 Your new post is loading...
.. As the federal government continues to push fossil fuel energy sources, including approval for TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline south of the border, leading scientists and environmental activists are sounding the alarm over the recent discovery that the presence of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere had surpassed 400 parts-per-million for the first time in at least three million years. The climate entered uncharted territory on May 9 when Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory recorded a daily average of 400 ppm of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere for the first time since the laboratory began recording atmospheric carbon presence in 1956. Since May 9, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which operates the facility, has consistently recorded daily CO2 averages in the range of 399.5 to 399.98 ppm. Crossing the 400 ppm is the latest benchmark in climate change. Over the 56 years that the Mauna Loa Observatory has tracked atmospheric carbon levels, the presence of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen steadily. Average readings before 1960 were less than 320 ppm. For 2002, the average presence of CO2 was 377 ppm. For the week of May 5, 2013, the average reading was 399.50 ppm. Under the International Energy Agency’s “450 Scenario,” the carbon presence in the earth’s atmosphere must be held to 450 parts per million if the international community is to meet its commitment to limit the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, as was pledged under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord. “If feels like the inevitable march toward disaster,” Maureen E. Raymo, a scientist at Columbia University, told The New York Times on May 10. Gordon McBean, a renowned climatologist who served as assistant deputy minister at Environment Canada from 1994 until 2000, warned that the upward trend in carbon presence will result in irreversible environmental damage in the long run. Among the potential dangers, Dr. McBean noted that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet could be “amplified” as its surface melts down to increasingly warmer lower altitudes, while the methane released from permafrost thaw throughout the sub-Arctic could further accelerate the release of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere, intensifying the effects of climate change — namely extreme weather, droughts, wildfires, and rising sea levels. “Some of these processes in our climate system are irreversible when you reach certain points,” Dr. McBean told The Hill Times. “Indications are, if you’re talking 450 [parts per million], you’re certainly going to be tipping some of these things.” Click headline to read more--
Beneath the Tobin Bridge, at the end of a vast parking lot in Charlestown is a giant metal building. Inside is a business that state energy officials hope will spur economic development and investment in wind energy. “This is the lab with three test stands so we’re able to simultaneously test three blades at a time,” said Rahul Yarala, director of the Wind Technology Testing Center. Wind energy companies pay to have their turbine blades tested for safety inside this massive warehouse. The center also evaluates new technologies and has an international certification for their blade design. The center was a big investment for the state and federal government. The quasi-public Massachusetts Clean Energy Center chipped in $13 million, and $27 million more came from the federal government. Standing near a turbine, you realize how tiny you are beneath a span of metal that’s 85 feet tall and slightly longer than a football field. “We want Tom Brady to come here and throw to the other end, so we’re still waiting,” Yarala said. Two huge wind turbine blades that look like giant curved elephant tusks are bolted into the wall. One is 144 feet long and the second runs 164 feet. To test them, engineers attach a series of pulleys to move the blade up and down and side to side, imitating the stresses that wind would put on the blade. Click headline to read more, watch the slideshow and the video and listen to the WBUR radio segment--
Because moths need to use every little bit of light available in order to see in the dark, their eyes are highly non-reflective. This quality has been copied in a film that can be applied to solar cells, which helps keep sunlight from being reflecting off of them before it can be utilized. Now, a new moth eye-inspired film may further help solar cells become more efficient. The film, developed at North Carolina State University by a team led by Dr. Chih-Hao Chang, is designed to minimize “thin-film interference” in thin film solar cells. Thin-film interference is what causes gasoline slicks on water to take on a rainbow-colored appearance. Some sunlight is reflected off the surface of the clear gasoline, while some more penetrates its surface, but then is reflected back up through it by the surface of the underlying water. Because the two sources of reflected light have different optical qualities, they interfere with one another when combined – thus the rainbow effect. The same sort of phenomenon can occur when any thin, transparent films are placed together. In the case of thin-film solar cells, which are made up of layered films, some of the sunlight is effectively lost at every film-to-film interface where the interference occurs. Click headline to read more--
Surging interest in Bitcoin, the crypto-currency that is mined and distributed without a central bank, has brought a fresh wave of speculation about its pseudonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto. The latest theory comes from IT pioneer Ted Nelson, who offers a three-part hypothesis – based on the Bitcoin inventor’s intelligence, publishing methods and interests — to show that Satoshi can be none other than Japanese math professor Shinichi Mochizuki. Nelson’s “deduction” (which Forbes and others have portrayed as more crackpot than convincing) comes weeks after programmer Sergio Lerner published a blog post that claims to show Satoshi has mined a fortune worth of Bitcoins, and that he has spent only a small fraction of it. A related report by The Verge endorses Lerner’s account and says the financial trail provides new clues to help establish Satoshi’s identity. This “who made Bitcoin?” buzz is a fun parlor game, especially at a time when everyone from serious investors to Homeland Security are clamoring to get a piece of the new currency. But, while many of the guesses are as silly as saying Lewis Carroll is Jack the Ripper, the process also raises the question of whether Satoshi is entitled to be left in peace. Last week, someone who has corresponded with Satoshi told me he believes the Bitcoin inventor is one person, not three as some suggest, and that he is not Japanese (this is consistent with the Forbes writer’s theory that the pseudonym is a tribute to 1980′s Tokyo cyber-punk culture). I asked him why Satoshi has decided to remain anonymous in the first source. According to the source, who is a Bitcoin developer and did not want to be named for this story, Satoshi’s motives are not rooted in myth-making or anything sinister. Instead, they reflect a simple desire for privacy and are consistent with the ethos of open-source coders who work on a project out of altruism or interest and then pass it on to others when they want to move on. Click headline to read more--
The world is becoming increasingly connected, and this now extends beyond traditional IT, such as laptops and mobiles, to previously offline devices, such as printers, ATMs and shop tills. Networking specialist Cisco claims this is a growing trend, and has predicted that the number of network-connected devices will be more than 15bn – twice the world's population – by 2015. With greater connectivity comes the even bigger need for better energy efficiency, from which the concept of the smart grid was born. The idea of the smart grid is to use IT to gather and act on behavioural information from both consumers and suppliers in an automated fashion to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of the production and distribution of electricity. However, along with higher energy consumption, greater connectivity also entices a far greater number of security risks. Despite the smart grid concept already demonstrating its benefits – for example using micro grids to maintain power to areas of the US during the blackouts of hurricane Sandy in 2012 – there are still growing fears that this could be exploited by cybercriminals or terrorists. Additionally concerning is the UK's apparent intention to rely on one single, centralised smart grid, meaning that one attack can affect the entire country and, in a worst case scenario, leave the UK without power. Security and privacy have proved to be the biggest barriers to the widespread adoption of smart grids but, frankly, this needs to happen in order to make sure we support the power requirements of the increasingly interconnected world we live in. Our priority should now be ensuring that both the smart grid and the devices that connect to it are totally secure, which not only requires physical and virtual security but also a complete shift in the mindset of UK organisations. Click headline to read more--
BTOpenreach has this week dispatched one of its survey teams to begin preliminary work on their previously announced £3.7m project to divert two unused submarine fibre optic cables to the Isles of Scilly (here), which will support the rollout of superfast broadband (FTTC and FTTP) ISP products on the islands. At present the islands 2,200 residents have to suffer a slow and inadequate Microwave radio line that connects to south west England via Lands End. By comparison the new network would cut two undersea fibre optic cables (previously used to connect the UK with Ireland and Spain) and move them to link the islands via different points on St Mary’s. Both cables link back to separate parts of Cornwall, which is good for redundancy. The effort is part of the wider £132m Superfast Cornwall scheme, which is supported by £78.5 million from BT and up to £53.5 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). It primarily aims to make superfast internet connectivity available to 95% of Cornwall’s local homes and businesses by the end of 2014. Click headline to read more--
Bernanke told a college graduating class Saturday that the long-range practical consequences of innovations such as faster computers and the Internet are hard to predict. But he said inventors have only scratched the surface of the commercial applications that can be obtained in such fields as medicine (personal genomics, life extension) and clean energy. He also indicated that having two to four times as many engineers and scientists with China and India and other countries contributing to technological innovation will drive development forward at a faster pace. He was specifically addressing the debate around technological stagnation put forward by Tyler Cowan and Peter Thiel.
The entire text of the speech is at the Federal reserve website.
Click headline to read more--
Never-fail military microgrids are breaking new ground in distributed energy management. Now one of them is getting connected to the grid at large. That’s the news from Fort Bliss, Texas, where the U.S. Army and Lockheed Martin cut the symbolic ribbon Thursday on the first Department of Defense grid-tied microgrid. The project, started in 2010, uses renewable energy (a 120-kilowatt solar array) and energy storage (a 300-kilowatt battery system), as well as the base’s existing backup generators, and ties it into a miniature grid via Lockheed’s Intelligent Microgrid Control System. It’s not the first DOD project to combine on-site power resources like solar, batteries and backup generators into a self-sustaining, islanded grid unit -- in other words, a microgrid. In fact, the military is leading the charge in microgrids, given its need for fail-safe, always-on electricity supply, particularly when the bigger grid blacks out, no matter what the cost. But Fort Bliss is the first Army microgrid project to hook itself up to the utility grid, which opens a new realm of possibilities, as well as challenges, for the system. That’s because, while the Fort Bliss microgrid is helping the Army meet its carbon footprint reduction and efficiency goals, its core purpose -- or “tactical utility,” as Fort Bliss spokesman Major Joe Buccino said in Thursday’s release, “is its ability to allow us to operate off the grid.” Click headline to read more--
A breakthrough report on the nutritional density of genetically-modified (GM) corn crops demolishes all existing claims that GMOs are "substantially equivalent" to non-GMOs. Entitled 2012 Nutritional Analysis: Comparison of GMO Corn versus Non-GMO Corn, the paper reveals not only that GMO corn is greatly lacking in vitamins and minerals compared to non-GMO corn, but also that it is highly toxic and filled with deadly crop chemicals like glyphosate (Roundup). The owners of the blog 'MomsAcrossAmerica.com' say the report was shared with them by De Dell Seed Company, Canada's only non-GMO corn seed supplier, which obtained it from a Minnesota-based agricultural company called ProfitPro. Overall, the paper found that non-GMO corn is 20 times richer in nutrition, energy and protein compared to GMO corn. Concerning energy content, as measured in terms of ERGS, non-GMO corn was found in tests to give off 3,400 times more energy per gram, per second compared to GMO corn, an astounding variance. And as far as its overall percentage of organic matter is concerned, non-GMO corn was determined to have nearly twice as much of this vital component compared to GMO corn. The field comparison also evaluated individual nutrient deviations, which revealed some shocking facts. Potassium, which is necessary for energy production and proper cellular function, is barely even present in GMO corn, having clocked in at 0.7 parts per million (ppm). In non-GMO corn, however, potassium levels were more than 13 times higher, testing at 9.2 ppm. Click headline to read more--
A new 50-acre area in Cape Cod Bay off Provincetown and Truro could provide income for shellfish growers. But a popular, floating method for oyster farming won't be allowed by state fisheries officials who say the equipment could ensnare whales and leatherback turtles. The method uses sets of floats strapped together at the surface and secured on each end with ropes that drop to the seafloor, Provincetown and Truro Shellfish Constable Tony Jackett said Friday. The floating equipment has been successfully used in shallow waters where there are no marine mammals, Jackett said. The 50 acres is in water about 20 feet deep within the bay's federally designated North Atlantic right whale critical habitat. It's also in the area where, since 2005, a dozen leatherback turtles have become entangled in fixed fishing gear, according to state records. In the past four years, one right whale entanglement originated in the area. Fisheries officials are concerned about the vertical ropes and entanglements. "At this point, we're not going to allow these floating aquaculture gear," said aquatic biologist Erin Burke of the state Division of Marine Fisheries on Friday. Generally, the state intends to give the go-ahead to gear that is rigged without vertical lines or with highly modified lines, to prevent injury to endangered species. Provincetown officials want to create an area along the lines of a community garden with about 25 plots, 1 acre each, for people who want to try aquaculture, Brown said. On the applications so far in Provincetown, people have suggested they would grow oysters, butter clams, mussels, quahogs, and bay and sea scallops. In Truro, applications have been submitted by shellfishermen looking for more than 1 acre apiece. "You're not going to make a living of it," said Alex Brown, chairman of the Provincetown Shellfish Advisory Committee, on Friday. "You're going to supplement your income." On Wednesday, the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies will host a free, daylong workshop for both novice and experienced shellfishermen interested in the new aquaculture development area. Click headline to read more--
The smart grids market in Asia-Pacific got a huge boost from the roll-outs of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) in Australasia and Smart City projects in North Asia. The market can expect higher revenue inflow with the rising popularity of Demand response systems and energy management system (EMS) installations as well as Southeast Asia’s desire to switch to smart grids. New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (energy.frost.com), Asia-Pacific Smart Grids Market Overview, finds that the market earned approximately US$5.40 billion in 2012 and estimates this to reach US$15.83 billion in 2018. The increased generation of renewable energy creates snags in the transfer of power over an already stressed network. This highlights the need for smart distribution control and management systems, which can better maintain power grid reliability and stability. Smart grid projects in South Korea, Singapore and Japan are testing the feasibility of distributed generation using photovoltaics, biomass, wind energy and electrical vehicle charging, in addition to AMI, EMS in homes and buildings. In fact, the use of AMI and HEMS in Jeju, South Korea has demonstrated the devices’ ability to reduce energy usage in homes. "Significant M&A and joint ventures in the market ensure advanced product offerings, which will drive market growth," said Frost & Sullivan Energy & Environmental Research Analyst Avanthika Satheesh P. "Besides, the need to replace aging equipment in the power grid and utilities’ awareness of the benefits of smart equipment and automation systems further enhance the market’s potential." Countries such as Japan and South Korea expect electric vehicles (EVs) to comprise 20 percent of the total vehicles on the road by 2030. However, EV charging is an additional load on the power grid, especially during peak hours. A smart grid is a viable solution to the transmission and distribution (T&D) issue, as it can identify the peak-load hours and appreciate off-peak charging of the vehicles. Besides, vehicle-to-grid and vehicle-to-home technology has added advantages when implemented along with a smart grid. Click headline to read more--
It's sad to note how collective humanity has done an ostrich on the warnings about the machines. Still the NFL exists, robbing us of our best and brightest, who will no longer be available for the coming war with SkyNET. Conferences on what to do about the surely coming robot horde have produced little in the way of a path forward and have gone relatively unreported in any case. Due to this, we know very little about what form the non-existent threat of terminator-like metal monsters will take. Will they simply wage war against us? Will they syphon our body heat for energy? Will they farm our skin and dance around in it to Goodbye Horses, like some kind of graphite Buffalo Bill?
Not according to Rice University professor Moshe Vardi, who claims that they have a far more terrifying plan in store: displacing the human workforce. According to Vardi, sometime around the year 2045, you won't have a job any longer because the robots will have taken it away from you. Click headline to read more--
The first full day of 400+ ppm CO2 as recorded at Mauna Loa in Hawaii last week produced an outpouring of sentiment and grief from many, but the news has seemingly passed. Unfortunately, the arrival of such a day had become inevitable. Since the early days of the Keeling Curve at 315 ppm when it became clearly apparent that anthropogenic CO2 emissions were accumulating in the atmosphere, we have counting up the ppm to this day. Despite an early clear warning to the Johnson Administration at 321 ppm, it wasn’t long before there was a brief worry about global cooling. Then, with atmospheric chemistry growing as a discipline (probably on the back of concerns about a cold war nuclear winter), we were distracted at 332 ppm by the first major anthropogenic global concern, the hole in the ozone layer. But with a treaty negotiated and ratification underway by 349 ppm (only 17 ppm to sort that one out), it didn’t take long for the science community to remember that another big issue was lurking in the shadows. At 352 ppm and nearly 40 ppm on from the start of the Keeling Curve, James Hansen stated to a US Congressional Committee that; The earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements.Global warming is now large enough that we can scribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse affect.Computer simulations indicate that the greenhouse effect is already large enough to begin to effect the probability of extreme events such as summer heat waves. But it was another 13 ppm before the Kyoto Protocol was adopted by parties to the UNFCCC and 14 ppm more before it was finally ratified. 21 ppm later and it is a shadow of its former self, but at least with the legacy of some beginnings of a global carbon market. However, it is trading close to zero!! In the interim there was a valiant attempt at a new global deal, but even that was 12 ppm ago. Click headline to read more--
|
The famous Danish physicist Niels Bohr once humorously observed, "Predictions are very difficult, especially about the future." And so, as the world considers yet another rosy oil supply forecast, this time from the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), it is worth reviewing the agency's record. Back in the year 2000, the IEA divined that by 2010, liquid fuel production worldwide would reach 95.8 million barrels per day (mbpd). The actual 2010 number was 87.1 mbpd. The agency further forecast an average daily oil price of $28.25 per barrel (adjusted for inflation). The actual average daily price of oil traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange in 2010 was $79.61. (The IEA included in its 2000 supply projections not only crude oil plus lease condensate, which is the definition of oil, but also natural gas plant liquids--only a small fraction of which can be substituted for oil--and refinery processing gain which is the result of applying energy to break oil into its components, causing the final volume to expand. The agency refers to the resulting number as "oil" supply. But, clearly this number is not really just oil supply, and this practice continues to confuse policymakers and the public.) So, what made the IEA so sanguine about oil supply growth in the year 2000? It cited the revolution taking place in deepwater drilling technology which was expected to allow the extraction of oil supplies ample for the world's needs for decades to come. But, deepwater drilling has turned out to be more challenging than anticipated and has not produced the bounty the IEA imagined it would. This is not to say that it hasn't been a critical adjunct to world oil supplies. It's just that deepwater oil production hasn't been able both to make up for declines in production elsewhere AND grow supplies beyond that--something that has resulted in a bumpy plateau for world oil production (crude plus lease condensate) starting in 2005. Now, the IEA tells us that a "revolutionary" new technology called hydraulic fracturing--actually, a newly deployed variant called high-volume slick-water hydraulic fracturing--is going to cause what it calls a "supply shock" that spells ample and rising oil supplies. But, despite years of such drilling in the United States--which the agency says will be the center of this "shock"--world oil prices remain near all-time highs as measured by the average daily price. And, world oil production (crude plus lease condensate) has only occasionally bounced above 75 mbpd in the last seven years before retreating downward. Click headline to read more--
There are already a wide variety of renewable energy systems that harness the power of the wind, along with some that generate power via the flow of ocean currents. According to Japanese engineering firm MODEC (Mitsui Ocean Development & Engineering Co.), however, its soon-to-be-tested SKWID system will be the first one to do both. SKWID stands for Savonius Keel and Wind Turbine Darrieus. This is appropriate, as it’s an anchored floating platform that contains both a Savonius tidal turbine below the waterline, and a Darrieus vertical-axis wind turbine up in the air. The two are connected by a central gearbox/generator, allowing the SKWID to generate power from the currents, the wind, or both. Additionally, the rotation of the tidal turbine can be used to help get the wind turbine spinning, when breezes are light and it needs a bit of extra inertia. The design of the Darrieus turbine is such that it can spin to the left or to the right, so it works regardless of the wind direction. The tidal turbine spins in just one direction, but it does so irrespective of the direction of the current. It is reportedly able to harness even the weakest of currents, and is not affected by marine growth on its half-cyclinder-shaped buckets/blades. Additionally, because it spins no faster than the current, it is claimed to be safe for marine life. Click headline to read more--
While companies like Google, BMW, Audi and Volkswagen pour millions into developing self-driving car technology with expensive components, 19-year-old Romanian high school student Ionut Budisteanu has designed an autonomous vehicle system that would cost just US$4,000. Budisteanu’s design took out the Gordon E. Moore Award in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair to pocket him a sweet $75,000. The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair is billed as the world’s largest high school science research competition, with this year’s event seeing around 1,600 high school students selected from 433 affiliate fairs held in more than 70 countries, regions and territories. There is a number of awards, with a total of over $4 million in prize money up for grabs, but the Gordon E. Moore Award awarded to the top “Best in Category project is the most prestigious. Budisteanu told NBC News that his goal was to remove the expensive, high-resolution 3D radar that is at the heart of Google’s self-driving car technology to bring costs down. To that end, he used a much cheaper, low-resolution 3D radar to recognize larger objects, such as other cars, buildings and trees, while webcams mounted on the vehicle are used to detect lane markings and curbs and monitor the real-time position of the car. Click headline to read more--
As you may recall, we've recently written about the MPAA's protests against a treaty for the blind, as well as a similar protest from the Intellectual Property Owners Association (on that front, we heard that many members of that group never saw that letter before it was sent out, and were not happy about it). Now there's another group sending a letter, and it's equally as ridiculous. Business Europe, which appears to have a lot of non-European companies as members (interesting, that), has written a ridiculous letter with little basis in fact, arguing that this treaty for the blind would be "casting aside" the "international copyright infrastructure."
Of course, it does no such thing. All it does is provide extremely limited situations in which copyright restrictions would be limited for the sake of making it easier for vision-impaired people to access works. They also claim that it relies on "hasty conclusions" which is flat out laughable, since the treaty has been under discussion for almost three decades, but has been regularly blocked by organizations like those mentioned above. Business Europe's real complaint seems to be that it just doesn't like the people who like this treaty. ... it is strongly supported by the same group of NGOs and advanced emerging economy countries that pursue a general IPR-weakening agenda at WIPO and other international forums. Got that? Those who argue that providing more rights to the public support this very minor place where more rights would be provided to the vision-impaired public, and we can't have that. No, no. Click headline to read more--
A recurrent theme here on Techdirt is the lack of transparency when international agreements and treaties are being drawn up. That's increasingly recognized not just as problematic, but simply unacceptable in an age when the Internet makes it easy to provide both access to draft documents and a way for the public to offer comments on them. Despite this growing pressure, nothing much has happened on either side of the Atlantic as far as providing greater openness for major negotiations is concerned. Perhaps frustrated by this lack of movement, the transparency organization Corporate Europe Observatory decided to take legal action against the European Commission back in February over the secret trade talks between the EU and India. As the detailed history of this case (pdf) explains, the European Commission was apparently quite happy to pass on copies of certain documents to industry associations, but when Corporate Europe Observatory asked for the same, they only received censored versions. The lawsuit accuses the European Commission of discriminating in favor of corporate lobby groups and of violating the EU's transparency rules. As the Corporate Europe Observatory asks: Click headline to read more--
U.S. authorities have seized two accounts linked to a major operator in the booming Bitcoin digital currency market, Tokyo-based exchange Mt. Gox. The move may prevent the firm from facilitating the purchase and sale of Bitcoins in U.S. dollars at a time when use of the currency and its value has mushroomed. Bitcoin, which unlike conventional money is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of any central authority, has grown popular among users who lack faith in the established banking system. The price of the volatile currency ballooned in March as a result of the Cyprus bank crisis. Authorities worry that a lack of regulation has left the currency vulnerable to money launderers and other criminals. A seizure warrant obtained Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security froze an account that an Iowa-based online payment processor, Dwolla Inc, held at Veridian Credit Union in the name of Mutum Sigillum LLC. An affidavit filed by an agent with the department's investigations unit states that Mutum Sigillum, a Mt. Gox subsidiary incorporated in Delaware, was operating as an unlicensed money transmitter, in violation of federal law. Treasury's anti-money laundering unit, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), in March issued guidance that dubbed digital currency exchanges money transmitters, a finding that obliged such businesses to register with FinCEN and obtain any mandated state licenses. A search of FinCEN's online registration database Friday morning suggested that neither Mt. Gox nor Mutum Sigillum had registered. The affidavit cited Mutum Sigillum's failure to register with FinCEN as sufficient grounds to seize its accounts. Both Mutum Sigillum and Mt. Gox, which says it handles 80 percent of Bitcoin trading, are owned by Mark Karpeles, the affidavit states. It adds that Karpeles opened an account in Mutum Sigillum's name at Wells Fargo in May 2011, and that when doing so completed a form in which he said it was not a money transmitter. Click headline to read more--
"IT is an idea that creates money, not money that creates an idea,” says Secelela Balisidya when she was recounting on tremendous challenges that she and her friend Christopher Kidanka went through in setting up a media business company. The Company, Regalia Media Limited, now enjoying great respect from government institutions, higher learning institutions, diplomatic missions and international community in Tanzania, takes communication Consultancy, news and books publication works. The two journalists, now directors of the company, came up with an idea to set up the firm in 2003 joining hands with two big dreams - both looking forward to graduate from employees in reputable media houses to owners of media businesses. “By then I was working for national official broadcaster Radio Tanzania Dar es Salaam (RTD) while my friend was writing for Majira - an independent newspaper,” she recounts. The duo was doubling as independent consultants after long working hours in the media houses. Things began to change when a client denied giving Christopher, as an individual, a handsome contract to produce ads for his company’s new products, saying that he would only do that with a corporate entity. Christopher says he took that as a challenge to hasten his long-cherished dream. After sharing the same with Secelela, they decided in unison that it was high time they registered a media company and record the beginning. They mobilised the resources they had to make 6000/- (around US$ 6 by the time) to register the business name ‘Regalia PR Consultancy & Services.’ Secelela says: “The day we decided to register a company, we had no money at all. But we said that this mission must be accomplished today,” she says and adds: “After we consulted an Assistant Registrar of Companies, he told us that it costs at least 20,000/- to register a company as a limited liability entity. All we had was not more than 10,000/-.” “There was an option which he gave us, that we could register as a business name. We decided that we register it as a business name and later we can revert to a limited liability company. We spent 6,000/- remaining with 4,000/-.” Because both of them were salaried scribes, this did not spell doom for their living. They could re-organise themselves and move ahead. “This was,” recalls Christopher, “the beginning of an end as employees to media houses. We knew that we had a daunting task ahead of us.” They began soliciting for jobs as a ‘company’ without even having the tiniest office space in town. Click headline to read more--
Think your network is fast? Getting a gigabyte-sized movie over your local wireless network to your hard drive in a few seconds is old hat. Now there’s a network that can push a 2-hour, high-definition movie to a computer a mile away in less time than it takes to read a single word. At the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, a new record has been set: 40GB per second over a distance of about .6 of a mile. That’s like sending 10 high-def feature films. What makes this possible is a combination of better hardware and the use of higher radio frequencies, in this case, 240 gigahertz.That hardware is a set of chips developed at Karlsruhe that can process signals at higher frequencies. Higher frequencies mean smaller components, since a shorter wavelength can be picked up by a smaller antenna (which is why FM and AM radios need relatively large antennas, while Wi-Fi receivers can use small ones). These chips were only a few millimeters on a side. The high frequencies are necessary for moving lots of data — the number of bits that can travel over the airwaves is inversely proportional to the wavelength. The shorter the wavelength, the more data that can go in a given time. Click headline to read more--
Belo Monte is a controversial mega dam being built in the Amazon on Indigenous land. The old project conceived during the military dictatorship (1964-1985), and which was revived by the Lula government, is the bête noire of Brazilian environmentalists due to the damage it will cause to a pristine region in the Amazon. It will pave the way to tens of other dams in the region. The latest installment of the saga has been the expulsion of journalists from the site where they would cover the latest protest by indigenous activists who have brought the building of the dam to a halt. According to Portal da Imprensa, a website dedicate to journalism news, earlier in May three reporters were barred from covering the occupation of Belo Monte’s building site in the state of Pará. Two of them were removed by around 100 policemen and a third one received a R$100 fine (US$50) and expelled from the site. 150 indigenous representatives of the affected nations affected by the dams being built on the rivers Xingu, Tapajós e Teles Pires occupied Sítio Belo Monte, the main site and demanded the works to be halted until they were heard by the federal government. Click headline to read more--
The President of Switzerland, the chairman of a German engineering company and the President of the International Automobile Federation today were honoured with a United Nations award recognizing their use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to improve road safety. The recipients of this year’s World Telecommunication and Information Society Award were Swiss President Ueli Maurer, Volkmar Denner, the chairman of the Board of Management of the company Robert Bosch GmbH, and Jean Todt, President of the International Automobile Federation (FIA). The award was presented at a ceremony in Geneva, tying in with the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day observed on 17 May with the theme this year ‘ICTs and Improving Road Safety.’ Organized by the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the chosen theme is aimed at helping make roads and vehicles safer worldwide. “Road traffic safety is a global concern for public health and injury prevention,” said ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun I. Touré. “Every year, 1.3 million people die in traffic-related accidents and another 20-50 million people are injured mainly in developing countries around the world. As a result, Governments and individuals suffer an estimated $518 billion in global economic loss.” Click headline to read more--
An ice-free Arctic, the disappearance of tundra and forests up to the edge of the newly open ocean is how the north will look as the natural world reacts to the new climate caused by carbon dioxide reaching 400 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere, according to analysis of new lake sediments. So far scientists have been guessing what a warmer world will look like, but lake bed cores from Russia provide evidence of the trees and plants that thrived north of the Arctic Circle last time CO2 was at 400 ppm – a barrier broken earlier this month. There is a time lag of up to 30 years for the temperature to be forced up by the extra CO2 in the atmosphere, so the scientists’ findings give a clue to what to expect by the middle of the century. Julie Brigham-Grette of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who led a team of international scientists, says summer temperatures were about 8°C warmer in the Arctic than they are today, and the rainfall three times greater. At the same time the West Antarctic ice sheet did not exist, showing that both landscape and sea level were vastly different. Click headline to read more--
The sound of a train horn has become a signal for Southland communities to get on board an emerging economic development track. Called “transit-oriented development” in the vernacular of urban planners and economic development experts, it’s not a new idea but one gaining favor in a post-recession era that has towns re-evaluating their development strategies. “I think that trend is here to stay,” John Olivieri, a Southland real estate developer and architect, said. About two decades ago, planners began pushing the idea of denser, mixed-use, pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly developments near commuter rail lines. It was partly a response to suburban sprawl and the fact that sites in downtown areas — where infrastructure such as streets and utilities were already in place — are cheaper to develop. Several Southland towns are in various stages of realizing transit-oriented developments. In Orland Park, the cornerstone of the village’s downtown redevelopment, Ninety 7 Fifty on the Park, has welcomed its first tenants. Next to the 143rd Street Metra stop, the 295-unit apartment building, largely financed by the village, is part of a broader plan that anticipates more business development. Click headline to read more--
|
