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.