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This girl is mad talented. No lie. I had chills the whole time she was playing.

Check out her YouTube and her Twitter.

The New York Times’ Green Inc blog has an interview with Google’s green energy guy Bill Weihl, talking about their investments in clean energy and their focus on solar thermal power, enhanced geothermal power and high altitude wind power – Q&A: Google’s Green Energy Czar.

Q. Google’s stated aim with regard to energy is to make renewable energy cheaper than coal. How did you arrive at this particular goal?

A. We’ve learned that a small team of smart people with basic technical expertise and the freedom to really innovate can do something quite remarkable, and we wanted to see if that really could be true for alternative energies. One of the keys there is the freedom to go after a really aggressive goal, and so we set a goal of making renewable energy cheaper than coal – it’s a very simple, kind of audacious and crazy goal.

Coal is the energy source of about half the electricity we consume in the U.S. and is responsible for about 82 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector, so until you’ve done something about the emissions coming from coal, you’ve made only a tiny dent.

Putting a price on carbon can help level the playing field, but to actually deploy renewables to the extent that we stop burning coal, I believe that’s only going to happen if they can compete economically without any substantial price on carbon or substantial subsidies, because I don’t think that people will tolerate that. I hope they will; I would be willing to pay that extra cost, but I can afford it. There are lots of people in the developing world who probably would say, I’m not going to pay that.

So that’s why we took as our direct goal that we’re aiming for, let’s make renewables cheaper than coal, and let’s make that happen as quickly as we can.
Q. Which technologies do you think are most likely to beat coal?

A. There are three areas we’re looking at: concentrated solar thermal, enhanced geothermal and high-altitude wind.

On the concentrated solar side, we’ve invested in two companies: eSolar and BrightSource, both of which are working on power tower platforms where a field of swiveling mirrors reflects sunlight toward a central tower with a receiver.

We’re doing some internal R&D work on the mirrors — things that eSolar and BrightSource aren’t looking at and really shouldn’t be looking at: they don’t need to take the risks to explore these kinds of designs and materials.

We’re also looking at the receiver and turbine technology, looking at some ideas about going to higher temperatures which just from a thermodynamic point of view can give you higher efficiency. But again, I think these are things that both eSolar and BrightSolar are interested in, and if we’re successful with the R&D we’re doing, they would be natural places to pick it up and start to deploy it.

Enhanced geothermal is based on the idea that pretty much anywhere on earth, if you drill deep enough, it’s hot. If it’s hot enough and you have the right kind of rock, then you inject water and cycle that water through the system, and it produces energy from steam just like a normal hydrothermal reservoir.

One really nice thing about enhanced geothermal is that it’s base load power: the fuel’s always there, whereas for solar and wind, sometimes the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow and you can’t produce any energy. So we think enhanced geothermal is very promising, and we’ve invested in AltaRock Energy and Potter Drilling. It has a ways to go before it gets to be really cost-competitive with coal, and it might never quite get there, but it’s got a big upside.

The other one that we’re looking at is high-altitude wind — ways to capture the stronger and steadier winds that are at 500 or 1,000 or 2,000 meters high, or potentially even up in the jet stream. Internally, we’ve been looking at taking traditional wind turbines and putting them on much taller towers so you can get to much stronger steadier winds. Today, with the way people build towers, it would cost a lot more to go up to 200 meters compared to the usual 80 meters. We’ve been looking at some ideas that would let you go up and build a turbine at 200 meters at very little extra cost. If that pans out, it would be a way to knock 20 or 30 percent off the cost of wind, and wind is pretty close to the cost of coal today.

We’ve also invested in a company called Makani Power that is doing high-altitude wind using an airborne platform. They’ve been looking at using a kite or a wing under autonomous control, where the wind pulls the kite out and you change the angle of attack so you can wheel it back in at less cost than the energy would make going out. The other approach is to use some kind of wing with propellers on it and the generators on the wing. So you’re flying a kite through the wind and it’s making the propeller spin so it’s acting like a wind turbine, and then you have to get the power down the cable back to the ground. There are other companies in that space with some similar ideas.

VentureBeat reports that Google has also created a new energy trading subsidiary – Google applies to buy and sell energy — is a Googley utility imminent?.

Mere days after Google launched its own phone, the Nexus One, it has come out with another big announcement: the creation of Google Energy, a subsidiary that it will use to buy and sell electricity on federally-regulated wholesale energy markets. Could it have plans to launch its own utility? Could you one day be buying your electricity from American’s favorite search engine instead of PG&E?

So far that seems unlikely. Yes, Google is applying to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the ability to buy and sell electricity, but it doesn’t plan to market it to the general public. Rather, the company seems to want to lower its own energy costs by buying it on the wholesale market; and it has been very vocal about greening its power mix by buying electricity generated by renewable sources (it already derives power from rooftop solar panels at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, but this is only a small sliver of what it uses every day).

Considering the volume of greenhouse gas emissions produced by Google and its many energy-intensive data centers, the company is going to have a hard time achieving its goal of carbon neutrality. But buying more affordable, cleaner energy could give it the leg up it needs to actually become the first IT company to pull it off.

The SMH has an article on the potential for a clean energy revolution in the US – In the wind: America’s drive towards clean technology.

ROOSEVELT transformed the US during the Great Depression by introducing Social Security, building dams, roads and an electricity network; Eisenhower gave the US its interstate highway system, transforming the economy and cementing the car in the fabric of American life. Microsoft, Apple, Netscape and Google turned the US of the late 20th century into the leader in the information economy.

Now Barack Obama, facing the steepest downturn since FDR’s time, wants to transform America into a green machine, a nation that leads the world in technology and manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars, technologies to make the electricity grid more efficient and long-life batteries.

Can the US, the land of the internal combustion engine and the McMansion, where bigger is always better, really become a green economy? Can it catch up to Germany, Denmark, Spain and even China, which have been fostering green technology for years? And can the US achieve Obama’s dream without passing a scheme that puts a price on carbon?

There are plenty of evangelists for the new green economy despite the outcome at Copenhagen, which left the world well short of a binding commitment to lower global emissions.

In California, the venture capital industry, having weathered some tough times over the past 12 months, is roaring back to life and ”clean tech” is hot.

”I am more bullish about this than ever,” says Steve Westly of Westly Group, a venture capital fund that is backing the electric car company, Tesla. ”We have seen some stunning innovation in California and in China,” he says, adding that China is now the leader in clean tech. ”But most people don’t realise how quickly these technologies are coming.”

The parallel, says Westly, is the mobile phone market. The first mobile phones cost $3000 and weighed 3.2 kilograms. Now they are 95 per cent cheaper and weigh almost nothing. He believes it will not take long before solar reaches ”grid parity” – when a kilowatt of solar power can be produced for the same cost as conventionally generated power – and at that point the technologies will ”go through the ceiling”, he says.

The argument is similar with electric cars. Tesla, the company that Westly has backed, has produced its first all-electric Tesla roadster, which goes from zero to 100 km/h in 3.9 seconds. But it comes with a hefty $US100,000 ($A110,000) price tag. Tesla is now working on a more economical family vehicle, which Westly believes will take the US car industry by storm.

Clive Hamilton has an article at Crikey reporting on the imminent arrival in Australia of climate charlatan Chris Monckton – Viscount Monckton of Brenchley’s over-egged CV.

When he arrives on our shores later this month Viscount Monckton of Benchley will be greeted as a saviour by local climate change deniers. He will be chaperoned by Ian Plimer, and Monckton’s sponsors, engineer John Smeed and his friend, retiree Case Smit, are hoping for big things. He’s already booked on Alan Jones’s show; I’m guessing Andrew Bolt is drafting an encomium to the English lord; and it’s a sure thing that The Australian will give over its opinion pages to him. …

One thing’s for sure, Monckton — the “high priest” of climate scepticism soon to tour Australia — does not lack self-belief. His significance on the world stage is enough for him occasionally to forget himself and rewrite his biography.

He has claimed to be a member of the House of Lords (well, he once tried to become one), to be a Nobel Laureate (he wrote a letter to the IPCC which won a Nobel Prize, a connection close enough for him to commission his own gold Nobel prize pin), to have single-handedly won the Falklands War (he persuaded the British Army to use germ warfare on the Argies), and to have invented a cure for Graves’ disease, multiple sclerosis, influenza, food poisoning, and HIV.

In principle, over-egging one’s qualifications ought not to invalidate one’s arguments, but why are we not surprised that his statements about climate science have been debunked as amateurish, confused and full of school-boy howlers?

But the real fun starts with his politics. Here he is three months ago in a bravura performance before the Minnesota Free Market Institute:

So at last the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement and took over Greenpeace … now the apotheosis is at hand. They are about to impose a communist world government on the world.

You have a president who has very strong sympathies with that point of view. He will sign anything … in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy, your prosperity away forever.

So you see, Obama is in on it; after all, his Democrat party believes in “the tyrannical, anti-democratic system of command economy administration that we in Europe would call Communism, or Fascism, or International Socialism”.

It is tempting to scoff at the simple-minded mid-west Americans who lap up these fairy stories, until we remember that Senator Nick Minchin believes them too.

Monckton travels the world alerting anyone who will listen to the secret plan for a United Nations world government, referring to it as the “New World Order” the term of choice of American wingnuts and televangelists like Pat Robertson whose 1991 book of that name uncovered a conspiracy by Wall St, the Federal Reserve and various others to create a world government serving the Antichrist.

The Viscount can see the extreme left lurking everywhere; not only at the heart of the environment movement, but in the corridors of EU head-quarters (“a tyranny ruled by the unelected Kommissars”) and the scientific establishment itself, characterising the venerable Royal Society as “a mere Left-leaning political pressure-group”.

It was perhaps at the Copenhagen conference last month that Lord Monckton’s eccentricity reached its zenith. He described the entire conference as “a sort of Nuremburg rally”, including “the Hitler Youth marching in and breaking up meetings”.

If you’re wondering how the Copenhagen conference could be a conspiracy to impose communist world government and at the same time be populated by Hitler Youth, Monckton reminds us that “of course the Hitler Youth was also left-wing and green”.

The Viscount even made a point of confronting the Hitler Youth, whom he found lurking at a conference stall masquerading as bright-eyed environmentalists. One of them took exception to being called Hitler Youth, explaining that he is Jewish and his grandparents escaped the Holocaust.

Still, in a spirit of healthy debate the young man offered Monckton his card so as to engage in a follow-up discussion. Monckton would have none of it, retorting: “I do not take the cards of the Hitler Youth.” (Watch it and weep on YouTube.)

There is much more one could say about Monckton — for him Zimbabwe will always be Rhodesia and he has argued that blood tests should be compulsory for all, with those found to have the HIV virus locked away for life — but it feels cruel to go on. …

Lord Monckton concedes that he is used to looking like an absolute prat, which explains why in Britain moderate conservatives keep their distance. The Spectator’s Rod Liddle– himself sceptical about global warming — describes him as “a swivel-eyed maniac”.

Monckton and his associates are to climate scepticism what black-clad anarchists are to the anti-globalisation movement, except that the Moncktonians are no longer just embarrassing parasites on the body of sceptical thought but have colonised the host entirely.

After strong whispers over the weekend that multiple trips by UFC officials to Abu Dhabi were to negotiate the sale of a 10 percent minority stake, the news became official today when the promotion released the information to AP:  

UFC
co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta told The Associated Press that the deal with Flash
Entertainment, a subsidiary owned by the emirate’s government, was done to
create increased value for UFC and help the mixed martial arts league expand in
the Middle East and Asia.

Neither Fertitta nor Ossama Khoreibi, chairman of Flash,
would estimate UFC’s worth or say what Flash paid for the newly issued shares in
Zuffa LLC, its parent company. Fertitta says terms of the deal are
confidential.

Reports initially surfaced back in October that the UFC was looking for minority investors: 

"We made the decision early on that if we were to bring on
a partner, it wasn’t for financial reasons," Fertitta said. "We didn’t need to
raise any money, that wasn’t the purpose. If we were going to bring somebody it
was going to be with someone that could really be a true strategic partner and
could help create an increased value for the company long term."

Flash is now ahead of Dana White in the ownership pecking order. White owns nine percent, Flash owns 10 percent while the Fertittas, Lorenzo and his brother Frank III, each own 40.5 percent.

The infusion of money also opens speculation that the Fertittas could use the money as a crutch for their struggling gaming company, Station Casinos:

Fertitta would not say what would be done with the money Flash invested or
whether it would stay in UFC. Station
Casinos Inc., where Frank Fertitta is chairman and CEO and Lorenzo Fertitta
is vice chairman, has a pending bankruptcy case in Nevada that is separate from
UFC.

It’s all part of the UFC’s plan for global expansion:

"The sport has incredible potential and the commercial
opportunities were very obvious to us," Khoreibi said.

"We’re building a global brand," Fertitta said. "It’s never
been done before in the fight business."

More Lancia than Chrysler, here are the first pics of the Chrysler Delta model seen at the Detroit show. We don’t have any official details of the Chrysler Delta as yet, although it looks very similar to the Lancia Delta with a chunkier rear and a changed front grille and bonnet. We’ll have more details to follow, but you can compare the Chrysler Delta to our gallery of the Lancia Delta after the jump. What do you think?

Source | Jalopnik

More news from the social network Friendster. The site, which was acquired in December by Malaysian payments company MOL Global, has struck a deal with Yahoo Southeast Asia. The purpose of the deal is to integrate product features and cross-promote across both Friendster and Yahoo. Both Friendster and Yahoo stand to gain from the partnership as Friendster has a significant Asian audience and Yahoo also has a steady following in the regional area for certain web services.

Friendster, which was sold for just under $30 million, has over 90 million registered users and 90 percent of its daily traffic coming from Southeast Asia today. The partnership will involve a a new social application built by Friendster that will be prominently displayed on Yahoo Southeast Asia properties and a cross-promotion of Yahoo products on Friendster.

Yahoo Search will also feature results from Friendster user profiles and fan profiles, similar to the deals struck with Twitter and Facebook by the search giants. Friendster users will also be able to link their Friendster account to their Yahoo! account to share their Friendster network activity updates and inbox via their Yahoo accounts. So, users can check their Friendster account and send updates directly from their Yahoo homepage. Users will also be able to publish their Friendster network activity to Yahoo Messenger and other Yahoo applications.

The cross promotion between Friendster and Yahoo has already been implemented but the search results and activity update integration will be rolled out over the next few months.

Friendster, which was founded in 2001, has raised over $45 million in venture capital to date, and is sitting on some potentially lucrative IP. Friendster is no longer hot in the U.S. and still has members in the Asia/Pacific region. The social network, which just rolled out a much-needed redesign, appointed Richard Kimber as its new CEO, who used to head Sales and Operations in South East Asia for Google.

The partnership makes sense; and Friendster should be doing everything it can to try to own the user base in Southeast Asia, considering that the social network is performing poorly in other parts of the world.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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iTamTam’s unique hour glass shaped iPod Speaker system is now available in an assortment of colors for their M1 Color model. We’re talking pretty much all the colors of the rainbow – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, cyan, black, silver, pink and more. The m1 Color series will match perfectly with the latest gen iPod Nanos and it’s able to produce omnidirectional sound with its unique design and 70 Watt Class D amplifier, along with a 3.5mm jack, and a remote control. Pricing ranges begins at $400.

A new study has found that the best source of Omega-3s comes from roe. Medical News Today reports:

Until now there had been no precise understanding of the nutritional potential of the roe of marine animals, but a team of researchers from the UAL has now shown that this is one of the best natural sources of Omega 3 fatty acids, which are essential for ensuring the correct development of a wide variety of metabolic functions in the human body…

The conclusions of the study also show that minimal consumption of lumpsucker, hake or salmon roe satisfies the human body’s Omega 3 essential fatty acid requirements, because of its levels of EPA y DHA. A lack of these compounds is associated with cardiovascular disease, hypertension, depression, diabetes, poor development of the nervous and reproductive systems, and inflammatory diseases, such as Crohn’s disease.

I’ve recently begun supplementing my vegetarian diet with fish oils by Nordic Naturals. I know this seems odd to take a supplement and not just start eat fish, and it was a hard decision, as I want to remain a vegetarian. I have been suffering from an arthritic hip, and my doctor recommended fish oils. I decided I would rather take the supplements than suffer from pain or rely on over-the-counter medications that are not natural.

Eco Factor: Digital thermostat lets users save energy.

With the rise in the cost of energy and issues of sustainability gaining more importance, this year’s CES witnessed the launch of several green gadgets that either relied on renewable energy or aimed to reduce energy consumption. Silverpac showcased its intelligent digital thermostat that makes it easy to save energy.

(more…)

It’s been a number of years since we have seen any initiative lead by a power brand in the arena of corporate social responsibility. This Wednesday, Pepsi launches one of the biggest corporate social responsibility efforts that we’ve seen since the launch of (RED) in 2006 with the Pepsi Refresh Project.

Good CSR takes strategic development and an early glimpse tells us that Pepsi has hit a home run.  Why?  Here’s ten reasons Pepsi looks to have gotten it right.

1. Brilliant name leveraging what Pepsi is and what the initiative suggests (an innovative, short term experiment).  It creates expectations for the new and unthinkable.  It allows for evolution of concept.  It feels lively and substantial all at the same time.
2. Beautifully executed.  The allure of the web site demonstrates this was no Q4 afterthought.  Great colors, great graphics, modern, polished and very navigable.
3. Simple. They’ve managed to take a rather complex process and reduce it to content that makes sense and leaves you without questions.  Make no mistake, this is really hard to do.
4. Momentum builder.  This isn’t a one-time effort.  They have invested US $20 million to support this initiative over the course of 12 months.  This will create visibility for the brand and will generate hype for the process, the brand and the winning organizations, well beyond campaign time.
5. Understated. Pepsi is doing this instead of a Super Bowl ad spend.  Do they fall all over themselves telling you that?  No, they focus on the opportunity.  That’s finesse. Confidence. Leadership.
6. Scope. This isn’t simply focused on an area where you’d expect Pepsi to focus their CSR efforts.  Going beyond water and community issues, the Pepsi Refresh Project paves the way for six different avenues of social impact.  Your issues. Your ideas. Your choice.
7. Smart messaging. Consumers are inherently optimistic and respond to positive messages.  Yet we are living in difficult times and marketers need to be careful.  With “Refresh Everything”, Pepsi manages to communicate a uniquely appropriate brand and product message that aligns with a believable promotional effort that is spot-on relevant.
8. Digital advocacy. Presented online, promoted online, managed online – this campaign will be endlessly sticky with infininte opportunities for leveraging social media.  Participants will be given the tools to promote it.  There is transparent tracking.  This campaign marries the best of social media and entrepreneurial advocacy.
9. Urgency.  It is not one giant long-running campaign.  It is twelve individual months of contests.  There is a stopwatch on the main page that is counting down to launch, to enter, and to vote.  And grant winners will receive their funding in an astounding four weeks from each month’s announcement of winners.  Pepsi means business!
10. Appeal.  This isn’t drippy do-goodersim.  This is about Pepsi as the facilitator of actionable ideas.  This is about the consumer using Pepsi as the platform.  This is relationship building and brand leverage at its best.

“To be honest, Mr. Leblanc, you are the best teacher I’ve ever had.” I was taken aback when one of my sixth graders told me this merely two weeks into my first year of teaching. How could I, a new teacher with only two weeks in the classroom, be the best teacher this student had ever had? I soon realized that this student’s sentiments were not just a result of my lesson planning and organization skills, but also related to the fact that I looked like him.

After graduating from Stanford University with a major in Urban Studies and a concentration in Urban Education in 2009, I decided to pursue teaching through Teach For America in New York City. Teach For America is the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates of all academic majors and career interests who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become leaders in the effort to expand educational opportunity. Now that I am teaching sixth grade English in the South Bronx, I understand more completely the academic achievement gap that persists along socioeconomic and racial lines. Seeing the deficiencies in my students’ educational experiences has highlighted for me that this is one of our country’s most pressing problems and an injustice we need to address immediately.

When I first arrived at my school, I was overwhelmed by my students’ questions, like, “Are you just a temporary teacher?” or ,“Are you doing this as part of college?” They could not understand how someone like me would want to be teaching them. Most of my students had never had a minority teacher before, let alone a male minority teacher. This is not unique to New York City and is a problem that is evident across the United States. With only two percent of teachers being black males in this country, it is no surprise that most students were shocked to see me in their school.

Growing up attending a school with a 100 percent minority population where in 10 years I only had one minority teacher who happened to be female, I completely understand where my students are coming from. I grew up without any role models who looked like me. I know what my students feel each day, and this helps me relate to them on a unique level.

As a result of my connection with my students, I have seen dramatic results in their work habits and performance in only three months. My class has gone from a 10 percent homework return rate to a rate of above 90 percent. I have watched my students go from reading one book in two months to now reading three books in one month. They are motivated, and my class is an active site of high expectations and hard work. I believe that my ability to relate to my students’ experiences as well as being a positive male influence in their lives has had a tremendous influence on their progress and accomplishments.

As a person of color and a Stanford graduate, you have the potential to be a powerful role model for students like my sixth graders. Not only will they have a profound impact on your life, but your presence and commitment can help guide them to academic and life success. I urge you to join me in the movement to end educational inequity.

Stany Leblanc

Teach For America Corps Member ‘09

Homebrew coder Actarus has released the final version of iDeaS 1.0.3.3, the ever-popular Nintendo DS emulator for Windows and Linux. .The latest update of the great emulator includes a couple of bug fixes, code cleanups and various