#Where the bio-rubber meets the road My posts about biotechnology as it relates to agriculture tend to draw impassioned naysayers,
but surely here's a biotech application with which they can relate: a renewable fermentation process that seeks to act as a partial replacement for the an oil-based processes that goes into making synthetic rubber.
Biotech company Genencor, which is a division of Danisco, is more than one year into testing the commercial applications for
what it calls Bioisoprene, a technology that replaces the oil-based feedstock for part of the synthetic rubber-making process with renewable biomass.
The Bioisoprene technology is being designed as a renewable alternative for isoprene, which is used for everything from tires to hot-melt adhesives.
Genencor pegs the market for isoprene at 11 billion pounds by the year 2012. In one specific project
Genencor has teamed up with Goodyear to create concept tires using Bioisoprene. From a chemical standpoint, we are making the same chemical,
says Rich Laduca, senior director of business development for Genecor. The only difference is that we are using biology to make it,
and we are using renewable raw materials. We are not using old carbon. It will take some time for these tires to actually hit the commercial market.
Genencor and Goodyear are in the process of building a small-scale facility to really validate the process and ensure that Bioisoprene doesn't in some way change the performance of Goodyear tires.
Yes what they are doing could be good for the environment, but both companies are interested also in creating a cost-competitive product that is a better economic alternative than the petroleum-based isoprene,
which can be volatile in price and availability, according to Laduca. What we're trying to do is just make it commercially feasible to produce isoprene through fermentation,
says Jesse Roeck, director of global materials science at Goodyear. Roeck says the idea for this process was born about four years ago.
For an idea of the impact, consider that approximately 50 percent of consumer tires are made from polymers
including natural and synthetic materials. The Bioisoprene would play a role in a portion of that material,
and we aren't likely to see anything available commercially for at least two more years.
even if corporate sustainability wasn't as big as it is becoming? My sense is that the answer is yes,
as the company looks toward guaranteeing a cost-effective supply of the raw materials for its tires for many years to come e
and now there's a website to find nearby 3d printers for quick turnaround on printing jobs. makexyz. com is a simple website that allows anyone with a 3d printer to rent out their services to anyone with printing needs.
The site shows all the 3d printing options nearby with the cheapest showing up first with all the details of the printer.
Need to print with full color sandstone? This is your place. The closest printer to me, for example, is a Prusa Mendel I2 that uses#ABS Plastic in numerous colors.
The price: 50 cents per cubic centimeter. If this worked for my design, I would upload the design to the website where it gives me a price that
I pay right there (no money is exchanged between printer owner and designer). Then, once the printing is complete
I can pick it up or have shipped it to me. Zak Stone reports for Fast Company that people with 3d printers have been eager to sign up:
Already, more than 500 printers around the United states have signed up--with everything from homemade printers, to Makerbots, to $30, 000 professional machines.
It's a fantastic resource. Stone calls it a Kinko's for 3d printing. And he could be on to something.
Could Fedex Kinko's (or other printing service chains) become the Kinko's of 3d printing?
With widespread stores already in place, a forward-thinking chain could make 3d printers available and more accessible.
It probably wouldn't make sense to put them in every store, but 3d printers in big cities and college towns, at least to start, could really help evolve their printing chain's brand.
But maybe makexyz, and other services, have beaten chains to the 3d printing demand, at least in these early stages of the technology.
#Which city is getting Google's ultrafast Internet? Congratulations denizens of Austin, Texas, Google Fiber--the company's blazing fast gigabit broadband service--is coming to your city.
After some speculation, Google officially announced today that Austin would indeed become the second metropolitan area to get the service after the company first built up the infrastructure in Kansas city and surrounding communities,
where homes are already enjoying Internet speeds that are 100 times faster than the average broadband service.
Google will offer the same service to Austin as it does for Kansas city residents. They have the option for gigabit Internet
or a combination package that includes Google Fiber TV. Slower Internet service is also available with no monthly fees
only a onetime installation charge. Google plans to begin installing the service in Austin homes next year.
Public institutions will also get connected to the super-fast Internet free of charge. And while it is developed only fully in one city
and planned for another, the Wall street journal says cable companies have reason to be worried. By offering Google Fiber,
which costs $120 a month for high-speed Internet and TV and $70 a month for just Internet, the company may show cable operators it can work around them, if needed.
It could also get Google greater say in future industry regulation including issues of net neutrality,
or the idea Internet providers should treat all data equally. Also among Google Fiber's offerings is slower Internet access that is free after a $300 fee.
With an aspirational service, Google could be trying to demonstrate how the Internet would look in an ideal, consumer-focused, world.
At least one other company is up for Google's challenge. Not long after the Google announcement, AT&T also announced an investment in a gigabit network in Austin.
Why are drawn these companies to Austin? It s a mecca for creativity and entrepreneurialism, with thriving artistic and tech communities,
as well as the University of Texas and its new medical research hospital, Google said in a statement.
We re sure these folks will do amazing things with gigabit access. Google Prepares for Fiber Warfare Wall street journal Photo:
Flickr/atmtx Related on Smartplanet: Silicon Prairie: Google broadband spurs Kansas city startup village Silicon Prairie now prime startup territory Can Kansas city transform into#Silicon Prairie?
Google Fiber: the big gigabit reveal and what it means New theory on Google s fiber experiment-a utility revolutio t
#White house launches nationwide broadband testbed The White house made two big announcements yesterday in an effort to boost broadband development in the United states. The first was an executive order by President Barak Obama calling
on federal agencies to simplify the process for allowing private companies to lay new network infrastructure.
With a dig once approach, the executive order also aims to help carriers conduct broadband deployments in conjunction with other road construction projects.
This strategy will purportedly reduce deployment costs by up to 90 percent. The second White house announcement was the launch of U s. Ignite.
U s. Ignite is a new nonprofit public/private partnership convened to help bring together network providers
software developers, and Internet users to create next-generation broadband applications. The partnership includes 25 cities around the country,
as well as research universities, and major companies such as Verizon, Comcast, Juniper Networks, and Cisco. While the executive order is fairly simple to parse,
the launch of U s. Ignite is more difficult to conceptualize and assess, and that's because it's got a lot of moving parts.
For example, while the goal of the venture is to develop a national testbed of high-speed communities,
U s. Ignite won't be initiating new community-based deployments, but instead plans to link communities with high-speed deployments already underway.
Not surprisingly, among the regions hoping to pilot U s. Ignite efforts are some of our favorite gigabit sites,
including Chattanooga, Tennessee. Sue Spradley, the executive director of U s. Ignite confirmed in a conference call yesterday that the organization is working closely with the new Gigabit Neighborhood Gateway Program to engage additional high-speed communities.
The U s. Ignite partnership is focused also heavily on what people can actually do with next-generation broadband,
and not just on the networks themselves. Specifically, U s. Ignite is targeting new applications in education
healthcare, clean energy, public safety, and workforce development, including advanced manufacturing. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is investing a new round of $20 million toward this effort,
and is using the money in part to fund grants, and to encourage proposals for demonstrations of advanced, high-bandwidth applications.
With all the resources marshaled behind U s. Ignite, it's hard not to get excited about the initiative,
even if there are still a number of unknowns. However, long-time broadband reporter and analyst Om Malik says he's feeling a little blase about the news. He notes out that many of the best inventions (Youtube
Facebook, Twitter) come from turning resources over to everyday users, rather than directing them toward big, possibly unwieldy partnerships.
Om has a point, but it's encouraging to hear from the NSF's Dr. Farnam Jahanian about what high-speed communities that will participate in U s. Ignite are already doing in the way of creating new and valuable applications.
In the conference call yesterday, Dr. Janhanian cited the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's work connecting radars to high-speed networks to improve weather prediction,
and Case Western Reserve's work applying high-definition multipoint video conferencing to telemedicine. Sue Spradley also pointed out that U s. Ignite is seeking not only to incubate new applications
#White house unveils smart grid strategy, $250 million in loans WASHINGTON, D c.--If Thomas Edison could drop into 2011
he would likely be dazzled by the smartphone, high definition video, and digital storage for music and movies--all#decedents#of technologies that he pioneered
and would likely be puzzled at how little his creation had changed would be our electrical grid. That's the narrative that White house officials used to help sell the idea of revolutionizing the U s.#electrical grid at an event for the press
energy industry leaders, and technology industry executives on Monday in Washington. Led by the Secretary of energy Steven Chu and federal CTO Aneesh Chopra,
the White house unveiled its strategy --and $250 million in loans--for building a 21st century'smart grid'as a catalyst to make power less expensive,
minimize outages, unlock next generation power sources, and empower citizens to monitor and manage their own usage.
If these plans become a reality, it will open up new jobs and business opportunities for a wave of technologists and engineers.
As part of the event, the National Science and Technology Council released a new report called A Policy Framework for the 21st Century Grid:
Enabling Our Secure Energy Future. This report, along with the rest of the White house's smart grid materials and its presentation on Monday, are packed with details on the current challenges
and obstacles and the ways the U s. can overcome them. But a lot of the information is locked away in bureaucratic and legal language.#
#So here is my list of bullet points on what the Obama administration is trying to accomplish:
A better grid: Upgrade the U s. electrical infrastructure to drastically improve storage and transmission. Creating standards will be a critical part of the plan.
Use information technology to infuse intelligence and visibility into the power grid. This will enable utilities to better monitor
Enable consumers to have easy access to their own energy usage and better ways to control and self-regulate it
in order to save money and energy. Smart meters are key. New energy: Prepare the'smart grid'to better handle new forms of power--wind, solar, geothermal, etc.
--that are going to be an increasingly larger proportion of the pie. Two big obstacles that the U s. has to overcome:
Innovator's dilemma: Since the U s. is where the modern#electrical grid was born, this country has an old,
well-established infrastructure with a large installed base. Changing the stuff that is already in use and is critical to daily life is painful and expensive.
Too many cooks in the kitchen: Lots of different states, municipalities, and companies have control and regulation over the way the electrical grid works across the U s,
. and so there are a lot of different stakeholders who have a say in how things are done. As a result, any sweeping national changes are almost impossible to push.
It takes a lot of buy in and consensus-building. The second issue deserves a little extra attention.#
when he first came into office the smart grid issue was wanted something he to move quickly on.
and federal agreement on energy and grid standards so that utilities don't have to guess when they are dealing with different jurisdictions to upgrade the grid.
This was confirmed by Bob Shapard, CEO of the Texas utility#Oncor, who said that energy companies were ready to invest in upgrading the infrastructure.
This doesn't take government money, he said. If we have the clarity, the utilities can raise all the capital.
So that leaves the Obama administration to herd the cats. It has to get government agencies on the same page
convince private and public entities to agree on technological standards, get local and state governments to cede some of their jurisdiction to help create a national network,
and convince citizens of the benefits of self-managing their own energy use. It's no wonder that small countries like Ireland
and totalitarian governments like China are moving a lot faster that the U s. in modernizing their energy infrastructure.
America cannot build a 21st century economy with a 20th century electricity system. By working with states, industry leaders,
national electricity system that will create jobs, reduce energy use, and expand renewable energy production. For more details on the U s. smart grid plans, read:
Administration Announces Grid Modernization Initiatives to Foster a Clean energy Economy and Spur Innovation Fact sheet:
The President's Plan for a 21st Century Electric grid A Policy Framework for the 21st Century Grid:
Enabling Our Secure Energy Future Author's note: Enthusiasm may be the best thing the U s. has going for it in facing the two major obstacles to the smart grid.
The participants in the event--from officials in various agencies to business leaders in energy and technology to a couple high school students who've pioneered smart meters in their school--all spoke with the enthusiasm you don't typically see at government events.
They all seemed to have a sense that a big opportunity is standing right in front of us.
And, a lot of people want to get in on this opportunity. One indicator of that was the huge line to get into the event itself (see photo below.
Keep in mind that this wasn't a public event. Twenty minutes before the event was supposed to start,
there was a line of over 100 people waiting to get through security at the White house's Eisenhower Building.
Based on line chatter, these were mostly government officials and leaders from the energy industry. Once I got in,
--which seats about 150--it was already over half full. The event was standing room only and
#Who should pay for e waste disposal? HONG KONG Hong kong will soon have designated a facility for dismantling and recycling electronic products such as televisions, refrigerators and computers.
A tax will be added to the price tags of electronic products to help pay for e waste disposal. Based on a similar tax in other cities, the cost of home appliances is expected to go up by $12 to $30.
The question now is whether consumers should pay for all of the recycling costs. Some argue that retailers
and manufacturers should pay for part of it to hold accountable all involved parties. The current proposal places the recycling fee at the retail level
and it is likely that retailers will simply charge the extra cost to consumers. This type of legislation is not really the spirit of producer responsibility#as intended by the legislation,
said Edwin Lau, general affairs director of Friends of the earth in Hong kong. Lau said in over 30 jurisdictions around the world,
the e waste fee is charged to the importer, as electronic products are manufactured frequently overseas. Of course producers have the responsibility to contribute a small part of their earning to the annual operation cost of the e waste recycling plant that will have our e waste properly dismantled
and recycled and reused,##Lau said. In California, there is a $10 fee added to the price of electronic products with viewable screens,
but retailers may choose to pay the fee on behalf of the consumer to make its prices more competitive.
Several other U s. states charge e waste recycling fees to manufacturers. Right now, about 80%of Hong kong s e waste is exported to other cities and countries.
Many of these areas are poor and use polluting processes that are harmful to the workers health.
It s not environmentally responsible,#Lau said, and it s not ethical.##Photo: Vanessa K V
#Who will control the Internet?(Who will pay for it? And you thought SOPA and PIPA were bad.
Representatives of more than 190 governments, telecommunications companies and Internet groups will gather in Dubai next week for the 12-day World Conference on International Telecommunications,
or WCIT-12 for short. At stake: the future of the largely free and open Internet we enjoy today.
The last time this group assembled was 1988, when the consumer Internet was nascent at best. Today, the Internet is the backbone for economies, connected technologies of all kinds and free speech.
The many stakeholders that will be in attendance are scheduled to discuss the future of Internet services, specifically around how they are paid for.
Who will pay to maintain the Internet as traffic continues to surge? What about razor-thin margins in Europe?
And what of network neutrality, when many U s. companies enjoy monopolies in their markets?)But the elephant in the room is the potential for one major player--Russia,
some suggest--to insist on changing the fundamental oversight of the Internet, thus possibly threatening its unfettered, decentralized, apolitical growth with censorship and regulation.
Obviously, that's a big problem for a future that involves an Internet of things, in which devices of all kinds are connected smart
and. That's also a problem for the 4. 5 billion people who do not yet have access to it.
Member states,#Russia proposed, shall have equal rights to manage the Internet, including in regard to the allotment, assignment and reclamation of Internet numbering, naming, addressing and identification resources.#
#It's no different than China or Iran, both of whom limit Internet access in their countries.
Fundamentally, the Internet is the world's first global infrastructure problem, no different than a city's public transit system or a nation's network of highways:
--and legislate that payment--a common good when there's no global system of governance? A fascinating and complex challenge for which I'm not sure we yet have an answer.
The global Internet, 2012. Telegeography r
#Who will fill the Google Reader vacuum? Google Reader retires next week, and the Great RSS Gold rush of 2013 is reaching fever pitch.
Bloomberg Businessweek reports. An RSS reader pulls in feeds of articles from various websites. Created six years ago,
Google Reader had taken over the market. When the company announced the decision to power down Reader,
they gave two reasons: usage has declined, and they want to pour all their energy into fewer products.
For Google, RSS was small beans. Reader had several million followers, but the company is focused on obvious markets that serve hundreds of millions of people,#according to Reader creator Chris Wetherell.
This is a perfect way to avoid the risk of creating entirely new markets which often go through a painful not yet-serving-hundreds-of-millions period and
which require a dream, some dreamers, and not-at all-measurable luck.##Some might interpret the fact that one of the Internet s largest,
richest companies abandoned this idea as a red flag. Not Feedly, Digg, AOL, Newsblur, and others,
which are quickly developing their own readers to fill the Google Reader vacuum. It s not that they believe everyone wants to immerse themselves in an endless sea of headlines.
Instead, they re betting that the technology will open up larger news-reading markets. Feedly is positioning itself as the technology on top of
and distilling down any pile of Internet content, big or small, into the things that are most interesting or important to you.#
Social sites like Linkedin and Facebook are building news products. And for an increasingly large portion of internet users, Twitter is personalized a news wire.
With Google out of the way, RSS might finally develop to its full potential. Via Businessweek Image:
Matt Galligan via Wikimedi i
#Who wins in the battle of genome sequencers? Desktop sequencers promise to democratize genomics, but it s difficult for researchers who aren t experts in sequencing technology to sort through the overheated marketing claims made in this fiercely competitive industry.
Nature News reports. Three benchtop sequencing instruments are currently available. The 454 GS Junior (Roche), Miseq (Illumina),
and Ion Torrent PGM (Life Technologies) are sized laser-printer and offer modest setup and running costs.
As next-generation genome sequencing heads into the clinic and public health, it ll be targeted at people who don t necessarily fully understand these issues.
people looking for comparisons have had to depend on blog posts, which can be useful but hard to find,
The Personal Genome Machine vs Miseq videos played off the Mac vs PC ads. People are crying out for independent analysis,
#says study researcher Nicholas Loman at the University of Birmingham, UK. A team including Loman, Mark Pallen from University of Birmingham,
and John Wain from University of East Anglia decided to compare the 3 by using them to sequence the bacterium E coli,
which caused an outbreak of food poisoning in Germany last year. And the winner? Well, each platform has strengths
and weaknesses and when it comes to genome sequencing, there s no one-size-fits-all solution,
the study finds. The Miseq had the highest throughput per run and lowest error rates.
And unlike the Miseq, both the PGM and 454 have problems with accuracy concerning homopolymers,
Basically, that inhibits the ability to do good public health analyses of bacterial genomes. The work was published in Nature Biotechnology this week.
And just last week Technology Review reported that Roche backed off its hostile takeover bid for Illumina,
after shareholders rebuffed Roche s all-cash offers (which have grown to $6. 8 billion). In 2007, Roche purchased next-generation sequencing company 454 Life sciences.
genome by Davefayram via Flickr, sequencers from Nature New e
#Why (and how) retailers should embrace'showrooming'More evidence emerged this week suggesting the power of smartphones to reshape how retailers stock,
merchandise and track purchasing habits in store. New research from Deloitte suggests that more than 5 percent of store sales during 2012 will be influenced by smartphones.
For the purposes of the survey, Deloitte defined influence to include activities such as product research conducted by shoppers with their mobile device,
price comparisons and other mobile application usage. By 2016, that influence will grow to 19 percent of sales,
or $689 billion, the Deloitte research suggests. This phenomenon is rather disconcerting for the retail industry
and some retailers have banned actually Wi-fi in their stores in an effort to prevent the activity
and our research indicates that smartphone shoppers are 14 percent more likely to convert and make a purchase in the store than non-smartphone users.
This means that mobile is an important tool for retailers to incrementally drive traditional in store sales,
strengthening the relationship between retailer and consumer to increase engagement and loyalty. Smartphone Users Are More Frequent Shoppers Deloitte's research suggests that smartphone users aren't only becoming more common,
they are more likely to make a purchase than those who aren't using them.
48 percent of smartphone users said what they saw on a mobile application affected an in store purchase decision.
The other thing to consider is that smartphones aren't just influential in store. More than half of the smartphone users surveyed by Deloitte said they started doing research on the way to the store.
I'm hoping they weren't driving while they were doing that, but that's a whole other story.)
Here's some more perspective from Deloitte consultant Kasey Lobaugh: Retailers that do not engage shoppers through specialized mobile applications
or targeted smartphone-based promotions leave the door open for competitors to reach a customer who is standing in the retailer's store and at the point of purchase.
To make the connection with consumers, retailers need to understand how mobile shoppers are willing to interact with their specific store category, format and merchandise, both inside and outside the store,
No Shortage of Emerging Technologies Last week, Motorola announced a major mobile technology push intended to help retailers become more savvy about showrooming
Microsoft is also hoping to benefit from the phenomenon. Its Microsoft Tag mobile scanning technology supports both 2d barcode formats (including QR Codes and the Tag format) as well as Near Field Communications.
This month, Procter & gamble are running a month-long test in the Chicago and New york areas of pop-up stores,
Mirror image Internet is using geolocation to help retailers get smarter with mobile advertising, allowing them to serve up coupons for items that customers might be near in an aisle,
if someone decides to price shop with their smartphone while shopping in a store. The company allows retailers to attach technical support and service offerings, like installation,
to commodity items such as consumer electronics technologies, said Jordan Socran, vice president of business development. There are even technologies emerging to help small local businesses.
One example is Goodzer, a local shopping search engine that covers inventory from more than 500,000 stores in the United states s
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