they aren't just for big houses and cars anymore. Increasingly, Sarah Goodyear reports for The Atlantic cities, suburbs throughout the United states are investing in bicycle infrastructure.
#Why wireless charging is bigger than you think The idea of powering up mobile gadgets with no cords is tantalizing,
The idea of wireless charging is tantalizing--a vision of electronic devices that stay powered up without wall sockets,
and gadget bags minus the eternal spill of bulky cords and cables. The reality, however, is that wireless charging options today are still relatively expensive
and support few of the real-world devices that consumers actually own. Still, prices are falling,
and research and development efforts are gaining momentum. Market research firm IHS predicts that almost 100 million devices that support wireless charging could be on the market by 2015
compared with the 5 million sold in 2012. Some mobile phone manufacturers are even distinguishing certain high-end models with wireless charging options.
A few examples include the Lumia smartphone from Nokia, the Nexus 4 from LG Electronics, and the Droid DNA from Verizon Wireless and HTC.
And in the future, wireless charging technology won't be limited just to powering more mobile devices. It could have applications for large-scale appliances
and could be embedded in surfaces ranging from car dashboards to household floors to kitchen countertops.
The Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) is the largest technology alliance in the wireless charging industry dedicated to advancing that vision
although there are several other efforts brewing. Established in late 2008 WPC has nearly 150 member companies including major mobile phone manufacturers and semiconductor companies.
The consortium introduced the Qi inductive power standard in late 2010, and it is working to drive adoption-along with a healthy market for wireless power.
The more companies that adopt Qi and produce interoperable products, the more opportunity there will be to develop the technology further,
and extend it to new applications. How far do we have to go? Since Qi was introduced,
more than 30 companies have shipped mobile phones using its embedded wireless charging capabilities. Those phones are designed to power up on compatible charging mats and cradles, alarm clocks and music players,
and the inside surfaces of some new car models. Toyota announced in December that the 2013 Toyota Avalon Limited will be the first car to offer wireless charging with a Qi-powered console included under the dashboard.
Bas Fransen, chief marketing officer and head of business development for Convenientpower, a wireless power technology company,
and active member of WPC, says the Qi standard currently supports devices needing five watts of power or less.
But an upcoming revision in the second quarter of 2013 will see Qi extended to support wireless charging up to a level of 15 watts, enough power to charge consumer tablets.
The ability to charge laptop computers wirelessly isn't yet supported, but plans are on the near-term roadmap.
wireless charging will become an evermore common device feature for mobile gadgets, like Bluetooth, or embedded cameras.
Charge your refrigerator wirelessly? As the commercialization of early applications for mobile gadgets accelerates, some engineers are focused on the longer-term potential for wireless power.
Inductive charging, which is used the technology in the Qi standard, works with any material except for metal,
meaning almost any surface at home or in a business space could be designed to deliver power.
A marble countertop, for example, could be rigged to charge a wireless coffeemaker and a blender along with a variety of phones, tablets and computers as needed.
Induction-based cooking means the countertop could also act as a stove with no separate appliance required.
As wireless charging develops, the technology might even help reduce production costs for large appliances like kitchen refrigerators,
Fransen says. That's because if power can be delivered wirelessly, then there's no need for a typical power converter,
which adds to the price of manufacturing. From a competitive standpoint, WPC is up against two other notable organizations:
along with Samsung, Qualcomm and more; and the Power Matters Alliance, which is supported by Powermat as well,
but also Google, AT&T and others. It's still early to consider this a platform war,
but the industry may get to that point before long, particularly as the financial stakes increase and people get more excited about charging without plugging In for now,
and its open platform theoretically offers the easiest path for companies planning new product development that supports wireless charging options.
and the promise of wireless charging for the future e
#Why young Americans still aren't driving Since 2005, driving in the United states has been steadily declining.
But the U s. economy is growing again, so are people driving more? Doug Short takes a look at the latest data (PDF), on vehicle miles traveled, from the U s. Department of transportation.
Clearly, driving continues to trend downward--travel on all roads and streets was-1. 4 percent in February 2013 compared to one year earlier.
Meanwhile, in 2012, U s. GDP increased 2. 2 percent and is estimated to grow 1. 9 percent in 2013.
And that's on top of the troubling trend for the automobile industry that driving dropped for people between 16 and 34 years old by 23 percent.
car ownership costs rising (high gas prices, insurance, etc.;states making it difficult to get a driver's license;
and technology lessening the need for a car. So is this a trend we can expect to continue?
and gas prices stay highthis is where discussions of eak oilbecome relevant and on how quickly the U s. economy rebounds.
#Wi-fi network breaks speed record A new Wi-fi network is making even the fastest commercial Wi-fi networks seem sluggish by comparison.
that's like downloading an HD movie in less than one second or 2400 times faster than a DSL internet connection.
In the future, such radio links will be able to close gaps in providing broadband internet by supplementing the network in rural areas and places
especially in rural areas where expanding fiber to homes doesn't make sense from a cost perspective.
Get more details on this incredible Wi-fi network. Via Discovery y
#Wikileaks: U s. fears unsafe nuclear reactors in China Diplomatic cables from Beijing say old designs lack passive cooling and pose a big risk.
But some experts say China will show the way in modern, safe nuclear. China is astly increasingits risk of a nuclear accident by choosing older nuclear technology that lacks advanced cooling systems,
Cables sent three years ago from the U s. embassy in Beijing express concern that China aggressive nuclear power expansion leans heavily on the country own PR-1000design
when the tsunami knocked out backup diesel generators and reactors overheated.""As the CPR-1000 increases market share, China is assuring that rather than building a fleet of state-of-the-art reactors,
they will be burdened with technology that by the end of its lifetime will be 100 years old,
"says one cable dated 7 august 2008. hina is vastly increasing the aggregate risk of its nuclear power fleet.
and that 20 of 22 nuclear plants under construction in 2009 used the design. Contrary to the tone of the cables
some nuclear experts believe that China will play a leading role in the future of nuclear power by develoiping
and deploying modern technologies as it constructs as many as 100 nuclear reactors over the next 20 years nearly a quarter of the total of all reactors in the world today.
It is currently building four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, which deploy passive cooling (the Pstands for dvanced passive.
including molten salt reactors, thorium, fast neutron reactors, pebble bed reactors and fusion. Some of these could be potentially safer and more effective than conventional designs e
which is selling technology that its founder first put to the test in Turkish greenhouses,
is piloting an environmental monitoring system that helps agribusiness concerns be smarter about how much water they use.
Growflex is a machine-to-machine network solution that includes battery -or solar-powered sensors that are distributed in a greenhouse or field.
These sensors connect to backend servers that process the data collected, and the information is displayed as requested by the customer.
So, for example, a farmer could monitor conditions for his or her field using a mobile phone,
personal digital assistant or PC. Information that is collected includes temperature, humidity, and soil nutrients. The solution was developed by Bulut Ersavas,
a former electronics engineer with IBM and Sun who got the idea for a water-monitoring system
while he was earning his MBA. Val Babajov, president of Climateminder, says his company's goal is to help agricultural concerns produce the same yield with less water.
The alternatives to Growflex are pretty manual today and usually require someone to monitor the soil on an ad hoc basis. Growflex can help farmers watering patterns based on other ambient factors,
such as the nature of the soil, the nature of the crop involved or weather. The system is currently being tested at Norcal Harvesting,
which manages 80 acres of strawberry fields in southern California. But it also has been used commercially
since about 2005 in hundred of installations in Turkey focused on growing greenhouse tomatoes. Those systems were sold by Climateminder's predecessor corporation,
which was called Kodalfa. That company returned to the United states earlier this year as part of an investment round from Partners 1993,
changed its name to Climateminder and established a headquarters operations in Los angeles. Lew Roth, vice president of business development for Climateminder, said the company will target its technology at farms in prime California agribusiness districts such as Oxnard, Salinas and Watsonville.
Farms can get the solution up and running pretty quickly, since it is offered as a service
and is priced on a monthly subscription basis. For example, an open field of 20 to 40 acres might use five nodes,
The new plastic is made from mushrooms Poking around in my mom s attic recently, I was reminded that I still have the shipping box from my Macintosh SE,
But the equally colossal pieces of Styrofoam that protected the computer in shipping more than two decades ago are gone long,
a patent-pending technology that uses a growing organism and byproducts from food production (oat hulls from New york, cotton hulls from Texas and rice hulls from Arkansas) to create a strong composite material.
but in the future you may see it on your TV or in your car. I called Bayer Monday at his office in Green Island, NY.
You say Styrofoam is one of the biggest culprits in our landfills, taking up 25 percent of the space.
We talk about Styrofoam because of how it s used, and that s in a highly disposable way.
You have this polymer that s made from carcinogenic compounds like benzene and it will last up to 10,000 years.
Your approach is to create materials that fit into nature s recycling system. We have a plastic that s alive a living polymer.
Our vision is to replace plastics where ever they don t make sense which could even be your computer or TV.
Steelcase one of the largest office furniture makers in the world--they ve been really happy with Ecocradle,
so we re deploying it across more of their packing lines. We re launching Ecocradle in the computer market.
There s one big client that will be using it (we will be releasing the name in a couple weeks.
You can think of it as being biocompatible with our planet. But if this material gets put in your garden or on the side of the road,
it starts breaking down like a seed husk within three months to a year. It s getting broken into biocompatible stuff.
It ll help improve the soil in your area. Packaging doesn't need to be a waste material.
You say mushrooms are nature s recycling system. Explain that. In general most of the things in plants that are hard to recycle,
In forests there s a lot of fungi that are breaking down the compounds. So the mycelium from mushrooms you use that as a glue to hold together these agricultural byproducts?
Mycelium is comprised of tiny hollow fibers, and the fibers are made up mostly of chitin which is what s in lobster shells.
It grows on its own so energy costs are one 10th of the costs to create foam.
What are the challenges of working with this material? It's like a conventional plastic,
but it s alive. It has a five-day growth period. So we had to build our own infrastructure for it to grow,
With protective packaging, anything that weighs more 10 pounds. Anyone that uses plastic foam, we d like to replace it.
but we re also recognized for our price point. The key is the mycelium the whole organism
so it requires much more energy and creates more waste. We re using waste materials and using the entire organism.
Chief scientist and cofounder Gavin Mcintyre just won a half a million dollar proposal to adopt this same platform for automobile interior trim parts and cushions.
It s a New york state Energy Research and development Authority-funded program. We re also doing building materials as well--replacing foam insulation.
It would mostly be commercial. The question is what s the best way to do it.
There s a lot of places where we can just replace Styrofoam. That s our first-generation technology.
We see using it for all sorts of plastic material like the hard plastic around your TV.
You really have to put them in your garden, in the environment for them to start biodegrading.
Do you eat mushrooms? I do. And Gavin does not t
#Google maps goes underground"in Japan's radioactive zone"This is not a place you'd want to hang around for too long Google is producing underground street maps of Japan's nuclear exclusion zone.
The radiation levels near the Fukushima site are spiking to record levels, but that hasn't stopped Google's Streetview from entering one area of the forbidden'zone.
The images are from 17 cities within Japan's Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, which were damaged heavily by the 2011 tsunami,
Memeburn reported yesterday. That includes the#town of#Namie-machi, which is deemed now a radiation hazard.
Google has catalogued also the interiors of over 70 flood-damaged buildings in the region. The panoramic images are an update to ones taken shortly after the disaster.
Google says that it has a higher social purpose. Our digital archiving project aims not only to make a record of the disaster's wreckage,
but also to illustrate the process of Japan's recovery. Towards that goal, we've driven our Street view cars throughout the Tohoku region again over the past months.
Today we are updating the Street view imagery for 17 cities within the Iwate and Miyagi Prefectures for the first time since we#published the first panoramas back in 2011, Google's group product manager,
Kei Kawai, wrote on the team's#blog. By releasing this new imagery on Google maps
we hope people in Japan and from all around the world can virtually explore what these towns currently look like
and better understand how local governments are working on rebuilding residents'homes and lives, Kawai continued. Google is not the first nongovernmental entity to enter the exclusion zone.
Organizations including#Animal Friends Niigata and#HEART Tokushima have been working in partnership with#Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support to save over 700 animals the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Another rescue effort is planned for next week. Volunteers brave arrest and elevated levels of radiation around Fukushima
and dodge security to enter no-go exclusion zones. Several media outlets, including TIME have documented also cities within the exclusion zone.
image credit: Google maps, David Worthington) Related on Smartplanet: What the NRC really knew about Fukushima Fukushima ocean radiation could pose sleeper threat Nuclear meltdowns nearly made northern Japan uninhabitable do need we to worry about radiation in our milk?
Elevated radiation levels widespread in eastern Japan Test show Japanese child exposed to radiation Rice crops threatened by radiation Radioactive tuna found in Pacific ocean Hydrofracking drives new water treatment solutions
Algae technology cleans up fracking Flushing toilets could heat future buildings The lost pets of Fukushima Radiation loving algae comes to Japan s rescu
#Google unveils deforestation monitor to combat climate change The philanthropic arm of Google, Google. org, introduced on Thursday a deforestation monitor that could be a useful tool to combat climate change.
Using a new platform, its"high-performance satellite imagery-processing engine, "the company can crunch the massive amounts of data stored on Google's servers to instantly produce,
using satellite images, detailed maps showing changes in forests over time. The platform, unveiled at the International Climate change Conference in Copenhagen, could be used as a tool for nations to comply with the United nations-proposed REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest degradation in Developing Countries) program
which would require members to monitor the state of their forests and land use. Based largely on data from the UK's Stern Review on the Economics of Climate change report,
the REDD program plans to offer money in exchange for the prevention of the destruction of forests deemed significant to curbing global climate change.
The concept: make the trees worth more as they are than cut down. According to the Stern report, keeping forests intact is one of the most cost-effective ways to cut carbon emissions."
"We hope this technology will help stop the destruction of the world's rapidly-disappearing forests,
"Google. org wrote in a blog post.""Emissions from tropical deforestation are comparable to the emissions of all of the European union,
and are greater than those of all cars, trucks, planes, ships, and trains worldwide.""The program is in testing right now,
but Google. org plans to make it available within the year, perhaps as a"not-for-profit service"for only scientists, governments,
or environmental monitoring agencies s
#Huge spike in bus riders because of Wi-fi? Everyone is taking the curbside bus . Or at least 30%more of us are.
As you can see from the results of this recent study out of Depaul University:
1. The intercity bus was the sole major long-distance passenger transportation mode that grew appreciably in 2011.
Daily bus operations expanded by 7. 1, %a marked increase in the annual growth from previous years. 2. urbside operators, led by Boltbus
and Megabus, grew at a particularly rapid rate, expanding the number of departures from 589 to 778,
a 32.1%increase. 3. Passenger traffic on curbside operators grew by approximately 30%.%In absolute terms, we believe this represents the largest expansion of passenger traffic on curbside operators
since the sector emerged as a significant transportation mode in 2006.4. Evidence suggests that the two largest Megabus. com hubs,
Chicago and New york, are now profitable, indicating that the core business model is financially sustainable. This is a significant rise.
Why? Some say that it new Wi-fi enabled busses that is luring people to leave cars behind
so that they can surf the Web while traveling. Others say it just that with cheaper busses
and more intercity routes people are taking more trips, period. The interesting thing we need to note as Felix Salmon in Reuters notes here,
is that the rock-bottom priced Chinatown express busses were never part of the Depaul study. What has contributed possibly to the spike in bus riders are new brands that have popped up that mimic the cheap and easy Chinatown busses.
Offering rates like New york to DC for $20 makes such busses highly attractive. So Megabus
Bolt Bus and Limoliner have jumped into the market offering cheap routes, Wi-fi, higher safety standards,
and an added bonus of fewer live chickens. Apparently they have succeeded in taking market share from the Chinatown busses.
So an interesting theory behind the rise is that there is no rise at all. Just a movement in the service, that went unrecognized by the study.
It might, as it seems, have nothing to do with Wi-fi at all. From the article: In other words, the Depaul data is consistent with total bus ridership actually staying constant, with the recognized curbside buses simply taking ridership share from unrecognized Chinatown operators.
In reality, I suspect that bus ridership is growing. Just not nearly as fast as the Depaul paper would have you believe.
Even this article in Bloomberg that angled the Wi-fi theory ended the article with this quote from the director of Megabus:
More traffic in existing hubs in New york, Chicago and Philadelphia is also bolstering growth, said Bryony Chamberlain,
director of Megabus USA. ee come in with a product which is new and brings the long-distance, intercity buses to a new market,
Chamberlain said in a telephone interview. t much nicer to be sitting there being driven somewhere than sitting in traffic.
As Salmon notes in his piece the travel industry has to improve current Wi-fi access in hotels, planes,
airportshat is, if they want to attract consumers. And this is only going to become a more pressing problem for the industry
fast. Since tablet adoption is about to experience exponential accelerated growth, with tablets eclipsing lap top sales by 2015.
And tablets function with Wi-fi. From Salmon post: So far, no one really cracked the problem of the mobile web wee still in a world where connecting to the internet
when on the move is far too difficult, and needs to be configured (and often paid for) on a device-by-device basis
. Which means that for the time being it a bit of a stretch to say...that the mobile web is actually changing the way we travel from city to city. via Reuters t
#Leaked EU documents rank biofuel emissions higher than crude oil European union politics website Euractive has gotten its hands on official EU data reporting that many biofuel crops release more carbon dioxide than crude oil,
and approximate the emissions of the much-maligned oil mined from tar sands. The numbers were intended for release in the spring when the EU presents new proposals on biofuels,
and an official spokesperson refused to comment to Euractive. The European commission has defended long biofuels, despite dissent from Greenpeace and other environmental organizations.
Its current biofuel roadmap demands that at least 5. 75%of all energy sold on the market of any member country be biofuel
boosted to 10%by 2020. However, also in the biofuel directive is that biofuel production should be sustainable,
and the new numbers suggest that it is not. The leaked data present higher carbon costs for biofuels because, for the first time,
the analysts incorporated the effects of indirect land use change (ILUC). ILUC is the rise in emissions
when forests and wetlands are destroyed to clear land to grow biofuel crops. And with ILUC added to the mix, it looks like some top biofuel crops are worse for the environment, in terms of carbon emissions, than crude oil.
The EU's default value for measuring carbon efficiency for oil from tar sands is 107g CO2 equivalent per megajoule of fuel (CO2/mj.
Meanwhile, crude oil's efficiency value is 87. 5g CO2/mj. Here are the data (g CO2/mj) from the EU documents,
incorporating ILUC, for various biofuel crops, thanks to Euractive: Palm oil-105g Soybean-103g Rapeseed-95g Sunflower-86g Palm oil with methane capture-83g Wheat (process fuel not specified)- 64g Wheat (as process fuel natural gas used in CHP)- 47g
Corn (Maize)- 43g Sugar cane-36g Sugar beet-34g Wheat (straw as process fuel in CHP plants)- 35g 2g Ethanol (land-using)- 32g 2g Biodiesel (land-using)- 21g 2g Ethanol
(non-land using)- 9g 2g Biodiesel (non-land using)- 9g If European politicians recognize these figures
The top biodiesel crops--palm soybean, and rapeseed oil--are all the least energy efficient. However, they are also the cheapest to produce,
which is why they reign at the moment. Photo: Achmad Rabin Taim/Flickr via Nature News s
It uses a CO2 powered piston that launches the 11-pound machine into the air.
as it is equipped with an infrared video camera. This could apply to assisting humans in search and rescue--or for military combat awareness.
According to reports, it is being considered for future use in Afghanistan military operations. The project was funded by DARPA, the Joint Improvised Explosive device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) and the U s army's Rapid Equipping Force.
An earlier version of the Sand flea was developed by Sandia National Labs according to the video below w
and It'll Heal Your Wounds in 15 Seconds Flat Bloomberg News reports on an incredible new invention that astounding people across the world and across the web.
The Youtube description for Bloomberg video states: A small lab in Brooklyn is working on a gel that can stop bleeding in 20 seconds.
made from plant-based polymers, comes into contact with blood. Vetigel cofounder, Joe Landolina, started working on the project
while he was a freshman at New york University. Landolina explains how he came up with the idea:
which was to use a polymer to seal up a wound very quickly. In the beginning I wasn expecting that the polymer itself would be able to quickly stop bleeds.
We realized that if we put it onto a wound something really remarkable would happenwhich is that it would actually change shape,
The video narrator breaks down why Vetigel works so well: Vetigel is so effective because it works in tandem with the body natural healing processes in a way that hasn been tried before.
Landolina goes on to explain how Vetigel is basically like a series of Lego blocks that form in the shape of whatever theye filling.
This is how his invention manages to seal wounds so quickly d
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011