and the city's database of vacant property, excluding parks, golf courses, cemeteries and other such uses.
Perhaps the additional, continual complaints about the lack of a work-life balance could be solved by taking a leaf out of Google's book.
However, it's not all doom and gloom for the ipad and iphone maker, as 94 percent of Apple employees on the website approve of Steve jobs'replacement.
Perhaps there's the hope that Tim cook will be able to turn the firm around. Image credit:
Google: Keeping staff happy is down to experiments, not just laundry Employee outsources own job to read Reddit,
Mysterious site spotted from space Mysterious Ëoenazca Lines ruins discovered in Saudi desert China s massive Ëoepollution cloud can be seen from space NASA satellites unearth Egypt s lost
Wikipedia Commons) Related on Smartplanet: Bedbug genome uncovers pesticide resistance Beyond bedbugs-lay your head to rest in the greenest hotel Watch robots climb trees,  helicopter  in and sniff bugs
and illuminated by low energy consuming LED lights at night The trees themselves are transformations of the plastic bottles, giving them a second life.
Plus, an explanation of the pyrolysis process from Honeywell UOP's Jim Rekoske. SP: How did Crane get involved with renewable energy sources?
HOW IT WORKS Smartplanet also spoke with Jim Rekoske of Honeywell UOP, one-half of the duo (Ensyn Technologies of Ottawa, Ontario,
and provide free energy upgrade fixtures. The key thing is that BNEC is seen as a grassroots effort.
Newsweek or even this site will know that while the world is pretty adept at producing enough food for everyone,
but the original engineer of the core idea is the Namib beetle. Yes, a bug.
and designs and develops space flight hardware. It currently has two piece of its hardware on the International Space station and two on the Space shuttle mission.
Yesterday I spoke with Stefanie Countryman, the centers director of business development and director of its K-12 science education payloads.
and then theyd decide what hardware they need and theyd use us as the payload developer.
We support quite a few NASA-sponsored scientists. We also partner with commercial companies to fly certain science experiments.
Countryman loading a butterfly experiment that flew on STS-129 Tell me about some of the hardware youve developed to put the experiments on a spacecraft.
Our workhorse hardware is like a smart incubator, called a CGBA (commercial generic bioprocessing apparatus). We have two on the International Space station and two units on the shuttle, each about the size of a mid-deck locker.
Then we have smaller pieces of hardware that fit inside, and thats what actually holds the life science experiments,
CGBA loaded with life science hardware in preparation for launch What does the end of the Space shuttle era mean for you guys?
and NASA because they get hands-on experience in developing the hardware, see the scientists load the science into the hardware,
are able to be part of the operations when its on the station and hand it back to the scientists after the mission.
Well have to develop hardware that will support these other vehicles, and well have to learn the other systems.
The experiment was to look at how they would spin their webs in space They spin these half orbs that have a three-dimensional aspect.
In space they spun circular webs, which are very different. On the ground, they sit on the top of the web looking down.
In space they sat in the middle of their web and faced all different ways. You can see Youtube videos here and here.
If you had an opportunity to travel in space, what experiment would you conduct? I get sick on roller coasters,
There is some hardware being developed to do some analysis in space while on the station, but its a difficult thing to do.
Algae can impact our environment, consumer electronics, cars, military--you name it. But the debate really comes down to this:
Cloud computing and Internet services for agriculture are growing in popularity, allowing farmers to keep better track of their assets--from crops to livestock to expenses.
Their iphones are 30-ft.-long, $60, 000 hay balers. Cloud startups have served largely their own industry--technology--first,
Solum and other start-ups are building the technology to allow farmers to benefit from data science.
said Lightfoot, CEO of Brightfarms, in a Saturday e-mail to Smartplanet. Brightfarms will soon be opening the nation's largest rooftop garden on top of an old Navy  warehouse  in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
According to Yelp, an online restaurant rating site, the New york area plays host to 47 farm-to-table restaurants.
A rendering of the new site. Image courtesy of Brightfarms) New york times To learn more about Brightfarms,
 Via New Scientist Image: Andrew Malone via Flickr
Building for the birds and the bees and batsbuildings are designed usually to house people, but a few recent examples provide shelter and protection for the fuzzier fellow citizens of planet Earth.
United states In Buffalo, New york, saving bees is part of a local business person's vision for redeveloping a waterfront industrial site into a design district.
Taking cues from the existing grain elevators on the site and the natural hexagonal shape of honeycombs
prunes wastei finally had a revelation about the REAL difference between business intelligence and business analytics software this week.
IBM analytics technology helps Sun World use drip irrigation to decrease its water usage by 8. 5%.That difference is readily apparent in a new agribusiness case study that was brought to my attention by the IBM mid-market group.
according to IBM and Sun World. Fuel usage has also been cut by 20 percent. The sales team can also use Sun World's data in conjunction with industry buying trends to figure out the best timing for campaigns.
Sun World worked with an IBM Business Partner Applied Analytix, to craft the solution. Here's his perspective from the IBM press release about the solution:
We've aimed to transform the company culture from a farming business where you'grow
director of business analytics for IBM, says there are typically three things that hold entrepreneurs back from a technology investment like this that could yield results similar to the Sun World example.
Reliance on outdated applications such as spreadsheets, which were intended never really for forecasting. An aversion to change.
director of the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia), said in an e-mail interview.
They eventually came together to discuss their proposals at Moma PS1, a sister site to Moma.
And they have included environmental designs such as adding gardens in foreclosed factory sites. Also interested in encouraging a more natural atmosphere in its design solution for struggling suburbs,
developers will create it. Indeed, their physical model is beautiful. Children were oohing and aahing over the not-so-appealingly-named Compost Hill model at Moma.
typed on a plastic laptop with a plastic clip in my hair, plastic sunglasses on my head,
and a plastic cell phone, a plastic pen and a plastic-filled wallet in my bag.
Dell began using bamboo packaging within some of its netbooks back in November, and Campbell said approximately 48 percent of the Inspiron products now are cushioned with bamboo.
They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world,
TELECOMMUNICATION But there are many more transformative technologies. The invention of modern electronics and the ability to use electronics to amplify signals is one
and then the solid-state transistor that replaced it, and then the integrated circuit that replaced that,
was a pillar to one of the largest industries On earth. These innovative things really transformed how information travels around the world,
You really don't want an iphone box that says'Invented in America, made in China.'
Growflex is a machine to machine-machine network solution that includes battery -or solar-powered sensors that are distributed in a greenhouse or field.
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.
Casey B. Mulligan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, raised the idea in Species Protection and Technology, a post on The New york times Economix blog.
and the case for successful biofuelspodcast Your browser does not support the audio element. Can biofuels make a comeback?
Mars, IBM, USDA publish cacao genomemars, the maker of M&ms, IBM and the U s. Department of agriculture said Wednesday that they are making the cacao genome sequence publicly available.
The game plan is to create a cacao plants that are more resistant to drought and disease while producing higher yields.
Data from the cacao genome will be available at the Cacao Genome Database without a patent.
and IBM supplied the computing power with its Blue Gene supercomputer. Meanwhile the USDA-ARS Subtropical Horticulture Research Station in Miami and researchers from UC Davis, Clemson, Indiana University, the Hudsonalpha Institute for Biotechnology and Washington state University participated.
Additional greenhouses will soon be under construction in Montreal with a potential site having been chosen in New york city.
and upload extremely tailored programming for coffees based on their origin or roast date or whatever.
or core, that runs 42 stories up the center of the building. Â We didn t want this to be about shape and design,
which pioneered the tree-trunk construction, with steel at its core and reinforced concrete slabs for its floors.
or exterior walls of the building, creating a niche market for developers. If it gives you a different look
a Chicago developer that is turning a 500-acre industrial site on Lake michigan into a new residential and retail community.
Once a developer steps forward and says, Ëoeok, let s do this, Â that s going to jump start a lot more interest,
Could the U s. fight forest fires with software? In the wake of the Yarnell wildfire tragedy and in the heat of an escalating wildland fire problem across the West,
With the Timberguide software, which runs on a tablet computer mounted inside a wood harvester, a prescriptive thinning plan can be uploaded
and used to guide harvester operators through the cutting process without anyone having to manually mark trees.
though, upgrades will allow the software to upload thinning prescription plans that guide harvesters through forests,
Crack Apple iphone Touchid feature, win $2500 and a bottle of bourbonif you're a hacker up for a challenge,
taking on Apple's iphone 5s Touchid feature could net you interesting prizes. Independent security researcher Nick Depetrillo has launched istouchidhackedyet. com,
a website dedicated to crowdfunding rewards for the first person who can break into Apple's biometric fingerprint scanning technology.
and use the print to unlock the Apple iphone 5s. The current bounty has reached over $2500
The new iphone is due to hit stores on Friday. Depetrillo says that the project was launched not due to his wish to see the feature hacked,
U k. trade union rebels against biometric employee scanning Could Silentsense rival Apple s iphone 5s fingerprint scanner?
Corporations squelch creativity and it's difficult to move big ideas through the pipeline. To combat this creative malaise
Dell, HP vie for spotlight again. This time, on environmental leadership. It being climate week
Yesterday, I reported that Newsweek had nodded at Hewlett-packard (No. 1) and Dell (No. 2) with their Greenest Big Companies list.
What's more, the company has saved about $1. 8 million by encouraging the use of power management settings on desktop and notebook computers.
HP's update about its energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions goals sees it setting new goals for its consumption reduction goals,
according to HP, is because of the acquisition of EDS. Which if you call has A LOT OF data centers to its name.
Small drones are made from many of the same components as smartphones, and the economies of scale of that industry have driven the cost of gyroscopes, accelerometers, GPS chips,
and CPUS to the ground. As a result, the widespread use of drones in commerce is imminent.
Via Nature News Image by Waytru via Flickr
Dupont breaks ground on $200m cellulosic ethanol plantwhile dozens of companies, including BP, have ditched plans to produce cellulosic ethanol,
via tech licensing and assistance and support. As for biobutanol the company is partnering with oil giant BP on commercialization in the U s. and Brazil.
because it can be used in existing pipelines. The projected outlook for biofuels as a whole: Ã Â $100 to 200 million in pretax earnings by 2015,
which has led to a complex network of farming, storage, transportation, processing, manufacturing, and marketing capabilities that favor sales of highly processed food products for maximal industry profit.
 Via New Scientist Image: J. Fang
E-business may dramatically cut paper wasteearlier in my career, I helped publish a series of books on The Office of the Future,
with all transactions and documents delivered electronically from workstation to workstation, company to company. Of course, as they say,
The Environmental Paper Network estimates that about five million metric tons of paper are used in US offices every year.
as a result of using its e-commerce network. The organization also estimates that the INTTRA platform, which handles 10%of global container transactions, potentially saves more than 222 million sheets of paper annually for shipment documentation and printed messages.
estimated that electricity used by server computers doubled between 2000 and 2005, and now gulp down about 45 billion kilowatts per hour ââ oe equivalent to the amount of power used by the entire state of Mississippi in 2005.
Additional devices such as storage, network equipment, and client front-ends were included not in the calculations. It s no secret that data centers ââ oe especially those run by social networking leaders such as Google
Yahoo!,, Microsoft, and Amazon ââ oe are the new industrial behemoths of the 21st Century.
These providers are even taking care to make sure that they build their latest and greatest data centers within range of hydroelectric power sources.
It does not attempt to estimate the effect of structural changes in the economy enabled by increased use of information technology,
But the equally colossal pieces of Styrofoam that protected the computer in shipping more than two decades ago are gone long,
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,
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.
I could just pick up the phone and call Envirelation, which offers food composting services for hundreds of clients in the region,
The EPA (Environmental protection agency)' s website lists emission metrics from power plants, oil refineries, paper mills and other industries across U s boundaries and states.
The website also includes a downloadable fact sheet(.pdf). ) Related on Smartplanet: Why are Americans spending $1000 a month to sit in traffic?
Dell, for one, is sticking, at least according to a recent blog on its corporate social responsibility page. But the Chamber has a bigger issue to deal with internally:
there's a great list on the coalition's site. Can you envision your own company's logo there
Via Quartz Images: Jack Dykinga (top), Rob Flynn (bottom)/ USDA
Finding power in coffee wasteresearchers at the Energy & Environmental Research center at the University of North dakota once worked on technology to convert waste from a space station and future Martian bases into heat and power.
If successful, the EERC will propose a full-scale commercial demonstration system to be installed at various Green Mountain sites.
productivity with IBM analyticsanalytics technology that has enabled a Michigan agricultural cooperative better account for the source of fruits
The technology platform, built by IBM business partner N2n Global, collects, stores and analyzes data about the food being handled by Cherry Central Cooperative from the time it is harvested and processed,
and distribution process using mobile devices. From there it is uploaded to a central database, where the information can be shared with Traverse City, Mich.
-based Cherry Central's supply chain business partners as the food makes its way to grocery or market shelves.
Steve Eiseler, vice president of operations at Cherry Central Cooperative, said the IBM-based technology has allowed his organization to significantly reduce the amount of paperwork necessary to remain in compliance with government food traceability requirements
Cherry Central reported that its database was growing at a rate of 1. 6 million records per month.
The technology that Cherry Central is using includes IBM DB2 Web Query running on the Power system platform.
The cooperative is using a custom IBM System x application from N2n Global called the Quality & Food safety Manager.
Sydney to London on the Plastic Fantastic powered flight Move over graphene: Bamboo is the next wonder material Friends of Earth rain on Lufthansa biofuels parade Biofuels fly mainstream:
Honeywell: The Lindbergh of aviation biofuels
Food of the future: can'Frankenfish'survive politics? Sometime this summer or soon after, the federal Food and Drug Administration may finally approve the first-ever genetically modified animal for human consumption--a fast-growing Atlantic salmon that has taken 17 years to reach the threshold of American consensus. The man to thank
which has spent $67 million on this fish--its only product in the pipeline--has burned through millions just trying to stay afloat.
A supercharged talker, with a blizzard of facts and blazing green eyes, Elmore is indeed waging a big-screen worthy crusade.
while also helping give rise to new industries, from compost haulers to app makers. In February 2009, Elmore's nonprofit group, Elemental Impact, convinced Atlanta officials and its biggest food-service outfits to launch the nation's first-ever Zero Waste Zone around its downtown hotels
In France, they have a smartphone app that sends out alerts so stores can tell consumers
from apps that help with meal planning and keeping track of groceries to smart refrigerators that do this as well
The projects will investigate the use of poplar plantations as a fast-growing feedstock as well as leftovers from forest thinning and construction sites.
And what state-of-the-art gadget would be complete these days without Wi-fi connectivity as a standard feature.
Fuel producer Honeywell UOP says that camelina grows on fallow wheat fields and improves yields in the fields subsequent wheat-growing years.
and was a former blood diamond company that regrouped as an African green fuel operation, according to the UK's The Telegraph.
the site had become overgrown with vegetation after years of disuse. Trees flourished where there were once mounds of sand to put out any accidental fires.
they've developed an online mapping app to help track their illicit produce and have an active Facebook group to help grow popularity. via LA Times,
A fungus called Phytophthora austrocedrae is so much on the rampage that according to The Telegraph it could wipe out the already shrinking population of the U k.'s native juniper trees.
the Telegraph claimed. Shudder at the thought of a world with no gin. Tennessee williams, The Great Gatsby, Somerset Maugham and Raymond Chandler could not have done without.
when it comes to listening to Lady gaga on an iphone, watching Terminator 3 for the 25th time on our digital screen,
EST concludes that rampant growth in consumers collection of flat-screen TVS, computers mobile phones, digital music players and other devices has put British domestically-linked greenhouse gas emissions on pace to fall 20 percent short of the government s 2020,34 percent reduction target,
assuming electric utilities continue to use the same mix of fossil fuel. Emissions would stand at 43.6 million tons of greenhouse gases,
Even if British utilities were to hit a 2020 goal of generating more electricity from renewable sources, consumers compulsion to view screens, click mice,
tap keypads, swipe touch screens and cram plastic buds in their ears would still put domestic greenhouse gas emissions at 2 percent above the government s target.
The number of computing and communication devices alone more than doubled between 2004 and 2009 in British homes, from 30 million to 65 million, the report states.
British homes owned 3. 5 times as many consumer electronics devices ââ oetvs, DVD players, set top boxes and the like ââ oe in 2009 than they did in 1990,
Consumer electronics became the largest electricity consumer in the household by 2005. The report claims that in the UK,
electricity consumption from consumer electronics surged from 12.1 terawatt hours (TWH) in 1990 to 19.9 TWH in 2005 and to 20.8 TWH in 2009.
Both the technology of home computing and how we use it are changing and developing at a dizzying pace,
à  The trend of convergence means more and more items ââ oe games consoles, tablet computers, mobile phones, printers,
and even televisions ââ oe perform overlapping computing functions. New functionality within existing devices may mean they will need to consume more processing power per unit,
and divergence in the form of netbooks, notebooks, tablets, smartphones, e-readers may mean more energy used by chargers.
Not all sectors of domestic use are rising. Energy efficient replacements to the incandescent bulb have helped drive down domestic lighting consumption from 16.6 TWH in 1999 to 15.8 TWH in 2009,
But oh those computers, phones and TVS. I m certainly guilty. I live in Britain where yesterday I listened to the Pittsburgh steelers thump the New england patriots via Internet connected radio all the way from the USA Ã Â
(I d pay to view video except the National Football league wants too much money and would probably try to dictate what clothes I wear while watching).
Top, Wikimedia/Linux insidev2; Bottom, Energy Saving Trust More digital global warming: Facebook plans Subarctic data center Iceland cometh
GE is engaged in monitoring--with our intelligent platforms, hardware and software. One in four municipalities in the world are using our products.
At a couple of our sites, we're paying to dispose our wastewater off-site. Now we're looking at a project to treat our own waste--we're working on using our own membrane technology.
and we're deploying our GE Water technology into other GE sites. At our nuclear plant in Wilmington, North carolina we're doing water treatment there.
Some of the sites had packed densely plants, with 1, 000 specimens in a 50-meter space.
Wikipedia Commons
GIS tools map social injustice in civil rights caseswhat can a map tell us about the world?
The Cedar Grove Institute for Sustainable Communities based in North carolina is using Geographic Information systems (GIS) data to map available infrastructure against the racial characteristics of different neighborhoods in the United states. The organization studies everything from water
In Modesto California, the Cedar Grove Institute's data analysis shows that many Latino neighborhoods are marked by their lack of sewer access,
As the organization says on its website: Many of these activities have been cloaked-if not in secrecy, than in a language and format that keeps people from knowing
Google unveils deforestation monitor to combat climate changethe  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
 Google. org wrote in a  blog post. Emissions from tropical deforestation are comparable to the emissions of all of the European union,
but Google. org plans to make it available within the year, perhaps as a not-for-profit service for only scientists, governments,
Google wishes barcodes happy 57th birthdaywhen millions of people this morning switched on their PCS,
the ubiquitous Google doodle was unusual. It was a barcode. Why? Google is celebrating the 57th anniversary of the first patent for barcodes.
Google itself says little about its choice its choice except Invention of the bar code. Normally, the Google herald celebrates a holiday or person, not a thing.
This morning's Google doodle Patent number 2, 612,994 was granted to barcode inventors Norman J. Woodland of Ventnor, N. J. and Bernard Silver of Philadelphia on Oct 7, 1952.
In pure`patentese,'the second paragraph reads as follows: It is to provide automatic apparatus for classifying things according to photo-response to lines and/or colors
which constitute classification instructions and which have been attached to, imprinted upon or caused to represent the things be classified.
The doodle spells Google in Code 128, according to Techcrunch. Google is not exactly a disinterested party
when it comes to barcodes. It has an open source project known as ZXING to allow cell phones
and cameras to scan barcodes without using a server. Wikipedia barcode in code 128 What I find remarkable is that
when Google honors the barcode by its doodling it, everyone including me writes about it.
At the moment, there's 69 related articles about the barcode doodle. It's as if the  government had declared a national barcode holiday.
Norman Joseph Woodland, according to Wikipedia, celebrated his 88th birthday on Sept. 6 Â and got his idea in 1951
As a mechanical engineer, he spent much of career with IBM and was instrumental in coming up the Universal product code that put bar codes into practice and your life.
Norman J. Woodland Silver who died young in 1964 does not have his own Wikipedia page,
Interestingly a search of barcodes at Drexel's site yields zero results, but there's plenty about Woodland and a little on Silver.
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