#Solar cells Could Capture Infrared Rays for More Power Nanocrystals and organic materials convert low energy photons into visible light that a solar cell can capture.
Cadmium selenide nanocrystals with one kind of organic coating left produced violet light, while cadmium selenide nanocrystals with another type of organic coating right produced green.
Solar cell efficiencies could increase by 30 percent or more with new hybrid materials that make use of the infrared portion of the solar spectrum,
researchers say. Visible light accounts for under half of the solar energy that reaches Earth's surface. Nearly all of the rest comes from infrared radiation.
However solar infrared rays normally passes right through the photovoltaic materials that make up today's solar cells.
Now scientists at the University of California, Riverside, have created hybrid materials that can make use of solar infrared rays.
The energy from every two infrared rays they capture is combined or pconvertedinto a higher energy photon that is readily absorbed by photovoltaic cells,
generating electricity from light that would normally be wasted. The hybrid materials are combinations of inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals,
which capture the infrared photons, and organic molecules, which help combine the energy from these photons together into an upconverted photon.
In experiments lead selenide nanocrystals captured near-infrared photons, and the organic compound rubrene emitted visible yellow-orange photons.
The researchers noted that lead selenide nanocrystals and rubrene were relatively inefficient at upconversion. However, in experiments with a hybrid material made of cadmium selenide nanocrystals and the organic compound diphenylanthracene,
which absorbs green light and emits violet light, the investigators could boost upconversion up to a thousandfold by coating the nanocrystals with anthracene, a component of coal tar.
This suggests that similar coatings on lead selenide nanocrystals might boost their upconversion efficiency as well.
The scientists added that the ability to upconvert two low energy photons into one high-energy photon has potential applications in biological imaging, high-density data storage,
and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDS) L
#Google s Unified Privacy Policy Draws Threat Of $15m Fine In The netherlands The national data protection authority in The netherlands has warned Google that it could be fined up to $15 million
if it does not make amendments to its privacy policy by the end of February 2015,
to comply with Dutch data protection law. Google January 2012 decision to combine the privacy policies of some 60 different products in order for it to be able to gather more intel on webs users for targeting ads quickly triggered a data protection review in October 2012
led The french data protection watchdog. That action was followed by individual investigations by multiple data protection watchdogs in Europe with six member states,
including The netherlands, launching probes into Google handling of personal data in April last year. The Dutch data protection authority, the CBP, has evidently run out of patience with Google.
In a statement earlier this week, the CBP said it requires Google to gain unambiguous consent from users to combine multiple privacy policies across its products specifying that this consent cannot be gained by a general agreement to a privacy policy
but must be done ia a clear permission screen Google must also clearly explain what personal data is being obtained by which of its services and for what purpose,
and this information must be clearly and consistently conveyed in its privacy policy, it said.
The CBP is concerned also that Youbube be labeled clearly as a Google service albeit the Dutch DPA notes that Google seems to have taken already action on this point.
Commenting in a statement, CBP president Jacob Kohnstamm said: oogle captures us in an invisible web of our personal information without telling us that
and without asking our permission. This has been running since 2012 and we hope that our patience will no longer be put to the test.
The CBP does add that Google has sent a letter to the six data protection authorities which launched reviews namely France, Germany, Italy, Spain,
The netherlands and the U k. noting that the letters include details of a arge number of measuresaimed at addressing European privacy legislation compliance.
However the CBP said it has determined not yet whether Google proposed measures would resolve its privacy violations.
Responding to the Dutch threat of a fine a Google spokesperson told Techcrunch via email:
ee disappointed with the Dutch data protection authority order, especially as we have made already a number of changes to our privacy policy in response to their concerns.
However, wee recently shared some proposals for further changes with the European privacy regulators group,
and we look forward to discussing with them soon. a
#Baidu Maker Of China s Largest Search engine Confirms Its Strategic Investment In Uber It s official:
Chinese Internet giant Baidu has confirmed that it is Uber s latest investor as Techcrunch reported last week.
The companies did not disclose the amount of the investment. Bloomberg previously reported that Baidu had taken the entire $600 million surplus that Uber built into its most recent funding round
however a source at Baidu told Techcrunch that this is untrue. If there is further capacity in the round
which was earmarked towards developing Uber s market position across Asia Pacific then it stands to reason that other strategic investors from Asia may make similar deals with the U s. company.
We understand that the strategic partnership between Uber and Baidu is more significant than the investment
because Baidu Maps will be able to integrate Uber This is similar to Google maps Uber integration after Google Ventures invested in the car-calling app.
Furthermore Baidu s mobile search app will be configured so that Uber is displayed prominently when users make travel-or venue-related queries.
This is a major boon for Uber because Baidu operates China s largest search engine and will help it compete against its rivals##Didi Dache and rival##Kuaidi Dache
which are backed by Baidu-competitors Tencent and Alibaba respectively. The Baidu investment comes just a few weeks after Uber announced that it had raised $1. 2 billion in funding at a $40 billion valuation with##a portion of the capital earmarked for expansion in the Asia-Pacific region.
The deal was struck at a#signing ceremony#at Baidu HQ in Beijing which Baidu chairman and CEO Robin Li and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick both attended.
The deal will also allow Uber to take advantage of Baidu s app distribution channels which include 91 Wireless
which it purchased for $1. 9 billion last year. This is important because Google Play isn t available in China
and 91 Wireless runs some of the largest alternative app stores in the country. Baidu claims it is currently China s largest mobile app distribution platform
and distributed an average of 160 million apps per day. The company s mobile search products currently have over 500 million monthly active users
while Baidu Map has over 240 million monthly active users which has allowed it to create heat maps of travel patterns by users similar to Uber s God View.
Baidu is also currently tackling an expansion into Latin america via Brazil which overlaps with Uber s global aspirations.
In a prepared statement Kalanick said#This collaboration marks a milestone for Uber. We re currently in 250 cities around the world and the Asia-Pacific region has been a key area of growth for us.
Our partnership with Baidu#a premier global brand#reflects our commitment to the region and the growing community of Uber riders and driver-partners here.#
#Uber is currently available in nine Chinese cities including Beijing Shanghai Tianjin Chongqing Shenzhen Guangzhou Wuhan Chengdu and Hangzhou.
For more information about how Baidu and Uber can work##together see our previous article t
#A Wave Crests: Silicon valley Postsecondary education And A Half-Trillion Dollars It easy to forget that these are early days for the Internet.
We still have different ideas on what it is or how it should work. The web is governed by an iterative improvement process that moves faster than any other invention in human history.
Ed tech is no exception. I like to direct your attention to an interesting phenomenon: since 2012, most ed-tech companies have rewritten quietly their product promise from unbridled learning for learning sake to a path to a job
or career goal website copy now essentially says obs, jobs, careers, jobs. That transition may be related to another 2012 development:
the rise of accelerated learning programs (ALPS), including General assembly and Dev Bootcamp. ALPS explicitly measure student employment outcomes,
including placement rate and average salary, and they work. The ALP phenomenon has helped influence this product pivot in the ed-tech sector.
When one of my students gets a job, I get a giant bear hug and the credit for getting them there,
and other educational tools are sidelined. It not a coincidence that 2012 brought both the beginning of the end of the MOOC and the start of the ALP:
the zeitgeist had latched on to the connection between jobs and education. Postsecondary education has been off-balance from decades of seismic change,
and 2012 kicked off three back-to-back State of the Union addresses pushing universities to reduce student debt
and take accountability for student employment outcomes. This chronology sets the stage for an interesting future.
Postsecondary students have stated unambiguously their priorities: jobs, jobs, careers, jobs. But the incumbent university system is hesitant to adopt this new focus as paramount.
Silicon valley has cottoned on to this imbalance, and has its eye on the postsecondary education market worth a half-trillion dollars every year.
Read on for a sneak preview of the next few years, and an exploration of trends surrounding the 2012 transition.
But first: a historical primer on college. Postsecondary education and Jobs It may not look like it, but it is also early days for our postsecondary education system.
You might imagine that universities have been around about as long as democracy and indoor plumbing, but in fact, our higher education system has been redefined completely over the last 70 years.
Around that timeframe, the proportion of high school graduates attending college went from a small minority (in 1940,
only around 5 percent had completed four years of college) to a majority (65.9 percent are enrolled currently in colleges or universities).
The source of college funding changed from family wealth to federal loans. Most importantly, the goal of attending college moved from holistic education and a future in academia and research to career development and jobs.
If you ask students why theye going to college, the top five reasons include o be able to get a better job (No. 1),
o get training for a specific career (No. 3), and o be able to make more money (No. 4). Opinions differ as to
whether the higher education system is meeting those studentscareer goals and achieving those outcomes. It settled science that a degree raises a student lifetime earnings.
However only 11 percent of business leaders think college graduates have the right skills for work compared to 96 percent of chief academic officers who believe graduates are prepared for the job market.
Redefining a Sector: ostsecondary Educationto areer Education Ed tech efforts were accomplished diverse and by 2012,
but that year brought about a major discovery: there was no institution in America dedicated to providing career education to the millions of vocal, potential customers.
This central shift to recognize the demand for career education affected a diverse group of players in the space,
and ultimately it pushed all edtech companies to adopt the below trends. Trend: Quantified Student Outcomes
When the tech industry began looking at the postsecondary market, they started from the existing model flaws and all.
MOOCS literally offered college classes on the internet. This seemed promising, and The New york times declared 2012 he year of the MOOC.
Indeed, it lasted almost exactly one year, and by 2013, Udacity CEO had declared the product ousy.
This conclusion was almost entirely based on one fact: low completion rates. Measuring and delivering simple student outcomes seems obvious,
but it drives intense attention to quality and becomes a primary force upon any product or program.
In Udacity case, a hard completion requirement required that Udacity hire real human mentors, which drove a much higher price point and a number of other major product changes.
Trend: Employment, Not Just Education In order for Udacity to support the higher price point required by their new quality bar,
they had to offer a compelling ROI to students. As such, their tagline went from igher Education for Freeto dvance Your Career.
Unlike colleges, ed tech adopted this new charter in a hurry and with no ambivalence.
Codecademy represents an example of this trend from another lineage in ed tech. Its founders had worked at startups like Groupme, not at universities,
and you could tell that they were looking at coding education like a conversion optimization problem.
Codecademy launched with a free product but how would they make money from the millions of users that they taught?
Pushed by the same forces as the rest of us, Codecademy recently revealed its first fee-based program (tagline:
ransforming your job prospects in the process and a new resource portal to advertise it (tagline:
tart programming now, get hired in months alongside ALPS and other career education programs. Trend:
Hybrid Online/Offline Institutions Codecademy and Coursera are based two web ed-tech entrants that have created subsequently physical learning environments.
On the other side of the fence, ALPS began as brick-and-mortar schools, but some are moving into a hybrid format.
Earlier this year, Hack Reactor launched the online version of its immersive curriculum, Remote Beta, a web-based ALP.
Other companies in the ALP sector are following suit, like Dev Bootcamp Localhost, which recently launched.
Here Comes the Future To recap, the postsecondary system has been asked to adopt the new charter of career education,
but for very understandable reasons it has resisted this mandate from students, business leaders, and the President of the United states. Against this backdrop, the market forces are so strong and clear that they have reshaped Codecademy, Hack Reactor,
and Udacity three deeply distinct products prior to 2012 into educational programs that could be siblings.
Expect to see some of the $500 billion a year currently spent on college tuition winding up in Silicon valley,
at institutions that offer career education, measure and ensure excellent student outcomes, and mix online and offline approaches.
If you thought it was dramatic when taxis became tech companies, just wait until it happens to colleges n
#American Re-Urbanization Drives More On-Demand Innovation Editor Note: David Hirsch is a cofounder
and managing partner of Metamorphic Ventures. The firm is an investor in Boxbee. The generational shift occurring as millennials come of age
and baby boomers just keep aging has massive implications for both technology and society. As mobile devices become magic wands for marketplaces,
matching supply and demand and making goods and services more accessible than ever before, wee experiencing an berficationof the economy.
Alongside this movement to an n-demandeconomy (discussed in detail by the team at Sherpa Ventures),
is the equally as transformative re-urbanization of America. In 2013 2. 3 million more people moved into metro areas than in 2012, driven by the demands of America two most powerful demographics.
Baby boomers are retiring and moving back to the cities they left when they started families
and millennials want to live closer to each other and where the action is. This re-urbanization will be transformational for traditional industries
and creates an opportunity for large new businesses to be built. Increasingly, commerce and services will be conducted on an n-demandbasis.
We saw this happening with Instacart raising a round at a valuation of over $1 billion.
Another interesting company in the space is Shyp which allows the end user to quickly find somebody to ship their package anywhere in the world.
Traditional industries will need to figure out logistics to reach customers with the same speed and service that theye come to expect.
Uber and Amazon have raised the bar and the whole delivery ecosystem is undergoing dramatic changes.
Customers are going to expect an omni-channel, same-day delivery experience for all products and services.
The problem that arises is in warehousing. Smaller companies that sell on Shopify, individuals who sell on Etsy
and larger big box retailers will need a logistics solution for warehousing and delivery if they want to compete with Amazon leasing of 470,
000 square feet in New york city. Another result of the growth in urban living is the lack of space.
While it true that millennials are owning less and valuing experiences more, just ask a few of the 20-somethings in your office about how much space they have in their apartments.
Traditional storage isn practical for this demographic as it expensive and difficult to access on a weekly or even daily basis. Companies like Boxbee (a Metamorphic portfolio company), Makespace, Urbin, Clutter,
and Cubiq are all working to tackle the problem of storage with a on-demand solution.
These companies can also act as a warehousing solution for independent sellers and small businesses. Boxbee already works with Instacart to store their grocery bags
and deliver them on-demand in a torage-as-a-serviceoffering. This solution from Boxbee or others provides a B2b commerce layer where all digital storefronts on Etsy,
Shopify and ebay can use space to both warehouse their goods and then deliver them in urban areas.
Another consequence of this shift is the rise of the sharing economy, or ollaborative consumptionas many call it.
With Airbnb flourishing, the whole market is on the verge of being opened up from sharing what in your closet (Threadflip, Rent the Runway) to your car (Flightcar, Lyft.
#Apple Pay Now Supports Cards That Make up 90%Of U s. Credit Purchases Apple Pay is gaining steam just months after launch with the company revealing to the NYT that it now supports cards from providers that make up 90 percent of the credit card
. In addition to ten new banks that are coming on board today It s now accepted in more places than ever before with Staples Winn-dixie Albertson and the Amway Center turning on support in the latest wave.
Mcdonald s has said that 50 percent of its NFC-based tap payments are already Apple Pay as of November
and advocating their alternatives. 50 percent of tap-to-pay transactions even at a large-scale national chain like Mcdonald s still doesn t amount to a huge number of payments relative to the general pool;
cash and traditional card-based payments still greatly outweigh any and all mobile payment initiatives Apple Pay included.
Apple s mobile payments system is still by far the most successful individual initiative we ve seen in the field so far
One such newcomer competitor may be Samsung which is in talks to launch an Apple Pay-style payments mechanism of its own according to Re/code.
That Samsung would ever copy something Apple had done first is completely preposterous of course so I m sure they would never ever never be building a mobile payments solution (longest eye-roll of all time).
Regardless of who else throws their hat in the ring it looks likely at this stage that Apple Pay will be the prime mover in terms of mobile payments industry growth over the next few years s
#With $2. 5m In Seed Funding Digit Saves Money For You So You Don t Have To Think about It Over the years wee seen the emergence of a number of personal finance apps,
most of which have been designed to help users create budgets, better understand their finances, and make positive decisions with their money.
Those apps were great for the small percentage of users who were interested already ultra in examining the minutiae of where their money was goingbut for those of us who don want to deal with the cognitive overhead
and depression that comes with knowing youe spending more than you should on things you don need,
they weren very helpful. That why over the past few months Ie become such a big fan of a little startup called Digit.
See, Digit wants to change the way users think about saving cash, by helping them to put money away without having to think about it at all.
To do that, the company has raised $2. 5 million in seed funding and is working on an integration with a banking partner that will make its savings happen even more seamlessly.
How Digit Works The concept behind Digit is pretty simple: You create an account, give Digit access to your online banking account credentials,
and over time the company gradually transfers funds from your checking account and into a non-interest bearing but FDIC-insured Digit savings account.
The service does so seamlessly, without asking you how much you want it to transfer beforehand.
Instead, Digit relies on an algorithm that determines how much it should move from one account to another,
taking into account a number of factors it knows about your payment history and spending habits to do so.
Digit looks at the amount of money that you have in your account first and foremost, to determine if it safe to move money out of it.
Then, among other things, it takes into account a user regular salary or payment schedule
and how far away they are from their next payday. It also looks at someone daily spending habits to determine how much it can transfer without them really noticing
or feeling any financial pain. In and of itself, that runs counter to the way most financial apps operate,
in that it doesn overburden the user with too much information or rely on them to change their behavior to benefit their financial interests.
The other interesting quirk about Digit is that it doesn have a mobile app or web site with detailed statistics about your spending habits where your money went,
or how you could better budget for the future. In fact, its website is pretty bare bones,
only showing a few details about a user Digit account: How much money is currently in the account,
how much has been saved over time, what the average transfer amount is, and how often a withdrawal happens.
If you care, the site also has a detailed list of each transfer over time that you can scroll through.
Rather than overwhelm users with information on the website, Digit primary mode of communication with users is via SMS. It sends users daily updates via text with different pieces of information each day.
Most days it provides users with the balance of their checking account, but occasionally also updates them on how much theye saved with Digit over the course of a week or a month.
Users can then request more information using a series of simple SMS commands. For example, type ecentand Digit will text back the last three transactions to be recorded by your checking account.
Type ithdrawand you can move money back from your Digit account to checking at any time.
And Now For The Haters There are a few caveats to the Digit service that potential users should know about.
Most importantly, users should know that the money that is transferred into your Digit avings accountisn really bearing any interest,
the way a normal savings account would. That will no doubt cause some skeptics to complain that any Digit user would be better off just putting aside the money themselves into their own savings account.
Or better yet those users should be putting their money into stocks or bonds or basically anything with a better financial return than a sub-1%APY savings account.
But those people are missing the point: Digit exists because the majority of people in the world aren good at saving money
and wouldn do so on their own. It puts money aside so that they don have to, and does so in a way that requires very little foresight.
It hoping for a maximum amount of gain for the least amount of pain. That is, if Digit is saving on your behalf
and you don really notice any money has gone missing from your checking account, well then, the team at Digit believes it doing its job well.
And, frankly, I have to agree. I have been part of Digit pilot program since August and over that time the service has saved about $1, 000 on my behalf.
It not a ton of money, but it $1, 000 more than I would probably have had if
I tried to save on my own.)Since launching its pilot in earnest over the summer,
Digit has saved more than $600, 000 for the users who have signed up, according to CEO Ethan Bloch.
That comes out to about 5. 5 percent of usersmonthly income on average, he told me. About That Funding Bloch is the former CEO of social marketing startup Flowtown.
That company was acquired by Demandforce in 2011, and not long after that Demandforce was acquired by Intuit.
coincidentally, also led the investment in Flowtown. Also participating in the round are Freestyle Capital, Upside Partnership, Google Ventures, Operative Capital, Garry Tan, Alexis Ohanian, Aaron Harris, Rick Berry, Nate Bosshard, Eric
Ries, Joshua Greenough, Randy Reddig, Eoghan Mccabe and Ted Rheingold. That money will be used to grow the team slightly,
as the company works to integrate with a major banking partner. Doing so will lower the cost of processing its ACH transfers to more favorable rates,
while also ensuring that it will be able to scale up over time. In addition to the funding Digit is also announcing a number of advisors to the company,
including Braintree founding CTO Dan Manges, early Square team member Randy Reddig, Airbnb global payments general counsel Sharda Caro-del-Castillo,
and Paul Hastings partner Tom Brown. With their help, Digit hopes to make savings more seamless for a whole bunch of users a
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