Low-tech Magazine

The monster footprint of digital technology

The power consumption of our high-tech machines and devices is hugely underestimated.

When we talk about energy consumption, all attention goes to the electricity use of a device or a machine while in operation. A 30 watt laptop is considered more energy efficient than a 300 watt refrigerator. This may sound logical, but this kind of comparisons does not make much sense if you don't also consider the energy that was required to manufacture the devices you compare. This is especially true for high-tech products, which are produced by means of extremely material- and energy-intensive manufacturing processes. How much energy do our high-tech gadgets really consume?

Artwork: cityscape I & II by Grace Grothaus.

Mechanical calculators: computing without electricity

Fast and complicated calculations are a product of fossil fuels.

Multiplying and dividing numbers was not always that easy. Before the arrival of cheap electronic pocket calculators and computers in the 1970s, people relied on an array of low-tech means and machines to calculate taxes, profits or the properties of engineering parts.

Being an obsolete technology now, some of these 19th and 20th century calculators are surprisingly sophisticated and fashionable. Moreover, most are powered by a crank, which makes these gadgets "green". Today's pocket calculators are no power hogs, either. The thing is that computers took over most calculating jobs from calculators, and a large supercomputer consumes as much energy as a convoy of trucks.

What do we do with all that calculation power? We build fast cars, giant jumbo jets and worldwide information highways, all of which, in their turn, raise energy consumption. We also construct opaque financial products, rickety electronic voting systems and contradictory global warming scenarios. Mechanical calculators may be an inferior technology, but they had the benefit of keeping things on this planet relatively simple. A brief overview of the most remarkable models.

The pinhole camera: low-tech photography

Build a pinhole camera, turn your bedroom into a camera obscura, and rediscover photography. 

With the arrival of digital photography, the camera has joined the ranks of fast aging devices. Just as is the case with mobile phones, a 3 years old digital camera is hardly worth anything anymore. It might be useful to remember that a camera is nothing more than a darkened box with a small opening and a shutter, as demonstrated by the pinhole camera. In many senses, this device is the very opposite of the latest digital cameras.

© Picture: Liquid lucidity

Life before television

Turn off your flat screen television and get lost in 17th, 18th and 19th century optical entertainment.

Nowadays, televisions and cinemas have a remarkable image quality and size, computer games boast impressive graphics, and portable media devices make it possible to watch movies anywhere you want.

But, before the birth of modern multimedia, our ancestors were all but cut off from vivid graphics and virtual reality. Innovative low-tech devices delivered amazing effects and fulfilled almost the same role that television, cinema and media players do today. Some features of these even modern multimedia does not match.

The right to 35 mobiles

The high energy consumption of the mobile phone network is mainly due to the limited life span of the phones.

This week, more than 50,000 people gather in Barcelona for the ‘Mobile World Congress’, the annual high mass for the mobile telephone. They gape in admiration at the newest generation of gadgets, which is again fitted with new applications and new designs. This almost unanimously praised innovation, however, has a dark side. Around half of the energy use of the mobile phone network is attributed to the production of the phones. 

The digital oubliette

Chances are slim your children will be able to enjoy the family photo album when they grow up.

Nowadays family pictures, writings and home movies are stored on digital media, under the impression that this personal information will be accessible for a lifetime. However, this is not self-evident.

To guarantee the accessibility in the not even so far future, digital data requires active and regular maintenance – contrary to the archiving of analogue media.

Even though this constitutes a large challenge for libraries, for them the problem is not insurmountable. But in everyday life, a lot of personal information is in peril of getting lost.

Satellite navigation in the 18th century

More than two centuries ago, it was possible to very accurately pinpoint your position on earth by means of 'satellites'.

Man has navigated across the globe by means of satellites for thousands of years – however, until the mid twentieth century, these were not GPS-satellites, but stars. In reality, the sun and the stars aren’t satellites of the Earth, but celestial navigation is based on a precopernican world view (the earth was believed to be the centre of the universe). This may sound a little outdated, but this system was perfected to such an extent that in the second half of the eighteenth century it was almost as accurate as the present-day GPS. Moreover, it was much more robust.

Picture sextant : Peter Ifland

Information damages the environment

Is an electronic newspaper more ecological than a paper newspaper?

Newspapers and magazines don’t have a green image because lots of trees have to be cut down to produce them; but electronic publishing is not always more ecologically friendly. The Swedish Royal Institute of Technology made a life cycle analysis of both distribution systems (PDF, heavy download) and has come to some remarkable conclusions.

Picture: Bernarr Macfadden

Wind up your laptop

The human body can deliver enough power to drive computers, television sets and washing machines – but it does go hand in hand with lots of sweat.

Eco-tech boffins dream of self-sufficient gadgets: mobile phones fed by solar energy, heartbeat-powered music players. However, the potential of these energy sources is much too small. Handles, cranks and biking machines on the other hand, do have a promise to be a powerful energy source. Swinging a crank for fifteen minutes is enough to power a mobile phone. Less than an hour of pedalling a bike can power larger machines. The only thing missing is a remedy for laziness. 

Second hand bits and bytes

You find them everywhere. Shops with used books, comics, compact discs - but where is the second hand market for digital products?

What do consumers do when they are tired of a purchased product? They take it to a second hand store, they sell it to another consumer, or they give it away. Neither legislation nor producers will stop them. Whoever buys a product has the legal right to resell it. That applies not only to goods like houses, cars or televisions, but also to copyrighted works.