Category: News

While de-icing my car this morning, I was listening to the radio. The announcer said that we are expecting more snow in London this week. The news sent shivers down my spine but not for the reason you may think. As if the ice on the road and pedestrians jumping in front of moving cars isn’t bad enough, we may have a new problem to deal with: it seems that LED traffic lights may have a problem dealing with snow.

Unlike their incandescent counterparts, LED traffic lights do not melt the snow that covers the  housings (in case you haven’t read about this here’s a link on Slashdot ). As a result, some cities have reported accidents where drivers have plowed into the intersection because they have been unable to tell whether they have the right of way. Now California has had a low tech solution which we’ve used for years:  if the traffic light is out, you revert to a 4-way stop sign.  But I guess not every state has this law. And while we’re on the subject London could really use this because when traffic signals go out here, you basically have to play a game of Frogger. So why am I concerned about this? For two reasons:

1) personal – most of the traffic lights in my part of London are LED lights; therefore, the thought of having to sit at an intersection playing Frogger is not my idea of fun.

and

2) professional – as someone involved in the field of CFD and thermal simulation, it seems to me that this problem may be fairly easy to solve. From what I’ve heard, LEDs give off 91% of the energy they consume as heat. So it stands to reason that by creating a different heatsink you should be able to channel the heat to the right place and solve this problem. Unfortunately this solution would require a bit of retrofitting but in the grand scheme of things, it’s better than dispatching armies of people with brooms to clear the snow away …

So if you’re a design engineer and are intrigued about using simulation to solve this problem for your organization cost-effectively, then please go here to find additional information from your thermal experts (us)!

Until next time,
Nazita

Close to 20% of all dollars invested by VCs in 2009 went into clean technology, up from roughly 14.4% in 2008 and 10% in 2007, according to MidwestBusiness.com and a 2007 report.

Solar was the leading investment category in 2009, TriplePundit reports, with over 25 cents of every cleantech VC dollar being invested in a solar related technology, according to Greentech Media.

Deals from 2009 that point to a growing solar industry this year include the acquisition of Solel, a solar thermal power components vendor, by Siemens for $418 million, and MEMC’s purchase of Sun Edison, a “solar Power Purchase Agreement pioneer” for $200 million.

Bill Roth, author of The Green Secret Sauce and founder of EARTH 2017, predicts that Solar prices will continue to decline while consumer demand will continue to grow, eventually creating “a future where solar power will be price competitive without subsidies.” This trend leads Roth to believe that cleantech will be “a $10 trillion global annual revenue sustainable economy by 2017.”

Other than solar, VC investments have branched out into 19 different cleantech investment categories. Batteries, for example, attracted $455 million in 2009, invested in 36 different companies.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Green Tech VC Activity Down Big In 2009
• U.S. Solar Market Will Double By 2011, Creating 50,000 Jobs

Talk about awkward timing: Scandal-shamed womanizer Tiger Woods and his bulging biceps are plastered across the February cover of Vanity Fair Magazine. Legendary shutterbug Annie Leibovitz snapped Tiger shirtless and pumping iron for a groundbreaking spread just weeks before the winter sex scandal that prompted the golfing champ’s fall from grace last November. The full portfolio features never-before-seen photos of a raw Woods.

Image Source

In case you weren’t following the news over the holidays, an interesting media story was gaining momentum with Time Warner threatening to drop Fox Broadcast networks from its service. When I saw that headline, it registered a quick snort with the thought, “Yeah, like that would ever happen.” Indeed, it appears a deal has been struck to keep Fox a part of Time Warner subscribers’ lives — shocker! But the New York Times has a good article today breaking down the fight, and explaining what it means in the broader context for cable subscribers: higher bills.

The reason why Time Warner threatened to drop Fox was because its parent company, News Corporation, was demanding subscriber fees for the Fox Broadcasting network. Traditionally, the non-cable networks, like Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC had relied entirely on advertising for their revenue since anyone could view their local affiliates with an antenna. While most cable networks also got some advertising money, they also relied on fees paid by subscribers from companies like Time Warner and Comcast who bring their channels to their customers.

According to the Times, CBS started asking for fees a few years ago. Obviously Fox demands them now too. It says the others are likely to follow.

As you can probably guess, cable companies are hardly going to let these new fees hit their bottom line: they’ll just charge consumers more. Indeed, Time Warner has already announced a rate increase likely related to the Fox deal. Expect those fees to increase as ABC and NBC eventually cash in.

Is it OK that the networks are forcing viewers to pay for content? That depends on your view of the world.

On one hand, if cable channels are profiting from, both, advertising and subscriber fees, why can’t the traditionally non-cable networks? In this day and age, fewer and fewer people are relying on antennas anyway. The distinction between cable and non-cable channels seems so. . . 20th century.

On the other hand, these companies appeared to be doing pretty well based on advertising revenue alone for decades. Why the sudden need to milk cable customers out of additional money to pad network executives’ pockets? As a consumer, I’m certainly not pleased that my bill may be going up by a few dollars.

Of course, this all boils down to the important contemporary question of whether media should charge for its content, rely purely on advertising or do both. That’s the question that Internet news sources are struggling with. But with cable the quandary develops a different dimension. You can decide whether or not to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal online, but if you don’t like MSNBC, you’re probably out of luck. Few people have the ability to decide which cable networks they get on an “à la cart” pricing basis.

But the Web will likely transform this debate for TV as well. Technology appears to be increasingly moving towards a sort of content-agnostic world, where the web will be where we access all forms of media, whether print, radio or TV. So while it’s fine for us to quibble over this latest trend for non-cable TV networks, I suspect it’s just one step in an evolution leading to a new world where all of our media consumption will be very, very different.

The year has only just begun, but it’s starting to feel like the year of the tablet already. And I don’t mean mythical tablets, either. Viliv is already known for its UMPC devices, but the new S10 Blade is about to cut a swath through the Windows Tablet PC market. There’s no price yet, just the specs and some pics on Naver, courtesy of UMPCPortal.

We’re basically looking at a Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium convertible netbook with a high-resolution (1,366 x 768), 10.1″ multitouch display. There’s no mention of an active digitizer, so I’m unsure of the inking experience. However, the touch experience should be quite good if the right hardware and drivers are used. Storage comes in the form of SSD, and the standard connectivity options abound: 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR and optional integrated 3G. The 2.67-pound tablet PC only comes with 512 MB of memory, which raises an eyebrow. Hopefully, that can be changed before the product launch or can easily be expanded for performance reasons. Speaking of performance, the S10 Blade runs on one of two Intel Atom chipsets — the 1.6 GHz Z530 or the 2.0 GHz Z550. Viliv claims up to 10 hours of run-time or seven hours of video playback. If this device sees seven or eight hours of real-world usage, it could be a very compelling product — pending the price, of course.

Twitter is starting off 2010 in force by announcing, more or less officially, 10 new hires to bolster its growing team and ambitions. The microblogging platform maintains lists of all of its employees which revealed that the company has been snatching up a number of people from big tech companies like Google and a couple of social networks like Ning and Bebo.

As blogger Louis Gray spotted, the biggest new hire seems to be Bakari Brock, a lawyer at Google and YouTube for the past couple of years who specializes in “in-house commercial practice focuses on negotiation and drafting of music, video and software licenses; and counseling on copyright, ecommerce, and general policy issues,” as his LinkedIn profile describes.

His arrival could mean that Twitter was preparing some sort of move into content distribution, which would certainly justify the need for some in-house legal prowess, but this does seem a bit of a stretch for a company that has managed to maintain a rather focused interest. Twitter is about to provide a great service and a great API which third-parties can use to add any sort of embellishment they want. But, even if Twitter isn’t doing anything in the content field itself, a huge amount of content does pass through the service every day and maybe the company is just playing it safe.

“Paul Soals (formerly of Bebo), Ed Ceaser (form… (read more)

Notre Dame Professor of Law Michael Kirsch’s most recent scholarly article— The Role of Physical Presence in the Taxation of Cross-Border Personal Services, 51 Boston College Law Review (2010)—addresses the international tax implications of virtual personal services, a jurisdictional matter that has arisen out of the increasing importance of global trade, telecommunications, and personal mobility.

After earning a J.D. from Harvard and an LL.M. in taxation from New York University, Kirsch worked for four years in the tax department of a Los Angeles law firm. He then served as a law clerk for Chief Judge Lapsley W. Hamblen, Jr., of the United States Tax Court in Washington, D.C. Following the two-year clerkship, he served as a staff attorney in the IRS’ Office of Associate Chief Counsel (International). From 1997 through 2001 he worked in the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Policy, where he was the Associate International Tax Counsel.

His scholarship, which focuses on international taxation, is published by top law journals, including the New York University Law Review, the Harvard Journal on Legislation, and the Texas Law Review.

For more information about Professor Kirsch, visit his faculty profile.

Paddy Hirsch, a senior editor at Marketplace, has knack for explaining complex financial situations through drawings on a whiteboard. His latest video tackles what many think will be the next big bubble: commercial real estate. Watch the video below for a brief rundown on why CRE is an impending disaster.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• "Oh CRE! Oh CRE!" A Commercial Real Estate Christmas Carol
• Welcome To The Most Depressing Commercial Real Estate Disaster In America
• Commercial Real Estate Index Falls To Lowest Level Since August 2002

Back to work after nice mini-break…let’s all have a great 2010, and a fruitful decade.

We are proud to announce a new sponsor and several partners who are helping make the SharpBrains Summit a reality.

Sponsor

The Arrowsmith Program is a comprehensive suite of cognitive programs for students with learning disabilities that targets 19 areas of the brain that are most commonly involved in learning.  It integrates two lines of neuroscience research, that of Russian neuropsychologist, A.R. Luria and the American psychologist, Mark Rosenzweig, into a methodology with a multitude of practical applications for addressing learning disabilities.  The Arrowsmith Program identifies and strengthens the weak cognitive areas that affect learning and each student works on cognitive programs that are individually designed for his or her areas of learning difficulty.  The Arrowsmith Program was developed at Arrowsmith School in Toronto where it has been offered since 1979 and is available in public and private schools in Canada and the U.S.

Partners

The Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA), founded in 1980, is the leading national organization serving and representing individuals, families and professionals who are touched by a life-altering, often devastating, traumatic brain injury (TBI). Together with its network of more than 40 chartered state affiliates, as well as hundreds of local chapters and support groups across the country, the BIAA provides information, education and support to assist the 3.17 million Americans currently living with traumatic brain injury and their families.

The UC-Santa Barbara Neuroscience Research Institute has a mission to promote and facilitate interdisciplinary neuroscience research. Work in the institute integrates the tools and strategies of modern molecular biology, genetics, cell biology, developmental biology, biopsychology, biochemistry, physiology, biophysics and bioengineering.

The Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation (ARPF), established in 1993, is dedicated to reducing the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease by conducting clinical research and providing educational outreach. Our mission is to make available information, from conventional and complementary medicine, that will empower people to build healthy brains.

OLLI @ Berkeley is one of the 121 Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes on university and college campuses in 48 states (plus the District of Columbia) supported by the Bernard Osher Foundation. OLLI @ Berkeley provides older adults an intellectual, cultural and creative connection to Berkeley as well as a place for Berkeley’s distinguished faculty and others to share their research and interests in an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas.

To learn more about the upcoming SharpBrains Summit (January 18-20th), click Here.

Raymond James strategist Jeff Saut continues to present a cautious tone in his first research note of the year

Last Monday we wrote, “As we enter the New Year, we are once again turning cautious because the Treasury market is breaking down (higher rates) and the U.S. dollar is rallying. . . . Therefore, we think it prudent to ‘bank’ some trading profits and hedge some investment positions as we approach the new year.”

Moreover, one of the lessons we have learned is that the beginning of a new year is often punctuated with head fakes, both on the upside as well as the downside. One of the greatest upside head fakes was in January 1973 when in the first two weeks of that year the DJIA rallied to a new all-time high of 1051.70 before sliding ~20%. While we are clearly not predicting that, what we have indeed experienced since the March “lows” is the second greatest percentage rally (69%), adjusted for time (nine months), since the 1933 rally. Following that 1933 explosion of 116% in just five months came a pretty decent downside correction. Since we tend to be “odds players,” prudence suggests some caution is again warranted.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Goldman’s Jim O’Neill: Easy Money And High Oil Prices Make Russia The #1 BRIC For 2010
• The 2010 Economy Will Boom Thanks To Free-Market Capitalism
• In Store For 2010: Lots More On The Bailout Front

In what sounds like a medical mystery suitable for Dr. House, doctors in Leeds couldn’t figure out why antibiotic treatment wasn’t working for a 29-year-old British man with a three week history of a red, watery, and light-sensitive eye. As the doctors soon discovered, this wasn’t your normal case of pink eye, according to the Los Angeles Times:

Once examined under high magnification lenses, hair-like projections were spotted at varying depths within the cornea. When these details were discussed with the patient, he immediately recalled an incident that had preceded the onset of his symptoms. 3 weeks earlier, he had been cleaning the glass tank of his pet, a Chilean Rose tarantula. While his attention was focused on a stubborn stain, he sensed movement in the terrarium. He turned his head and found that the tarantula, which was in close proximity, had released “a mist of hairs” which hit his eyes and face.

It’s hard to believe a blast of projectile hairs to his eyeball slipped the patient’s mind.

In hindsight, protective goggles would have been a good investment considering that Chilean Rose tarantulas are known to launch their barbed hairs at attackers in self-defense. The hairs were too tiny to be removed by microforceps, so the spider owner is left with taking steroid eye drops to clear up his symptoms.

Related Content:
Discoblog: Coming Soon To ERs: Wait Times via Tweet
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Discoblog: New Especially Bad Heroin Can Give You an Overdose—or Anthrax

Image: flickr / Furryscaly

Victor Ashe

KNOXVILLE — Former Knoxville mayor Victor Ashe, who recently completed five years as U.S. ambassador to Poland, will speak at two events this month sponsored by the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

On Jan. 14, Ashe and his wife, Joan, will speak on “Five Years Later…Back From Poland” at a luncheon from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at The Foundry at the World’s Fair Park. Advanced reservations are required no later than Monday, Jan. 11, and can be made by calling 974-0931 or e-mailing Betsy Harrell at [email protected]. Cost of the luncheon is $15, payable at the door by cash or check made out to the University of Tennessee.

Then, on Jan. 26, as part of the Baker Center’s Ambassadorial Lecture Series, Victor Ashe will speak on “Eastern Europe’s Role in the 21st Century” in the Toyota Auditorium at the Baker Center, 1640 Cumberland Ave. The lecture, which begins at 7:30 p.m., is free and open to the public.

A Knoxville native, Ashe was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1968 at the age of 23. He was elected to the Tennessee State Senate in 1975. From 1985 to 1987, Ambassador Ashe served as executive director of the Americans Outdoors Commission. In 1987, he was elected mayor of Knoxville, a position he held for 16 years. On June 23, 2004, he was sworn in as U.S. ambassador to Poland.

Ashe was recently nominated by President Barack Obama to serve on the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which encompasses all U.S. civilian international broadcasting.

Ashe’s political papers are housed in the Baker Center’s Modern Political Archives.

The Baker Center is a nonpartisan center that develops educational programs and promotes research to further the public’s understanding and knowledge of our system of governance, critical public policy issues and the importance of public service and civic engagement. For more information about the Baker Center, see http://www.bakercenter.utk.edu.

—

C O N T A C T :

Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, [email protected])

Robert Bosch has released an optimistic 2010 sales forecast for its car parts core business. The company is expecting a 10% sales increase in this sector, based on growth in emerging markets and as automotive producers build up their stocks, writes just-auto.com.

Bosch’s 2009 sales saw a 20% decrease, only reaching €22 billion, but the company predicts that revenue will return to the pre-crisis level of 2007 by 2012, as Bernd Bohr, chief of the car parts division declared at … (read more)

UL Environment Tests and Certifies LG’s E2350V Monitor For Sustainable Design, Manufacture and Disposal

UL Environment, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Underwriters Laboratories, announced today that LG Electronics is the first company to earn UL Environment’s new Sustainable Product Certification (SPC) for high tech equipment.

LG’s new 23-inch class* E2350VLED LCD computer monitor – to be introduced later this week at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas – is the first product to complete UL Environment’s independent, third-party certification for meeting the IEEE 1680 environmental performance benchmark for consumer electronics, which includes ENERGY STAR® requirements for energy efficiency.

The LG monitor will be the first to carry the UL Environment Sustainable Product Certification mark, a green leaf encircling the familiar “UL” initials. UL Environment-certified environmental criteria include the elimination or reduction of certain hazardous substances that pose threats to human health and the environment.

Ninety percent of the materials and parts used to make the E2350V monitor can be reused or recycled at the end of the product’s useful life, reducing the amount of materials sent to landfills. The monitor is sold in packaging that is 90 percent recyclable as well.

UL Environment’s testing confirmed that the LG monitor earned an IEEE 1680 Gold rating, the most stringent and prestigious of three levels of compliance. The E2350V is believed to be the only Gold-rated monitor on the market to achieve third-party certification of its sustainable attributes.

“LG is committed to environmental sustainability. We strive to design products that address the environmental impact of consumer electronics and offer consumers something better,” said James Shad, President of LG Electronics USA.

“Independent third-party certification by an organization with UL Environment’s credibility and expertise underscores LG’s sustainability achievements in the minds of consumers and retailers alike.”

In order to determine compliance with the IEEE 1680 sustainability standard, UL Environment assessed product documentation and records, physically examined product samples, independently tested the product for compliance to ENERGY STAR® requirements and conducted onsite audits of manufacturing facilities.

“In an era when ‘greenwashing’ is growing more prevalent, UL Environment is proud to be able to certify to the public and reassure consumers that this product meets our holistic sustainability criteria for design, manufacture and end-of-life disposal,” said Steve Wenc, President of UL Environment.

“We expect that consumers who are already very familiar with the UL Mark for product safety will begin looking for the UL Environment Sustainable Product Certification mark as a credible, third-party endorsement of the product’s environmental performance backed by rigorous scientific testing and auditing.”

Supporting LG Electronics’ worldwide “green” initiatives, the UL Environment Sustainable Product Certification adds to LG’s distinction as the first consumer electronics manufacturer to have products assessed via the UL Environmental Claims Validation (ECV) program.

The ECV program tests individual product environmental claims and provides companies with a source for independent, third-party green claims validation.

UL Environment is also leading sustainability standards development efforts in multiple industries to create comprehensive guidelines for sustainable product development where they do not currently exist.

About LG Electronics USA

LG Electronics USA, Inc., based in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., is the North American subsidiary of LG Electronics, Inc., a $45 billion global force and technology leader in consumer electronics, home appliances and mobile communications.

In the United States, LG Electronics sells a range of stylish and innovative home entertainment products, mobile phones, home appliances and business solutions, all under LG’s “Life’s Good” marketing theme.

For more information, please visit LGusa.com.

About UL Environment, Inc.

UL Environment (ULE) is helping support the growth and development of sustainable products and services in the global marketplace through standards development and independent third-party assessment and certification.

ULE is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Underwriters Laboratories Inc., a global leader in conformity assessment that has been testing products and writing standards for more than a century.

ULE currently offers Environmental Claims Validation (ECV), a service testing and validating manufacturers’ self-declared environmental claims and Sustainable Product Certification (SPC), a service testing and certifying products to accepted industry standards for environmental sustainability.

ULE is developing additional environmental standards, training and advisory services to support organizations in the sustainable products and services industry.

For more information please visit ulenvironment.com.

*E2350V 23-inch class/23.0-inch diagonal

They may not have big multinational publishers backing them, but that’s not gonna stop these independent game developers from putting the “in” in “indie”. So who’s in? Find out right now the finalists of the 2010