NEW YORK (AP) — When owners of the Empire State Building decided to blanket its towering facade this year with thousands of insulating windows, they were only partly interested in saving energy. They also needed tenants.

After 78 years, Manhattan's signature office building had lost its sheen as one of the city's most desirable places to work. To get it back, the owners did what an increasing number of property owners have done — they went green, shelling out $120 million on a variety of environmental improvements, a move would have been considered a huge gamble a few years ago.

Buildings that define city skylines across the country, some national icons, are catching up to the sleek, new structures designed with efficiency in mind, as property owners and managers become convinced that a greener building now makes financial sense.

That's because in recent years environmental retrofits have begun to pay off for owners and tenants alike. Higher-profile companies are seeking out more efficient office space, and new technology at older buildings has started to translate into higher property values, leases and occupancy rates.

"In a good market, we're going to get the best rents for the best tenants," said Anthony E. Malkin, who leads a real estate group that owns the Empire State Building. "In a bad market like we have now, we're going to get tenants when other buildings won't."

Renovation specialists around the country have been plugging porous walls in numerous old buildings, adding high tech water systems and using recycled material in carpets and tile.

One of them is the Christman Building in Lansing, Mich., an 81-year-old Elizabethan Revival office that's listed on the National Register of Historic Places. While repairing the limestone exterior and preserving unique details like the mica light fixtures, the building owners spent $8.5 million to add water-efficient plumbing and increased the amount of natural light. They also capped the building with a reflective "cool" roof.

Chicago's Sears Tower announced late last month that it will embark on a five-year, $350 million green renovation. The 110-story, staggered skyscraper, which turned 36 this year, will crown its rooftops with solar panels, wind turbines and up to 35,000 square feet of sunlight-absorbing gardens.

When complete, the improvements will cut the tower's annual electricity use by 80 percent and save 24 million gallons of water, property managers say.

Building owners trumpet their environmental commitment when extensive modifications are made, yet in many cases those changes are being pushed by tenants.

Many high-profile tenants won't even consider moving into a property without the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, said Allan Skodowski with Transwestern management group. They may not even know what the certification means, he said, but they demand it nonetheless.

"They say 'We want LEED,'" Skodowski said, "and that's it."

Nine of Transwestern's properties received certification this year. A combination of energy efficient light bulbs and other green equipment helped those buildings slash energy consumption. On average, they've seen a 2 percent drop in energy costs, even as electricity rates jumped between 10 percent and 40 percent, Skodowski said.

Leasing rates have not risen as a result of the changes, Skodowski said, yet at the same time occupancy rates have not fallen. That's a victory for an industry hit hard by the recession. Vacancy rates at office buildings nationwide have gone from 10.9 percent at the end of 2007 to 12.4 percent in the first quarter of this year.

"If one extra tenant comes and looks at the building, if the owner gets an extra penny or so a foot, then at the end of the day it's paying for itself," Skodowski said.

A recent analysis by real estate researcher CoStar Group, Inc. found that green-certified buildings had fewer vacancies than other buildings with similar age, size and location.

The CoStar study, which included about 3,000 green-certified offices, found that buildings with the council's certification enjoyed higher occupancy rates (90.3 percent) than their peers (84.7 percent) in the first three months of 2009.

Certified buildings have fetched higher lease rates for several years. The CoStar report said the buildings rented at an average of $38.86 per square foot in the first quarter of 2009 compared with $29.80 per square foot for their peers.

"This isn't just a 'We are doing the right thing' movement," said Marc Heisterkamp, U.S. Green Building Council's director of commercial real estate. "In the end, the numbers pencil out."

At the Empire State Building, Malkin proposed a top-to-bottom renovation that included a $13.2 million investment in new green technologies. The goal was to sufficiently reduce greenhouse gases without spending more than he could justify to his investors.

What the owners settled on was a series of upgrades that include retrofitting all 6,500 windows. Under every window, radiators will be padded with extra insulation. The building's lighting, cold water and ventilation systems also will be upgraded.

The renovation should take 18 months. Afterward, the owners expect an annual energy savings of $4.4 million, enough to pay off the new technologies in about three years.

Already, the renovation has lured upscale, energy-conscious companies like Swedish construction firm Skanska, said Ray Quartararo with Jones Lang Lasalle, which is managing the renovation.

Skanska wanted its U.S. headquarters to have a LEED "platinum" certification — reserved for only the most efficient of buildings — and it found a willing partner in the Empire State Building. Skanska officials said the building's management helped them install bike racks and add other energy-saving details on the 32nd floor.

"We had looked at several downtown spaces, but the Empire State Building made the most sense," a company spokeswoman said.

Jacques Catafago, an attorney who works 16 floors above Skanska's new office, is also happy with the changes. Catafago has fought the building management before on other fees, but he said he wouldn't mind paying more rent if it goes toward renovations that cut his electric bill.

Besides, Catafago said, he's already checked out the rent for similar buildings in the city and realizes he has a pretty good deal at the Empire State Building.

"We'd be paying twice as much" uptown, he said.

Salads of the future may still be served in bowls, but their ingredients might be grown in skyscrapers.

That's the hope of scientists and architects who are erecting a unique strategy to feed a swelling population on a planet with finite farmland. (Find out more about sustainable agriculture.)

"In another 40 years, there'll be another three billion people. That's the problem," said Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University in New York. "We have to find another way to feed them."

One solution, Despommier believes, is to grow everything from salad greens to staple grains year-round in high-rise buildings at the hearts of urban centers.

This so-called vertical farming could put food within easy reach for billions of people while reducing carbon emissions from shipping crops across continents and oceans, he notes.

 

"[The concept] is based on technologies already in use throughout the world, mainly high-tech greenhouses," Despommier said.

For example, many existing greenhouses use hydroponics, a technique for growing crops in smaller spaces using nutrient-enriched water instead of soil.

Energy Hogs?

But for now high-rise farming remains just an idea. One challenge is how to stack the greenhouses so that layers of crops get enough light to be grown in a vertical structure, Despommier notes.

That's one of the reasons Bruce Bugbee, a crop physiologist at Utah State University in Logan, is critical of high-rise farming. He says the concept is too expensive to implement and would be a colossal waste of electricity.

"We're talking gigawatts of power, just huge amounts of power [to grow crops indoors], compared to free sunlight outside," he said.

Typical office light is only about one percent as intense as the full sunlight needed to grow crops, Bugbee notes.

"People get confused about the amount of light needed to get plant yield versus the amount of light needed to keep people happy and productive and healthy," he said. "They are roughly a hundred-fold different."

Despommier counters that architects are already designing buildings to harvest the maximum amount of natural light.

What's more, by incorporating new energy sources such as hydrothermal and wind power, these buildings don't necessarily have to look like typical skyscrapers.

Start Small

Another consideration is creating a vertical farm design that would be economically viable.

Despommier said he is particularly intrigued by Eco-Laboratory, created by Seattle, Washington-based architectural firm Weber Thompson.

Other proposed buildings, which can be solely farms or mixes of farms and houses, would reach up to 60 stories high.

But the Eco-Lab complex would be just 12 stories tall and would mix residences with gardens that produce food for the local neighborhood.

"This was [an] attempt at something that seemed viable to a developer," said project designer Myer Harrell.

Residents might tend the crops and own equity in their production, or they might assign the work to outside agricultural firms and later purchase the crops at a local market.

Selling the housing at market rate and proceeds from the farmers' market could generate significant funds.

For example, Harrell said, sales of tomatoes and lettuces grown in the high-rise's hydroponic gardens could total about a million U.S. dollars a year, based on revenue minus the base production costs.

The market viability of Eco-Lab, Harrell noted, distinguishes it from taller vertical farm proposals.

"Those [designs] have merit, but it would be difficult for us to see this idea jump to a larger scale right away," he said.

Harrell believes breaking ground on Eco-Laboratory or a similar scaled-down building could be feasible within the next few years. Even the burst housing bubble and global recession, he noted, may work to the concept's advantage, as people become more interested in self-sufficiency such as growing their own food.

(Related video: "Urban Farming Blooms in London".)

Go Veggie Instead?

The need for vertical farms is most urgent in Southeast Asian countries, Columbia University's Despommier said. Many of those places have seen increasing crop failures due to extreme weather and disease amid surging population growth.

(Related: "Food of the Future to Be More Diverse?")

Indoor farming eliminates vagaries of the weather, he said. And even if disease destroys a harvest, the next crop can be planted immediately.

Bugbee, the vertical farming critic, has another solution to feed Earth's swelling population: Eat less meat. This would free up land currently grazed by livestock to be sown with food crops.

"That," he said, "is a rock-solid principle if you are looking for a way to be environmentally responsible."

National strategy for energy efficiency

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has reaffirmed its commitment to introducing a comprehensive National Strategy for Energy Efficiency and signed a memorandum of understanding for energy efficiency, with a commitment to consider signing an Intergovernmental Agreement on the National Strategy at its next meeting.

As well, it agreed on the design of a Renewable Energy Target Scheme to achieve a 20% share of renewables, or some 45,000 gigawatt-hours, in Australia’s electricity mix by 2020.

COAG agreed that the strategy’s scope would encompass: commercial buildings, residential buildings, appliances and equipment, industry and business, government, transport, skills, innovation, advice and education, and agreed in principle to developing a range of new measures in these areas.

The measures, which are subject to regulatory impact assessment requirements, involve:

• an increase in the stringency of energy-efficiency requirements for all classes of commercial buildings in the Building Code of Australia from 2010;
• the phase-in of mandatory disclosure of the energy efficiency of commercial buildings and tenancies commencing in 2010;
• an increase in energy-efficiency requirements for new residential buildings to six stars, or equivalent, nationally in the 2010 update of the Building Code of Australia, to be implemented by May 2011, as well as new efficiency requirements for hot-water systems and lighting;
• and the phase-in of mandatory disclosure of residential building energy, greenhouse and water performance at the time of sale or lease, commencing with energy efficiency by May 2011.

The ASHRAE Label, Officially Due Out Next Year, Borrows Many Traits from its European Forerunner
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) this week unveiled a flurry of new details about its building energy labeling program, including a prototype label design.

A select group of building stakeholders will begin testing the program, called Building Energy Quotient (BEQ), this fall ahead of a public release expected sometime next year, ASHRAE said on Monday during its annual conference. (See the building energy label.) The organization said it could not yet release the names of the pilot participants.

“As the United States looks to reduce its energy use, information is the critical first step in making the necessary choices and changes,” Bill Harrison, the immediate past president of ASHRAE, said in a statement.

With building energy disclosure laws moving forward in several cities, the labeling program “couldn’t be better-timed,” he said.

ASHRAE, the mechanical engineering association with 55,000 members, began developing the program last year. It would require property owners to document the energy characteristics of their buildings and package that data into a label, energy certificate and technical documents.

The energy label is the program’s most visible component, although until recently, what exactly it would look like was not known.

But as many expected, the prototype borrows heavily from the U.K.’s Display Energy Certificate, an energy label that is required for some buildings in England and Wales. Unveiled Saturday by Harrison, it grades energy efficiency on a color-coded letter scale from “A+” to “F”, with the highest grade reserved for net-zero energy buildings.

The energy use of a typical U.S. commercial building compared to others of the same property type would score in the “C” to “D” range, according to ASHRAE documents. Buildings that have earned the government’s Energy Star label, which signifies the top quartile of energy-efficient buildings, would earn at least a “B”. Complying with California’s Title 24 energy requirements would net at least an “A-”.

The two main components of the label are an asset rating, which is based on energy models and represents the building’s designed efficiency, and an operational rating based on actual performance. The ratings would ideally appear on the label side-by-side, although the operational rating requires 12 months of utility bills, which would disqualify newer buildings.

Building energy label proponents have said that seeing both grades could help property owners easily identify buildings that are operating less efficiently, and costing more money, than they should.

The minimalist appearance of the label was designed with public display in mind, according to a report published this month by ASHRAE’s label implementation committee. The label does not include greenhouse gas emissions disclosure, as does the U.K.’s label, although it would display the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification and the U.S. Government’s ENERGY STAR label for applicable buildings.

Other required components of the labeling program, such as an energy certificate, would explain why a building received a high or low score and include a summary of energy efficiency measures that have been implemented. Some documents would provide technical details on building systems and energy usage for engineers and building operations personnel.

Attaining the label will require building systems commissioning and a site visit by an energy assessor to verify performance for the operational rating, while the asset rating requires energy modeling. ASHRAE said it also plans to charge a fee for the label, although that cost has not been determined.

Yet, there is a huge opportunity for the label to spur cost savings, both short- and long-term, by creating a larger market for energy-efficient properties, said Ron Jarnagin, staff scientist in the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Energy & Environment Directorate and chair of ASHRAE labeling committee.

For most tenants right now, the energy efficiency of buildings “is not a big part of the conversation” in lease negotiations, said Olivia Millar, managing director of sustainability for the tenant brokerage firm Studley.

According to Jarnagin: “When potential building tenants and owners have information on the properties they are interested in, they can understand the full cost of their investment and place a value on the energy efficiency of a building.

“ASHRAE’s label will help building owners differentiate their product in a technically sound manner while providing tenants with the tools they need to select energy-efficient spaces,” he said.

ASHRAE is also looking to leverage the labeling program. The implementation committee recently recommended efforts to integrate the label into the popular LEED and Energy Star programs. And with building energy disclosure laws ramping up in Washington, DC, California and possibly New York City, opportunities exist in partnering with local policy makers.

Less clear is exactly how the label would align with an energy labeling provision in the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, which is before the House, although ASHRAE was involved in the structuring that provision.

The ASHRAE label “can serve as a model for mandatory programs,” Harrison stressed on Monday.

Prince Charles said we must "urgently confront" the risks to avoid "destroying our children's future".

He was delivering the 33rd Richard Dimbleby lecture at St James's Palace, in honour of the late broadcaster.

The prince's audience included former US President Bill Clinton and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

'Enormous shortcomings'

In his pre-recorded address, broadcast on BBC One, Charles said a new system which was more "balanced and integrated with nature's complexity" was needed.

In the speech called Facing The Future, he said we were "at an historic moment - because we face a future where there is a real prospect that if we fail the Earth, we fail humanity.

The true wealth of all nations comes from clean rivers, healthy soil and, most importantly of all, a rich biodiversity of life Prince Charles

"To avoid such an outcome, which will comprehensively destroy our children's future, we must urgently confront and then make choices which carry monumental implications."

He said the maintenance of the world's eco-systems was directly linked to the economic well-being of nations.

"We are standing at a moment of substantial transition where we face the dual challenges of a world view and an economic system that seem to have enormous shortcomings, together with an environmental crisis - including that of climate change - which threatens to engulf us all."

He added: "We must remember that the ultimate source of all economic capital is Nature's capital.

"The true wealth of all nations comes from clean rivers, healthy soil and, most importantly of all, a rich biodiversity of life."

Charles pointed out that mankind had caused the Arctic sea ice to thin and rainforests to shrink by a third since the 1950s.

The heir to the throne has been particularly outspoken on environmental issues and in the last 12 months has visited eco-systems in Indonesia, Borneo and Brazil.

Al Gore invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill yesterday when he urged political leaders to follow the example of Britain’s wartime leader in the battle against climate change.

The former US Vice-President accused governments around the world of exploiting ignorance about the dangers of global warming to avoid taking difficult decisions.

Speaking in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by The Times, Mr Gore said: “Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War Two. We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource.”

Mr Gore admitted that it was difficult to persuade the public that the threat from climate change was as urgent as that from Hitler.

“The level of awareness and concern among populations has not crossed the threshold where political leaders feel that they must change,” he said. “The only way politicians will act is if awareness raises to a level to make them feel that it’s a necessity.”

Mr Gore, who brought the issues around climate change to a mass audience with the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, said that the great hope for the future lay in the high level of environmental awareness among young people.

He said sceptics who refused to believe that dramatic cuts in carbon emissions could be delivered should consider the example of the young scientists in the Nasa team who put a man on the Moon on 1969.

“The average age of scientists in the space centre control room was 26, which means they were 18 when they heard President Kennedy say he wanted to put a man on the Moon in ten years. Neil Armstrong did it eight years and two months later.”

He said future generations would put one of two questions to today’s adults. “It will either be ‘What were you thinking, didn’t you see the North Pole melting before your eyes, didn’t you hear what the scientists were saying?’. Or they will ask ‘How is it you were able to find the moral courage to solve the crisis which so many said couldn’t be solved?’”

Sir David King, the Government’s former Chief Scientist and now director of the Smith School, also berated politicians. “I do think it’s relatively easy for a prime minister to make a speech on climate change, which sounds committed, and very much more difficult for that prime minister to persuade the Treasury to put the finance behind that commitment to make it a reality.

“There is a long distance in government between saying what you think needs to be said and then making budgets available.”

Sir David expressed disappointment that no senior British politician had agreed to address a conference attended by top climate scientists, business leaders and the presidents of the Maldives and Rwanda. “I tried to pull in a lot of IOUs. But where was Lord Mandelson, where was Ed Miliband? Where was David Cameron? Where was William Hague?”

Justin Timberlake's new, environmentally sensitive golf course has become the nation's first to receive "Audubon Classic Sanctuary" certification from Audubon International.

The pop superstar and his family are putting the finishing touches on the reconstruction of Mirimichi, formerly Big Creek Golf Course north of Memphis.

On July 25, Justin Timberlake's Mirimichi golf course in Woodstock is slated to debut the environmental features that earned it Audubon International's first "Classic Sanctuary" certification. Here, horticulturist Russ Demotsis checks out a deep bunker by the ninth green

The $16 million project in Woodstock will open July 25.

Audubon created the "Classic Sanctuary" program in 2008 for properties being redeveloped or restored.

"As the first project in the United States to receive Audubon International's Classic Sanctuary certification, Mirimichi has set the bar very high with their strong commitment to environmental stewardship and the ingenuity they have employed during this process," Nancy E. Richardson said in a prepared release. She is Audubon's program director for the organization's Signature and Classic programs.

Mirimichi has taken a number of steps to conserve the environment and protect wildlife.

This waterfall is behind the 13th green at Mirimichi, which is employing several techniques for drainage and irrigation to maximize the reuse and conservation of rainwater.

For example, irrigation and drainage systems reuse and maximize the use of rainwater; native grass areas and waste bunkers reduce the amount of property that must be maintained; more lake areas and recirculating streams support wildlife; and, instead of equipment sheds, a "Natural Resource Management Center" has a biodegradable treatment of rinse water.

Timberlake has long shown sensitivity to the environment, said Rich Peterson, Mirimichi's general manager.

"It is because Justin grew up in Shelby Forest. It is because he wants to honor his native American Indian heritage," Peterson said.

Even on his concert tours, he has hired a company to calculate and compensate for the "carbon footprint" the shows create.

"He's given us the direction to do the same here," Peterson said.

The golf course also is working to become the world's first golf course to calculate its own carbon footprint "and set a standard for the entire industry on how to reduce reliance on natural resources and to utilize renewable energy sources as often as possible," he said.

For example, as soon as the technology is available, Mirimichi will try to have a fleet of electric golf carts powered by solar panels.

The course will allow golfers to walk, and will space out tee times in 12-minute intervals so that fewer people are on the course at one time.

The golf, food and beverage operations are researching to use products that are made of recycled materials, golf director Greg King said.

The future clubhouse will be built to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards.

"Creating an eco-friendly course was a priority throughout the renovations," King said. "We wanted to create a world-class golf experience that protected and enhanced nature's canvas."

-- Tom Bailey Jr.: 529-2388

SYDNEY, July 8, 2009 (AFP) - An Australian town was set to ban bottled water on Wednesday over concerns about its environmental impact, in what is believed to be a world first.

Bundanoon, a picturesque rural town with a population of just 2,000, was expected to vote heavily in favor of the move with a show of hands at a public meeting later.

“At the moment we’ve got a lot of community support behind it. We’re confident the town is going to back it,” said activist John Dee.

“We believe Bundanoon is the world’s first town that has got its retailers to ban bottled water. We haven’t found it anywhere else.”

Local opinion was incensed when beverage company Norlex Holdings announced plans to tap an underground reservoir in the town, truck the water up to Sydney and then send it back in bottled form.

“The company has been looking to extract water locally, bottle it in Sydney and bring it back here to sell it again,” said Dee.

“It made people look at the environmental impact of bottled water and the community has been quite vocal about it.”

Dee, whose Do Something group was instrumental in a plastic bags ban in Coles Bay, Tasmania, said he hoped the ban would make people think twice about buying bottled water.

“It’s possible it will extend to other places. The main idea is to get people thinking about their usage of bottled water—we’re spending about half a billion dollars on it here in Australia,” he said.

Retailers in the New South Wales town, south of Sydney, have already agreed to stop stocking bottled water.

Activists say bottling water causes unnecessary use of plastics and fuel for transport. A New South Wales study found that in 2006, the industry was responsible for releasing 60,000 tonnes of gases blamed for global warming.

JOHN SELKIRK/ Dominion Post A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY: Air New Zealand estimates the winglets on a Boeing 767-300 will save more than six million litres of fuel and 16,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually.

An Air New Zealand jet equipped with radical looking wing attachments arrived at Auckland today.

The airline estimates the innovation on a Boeing 767-300 will save more than six million litres of fuel and 16,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually.

The 3.4 metre high wing tips - named "blended winglets" - make the aircraft's wing more efficient by reducing drag, increasing lift and significantly improving fuel use and reducing emissions.

Air New Zealand's Captain David Morgan said they were part of turning making it the world's most environmentally sustainable airline.

"Air New Zealand has been at the forefront of finding ways to minimise our environmental impact, examining every aspect of our flight operations to reduce carbon emissions by saving fuel. "

The airline is also installing dryers on the planes which reduce moisture trapped in the insulation between the aircraft's outer-skin and the cabin lining.

They will remove around 200kg of water from each aircraft, reducing weight, fuel consumption and most importantly reducing carbon emissions.

Each passenger exhales around 100 grams of water an hour and the cold outside temperatures at altitude generate significant condensation which is retained in the aircraft insulation.

The dryers will save an additional 320,000 litres of fuel and 800 tonnes of carbon emissions annually across the fleet of five 767 aircraft," says Morgan.

Tech that seemed like a great idea - until people tried to use it By John Brandon

The brainchild of budding entrepreneurs and research labs, these tech failures were intended to become commonplace in our fast-changing world.

Unfortunately, they turned into Frankensteins that no one wanted – mostly for scientific reasons, technical dependencies, or a poorly conceived business model.

Without further ado, let's get stuck in...

1. Mobile video chat

In the UK and US, video chat over a smartphone is still a distant dream. Part of the problem is bandwidth – there just isn't enough of it for two-way video. Part of the issue is ease of use: it should be as quick to place a video call as one where you only use your voice.

"Vendors didn't realise that the problems were more behavioural than technical and didn't approach the market properly," says tech analysts Enderle. Maybe Apple can turn this one around?

2. Quadraphonic sound

Another technology that never had a chance, quadraphonic sound put four channels of audio in four corners of the room, and it emerged in the 1970s as a way to emulate what you hear in a cinema or live performance.

The main issue had to do with a lack of standardised formats, and the emergence of Dolby and DTS surround sound – which were heavily supported by the audio industry.

3. Intel Viiv

A high-profile flop, Intel Viiv was the big announcement at CES in 2006. It was essentially the "Centrino of home media distribution" - chipsets and components designed to make it easier to store and retrieve digital media including music, movies, and photos. But it just didn't work.

The plan was for PC makers to proudly display the Viiv logo, but the failure was not in communicating the value of digital media – we'd already got that - Viiv was just too complex to understand, and partners never really warmed to it. The name was the ultimate death punch: no one knew how to pronounce it (it rhymes with "five").

4. Line of sight (LOS) wireless

LOS, or fixed wireless, emerged about 10 years ago as a way for cities to deploy their own network using the same model as mobile phone carriers.

According to IT analyst Charles King, LOS was just too complex and inflexible, especially compared to newer technologies such as Wi-Fi and WiMAX.

5. Virtual reality

One of the problems with VR is that the human brain has a hard time perceiving two worlds at once – especially when it means donning a pair of goggles that block out one of those worlds (the real one).

Videogames such as World of Warcraft pull you into the action, but you are still well-aware of your surroundings. Mind you, Microsoft Natal is a stage on from old-school VR, the latest attempt to meld the virtual world with the physical.

6. The driverless car

This one seems to have a host of problems – the high-cost of the infrastructure, AI that is not anywhere near ready, and obvious safety concerns. There's also the fact a train or a bus makes more sense in dense urban areas.

Adding robotics to cars does make sense though, and both Enderle and King suggested that driverless cars could possibly become a reality within the next 10 years for long road trips.

7. HD DVD

Well, of course. The format wars ended abruptly at the 2008 CES in Las Vegas. Blu-ray won hands-down, although HD DVD even now, is still apparently more popular in the US.

In 2007, some had claimed HD DVD was the superior optical format. However, a closer look at the specs reveals the truth: the Blu-ray compression ratio is actually 50:1 compared to a much lower rate for HD DVD. BD discs hold more data, and the stream rate is higher as well (48Mbps).

According to Enderle, Sony "effectively bought Time Warner's loyalty and took the market." Still, Enderle says Blu-Ray is not a profitable format yet, and high-def digital downloads are catching up quickly.

8. SNIF tags/GPS collars for dogs

As early as last year, the idea of using a GPS collar for your dog made sense. SNIF tags, which report back on your pet's whereabouts, would help reduce the number of lost animals.

Enderle says the concept was hampered by high costs, short battery life and complexity, but that it could come back in 5-7 years.

IT analyst King says the main problem with GPS collars is that family pets usually find their way home eventually, unless they have been purposefully abandoned by careless owners.

9. 3D shopping/virtual storefronts

Ecommerce is a major hit - one 'virtual store' at a .com address now matches the sales of many physical stores.

However, the concept of 3D shopping never caught on, partly due to the fact that web shoppers are often looking for the best deal and aren't interested in being bombarded by slow-loading graphics.

"3D shopping assumed that online shopping needed to reflect real world interactions. Instead, consumers willingly traded human interactions for convenience and aggressive pricing," says King. Some still believe in it, though.

10. Personal transport device

The sad fact of the personal transport device - in other words, the Segway - is that we are not all riding them to work, touring the town, and playing Frisbee at the beach - probably while crashing into each other. Enderle says the alternatives are better: scooters, bicycles and even skateboards.

11. Video goggles

Video goggles usually appear in trendy car commercials as the device of the future, but rarely actually become a legitimate tech concept with end-users.

Once again, we have trouble perceiving two worlds at once and even the most expensive goggles cause mild nausea.

"Costs are dropping but I have yet to see something that most would accept and I've tried some advanced $20K products," says Enderle.

Even Nvidia's recent attempt with its 3D Vision kit has been met with a muted response.

12. Light-emitted keyboards

If video goggles fail because our human perceptions of video have a hard time understanding two discrete worlds, then light-emitted and roll-up flexible keyboards have a similar "physical world" limitation – we tend to need visceral feedback as we type.

Interestingly, your typing speed is faster on the iPhone when the device provides a click-click audio accompaniment.

"Touchscreen keyboards have generally been more successful when they have added the sound of keys clicking," says King.