#Innovative solar-powered toilet ready for India unveilinga revolutionary University of Colorado Boulder toilet fueled by the sun that is being developed to help some of the 2. 5 billion people around the world lacking safe and sustainable
The energy generated by the sun and transferred to the fiber-optic cable system--similar in some ways to a data transmission line--can heat up the reaction chamber to over 600 degrees Fahrenheit to treat the waste material disinfect pathogens in both feces and urine and produce char.
Biochar is a valuable material said Linden. It has good water holding capacity and it can be used in agricultural areas to hold in nutrients
It could also be incorporated into new plant designs to further reduce operating costs. We hope to move from the laboratory scale to a commercially available technology within four to six years.
Not only have shown we that this specific technology can save thousands of lives each year we've also demonstrated a technology pipeline that can produce many similar technologies in the future.
Its developers foresee electrical generators driven by changes in humidity from sun-warmed ponds and harbors.
Sahin collaborated with Wyss Institute Core Faculty member L. Mahadevan Ph d. who is also the Lola England de Valpine professor of applied mathematics organismic and evolutionary biology and physics at the School of engineering and Applied sciences
when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow and we have no good way of storing enough of it to supply the grid for long said Wyss Institute Founding Director Don Ingber M d. Ph d
Dave Bartlett, the Vice president of IBM's Smarter Buildings Initiative, recently made predictions for the top five building trends that are going to make a big impact in 2012,
For example, IBM is involved in a project in Boston's Backbay to help the neighborhood implement smart grid technology that electronically monitors
According to Bartlett, this system helped IBM identify carbon in unexpected places like in methane leaks from utilities.
IBM â¢s campus in Rochester, Minnesota has implemented this system of transparency. The buildings there take up a massive 3. 2 million square feet,
and IBM takes real time data from over 300,000 data points, combining the results help make the campus as efficient as possible,
Sensor technology, that is coming from the physical infrastructure (like that used on the IBM campus),
is making way for a huge amount of objects that are connected to the Internet that can help people with tasks.
Apps, like the parking app Streetline that helps drivers find available parking spots, use this sensor technology too.
and apps can help them contribute, said Bartlett. He called this environmental crowd sourcing, or the ability of a citizen to use their smartphone to alert the city to building issues,
potholes or water problems by uploading photos or using an app to identify the problem.
Bartlett said that IBM has found that people want to be involved in the improvement of their communities,
and have been very receptive to the apps that have been introduced so far. Â Just as smarter buildings and smarter neighborhoods are the building blocks of smarter cities
people are as well. Prediction 4: More energy options for buildings Bartlett predicts that in the near future,
This method was implemented on IBM's campus, following a new sustainability mandate. I think that it is said really cool
IBM has been working with New york city a city whose buildings are much more responsible for green house gasses than many other cities due to its density,
The goal, with the help of IBM's carbon intelligence software is to reduce New york city's greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2017.
Aires Almeida/Flickr, IBM
A capitalist's view on water conservation (or, why a price on water is impractical) Laura Shenkar,
Those  early streams of success. The Internet 20 years ago was not one concept,
 The difference with water is that the Internet is a nice thing to have,
Look at the cell phone--they sell them incredibly in Asia and Africa. But that was only when it was developed and matured and proven in the developed world.
Look at Google. It's really changed the world in a lot of good ways. But they never set out to do that.
when it comes to replacing personal service with that of a computer. We survive without a ticket agent at the airport, a cashier at the grocery store and a teller at the bank.
said Nater, a former banker and Dell executive. We â¢re talking thousands. Yet even then, he expects Briggo to capture only a few percentage points of the coffee market.
and a touch screen for those who hadn't ordered remotely. Nater pulled out his iphone
and entered Melanie as the pick-up name so the robot would announce that the drink he was about to order was for me.
Customers place (and pay for) orders on their computer, mobile device or at the kiosk touch screen. When they open an account,
Numbers on the screen flashed quickly like digits on a blood pressure monitor, measuring things like temperature, pressure
So passengers will be able to get on their mobile apps and place the order while they're standing in the security line.
and Nater pulled out his ipad, showing me renderings of the new Briggo robot, which was designed by an internationally recognized industrial design firm.
The new version includes countless upgrades. It will run totally unmanned, 24/7 (for the ER doctor at the hospital or the late-arriving passenger at the train station).
an iphone? Derek Peterson sure hopes that may someday be the case. The 36-year-old former investment banks is CEO of Growop,
nutrient injectors and even an app that allows owners to control all these processes remotely from their iphone.
Metaphorically speaking, he's betting the farm that the next revolution in agriculture will be more about software and machines than soil and irrigation.
So what started out as a singular product line has expanded to a wider array of applications.
Much more data will be forthcoming over the next several years as the company start gathering data through automated systems on a more real-time basis
An infographic (below) created by Float Mobile Learning suggests that a growing number of North american farmers are now using smartphones
or mobile devices to help manage their operations --while farmers in developing nations have relied on these technologies for a longer period of time,
in the absence of other management tools or wired-line access to the Internet. So-called precision agriculture of the type being embraced by Pepsico could help reduce water usage by up to 50 percent
which integrates weather forecasts, via a computer or a free Apple iphone application. Cyber-Rain claims that the system investment might be covered in certain places by water utility rebate programs.
and managers a graphical tool that lets them manage watering from any Internet-connected computer in the world...
and even through an iphone app. Users can create efficient watering schedules that are customized to their landscape through an intuitive interface that is easy to use.
considering the investments that parent company Earth Networks is making in its predictive technologies. GNOME helps adjust for the following:
Plant types Soil composition Slope of the soil Sun exposure The type of irrigation you're using (hose versus sprinkler versus drip lines, etc.
I wouldn't be surprised to see more water utilities consider layering such applications into their web sites
With new printers, classrooms will go 3-DA 3-D printer might be coming to your local elementary school.
moving from 2-D printers that yield items to be folded into 3-D objects to 3-D fabricators that create 3-D physical objects.
and the University of North Texas. Â Other pilot sites are being established in Indonesia, Egypt, Japan and China.
Two of its main collaborators, Hod Lipson, associate professor of computing and information science at Cornell University,
How do 3-D printers work? Lipson: The 3-D printer is a machine that makes physical objects on your desktop.
For example, if you have an ink jet-printer printer, it makes an image by spitting out droplets of ink onto a piece of paper.
Imagine an ink jet-printer printer that instead of droplets of ink spits out droplets of plastic. It basically creates a thin sheet of plastic.
It then goes up a tenth of a millimeter and prints out another sheet of plastic.
it's something you can pick up out of the printer, for example, a cup you could go drink some water with.
Who uses 3-D printers now and do you expect they'll become more mainstream?
It's very much like the mainframe in the'60s and'70s where the big companies knew how to make these computers,
but couldn't foresee what it would be useful for at home. Part of that is just a vicious cycle of large and very expensive machines that can only be afforded by big companies
I think it's implications to society are as profound as computers. The transition from mainframes to personal computers could be similar to the transition from these big fabricators to personal fabricators.
It just opens the door to personal fabrication. Why do you want to bring these 3-D printers to the classroom?
Lipson: When you look at what made computers transition into the homes, one of the things that historians identify as a turning point was the availability of kits that people could make, low-cost computers.
These machines became accessible. That's what we set out to do. Â We do research on printers that can print with multiple materials.
We also built an open-source kit that will allow people to build these at home for a very low cost, about $1, 000.
That's something we did awhile ago. It's called Fab@Home. That became very popular
How will the students use the 3-D printers in the classroom? Bull: Producing and creating customizable manipulatives like base 10 rods, fraction cubes,
when teachers use the Fab@School 3-D printer to make characters and objects in books that students use for story retellings,
What are the challenges of bringing 3-D printers into schools? Bull: While the technology is in emergent state
Hod Lipson, with Jeffrey Lipton (in black) and Jim Smith (blue), assemble the Fab@Home printer/Courtesy of Cornell University Image, bottom:
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,
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.
It involves Sun World International, a midsize operation in Bakersfield, Calif, . that produces various fruits and vegetables on approximately 12,000 acres of farmland across the state of California.
Sun World has been collecting information about its business for years. An example: The company has been acting on its water consumption to change irrigation techniques,
Sun World, which specializes in table grapes, peppers, stone fruits and citrus varieties, can now look at everything from unit costs
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.
This has helped with balancing product mix. It also resulted in $3 million in new business in 2009
Sun World is tracking $175 million in total annual revenue, according to Robertson. The plan is only as good as Day One.
Steve Greenwood, Sun World's director of budgets and reporting, says the technology behind these changes was Cognos,
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.
If you want to be generate results like Sun World, you'll need to get over all three things
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.'
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?
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,
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.
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.
Veolia offer twist on smart water management The philosophy behind Molson Coors beerprint Tech giant LG extends into water treatment Pepsico,
management tips from Intel Pepsico grant supports clean water in rural China Many businesses blind to water risks
As for the hardware, it's a lithe, 900lb vehicle reminiscent of a dune buggy. Its creators say that it can accelerate from 0-60 in under four seconds,
at the high end of the market, highly organized professionals have developed complex networks of sellers
Intricate designs and seals (red marks made with printing stamps which appraisers have placed traditionally great importance on as a way to authenticate objects) can be copied by lasers with great precision.
when Google maps was removed from ios 6, forcing the firm's customers to use their own brand of mapping technology on gadgets including the iphone and ipad.
However Apple's maps met with poor reviews and inaccurate data when compared to Google's software
--and this wasn't the end of the issue. Bugs and flaws aside, the tech giant publicly apologized for the state of ios 6 maps,
but it appears the Google rival is still a long way off from being accurate enough for everyday use.
After following directions on their iphones, the Mildura Police force say that many motorists are finding themselves in the middle of Murray-Sunset National park instead of the actual location of Mildura,
or water and have walked long distances through dangerous terrain to get phone reception. The force has asked Apple to fix the issue,
but in the meantime, perhaps rival firm Google's mapping service or a traditional A to Z would be a better option.
Foxconn plans U s. manufacturing expansion Apple will begin manufacturing Macs in U s. next year Apple says app store has generated 300,000 jobs so far Apple rejects Ëoequestionable US drone strike tracker
app FTC creates guidelines for facial recognition technology use The spy-free app you can use to stop surveillance
Like stopping leaks from natural gas pipelines. Not only does this make economic sense this makes climate sense.
Engineers from Silicon valley tinkered with the software on a laptop to ensure the machine was eliminating the right leafy buds.
The thinner is part of a new generation of machines that target the last frontier of agricultural mechanization fruits
which have resisted thus far mechanization because they're sensitive to bruising. Researchers are now designing robots for these most delicate crops by integrating advanced sensors, powerful computing, electronics, computer vision, robotic hardware and algorithms,
as well as networking and high precision GPS localization technologies. Most agrobots won't be commercially available for at least a few years.
This is certainly a realistic hope according to Missy Cummings, director of the Humans and Automation Lab at MIT.
The project, called Quantum entanglement Science and Technology (Quest), could produce unbreakable codes, unbelievably fast computers,
or rather computer-enhanced surgery is to reduce the impact of surgeries (make them less invasive,
A Hawaiian heart doctor named Benjamin Berg dictated a complicated surgery over an Internet feed for a Guam man located 3, 500 miles away.
and heartbeat of the patient via sensors embedded in the catheter that had been inserted into the patient heart.
Faster Internet speeds will allow doctors to monitor their patients around the clock in their patients homes.
The Renaissance Computing Institute in North carolina has developed an Outpatient Health Monitoring System (OHMS) for patients with chronic conditions such as asthma.
This is a powerful new genetic engineering technology founded on DNA synthesis that amounts to writing software for cells.
the developer liability approaches the theoretical minimum
Researchers say new agriculture methods and crops could halve food price inflationresource conservation technologies in agriculture could potentially halve the staggering increases in food prices in the face of climate change,
The Internet Gets Physicalthe Internet likes you, really likes you. It offers you so much, just a mouse click or finger tap away.
Some of the finest minds in computer science, working at start-ups and big companies, are obsessed with tracking your online habits to offer targeted ads and coupons, just for you.
But now nothing personal, mind you the Internet is growing up and lifting its gaze to the wider world.
To be sure, the economy of Internet self-gratification is thriving. Web start-ups for the consumer market still sprout at a torrid pace.
And young corporate stars seeking to cash in for billions by selling shares to the public are consumer services the online game company Zynga last week,
though, the protean Internet technologies of computing and communications are rapidly spreading beyond the lucrative consumer bailiwick.
Low-cost sensors, clever software and advancing computer firepower are opening the door to new uses in energy conservation, transportation, health care and food distribution.
The consumer Internet can be seen as the warm-up act for these technologies. The concept has been around for years,
sometimes called the Internet of things or the Industrial Internet. Yet it takes time for the economics
said Edward D. Lazowska, a computer scientist at the University of Washington. These abundant smart devices, Dr. Lazowska added, will oeinteract intelligently with people and with the physical world.
The role of sensors once costly and clunky, now inexpensive and tiny was described this month in an essay in The New york times by Larry Smarr, founding director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information technology;
he said the ultimate goal was oethe sensor-aware planetary computer. That may sound like blue-sky futurism,
which has hired more than 100 engineers from Apple, Google, Microsoft and other high-tech companies. Its product, introduced in late October,
combining sensors, machine learning and Web technology. It senses not just air temperature, but the movements of people in a house, their comings and goings,
Yoky Matsuoka, a former Google computer scientist and winner of a Macarthur oegenius grant, said, oethis is the next wave for me.
Matt Rogers, 28, a Nest cofounder, led a team of engineers at Apple that wrote software for ipods.
Across many industries, products and practices are being transformed by communicating sensors and computing intelligence. The smart industrial gear includes jet engines,
Computers track sensor data on operating performance of a jet engine, or slight structural changes in an oil rig, looking for telltale patterns that signal coming trouble.
Computers pull GPS data from railway locomotives, taking into account the weight and length of trains, the terrain and turns,
With software for analysis, the room can monitor movements by doctors and nurses in and out of the room,
Computer vision software can analyze facial expressions for signs of severe pain, the onset of delirium or other hints of distress,
Last month, G. E. announced that it was opening a new global software center in Northern California
and would hire 400 engineers there to write code to accelerate the commercial development of intelligent machines. oeour role is to build the software that enables us to do this industrial Internet,
In 2008, I b m. declared that it was going to make a big push into the industrial Internet,
using computing intelligence to create more efficient systems for utility grids, traffic management, food distribution, water conservation and health care.
An individual with a laptop can work from home, or at a wi-fi equipped location,
or even on the road using the latest wireless'puck'devices. The office building of the future will also be expected to be more affordable to build and operate
thanks to advances and cost reductions in construction materials and systems. Also, a greater degree of sustainability will be attainable
Net-zero buildings will meet the corporate demands of tenants as well as the improved building performance sought by building owners and developers.
¢Communal table areas,¢Benching areas,¢Hive configurations for the duration of a project,¢Individual workstations for focused tasks,
Originally a term meaning to break into a computer security system, 'hack'has been given a more positive connotation by Gensler:
The Miller Hull Partnership Miller Hull design is based on the belief that oebuildings should not be allowed to consume more than they can capture on site.
Cities should provide incentives to developers who meet these performance goals. It calls its design concept:
or start-up firms that lease space on an as needed basis. Developers can create demand and higher lease rates by oecurating the office space to ensure the right creative mix of users.
¢Located on an underutilized site on the edge of the downtown core;¢¢Accessible by foot, bicycle or mass transit;¢
¢Built to harvest all of the water and energy from the site;¢¢Smaller and reconfigurable to the needs of the mobile workforce;
Personalized comfort controls at workstations will enhance worker satisfaction and improve productivity. Innovative design and construction, efficient floorplates and multipurpose spaces will support the owner business objectives.
computers, sporting goods, cosmetics, etc. â chemical production: industrial compounds, high-value compounds, plastics, chemical synthesis, etc. â human health:
By contrast, synthetic biologists work with large networks of genes, thus a new acronym, SMO.
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