Slashdot Mirror
Bill Gates Wants To Reinvent the Toilet
redletterdave writes "Bill Gates, the man responsible for bringing software to the masses with Microsoft and Windows, has plans to reinvent and popularize another industry: Sanitation. Gates, whose philanthropic efforts have helped bring clean water and resources to developing countries via the foundation created by he and his wife Melinda, said at the 'Reinvent The Toilet Fair' in Seattle on Wednesday that he plans to build a toilet that's better suited to developing countries in an effort to cut down on disease and death in those regions. 'Inventing new toilets is one of the most important things we can do to reduce child deaths and disease and improve people's lives,' Gates said. 'It is also something that can help wealthier countries conserve fresh water for other important purposes besides flushing.'"
Science Insider has some information on the winning designs from this year.
So we have something new for Windows 8 to go down.
he's spent all these years making crap.
can't wait to see for the BSOD on that.
plans to build a toilet that's better suited to developing countries
toilet starter edition...
At his house they wipe with $100 bills - they are going to install similar dispensers around the world!
"Murderer? Well, that's a harsh word. I prefer to think of myself as a Mortality Technician."
I'm just going to wait for Apple's competing product. The toilet is a perfect example of an Apple product. It has one button, one function, and it needs to be clean and durable.
I'm sick and tired of all these Windows 8 ads on slashdot.
"Bill Gates, the man responsible for bringing software to the masses with Microsoft and Windows..."
Fucking hell, this is Slashdot, not Readers Digest.
Apparently genital mutilation wasn't preventing disease.
So lets spend millions to reinvent the wheel while we're at it!
There are already a multitude of solutions available, eg. bio-friendly bags that turn poop into fertilizer and just need you dig a hole. Seems to me that if he really want to reduce disease and improve lives he should aim to develop soap which doesn't require water. or something.
Why do I feel like we've talked about this before?
Oh, yeah. Because we have.
Can you please design one that doesn't leave shit streaked all the way down the back when you take a dump? I thought a toilet was a toilet, until I saw all the kinds they have in Europe. You have to scrub every one of them down after a dump. The worst was one that had a flat shelf to dump on and the water would wash it off. Yeah, good luck getting that loaf to wash away. What the hell? Sorry for the shitty post, but this is the topic we were presented with.
I know the typical /. response is to either make a "Windows Sucks!" crack or to launch into some conspiracy theory about how this is part of some secret agenda to foist MS-brand proprietary toilets on the world. But I'm going to applaud his efforts instead.
But if you have to have a crack, here's one: This beats the crap out of anything Steve Jobs ever did for the third world.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
The best use for human excrement is fertilizer really - high phosphorous and nitrogen content, ideal for the fields. It's certainly more environmentally friendly than fossil-fuel based fertilizers (and not just in the third world either).
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
This is great and I applaud and respect him for doing this. After you get done cracking jokes, go read The Big Necessity by Rose George. I never fully understood just how privileged we are.
"2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. I don't mean that they have no toilet in their house and must use a public one with queues and fees. Or that they have an outhouse, or a rickety shack that empties into a filthy drain or pigsty. All that counts as sanitation, though not a safe variety. The people who have those are the fortunate ones. Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box. Instead, they defecate by train tracks and in forests. They do it in plastic bags and fling them through the air in narrow slum alleyways.... Four in ten people live in situations where they are surrounded by human excrement because it is in the bushes outside the village or in the city yards, left by children outside the backdoor...
In 2007, readers of the British Medical Journal were asked to vote for the biggest medical milestone of the last two hundred years. Their choice was wide: antibiotics, penicillin, anesthesia, The Pill. They chose sanitation."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I think he'll probably inventing a system that involves shells. Sylvester Stallone will be angry.
You can see a video of Gates's presentation and an up-close video of toilet 2.0 here: http://www.itworld.com/windows/289818/bill-gates-wants-better-toilet-insert-joke-here
At least, I think. There are some minor differences. http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/07/13/1527242/bill-gates-looks-to-reinvent-the-toilet
"God does not play Minecraft with the world." - Albert Einstein
2.5 billion people live without the "minimum necessary" sanitation services. Access to safe, clean and effective human urine and feces disposal facilities is the most basic definition of sanitation. Improvements sanitation and hygiene has demonstrated positive effects on health. Unfortunately, many people are denied access to sanitation technology and/or infrastructure and thus lack the means of disposing of their waste. The challenge scales with population and can reach critical mass of non-functionality in areas of high population density in developing countries.
There is no single solution. The answer to the challenge requires management of fresh water and access to sanitation technology that mitigates today's risks while scaling with a determined uplift of infrastructure. This kind of massive-scale civil and social architecture requires great resources (fiscal, intellectual, and moral) directed in a continual and strategic ways. I believe Bill, Warren, and others are well positioned to drive success in this area...
Let's hope he does something better than the Stockholm "green" toilets they tried in Mongolia:
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/07/toilet-tuesday-death-worlds-largest-eco-toilet/2783/
http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/5068-Eco-toilet-scheme-ends-in-failure
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
He's looking for somewhere to put Windows 8. Normal toilets that sufficed for previous versions of Windows just aren't capable of handling Metro. God help you if you run across one of these new toilets and don't know where to "Start".....
GStreamer - The only way to stream!
What will the licensing fee be, to use this new toilet?
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
There's a difference between "consumed" water and "flushed" water.
Water that you use in your house and return to the sewers can be cleaned and re-used.
Water that you put on your plants or waste on golf courses evaporates and is consumed.
A new toilet attacks the small part of the problem: the flushed water that is reused. Instead, Bill should focus on reducing water consumption.
--PM
does it have some patents? will it be open sourced so everyone could extend it?
or as usual it's just another way to make a buck by selling it to 3rd world countries?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILoo
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
He might be a tactical genius and raped computing for a few generations of humanity, but at least Commodore Gates is trying to make mends with the planet by doing good deeds.
...given his legacy with windows.
One sheet of single ply ought to be enough for everybody.
Why would I want to deal with this instead of using the normal toilet? Assuming I still have access to the normal unit.
I thought my comment was perfectly reasonable. Here it is
Gates said :- "The flush toilets we use in the wealthy world are irrelevant, impractical and impossible for 40 percent of the global population, because they often don't have access to water, and sewers, electricity, and sewage treatment systems."
Why does a flush toilet need electricity? Mine doesn't; moreover, although I live in a wealthy rural part of the UK I have no main sewer connection. The toilet flushes to my own septic tank where the stuff decomposes - it is little more than a masonery tank set below the ground and looks after itself apart from my getting the solids pumped out once a year. It isn't rocket science.
It uses water, but doesn't most of the World's population live near water? Far more than 60% I'd wager. It does not need to be drinkable. Yes, there are regions that do not, but we have plenty of it in the UK, so no thanks Gates, this "wealthier country" does not need to your stinking toilets to conserve water. Take your concerns elsewhere.
There are already a multitude of solutions available, eg. bio-friendly bags that turn poop into fertilizer and just need you dig a hole.
And the "multitude of solutions available" don't always work.
Here's a "lessons learned" article on the Daxing Ecological Community toilet experience; hope the Gates foundation is willling to learn from other peoples' failures: http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/5068-Eco-toilet-scheme-ends-in-failure
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I have a friend working on water quality in Saharan Africa. She sent me this picture which I find hilarious. However, it's true. There are parts of the world where there is barely enough water to drink, let alone crap in. I think it's a noble cause.
Also, this story is a dupe.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
there is a cheap ac system it's called an ammonia absorption unit. the downside? it's extremely toxic in usable concentrations. the plus side? it can cool a room to -20 F(or below) in 100 F weather. if you eat meat it is ammonia cooled.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
get it right. :)
Most of the pre-low-flow toilets just waste all the water rather than putting it to good use actually flushing stuff. I have a 4.8 liter (1.26 gallon) toilet that is designed well and it does a great job--big tank for water pressure, big valve between tank and bowl, it just doesn't drain the whole tank on every flush.
I don't want to pay licenses for my toilets.
The typical behaviour where I lived was to use your left hand for wiping, your right hand for touching food, shaking hands, etc.
Toilets are great. Poor sanitation has arguably killed more people than wars.
...and through most of history, wars have done most of their killing by means of poor sanitation.
What are you doing to yours? I replace some 30-year-old toilets because they used far too much water, not because they stopped working.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_toilet
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
I lived in a place in Congo where for most of the year water was carried (by human power) several hundred vertical feet up from the river. People did not have enough money for masonry on their houses, much less for underground septic tanks, and there is nobody around to pump out solids later.
Incidentally, the electricity would likely be for an electric incinerating toilet--a reasonable option if you have no running water but do have power.
This must be Bill's tribute to the 50 year anniversary of the Seattle World's Fair.
And I thought that's what the Windows 8 team was already doing!
Not the toilet, just it's intended contents.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
I thought he already did that! It sure functioned like one, at any rate...
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
... for Bill Gates. I wonder how much Mr. Gates' PR firm paid to have this article placed here?
Constant?
I've moved many times and I think that sometimes you just get a lemon. Most give little to no trouble, maybe needing some new part once every few years. Some are constant trouble and never really work properly.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
... a toilet with bugs... now that's disgusting!
Because he's not happy with the way shit's going.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
The "Windows 8 belongs in the toilet" joke was funny the first time, but please do not allow this thread to be polluted by a billion repetitions of it when we're discussing such a serious issue. The "redundant" tag is there, please use it. I had to do a considerable amount of scrolling to find some legitimate, informative and relevant discussion.
Honestly, I think the karma system for "funny" posts needs to be re-examined. The karma whores trying to be comedians are making /. less informative by the day.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Oh man, try going to rural China sometime. You're lucky to get a hole in the floor and don't even THINK about getting toilet paper.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
One of the last episodes of the West Wing:
Hollis: I'm starting a foundation, because if I hold onto all this money, I start to look impolite. I want to find a single problem I can attack, something which might actually have some kind of substantive effect. Maybe I should be fighting AIDS in Africa. Maybe it's malaria. Could be clean air or election reform. I don't know. But my sense is that you would have a unique perspective on what that could be and how to make it happen.
CJ Cregg: A single problem.
Hollis: It's a complicated question...
CJ Cregg: Highways... is what you're looking for.
Hollis: Really? It's not sexy.
CJ Cregg: No one will ever raise money for it. But nine out of ten African aid projects fail because the medicine or the personnel can't get to the people in need. Infrastructure's the problem. Blanket the continent with highways, and then maybe get started on plumbing.
(later on, CJ refers to this conversation as "Frank Hollis wants to give me ten billion dollars to fix the world")
the man responsible for bringing software to the masses
Wants to bring new toilets to the asses! :-)
I make rhyme!
Bill Gates has a lot of critics, myself included, but I think he deserves at least some credit for trying to improve the lives of the world's poorest people. Much of the famine and disease in Africa is caused by lack of water, both drinking and irrigation. It seems to me that if someone can come up with a waterless toilet it would be helpful. Perhaps the end product can be used to fertilize crops? Gates represents a new breed of philanthropists. The old way was to just write a big check to some charity and trust that they spend the money efficiently and in the way you want it spent. I have worked for non-profits and I can say that the ones I worked for were very inefficient...along the lines of government agencies (yes, I've worked for them too). They mean well and have noble causes but there is a lot of waste. Gates wants a direct hand in the money he donates so that it will get spent in the way he wants and the recipients will be made to show some progress. Frankly, I don't see a problem with that, given the vast amounts of money he has pledged. Some of the ideas will work and others will not but nobody will know unless they try.
User: Ahhhh, time to get down to business. ::User bursts out of toilet wearing...well...poop::
Toilet: Performing firmware upgrade to version 9.1442. Your toilet will restart in 10 seconds. Please do not use the toilet while it is in the process of powering up or down.
U: What? God, I need to...::bathroom sounds::
T: An error has ocurred in module processDump32.dll [0xF4127]. If this problem continues, please contact your hardware manufacturer. System flush will occur in 3..2..1
U: System what?
T: Would you like to sign up for a brief customer satisfaction survey? Your input is invaluable in helping us design and create new products. Thank you for using Microsoft, where quality is our number one priority.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wrwetzel/7585494254/in/set-72157630609076830
In the words of the product description:
The iJohn digitizes both liquid and solid waste products and sends them electronically to a central facility for processing and disposal. Because of the high level of redundancy in the waste stream it can be compressed to a small fraction of its original size resulting in transport costs far lower than with traditional methods. And because the waste products are in digital form they can be easily routed to alternate destinations based on available capacity, labor costs, and the regulatory environment.
The first toilet that requires regular updates and is incompatible with your butt!
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
where do you want to go today?
Good people go to bed earlier.
Reinventing the Same story a year later...
People have been crapping for millennia. This ain't rocket science.
Have gnu, will travel.
That's an exceedingly lame attempt at a joke.
He needs something for Steve Ballmer will use instead of throwing his feces at people.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Chances are, that what you call a "normal toilet", is a device which uses 8 liters of flocculated, sedimented, filtered, disinfected, aerated potable water, and then you use this valuable liquid to flush your poo from location A to location B.
In 100 years, kids will be horrified to learn about our "normal toilets", I'd want to bet.
As a "gedankenexperiment", just imagine that you flush your toilet with beer every time you have had a poo, and when someone asks you in a horrified way "why the hell did you mix that beer with your poo and then threw it away down the drain", and you answer is "well, it's obvious; if you leave the poo in the toilet, it starts to smell bad and attract flies, so naturally we must flush it away with the beer!".
The kids in 100 years must think that we were very rich, to live like this.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Great links. The ordos story reminds me of San Francisco's problems
On a recent visit to San Francisco, I was struck by the smell of sewage along the Embarcadero. This was my first experience with something I had only heard about on the news.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I can see it now. Once Bill releases his toilet he'll try to kill off all the trees and bushes on the planet to prevent people for opting for the "Free and Open" alternative.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
I think this is part of a bigger plan to replace first world toilets and harvest the old ones to send to third world areas that really could use some better sanitation.
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
There are many facilities in public parks that stink to high heaven and attract flies. See also, my other post to this story regarding San Francisco's low flow water problem. People interested in using alternative systems in rural areas are prevented by law from doing so in California, or levied with heavier fees from governments. In particular, Santa Cruz County will charge you annual inspection fees for alternative systems, assuming you can get approval at all. This causes people to "go guerilla" in a lot of areas. As is often the case, the real problems are political and social, not technical. When Mr. Gates solves these problems in the "3rd world", maybe he can bring the solutions home.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Like all things Bill Gates - I'll believe it when I see it and not a second sooner.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Nuff said.
That's an exceedingly lame attempt at a joke.
Actually it's much more clever than you think; you just have to know something about common toilet cleaning products.
No matter, I liked it and am happy to publish it for all to enjoy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I was going to question the idea of improving the living conditions for the world's poorest without also requiring them to take more responsibility for living sustainably.
However, I see that the Gates Foundation is also a big promoter of family planning, so I'll cut them some slack.
In any case, it's always important to keep in mind the big picture when solving the world's problems.
A new toilet better suited for developing countries. Forget the fact that most of the per capita waste in the world happens right at home in N. America. But yeah, stick a "developing countries" label on it to make it go down better with the Politically Correct crowd.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
AC is practically required for any kind of modern economy.
Nitpicking here, I know, but I live in Scandinavia. I have practically never even been to a place here (save cars) that has an AC. And I really would consider us a "modern economy".
Your statement comes with a latitude threshold - one which includes a vast majority of the world population, admittedly.
May we live long and die out
The Germans build toilets to prevent any possibility of splashing.
Meanwhile the French build toilets to ensure a good splash...
Americans just leave it up to chance.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Excellent, so I can expect a toilet that will cost a fucking fortune but that I won't actually be able to shit in.
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
Because nobody believes for a second they've done enough to compensate for the massive drag on humanity of billions of wasted man-hours since they released Office.
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
All toilets should be Free - Richard Stallman.
I grew up in Australia on the edge of a desert - without air conditioning.
Air conditioning is a very much appreciated luxury but not strictly necessary for the locals.
Or just wait a little bit longer and buy one from Samsung that lets you sit however you like on it.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Thomas Crapper's improvements to the flush toilet had a lot to do with it's popularity. In his honor, people to this day call the act of using a toilet going to "take a crap". Will that be changed to "take a Gates"?
But I bet your grandparents burned wood like it was going out of style, arguably increasing my need for air conditioning.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Well, Seattle now has its second Thomas Crapper
.....this is a rehashed story from 4 years ago. This is OLD news. "Crappy" news story all around.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
Aha. It was "...created by he...." Obviously grammar was the first thing flushed down the toilet.
I guess Slashdot editors don't read Slashdot... this was posted here over a year ago already http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/07/13/1527242/Bill-Gates-Looks-to-Reinvent-the-Toilet
Bow before me, for I am root.