German researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute have created a prototype for the world’s first-ever solar powered cell phone. While full-fledged solar panels are still quite large and expensive, the researchers have integrated smaller, high-efficiency cells into the phones which, they claim, offers a module efficiency rate of 20%. In other words, the phone will stay steadily charged as long as it gets roughly 2 hours of sunlight per day. Failing that, the phone can still be charged via conventional methods.
With all the excitement surrounding the worldwide push to “go green”, there have been some fascinating innovations that make it easy and even fun to save energy. Thanks to their creativity, we are entering an age where saving energy is almost as convenient as wasting it. Here are 12 green inventions that are helping us make this a cleaner planet.
With summer right around the corner, homeowners nationwide are dreading the huge spike in electricity bills that air conditioning season will cause. It is a pain virtually all homeowners know. Fortunately, one innovative company has stepped forward with a solution: Ice Energy, with their “Ice Bear” installation. The Ice Bear integrates with your air conditioner, freezing water overnight when the temperatures are lower and the electricity is (in most places) cheaper. During the day, the ice cools the air conditioner’s refrigerant instead of using fresh electricity to do it. The end result: roughly 30% energy savings when the AC is in use.
Everyone agrees that it’s far safer to ride a bike at night with a safety light that identifies you to motorists. The only problem is the dozens and potentially hundreds of batteries those lights will consume over a lifetime of riding. Luckily, a company called Duck has created a bicycle light that draws its power from the wind resistance you generate! As you pedal furiously into the sunset, the wind spins tiny blades that deliver electricity to a bright LED light via a hidden copper coil. A small, rechargeable lithium ion battery kicks in if and when you aren’t actively pedaling anywhere.
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Monday, April 14, 2008
If you want to be successful, it pays to hire the right people
What makes a successful enterprise?
Mostly is the people who work for it.
Human resources are still what drives the economy and the productive aspect of any country.
The more intelligent, dedicated, prepared, experienced are your workers, the more successful is going to be your business.
That is why it is so important to find the right partners who will help you to reach your goals.
That is also why choosing the right Interim provider can mean the success of your business.
Alium Partners is the UK’s leading independent provider of high level interim executives for both organisations in the private and public sector.
They can help you as interim management provider, to find the strategic leaders and advisors, professional, sector experts or functional leaders, project managers and programme directors who will ensure effective delivery.
They can offer: quick and responsible solutions, superior service, experience in understanding the market, the skills and experience of their interim managers.
Mostly is the people who work for it.
Human resources are still what drives the economy and the productive aspect of any country.
The more intelligent, dedicated, prepared, experienced are your workers, the more successful is going to be your business.
That is why it is so important to find the right partners who will help you to reach your goals.
That is also why choosing the right Interim provider can mean the success of your business.
Alium Partners is the UK’s leading independent provider of high level interim executives for both organisations in the private and public sector.
They can help you as interim management provider, to find the strategic leaders and advisors, professional, sector experts or functional leaders, project managers and programme directors who will ensure effective delivery.
They can offer: quick and responsible solutions, superior service, experience in understanding the market, the skills and experience of their interim managers.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Our future steak
The world has seen the first international conference on manufacturing meat. This is the process, tested so far only at laboratory scale, of growing pork, chicken, or beef through cell culture in vats instead of raising and slaughtering animals.
My colleague Mark Bittman wrote a fine piece recently about the greenhouse-gas consequences of conventional meat production. Others have explored the environmental and ethical impacts of factory and feedlot farming. Manufactured meat, in theory, provides an end run around these issues. What if you can have your meat, be ethical, and environmental, too? (And presumably they’ll engineer the bad fats out as well….)
The three-day meeting of the In Vitro Meat Consortium, held at the Norwegian Food Research Institute, is wrapping up today. (They might want to do something about that name.) It brought together biologists, engineers, government officials and entrepreneurs seeking – for both environmental and ethical reasons – to move from animal husbandry to technology as a means of providing the kind of protein people crave in a world heading toward 9 billion ever more affluent mouths.
A paper presented at the meeting concluded that, for the moment, the costs of cultured meat can’t come close yet to competing with, say, unsubsidized chicken. (A pdf is downloadable here.) The paper noted the reality of the climb up the protein ladder as countries move out of poverty, with global meat consumption at about 270 million metric tons in 2007 and growing at about 4.7 million tons per year.
It laid out the theory: “The environmental impact of meeting this forecast demand from existing livestock systems is significant. Cultured meat technology offers an alternative production route for a proportion of this consumption. This would then allow a downsized livestock production system to continue to be ecologically sound and to meet basic animal welfare needs.”
The group noted that costs for research, large-scale testing, and public relations will be significant, and anticipated that governments and nonprofit groups would chip in. That seems idealistic, at best, in a world with deeply entrenched interests linking ranching, the agrochemical industry, and giant restaurant chains.
But one could envision someday a model, say, of a solar-powered facility in southern California or Singapore basically turning sunlight and desalinated seawater into growth medium and then tons of cruelty-free, sustainable nuggets of chicken essence. (The promoters of this technology don’t envision anything, for now at least, beyond nuggets and ground meat. No filet mignon.)
For the moment, startup costs aside, the conferees concluded that unsubsidized chicken-raising still comes in at half the price. But the century is yet young.
Full Article
My colleague Mark Bittman wrote a fine piece recently about the greenhouse-gas consequences of conventional meat production. Others have explored the environmental and ethical impacts of factory and feedlot farming. Manufactured meat, in theory, provides an end run around these issues. What if you can have your meat, be ethical, and environmental, too? (And presumably they’ll engineer the bad fats out as well….)
The three-day meeting of the In Vitro Meat Consortium, held at the Norwegian Food Research Institute, is wrapping up today. (They might want to do something about that name.) It brought together biologists, engineers, government officials and entrepreneurs seeking – for both environmental and ethical reasons – to move from animal husbandry to technology as a means of providing the kind of protein people crave in a world heading toward 9 billion ever more affluent mouths.
A paper presented at the meeting concluded that, for the moment, the costs of cultured meat can’t come close yet to competing with, say, unsubsidized chicken. (A pdf is downloadable here.) The paper noted the reality of the climb up the protein ladder as countries move out of poverty, with global meat consumption at about 270 million metric tons in 2007 and growing at about 4.7 million tons per year.
It laid out the theory: “The environmental impact of meeting this forecast demand from existing livestock systems is significant. Cultured meat technology offers an alternative production route for a proportion of this consumption. This would then allow a downsized livestock production system to continue to be ecologically sound and to meet basic animal welfare needs.”
The group noted that costs for research, large-scale testing, and public relations will be significant, and anticipated that governments and nonprofit groups would chip in. That seems idealistic, at best, in a world with deeply entrenched interests linking ranching, the agrochemical industry, and giant restaurant chains.
But one could envision someday a model, say, of a solar-powered facility in southern California or Singapore basically turning sunlight and desalinated seawater into growth medium and then tons of cruelty-free, sustainable nuggets of chicken essence. (The promoters of this technology don’t envision anything, for now at least, beyond nuggets and ground meat. No filet mignon.)
For the moment, startup costs aside, the conferees concluded that unsubsidized chicken-raising still comes in at half the price. But the century is yet young.
Full Article
Futures
Futures are basically a contract to sell or buy a commodity at a certain date.
In this they differ from the obligation, where in the first the buyer has the right, not the obligation to sell and in the second both parties, buyer and seller must fulfil the contract on the settlement date.
Futures are what is called exchange traded derivatives.
In a few words, there is always who sustaines a loss to the one who makes a profit.
Of course the goal of everybody is making profits.
This is where Sands Turtle Futures comes into the picture.
If you want to be sure to be the one who makes a profit you should trust the professionals who can help you to do so.
You could open a Managed Futures Trading Account following Sands Turtle Futures advice and just sit back and watch the profits to roll in.
How does it sound?
Russell Sands has had a phenomenal futures trading year in 2007, and shows no signs of slowing down in 2008! He is up over 300% this year alone.
And this in a moment where the financial future looks quite gloomy and uncertain and there are many more losers than winners.
Richard Dennis , the founder of Turtles, turned a $400 family loan into $200 million.
But he didn't stop to that. He recruited 14 people - some of whom had no trading experience - and taught them his trading methods.
You too can take advantage of his experience and the nice thing is that he offers you a 100% money-back, iron-clad guarantee!
In this they differ from the obligation, where in the first the buyer has the right, not the obligation to sell and in the second both parties, buyer and seller must fulfil the contract on the settlement date.
Futures are what is called exchange traded derivatives.
In a few words, there is always who sustaines a loss to the one who makes a profit.
Of course the goal of everybody is making profits.
This is where Sands Turtle Futures comes into the picture.
If you want to be sure to be the one who makes a profit you should trust the professionals who can help you to do so.
You could open a Managed Futures Trading Account following Sands Turtle Futures advice and just sit back and watch the profits to roll in.
How does it sound?
Russell Sands has had a phenomenal futures trading year in 2007, and shows no signs of slowing down in 2008! He is up over 300% this year alone.
And this in a moment where the financial future looks quite gloomy and uncertain and there are many more losers than winners.
Richard Dennis , the founder of Turtles, turned a $400 family loan into $200 million.
But he didn't stop to that. He recruited 14 people - some of whom had no trading experience - and taught them his trading methods.
You too can take advantage of his experience and the nice thing is that he offers you a 100% money-back, iron-clad guarantee!
My next holiday? The Moon
In a recent interview, Richard Branson outlined his vision for Virgin Galactic's future. Once tourists are taken into Earth orbit, it seems possible that space hotels could be developed for longer stop-overs in space. He then went on to mention that short "sight-seeing" tours to the Moon could be started from these ultimate hotels. If we are to make travel to the Moon routine enough to send tourists there, the trip would need to be as short as possible. So how long is the commute from the Earth to the Moon anyway? Man and machine have made that trip already, some took a very long time, and others were astonishingly fast…
Many missions have arrived in lunar orbit and landed on the lunar surface, but the means of getting there are widely varying. Whether a mission uses a rocket to blast its way there, or a subtle ion engine to slowly edge its payload closer, we have many options open to us when we travel to the Moon in the future. To this end, I'll give a quick rundown from slowest to fastest flights to Earth's natural satellite 380,000 km away.
Full Article
Many missions have arrived in lunar orbit and landed on the lunar surface, but the means of getting there are widely varying. Whether a mission uses a rocket to blast its way there, or a subtle ion engine to slowly edge its payload closer, we have many options open to us when we travel to the Moon in the future. To this end, I'll give a quick rundown from slowest to fastest flights to Earth's natural satellite 380,000 km away.
Full Article
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