cyclist and has played a pivotal role in making Boston a more bike-friendly place as the director of the city’s bicycling programs. We are SUPER EXCITED about this can’t-miss webinar with Nicole today, so please JOIN US, and take part in the conversation!

SIGN UP HERE TO JOIN IN THE CONVERSATION >

CALLING ALL GREEN DESIGNERS!

In case you missed it – we’re doing a LIVE INTERVIEW TODAY with Tom Hicks of the USGBC, to discuss a brand new USGBC initiative to test and analyze the performance of ‘green buildings’. This is an extremely exciting BRAND NEW initiative from the USGBC, and Tom is leading the charge on establishing performance accountability for green buildings. For those of you who have ever thought to themselves: “LEED is all fine and good, but what happens to LEED-rated buildings after they are built and get their certification?” – make sure you join us in this Inhabitat Green Chat to find out more about this great new Building Performance Initiative from the USBGC.

If you want to watch the interview and participate in the chat, SIGN UP NOW to join us at 2:00pm EDT/11:00am PDT today.

SIGN UP HERE TO JOIN IN THE CONVERSATION >

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Halloween is just around the corner and if you’ve got any little ones in your life, you’re probably racking your brain for cute and clever Halloween costume ideas. If you’re on the verge of giving in to sheer desperation and contemplating holding your nose while buying a plastic Spongebob costume — don’t fear — we have a greener solution for you in the form of Oeuf’s adorable knit animal outfits for kids! These lovely mix-and-match knit pieces, made by Bolivian craftswomen, are not really costumes per se — more just cute dress-up separates — and that is precisely why they are such a great sustainable option for a green halloween. Kids will have fun wearing bear ears or a racoon tail any time of year, and these knit pieces are so adorable that you’ll want to encourage year-round dress up play.

GERMANY WINS THE 2009 SOLAR DECATHLON!

Drumroll please… after an exciting week of competition and judging, the winner of the Solar Decathlon 2009 has just been announced, and it’s a stunner! In a huge upset (as Team Illinois was leading on the scoreboard until just a few moments ago) the Germans took the grand prize in the heated competition, and beat out the 19 other (mostly American) design teams with their Darmstadt house! This is sure to get national pride ruffled a bit, as Team Germany won the Solar Decathlon back in 2007 as well, kicking the butts of the mostly American teams then, as well. As the sole team representing Germany, competing with 13 American teams from various states and universities, some would argue that Germany might be triumphing in part due to their concentrated resources: the Darmstadt team spent $650,000-$850,000 on their gorgeous solar home, while many of the American teams had much smaller budgets for their houses. (For example, the Rice University Team spent $140,000 on their solar house)

A scoring of a full 150 points out of 150 in the Net Metering category tipped the scales in Germany’s favor early this morning and allowed the Darmstadt University team to once again overcome being one of the only foreign teams in the competition and reign supreme — check out our full story about the surPLUShome here!

+ Solar Decathlon 2009 Coverage
+ Team Germany Solar Decathlon House

We’ve been in love with eco kids outfitter Oeuf for many years now, and they’ve just unveiled their cutest morsel yet: an adorable collection of baby animal hats and booties that let your tot discover his inner ‘Wild Thing‘. Available in green dino-style, cuddly white bear, and grey wolf style, these toasty 100% Alpaca wool hat-and-boot outfits make perfect green Halloween costumes, but are also great for just playing make-believe around the house. In a bout of impeccable timing, Oeuf just released this new product right before the release of the ‘Where the Wild Things Are‘ movie this week, and we couldn’t be more excited to get into the spirit of this cherished children’s book and dress our little Inhabitots up as Wild Things. Go Oeuf!

+ OEUF ANIMAL HATS & BOOTIES

CALLING ALL INHABITAT READERS – Don’t miss the Inhabitat Editors Roundtable Webinar (and your chance to win this awesome $1700 Biomega bike!) TODAY at 1pm est!

Last week we kicked off an exciting new project for Inhabitat called Green Talks. This series of live webinar discussions and presentations will engage with green thought leaders around the country to bring you the freshest ideas in emerging green design and innovation. Our very first ‘Green Talk‘ kicks off the series today as a roundtable discussion with four Inhabitat editors: Editor-in-Chief Jill Fehrenbacher, Managing Editor Mike Chino, New York Editor Yuka Yoneda and Technology Editor Ariel Schwartz.

We’re super excited about this opportunity to connect with our readers, so if you have a question about green design, about Inhabitat – or about anything at all, come join our conversation.

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The Solar Decathlon, the super solar architecture competition held in Washington D.C. bi-annually, officially kicked off today, and Rice University’s awesomely affordable ZEROW House is already making waves. The first round of evaluations took place yesterday, and this low-budget underdog placed 4th among the twenty competitors after being recognized in the categories Comfort Zone and Appliances. What is most impressive about this team is that the average budget of the 20 solar decathlon houses at the mall is $490,000, while the ZEROW home was built for only $140,000!!! Even more impressive, the ZEROW House was designed specifically for Houston’s Third Ward Neighborhood as part of Project Row House – an organization that seeks to develop housing for low-to moderate-income families.

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Hey Inhabitat Readers from around the globe! Want to meet the editors of Inhabitat and win this awesome folding bike – valued at $1700?

As we head into October we’re thrilled to announce a fabulous new initiative at Inhabitat: GREEN TALKS! We’re going to be harnessing the power of the internet to bring you LIVE presentations about future-forward green initiatives from public officials and renowned innovators – thanks to Adobe Connect Pro meeting software. We’ll be kicking off INHABITAT GREEN TALKS this month with our first ever Meet the Inhabitat Editors webcast!

We’re inviting you to share your questions and comments about our website and get to know the editors — and to encourage active conversation and participation from our readers, we’ll be giving away a super sleek Biomega Boston folding bike valued at over $1,700 to one lucky participant! So if you have something to say to the Inhabitat editors, and you want to win a sweet bike while you are at it, please JOIN US IN THIS CONVERSATION NEXT WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 14th at 1PM EST!

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This elegant LED-solar panel necklace by Swedish student designer Mae Yokoyama doesn’t really provide any function except adornment (and perhaps a dim nightlight at night), but we love this creative transformation of a purely utilitarian tech object (the humble solar panel) into a piece of stunning wearable art that will raise awareness about solar and LED technology.

READ MORE AT ECOUTERRE >

DRUMROLL PLEASE!

We have an announcement to make that we hope will come as welcome news to all you readers who love our fashion coverage (and also all you readers who hate our fashion coverage ;) ! We’ve been toiling for months now on a new website exclusively dedicated to eco-friendly fashion, and we are thrilled to unveil the newest member of the Inhabitat family today: ECOUTERRE.COM

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We’ve been raving about British dystopian climate-change docudrama The Age of Stupid ever since we previewed the provocative film this summer, and today, we are thrilled to say that the film is OPENING IN THE U.S. TONIGHT! The film is highly entertaining, inspiring and provocative – certain to make you think, whatever your politics and your opinions on climate-change – so get yourself to a theater tonight to see the premiere! As you know, the success and box office run of any film has a lot to do with how many tickets are sold on opening night, so lets all try to help this indie film succeed! The Age of Stupid has a CRITICAL MESSAGE that we should all support, so do your part and go see the film tonight – you won’t regret it! Look for tickets in your area here >

The Inhabitat team will be attending the New York premiere tonight at Chelsea Cinema with the two lucky winners of our ticket giveaway: Be Veg Go Green and simple411. There are still tickets to the screening available, and we’d like to invite any other eco New Yorkers who want to see this film to join the Inhabitat team tonight!

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HEY NEW YORK & SAN FRANCISCO READERS!

We’ve got some exciting news for you! Recognizing that many of our readers (and many of our writers) are concentrated in New York City and in the San Francisco Bay Area – we’ve decided to launch city-specific versions of Inhabitat to those of you interested in local green design news and events: InhabitatSF and InhabitatNYC! We’ve been covering San Francisco and New York politics, events and green design initiatives more and more on Inhabitat.com, and now there is a way to find all this great local coverage in one place. So check out our brand new websites: InhabitatSF and InhabitatNYC, and if you’d like to stay up to date on all the latest green developments and eco design events in your city, be sure to subscribe to our San Francisco and New York City newsletters!

+ Inhabitat San Francisco

+ Inhabitat New York City

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