South-Korean product designer Hanyoung Lee has come up with a safety device that could make traffic lights obsolete, or at least improve their effectiveness. His so-called Virtual Wall is designed for busy city streets.

Instead of showing a red light when it's time for pedestrians to cross the street, Lee's Wall projects a curtain-like, two-dimensional image of giant people crossing the street. The real pedestrians walk behind their virtual counterparts.

A leading New Zealand branding consultancy has won gold on the international stage. Auckland-based Dow Design was awarded gold for Packaging at the 2008 Summit International Creative Awards.

Dow Design won this hotly contested category, which featured entries from advertising companies and creative agencies worldwide, with their design for Barista@Home coffee. Criteria that judges base their decisions on include the strength of the concept, the quality of execution, and ability to communicate and persuade.

Summer music festivals tend to create recurring, short-term demand for accommodations, as we noted last year when we wrote about Boutique Camping. Now a new, student-invented contender also in the UK offers two-person festival tents made from recyclable materials.

Businesses can now calculate their environmental impact with the use of an online provided by the CarbonNeutral Company. And having calculated their emissions, businesses can then offset any carbon generated by contributing to the development of new, green technologies or helping with international community projects.