Category: News

Almost a year ago, Dragon Quest IX: Sentinel of the Starry Skies was released in Japan. Since then, it has sold 4.26 million copies and is Square Enix’s second best seller from last year, next to Final

Just a quick note to direct folks to our Twitter account for up to the minute news on Google IO this week. Today at 9am Pacific, we’ll be live tweeting the keynote speech that kicks off the conference.

Of course, we’ll post any big news out of the conference here, too!

Might We Suggest…

• SlideScreen – Home Screen Replacement
  
  Many handset manufacturers will take Android and give it a face-lift before dropping it onto a phone. Take a look at MotoBlur or Sense UI for some of the better examples.  Now this job is being tak…

Google’s big developer conference, Google IO, kicks off today. For smartphone fans, our pals at AndroidCentral will bring you wall-to-wall coverage of Google IO, including a keynote liveblog at 9 PDT today. Google is expected to unveil the next version of the Android smartphone OS, Froyo, which could put some pressure on webOS.

IO isn’t just about Android, though, and so Palm is there too. They have a booth in Google’s "Developer Sandbox," where lots of vendors can show off their wares. Presumably they’ll be showing off how nicely Google integrates into Palm’s Synergy sync system. If you’re at Google IO, stop on by, say howdy, and take a look at Project Ares, the web-friendliest mobile app development environment around.

We’ve long felt that Palm and Google go well together – heck, webOS seems to jive with Google’s overall web-centric philosophy better than Android itself does. We do wish that we could see some improved Google services on webOS – Gmail and Google Maps in particular could use a little love. What Google products would you like to see work better in webOS?

Just in time to try and distract us from the poor Windows Mobile showing in Q1 2010, Microsoft has shown off the LG Panther to the PocketLint crew in UK.

They report the handset worked smoothly, and that many of the major features were up and running, and that the handset will be one of the launch devices.  We have heard separately that September is still being mooted as a possible date for the Windows Phone 7 coming out party. The handset was at the stage that the Microsoft exec was using it as his main device.  ElectricPig, who also had a hands-on, report the device felt “finished, with a sturdy sliding mechanism and decent landscape keyboard”.

Alex Reeve, the organisation’s UK Mobile Business Group director, also confirmed the Zune Music Store will be available in UK before the release of Windows Phone 7 handsets.

One nice feature they also revealed is that the Zune app will add meta data, including album art, to mp3s which lack them.

See the gallery after the break.

Press Play to start the Gallery

Read more and see more pictures at PocketLint here and ElectricPig here.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] announced Tuesday that the Philadelphia Immigration Court [official website] has ordered the deportation [press release] of former SS guard Anton Geiser to Austria for serving as an armed guard at the Sachsenhausen and the Buchenwald concentration camps during World War II. Geiser, who has been living in southwestern Pennsylvania since 1960, admitted to the allegations in the charging document. The court found that Geiser is removable under the 1978 Holtzman Amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act [text] because a visa may not be granted to anyone who was involved in persecutions based on race, religion, or national origin. Assistant US Attorney General Lanny Breuer [official profile] said, “[a]s a Nazi concentration camp guard during World War II, Anton Geiser must be held to account for his role in the persecution of countless men, women and children. The long passage of time will not diminish our resolve to deny refuge to such individuals.” Geiser is currently not in custody and can appeal his case to the Board of Immigration Appeals [official website] in Washington, DC.

In 2008, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit revoked [JURIST report] Geiser’s US citizenship because he had obtained it illegally. The DOJ alleged [complaint] that the US government mistakenly granted him a visa in 1956 and then citizenship in 1962 without knowledge of his affiliation with the Nazi regime. In 2006, a district court judge ordered the revocation [opinion, PDF] of Geiser’s citizenship, writing that it was legally necessary [8 USC s. 1451] because the citizenship was based on a visa he was ineligible to receive [Refugee Relief Act of 1953 s. 14]. The DOJ’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) [official website] handles cases, including Geiser’s, aimed at denaturalizing or deporting former Nazis who participated in wartime persecutions.

Via Prison Planet.com » Commentary

Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Congress will save us from Wall Street, Obama said in his weekly radio and internet address. The bill in Congress will curb predatory lending practices, prevent banks from taking on too much risk, and give shareholders more of a say, Obama insisted. “Put simply, Wall Street reform will bring greater security to folks on Main Street. My responsibility as president isn’t just to help our economy rebound from this recession; it’s to make sure an economic crisis like the one that helped trigger this recession never happens again,” he said. “That’s what Wall Street reform will help us do.”

The Democrat Borg collective show its support as Obama visited Buffalo, New York.

Right. And I have a bridge for sale in Brooklyn.

In fact, the Senate “financial reform” bill does almost nothing to “reform” Wall Street. It leaves the derivatives market in place. It does nothing to address the $1.5 quadrillion derivatives crisis threatening to smash the global economy like a bug. Derivatives and securitization are the primary toxins at the core of the current crisis. The Senate has fashioned a bill with a loophole you could drive a Mack truck through — a truck loaded up with derivatives.

How will the Democrats protect us from Wall Street? Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd’s “reform” bill claims the government will crack the whip over the derivatives market by mandating that most trades go through a clearinghouse, a scheme that will supposedly shed more light on secret market trading and allow for government regulators to more effectively police derivatives.

But there is a problem. There is absolutely no consequence if firms evade the requirements. The bill “includes a brief section that completely undercuts that new rule,” writes Zach Carter. “Under the current bill, there is no penalty for anybody who fails to centrally clear their trades — even though the bill labels this activity illegal. What’s more, even though this behavior is illegal, the trade itself is still valid. In other words, banks are required to bring their trading into the open. But if they don’t shed light on their trades, nothing will happen to them. I wonder what banks will choose.”

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

In short, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo — representing 97 percent of the total activity in the U.S. banking system and the equivalent of 60 percent of GDP — will continue to trade derivatives under the cover of darkness. It will business as usual on Wall Street. The engineered destruction of the economy will continue unabated.

The snake oil salesman and teleprompter reader Obama will do nothing to save you and your family from impending doom. If Obama was serious about reforming Wall Street, he’d show Larry Summers and the other bankster operatives in his administration the door. Summers and his pal Robert Rubin were responsible for killing off the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act during the Clinton administration.

Repealing Glass-Steagall allowed monsters such as Citigroup to underwrite and trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations and deliver the economy to the periphery of destruction.

Microsoft has filed suit against Salesforce for infringing the following patent:

1. Method and system for mapping between logical data and physical data
2. System and method for providing and displaying a web page having an embedded menu
3. Method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display
4. Automated web site creation using template driven generation of active server page applications
5. Aggregation of system settings into objects
6. Timing and velocity control for displaying graphical information
7. Timing and velocity control for displaying graphical information
8. Method and system for identifying and obtaining computer software from a remote computer
9. System and method for controlling access to data entities in a computer network

Lest you think these are just the headlines and that the abstracts are better. Check out the one for System and method for providing and displaying a web page having an embedded menu:

A method for providing a web page having an embedded menu to a web browser and for displaying the web page to a user of the web browser are provided. A request for a web page is received from a web browser In response to the request, a web page and an applet associated with the web page are packaged for transmission to the web browser. The web page and the applet are then transmitted to and downloaded by the web browser. When the web page is displayed and the applet is executed by the web browser, the applet creates and manages an embedded menu in the displayed web page under control of the applet . This embedded menu provides a user of the web browser with a plurality of links through one action in the displayed web page.

Software patents are a despicable tax on innovation. Companies that use them in aggression are pathetic.

Big companies where both sides have huge patent inventories might have fun with this sort of sue and counter-sue, but when the titans reach outside of their country club gardens to pick on someone a spec of their size, it’s truly disgusting.

These patents are so generic that Microsofts suit against Salesforce is purely selective enforcement against a competitor. What would we do if we were sued in a similar fashion? Probably the same thing a shop keeper on a street run by mobsters would do: Pay up or loose a limb. Extortion at its best.

But hey, maybe five years from now a cut-off-the-air-supply email can emerge, then the justice department can spend another half a decade pursuing a slap on the wrist, and in 15 years we’ll have some “justice”.

Fucking patent trolls. Fucking Microsoft. What a sad day.

Reeling from revelations about Blumenthal’s military embellishments, Democrats are going on the offensive. And that means going back to the YouTube vault, scouring the site for unflattering videos of the McMahons.

That’s where they found this little nugget, starring Linda McMahon’s husband, Vince.

Consumption of sausages, salami or smoked meat may increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes, according to results of a study today published the journal Circulation.

Researchers at the School of Public Health at Harvard, USA, found that on average each daily serving, about 50 grams of processed meat, increases by 42 percent the risk of cardiac problems and 19 percent of diabetes.

However, the intake of such unprocessed food apparently does not represent an increased chance of suffering any of these health problems.

The study, which was based on a review of 600 thousand jobs, did not assess the relationship between intake of processed foods and the chance of hypertension and increased risk of cancer.

“To lower risk of heart attacks and diabetes, people should consider which types of meats they are eating…Processed meats such as bacon, salami, sausages, hot dogs and processed deli meats may be the most important to avoid,” said Renata Micha, lead author study.

She clarified, however, if you eat one serving or less per week than meat will represent less risk to the health.

“When we looked at average nutrients in unprocessed red and processed meats eaten in the United States, we found that they contained similar average amounts of saturated fat and cholesterol,” said Micha.

The Harvard team’s findings were rejected by the American Meat Institute, which provides that this study contradicts with previous researches and the nutritional guidelines for Americans.

Related posts:

1. Unprocessed Meat Better Than Processed Meat
2. Health Tips For A Healthy Spring
3. Dementia “Contagious” Between Spouses

You can now monitor your World of Warcraft auctions using your iPhone (or iPod touch). A new version of Blizzard’s Armory App now gives users the ability to tap into the game’s Auction House, wherein gamers can keep tabs on their sales of copper stacks and see how much Spellweave is going for.

There’s also a Web version of the mobile Auction House, but that’s a little less exciting.

The Auction House functionality is being beta tested right now. As such, it’s totally free to use. Fair warning: Blizzard does intend to charge $2.99 per 30 days for mobile access to the Auction House when the App leaves beta. I’d like to accuse Activision for coming up with that unnecessary fee, as it seems their wont. Do I have any proof of that? Absolutely not.

Nerd rage aside, it’s actually a fairly neat idea—longtime readers should recognize that “fairly neat” is mighty high praise coming from me. It basically gives you access to the whole of the Auction House while on-the-go (assuming you have AT&T reception, something that isn’t always guaranteed). You can create and bid on auctions; it’s not some two-bit “monitor” where you can see what’s going on but cannot interact at all.

That said, “serious” auctioneers tend to use the Auctioneer add-on. Essentially, it gives you a whole heck of a lot more control over your auctions. Sorta the difference between driving a manual transmission car vs. an automatic.

Of course, my realm, Aggramar, isn’t included in the beta. Wonderful.

In other Blizzard news (which I forgot to mention yesterday), Blizzcon tickets go on sale on June 2 and June 5. (The convention occurs on October 22 and 23 in Anaheim.) They’re releasing tickets in two groups this year, trying to make things more fair. Apparently having a Battle.net accounts makes things easier when trying to buy tickets. Also, just like last year, the convention will be live-streamed online and made available as a DirecTV pay-per-view.

On May 27, thousands of students are graduating from Harvard. Each has a successful past to relate, and a promising future to embrace. In a series of profiles, Gazette writers showcase some of these stellar graduates.

As a young computer whiz, Lahiru Jayatilaka learned a lasting lesson about the importance of precision.

His father agreed to let him build a computer for their home, so the eager teen confidently studied “how to” tips, then set about connecting the intricate, costly hardware. In the final step, he quickly inserted a small component into the system’s main control panel. Triumphantly, Jayatilaka pressed the start button, and then watched the “blue screen of death” appear.

Everything seemed to be in order, but when he re-examined the final piece, Jayatilaka noticed an arrow and three little words: This side up. “The most important part of the machine had been inserted the wrong way,” and every part had to be bought again, he recalled. “I’ll never forget that.”

Jayatilaka brought that lesson with him to Harvard. As an undergraduate computer science concentrator, the Currier House resident helped to build robotic devices for detecting land mines. It was work in which precision was everything. “I have learned that going slow, taking time, following instructions, and taking a step back are very important,” he said.

Jayatilaka grew up in Sri Lanka, the son of an engineer and a lawyer, and was largely sheltered from the civil war raging between the government and the separatist Tamil Tigers. But at Harvard, he began to understand the repercussions of the conflict, which ended last year, and in particular the brutal legacy of land mines.

After a chance encounter at dinner, Jayatilaka spent two years collaborating with Thrishantha Nanayakkara, a one-time Radcliffe Fellow and member of the Scholars at Risk program, administered by the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies, on a robot that would detect land mines. The process deepened his understanding of the explosive devices, which carry sweeping social costs.

“Children can’t play or roam freely, farmers can’t farm their land and don’t have ways to feed their family, the government can’t support the number of people suffering from injuries and disabilities,” he said of the “frozen societies” that mines create, “not to mention the thousands of refugees displaced from their lands.”

The work on robots was exciting. But its prohibitive costs, and the challenges of using the technology in such rugged terrain and difficult weather, meant its immediate applications were limited. Wanting to address the problem in the near term, Jayatilaka wrote his senior thesis on patterns of land mine detection.

His research has produced a visual interface that may enable workers searching for mines to determine the type and location of buried objects with significantly more precision than is possible with currently available equipment.

He hopes to continue his work with Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences next year, to test his prototype mine detector in the field, and to start a Ph.D. in computer science at Harvard.

But Harvard doesn’t fit into Jayatilaka’s longest-range plans. Sri Lanka does.

“I have strong opinions about where the country needs to go,” said Jayatilaka, who is interested in politics. “There need to be certain fundamental changes in the way we approach electing our leaders, and the way our leaders approach leading our country.”

The irony is, he never planned to come to Harvard. His mother submitted the application for him.

“I didn’t think it was the right fit,” said Jayatilaka, who assumed his mechanical background would be better suited for a certain engineering school farther down Massachusetts Avenue.

But today, Jayatilaka wouldn’t change a thing, acknowledging that Harvard’s broad exposure to the liberal arts has led to “one of the most formative experiences of my life.”

He used his time to pursue his passion for computers, but also to dive into courses in government, politics, and economics. That helped him to understand the conflict and unrest in his own country, said Jayatilaka. He also relished exploring history, literature, and philosophy.

He credits the experience with reshaping the way he channeled his skills as an engineer. “It has pushed me to be more practical and hands-on in addressing an issue,” said Jayatilaka, “rather than being in love with the abstract and theoretical.”

Next in the series: Loren Galler Rabinowitz — from the ice to Harvard.

Via Prison Planet.com » Prison Planet

Christopher Horner
Pajamas Media
Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Pajamas Media has received a leaked internal assessment produced by Spain’s Zapatero administration. The assessment confirms the key charges previously made by non-governmental Spanish experts in a damning report exposing the catastrophic economic failure of Spain’s “green economy” initiatives.

On eight separate occasions, President Barack Obama has referred to the “green economy” policies enacted by Spain as being the model for what he envisioned for America.

Later came the revelation that Obama administration senior Energy Department official Cathy Zoi — someone with serious publicized conflict of interest issues — demanded an urgent U.S. response to the damaging report from the non-governmental Spanish experts so as to protect the Obama administration’s plans.

Most recently, U.S. senators have introduced the vehicle for replicating Spain’s unfolding economic meltdown here, in the form of the “American Power Act.” For reasons that are obvious upon scrutiny, it should instead be called the American Power Grab Act.

But today’s leaked document reveals that even the socialist Spanish government now acknowledges the ruinous effects of green economic policy.

Unsurprisingly for a governmental take on a flagship program, the report takes pains to minimize the extent of the economic harm. Yet despite the soft-pedaling, the document reveals exactly why electricity rates “necessarily skyrocketed” in Spain, as did the public debt needed to underwrite the disaster. This internal assessment preceded the Zapatero administration’s recent acknowledgement that the “green economy” stunt must be abandoned, lest the experiment risk Spain becoming Greece.

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

The government report does not expressly confirm the highest-profile finding of the non-governmental report: that Spain’s “green economy” program cost the country 2.2 jobs for every job “created” by the state. However, the figures published in the government document indicate they arrived at a job-loss number even worse than the 2.2 figure from the independent study.

This document is not a public report. Spanish media has referred to its existence in recent weeks though, while Bloomberg and the Washington Examiner have noted the impact: Spain is now forced to jettison its plans — Obama’s model — for a “green economy.”

Remarkably, these items have received virtually no media attention.

An item which has been covered widely, however, is that President Obama is now pressuring Spain to turn off its spigot of public debt in the name of averting a situation similar to that of Greece.

Also covered widely is Obama’s promotion of the American Power Act — the legislation which would replicate Spain’s current situation in the United States.

Put simply, Obama is currently promoting a policy in the U.S. which is based on a policy that he wishes to see Spain abandon. Welcome to Obamaland, the particulars of which are explained in a fashion grandly more illuminating than this Obama-Zapatero dance in Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America.

Full story here.

Quando eu vejo disputas com os famosos “Big Foot“, também chamado de “carro monstro“, me imagino dirigindo uma coisa dessa dessas, a sensação de poder. Deve ser diferente de um caminhão, que também é um veículo alto.

Dirigir um grandalhão desses tem suas vantagens e desvantagens. O que aconteceria, por exemplo, se um monstro desses capotasse? É o que você verá nesse vídeo logo acima, onde a combinação “Carros monstro“+”Lama“-”Cinto de Segurança” = “Coisa boa jamais“.

Durante a aceleração do monstro, ele simplesmente deslizou e o piloto com toda a sua expertise, não estava usando o cinto de segurança. Não vou comentar o que acontece agora, é melhor ver o vídeo. Mas fica a lição: “Não usar cinto de segurança, literalmente te coloca na lama“.

Via | Top Speed

When it comes to unified communications, the biggest challenge to date has been getting products from one company to work with those of another, even if they used similar (or the same) underlying technologies. Whether it was Polycom, Logitech’s LifeSize, Hewlett-Packard or Microsoft — they were all islands of their own. Now, along with Juniper Networks, these companies have created a Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF), an alliance aimed at removing all the annoyances around unified communications. In plain English — they all want their products to work with each other. The group has already attracted members including VoIP companies such as Acme Packet and BroadSoft.

With the unified communications market expected to grow to $14.5 billion by 2015, it makes perfect sense for all these companies to interoperate. The changing nature of work is forcing people to use video and audio conferencing more frequently, along with newer forms of collaboration tools. It becomes tough for companies to work together if their communications gear doesn’t talk to each other. From that perspective, UCIF is a great first step.

I think that if UCIF wants to be successful over the long term, it needs to work with Skype, which in my view is becoming the de facto leader in low-latency, low-cost and easy-to-use collaboration tools. Small and new web companies in particular are shunning expensive gear and using Skype for all their communication needs.

One company that is conspicuous by its absence in this alliance? Cisco Systems. The San Jose, Calif.-based networking giant is the big gorilla in this market, thanks to it lavish spending to promote its Telepresence solutions and its recent acquisition of Tandberg. Cisco does and will continue to work as an island because as a company it stands to benefit handsomely by selling its own hardware. So it’s safe to say that the UCIF is a broadside against Cisco.

Canon’s Rebel T2i is an incredible camera—everything a first DSLR should be. It takes fantastic photos (and, crucially, video) for the price, it’s easy to use, and perhaps most importantly, it’s a camera you can grow with. More »










Digital single-lens reflex camera – Canon – Photography – Camera – Digital camera

PI’s range of high-precision stages – the NanoCube P-611 (Fig. 1) XYZ nanopositioning systems – prove their ability in new fields of application. The cube sides only measure 44 mm, making it suitable for travel ranges up to 100 x 100 x 100 µm and easy to integrate. The stages are driven by piezo actuators and achieve resolutions of up to 0.2 nm at response times in the millisecond range. The basic (open-loop) model is designed for high-resolution positioning where the absolute position is of secondary importance or whose control loop is closed externally. This is the case with tracking or fiber-positioning applications, for example. A closed-loop version with integrated position sensors is available for applications which require high accuracy both in absolute terms and also in terms of repeatability. Both versions use preloaded high-performance piezo actuators which are integrated into a friction-free, zero-backlash guiding system with FEM optimized flexures. The actuators, guides and sensors are non-wearing, making the systems very reliable and durable. This has already been proven in numerous applications where high precision is required. One example can be found in a product from the French company Teem Photonics, which uses the NanoCube P-611 in the new µFab3D microfabrication system. The system builds three-dimensional microstructures and objects in light sensitive materials such as polymers, proteins or noble metals.
The microfabrication system operates on the basis of so-called “two-photon absorption,” where a pulsed beam of laser light is used to achieve a sufficiently high supply of energy at the focus. This changes the material structure by polymerization, cross linking of proteins or precipitations of metal ions. The typical fields of application include microfluidics, cell biology and the manufacture of photonic crystal structures in micro-optics.
The resolution of the system, i.e. the size of the machining points, which can be anywhere within the object, is 200 nm. The objects are fabricated “on the fly” at a speed of 100 µm/s. For a homogenous and high-quality result, the laser and the machining points must be aligned precisely and with constant speed. The NanoCube P-611 provides the optimum conditions here with a travel range of 100 x 100 x 100 µm.

The lever-amplified piezo actuators of the PiezoMove series from Physik Instrumente (PI) reach travel ranges up to 500 µm and have been designed for a particularly cost effective production of large quantities.
Those who are not put off by the greater effort required to integrate these actuators, or who prefer to use OEM products for technical or financial reasons can now keep the investment costs at a relatively low level. Their response times of a few milliseconds and resolution in the sub-nanometer range make all three series suitable for both static and dynamic applications.
The strain gauge sensors (SGS), which can optionally be employed, improve the linearity of up to 99.8%.
Applications that are particularly suited for employing PiezoMove actuators are for example cavity tuning in laser optics or microscanning in imaging applications. Further applications are dispensers, valves for microdosing devices, pumps in medical technology and biotechnology.

Piezo Actuators With Improved Reliability:

The driving force behind the lever-amplified actuators is provided by the PICMA multilayer actuators from PI Ceramic, a subsidiary of PI. Instead of the usual polymer insulation they have full ceramic encapsulation. This protects them from humidity and failure caused by an increase in the leakage current.
They are thus much more reliable and durable than conventional piezo actuators. The reliable multilayers are also used in all nanopositioning systems from the same manufacturer. They are produced on a large scale for biometry, medical engineering and image processing and can therefore also convince with their exceptionally good price-performance ratio.

Interesante a la vez que rara noticia la que nos ha dado hace unas horas Fiat. Acaba de anunciar que en caso de poseer un Fiat 500 y querer cambiarlo, la marca nos ofrece una bicicleta eléctrica, si, estas leyendo bien.

El director de marketing, Antonie Burguière, ha realizado las siguientes declaraciones:

Hemos iniciado esta campaña y nuestra asociación con la marca Treck por su coherencia con el ADN de nuestro modelo: democrático (es para todos), pragmático (necesidad de buscar medios más prácticos y rápidos de movilidad) y eco-tecnológico (respetuosas con el medio ambiente y económico).

Las ciudades en las que podremos acogernos a esta iniciativa son Barcelona, Valencia, A Coruña, Sevilla, Valencia y Madrid. Tendremos que esperar unos días o semanas para ver si esta iniciativa ha tenido éxito o ha cae en el olvido.

Related posts:

1. Fiat 500 BEV
2. Fiat y su motor de dos cilindros
3. Fiat Punto, teaser del restyling

Filed under: Etc., Videos, Toys/Games, Motorcycle, Humor

Say you and three of your closest buddies find yourselves out for a leisurely Sunday cruise on your motorbikes, when you stumble upon the old schoolyard merry-go-round. Following an intense session of cerebral activity, and the obligatory drawing of straws, it is decided that all the necessary ingredients are on hand for a primitive recreation of the Gravitron. We know, it can feel like so long between carnival visits sometimes.

Moral of the story: First, if you are the guy in the red pants, it’s officially time to begin the new friend hunt. Second, if you haven’t yet found a use for motorcycles, open your mind, they really are very multifaceted. When was the last time you utilized your car to create a backyard, makeshift carnival ride? Wait, don’t answer that, just hit the jump to watch the complete Moto-Go-Round experience. Thanks for the tip, Duy.

[Source: YouTube]

Continue reading Video: Moto Merry-Go-Round yields both disaster and hilarity

Video: Moto Merry-Go-Round yields both disaster and hilarity originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 19 May 2010 09:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

There has been a press release circulating for the past couple of days by a company called GridShift Inc. that claims to have made an electrolysis breakthrough that will deliver compressed hydrogen fuel at around $2.51 per kilogram (equivalent to a gallon).

This press release has met with some skepticism from sources such as Bnet.com. But, I’m a little more optimistic after having a conversation with GridShift’s CEO Robert Dopp (pictured). According to Mr. Dopp, “My goal is to reach the 85-percent energy efficiency at 1 Amp/cm2 by this summer and then verification will begin. I am so far ahead of the field that comparative data will be hard to find.

“It is due to the coating technique I have developed which coats all surfaces of a 3D shape (like reticulate nickel foam) with nano catalysts in a way that is robust enough to withstand the rigors of electrolysis and still exposes the powders to the electrolyte’s boundary layer. None of the catalysts are Noble or expensive.”

Much of the technical details of how the new proprietary GridShift technology works in general can be found in a whitepaper on their website. According to the whitepaper, “We use no Noble metals in our work (i.e. no platinum). We then developed a novel way to adhere these powders to a metallic electrode surface … We have developed a unique method to attach nano catalysts to a metallic surface in a way that has very low impedance to the reaction sites, covers all surfaces of a porous structure and leaves the particles well exposed to the boundary layer.”

According to the GridShift press release, “GridShift’s uses a new catalyst comprised of readily available nano-particles, reducing catalyst costs by up to 97 percent. Platinum is the most often used catalyst for electrolysis based hydrogen generation, but at a cost of over $1700 an ounce, it becomes prohibitive at scale. This newly developed catalyst costs just $58 an ounce.

“Overall, GridShift’s new method for hydrogen generation produces four times more hydrogen per electrode surface area than what is currently reported for commercial units today. This means that an electrolysis unit using the GridShift method would produce at least four times more fuel in the same sized machine, or require a unit four times smaller than normal to make the same amount of hydrogen. GridShift’s new electrolysis method finally breaks down the barriers that have kept a truly green hydrogen highway from extending across the country.”

One of the problems that Bnet had with the $2.51 per gallon figure is that it was based upon five cents a kilowatt-hour when the national average is 12-cents. This may partly be true if the electrolysis device is to be used in hydrogen fueling stations during peak hours. But, at night during off-peak hours, when most home hydrogen fueling stations would be used (and presumably hydrogen fueling stations would also use this time to compress and store hydrogen as well) the 5 cent mark is about right. And this figure also becomes less if wind, solar or other alternative energy is used to provide the electrolysis.

In addition, Bnet states, “The average new car struggles to reach 25 mpg, but hydrogen cars averaged 47 mpg in 2008 …” I’m not sure where they got this figure, but it is low compared to the data I have gathered, putting hydrogen cars more in the 60 mpge to 80 mpge range. Remember, that most hydrogen cars today are also hybrid vehicles and some are even plug-in hybrids.

Also, remember that if the $2.51 per gallon figure is correct and hydrogen cars get double the mileage as the average gasoline-powered automobile this would be the equivalent to around $1.75 per gallon of gasoline, a price we can all live with. The GridShift dual electrolyzer is pictured along with the laboratory it was conceived and tested in.

I’m optimistic that GridShift will truly provide, as the name implies, a shift in the paradigm from fossil fuels and uncontrollable offshore oil spills to cleaner, home grown alternative fuels of the future in just a few short years.