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A PC made from plants? We kid you not. This laptop is made out of corn -- and no, you can't eat it if you're feeling a bit peckish. It's actually the third generation of the Biblo PC from Fujitsu, currently strutting its stuff at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The inside is a normal PC, but the outside casing is made out of material that's 50 per cent plant-based materials, and 50 per cent regular plastics. To make it, ears of corn are processed down to corn-starch and then turned into a polymer alloy. Fujitsu claims it cuts down on carbon dioxide emissions during the manufacturing process by 15 per cent.
What's even more interesting is that Fujitsu sells the corn-based PC for the same price as a regular plastic-encased model, despite the more expensive manufacturing process. Now for the bad news: it's only available in Japan. The model pictured here is pretty full-featured, so the equivalent price is about £1,000.
Fujitsu is currently considering whether to release a corn-based PC in the US, according to the senior vice president of marketing for Fujitsu, Ryan McCormack -- which would hopefully pre-empt a move to getting it on UK shelves -- but that's still up in the air.
From an environmental perspective, the manufacturing process holds a great deal of potential, as the laptop wouldn't necessarily have to be made out of corn to achieve the same results. According to McCormack, potatoes and castor oil offer the same energy-saving benefits as corn.
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