Solar Panels To Roll Out

Image via Wikipedia

Technology Review: Clearing the Way for Cheap, Flexible Solar Panels: lightweight, flexible panels that are cheap to ship and easy to install (by unrolling them over large areas). .... The protective film is a multilayer, fluoropolymer-based sheet that can replace glass as the protective front cover of solar panels ..... Glass has been the armor of choice because it's cheap, weather-resistant, and durable enough to last decades. .... Blending solar panels into roofs also can overcome aesthetic objections .... a plastic film that is 23 micrometers thick, much thinner than the 3,000-micrometer glass typically found on solar panels today .... Flexible solar panels also can be larger than glass panels

Slow but sure innovation in clean tech is happening. One just wishes it were happening much faster.

Offshoring The Wind Harvesting: Google Wind

A Simpler Route to Plastic Solar Cells
Giving Plastic Solar Cells an Energy Boost
Pushing Plastic Solar Cells

Related articles

• Clearing the Way for Cheap, Flexible Solar Panels (technologyreview.in)
• GE reenters solar business with thin-film 'system' (news.cnet.com)
• Solar Power Business Heats Up: Enter GE (fastcompany.com)
• Green Machine: Where do solar cells go when they die? (newscientist.com)
• Electrical Charge Helps Sun Shine on Solar Panels (nytimes.com)
• Evergreen Solar to Display "Made in USA" ES-A Series String Ribbon Solar Panels at Solar Power International in Los Angeles, Calif., October 12-14, 2010 (eon.businesswire.com)
• Do houses with solar panels on them use more energy to cool their houses in the summer because their roofs get hotter? (greenanswers.com)
• Green Your Roof: Solar Panels (sierraclub.typepad.com)

To Natural User Interface

Image via Wikipedia

Technology Review: Microsoft's 3-D Strategy: Microsoft has joined the wave of companies betting that 3-D is the next big thing for computing. .... treating the device as a natural extension of how they interact with the world around them. ..... have people shopping and searching in 3-D as well. .... move computing from today's graphical user interfaces to the "natural user interface" ..... gesture and voice .... a natural interface frees up attention and concentration so that they can focus better on the task at hand .... processing high-definition, 3-D video in real time would strain the capabilities of most home computers today .... the average person views 3-D technology as something used on special occasions, not as a day-to-day technology

The graphical user interface itself was a huge jump. Before that you had to enter exotic commands into your machine. The natural user interface - or 3D computing - promises to be a similar big jump, comparatively a bigger jump.

Just like a big chunk of humanity never bothered with landlines and went straight to mobile phones, I can see the same thing happening with the natural user interface. The natural user interface could end up the majority of humanity's first introduction to the full fledged computing experience.

A computer is not a tool. Computing is an environment.

eMarketer: Email Still Tops Facebook for Keeping in Touch: 86% of survey respondents said they used email to share content, while just 49% said they used Facebook ..... ages 18 to 24, reverses the trend, with 76% sharing via Facebook, compared with 70% via email. .... Rather than focusing on sharing content they thought the recipients would find helpful or relevant (58%), most respondents cared more about what they thought was interesting or amusing (72%).

Technology Review: Craig Mundie's Cloud Vision: cloud computing--the trend shifting computer processing and storage away from desktop computers and onto distributed computers across the Internet. .... Traditional procedural programming languages tend to mask or in fact squeeze out the inherent parallelism in many problems just as a byproduct of the structure of the languages. How you get programs to be correct at larger and larger scales across this distributed concurrent environment is another problem. ...... "Look, I just expect to be able to listen to my music no matter what device I happen to pick up." .... what I call this composite platform, where you've got a balanced set of roles between what you expect the cloud to provide and what you expect the clients to provide themselves.

Related articles

• Microsoft's 3-D Strategy (technologyreview.in)
• Microsoft Research offers 3-D (tech.mit.edu)
• Microsoft Sees Many Uses for Gesture-controlled Interfaces (pcworld.com)
• Room sized 3D computers (blogs.msdn.com)
• Microsoft demos Lightspace natural world interface (v3.co.uk)
• More Like Us (blogs.technet.com)
• Microsoft LightSpace...and my new gig (blogs.msdn.com)
• Microsoft explores natural user interface ideas with interactive paper prototypes (istartedsomething.com)
• Deep Inside Xbox 360 Kinect and Why It's the Future of Microsoft [Kinect] (gizmodo.com)

The 2010s Belong To New York City

In tech, the 2010s belong to New York City, the way the late 1990s belonged to Silicon Valley. New York City has a good start. The 2010s belong to the mobile web, or at least the first half clearly does. And the mobile web - unlike the big screen web, which itself is a pretty global phenomenon - is the most global of phenomena. And New York City is the most global of cities. NYC has a geographical advantage.

Did New York City Just Buy TechCrunch? I Think We Did
Microsoft-Oracle: Unlikely Alliance Against Android
Fred Wilson: A Tale Of Two Cities

That is not me discounting nanotech. Nanotechnology swept the Nobel prizes this year. That should tell you. If you could find the right nano startups to invest in right now, you could be looking at some astronomical returns in a decade, but it is not easy to pick winners. Much activity ends up being froth.

An IP Address For Your Heart

When it comes to web technology, this coming decade I think belongs to New York City.
Image via Wikipedia
The Valley has matured. Let them build hardware and data centers. Let them do search. But then Google is a bi-coastal company. A lot of people don't realize the size of Google's presence in New York City. They have rented out an entire block. Some day I am going to go check it out.

This is not me discounting clean tech. It is my firm belief America could see a second industrial revolution based on clean tech. This is not me discounting biotech either. But then NYC could do nano, clean and bio as good as anyone else too. Thanks to the subway, we already are one of the lower carbon emission cities in the country. And we stand to benefit from Google Wind.

Offshoring The Wind Harvesting: Google Wind

Related articles

• Did New York City Just Buy TechCrunch? I Think We Did (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• NY Tech Scene Heating Up (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Tallest Building in U.S. Will Soon Be in New York City, Thanks to Chicago Spire Foreclosure (huffingtonpost.com)
• Fred Wilson Says New Data Shows New York is More Efficient Than Silicon Valley (observer.com)
• Silicon Alley Insider: Watch Out Silicon Valley, These Two Cities Are Nipping At Your Heels (businessinsider.com)
• A Tale Of Two Cities (avc.com)
• New York City Wants More BiggApps, Please (techcrunch.com)

A Sophisticated Like Button

ReadWriteWeb: I Like to Dislike! Facebook Introduces Comment Voting, Threads: now allows users to up- and down-vote other comments ..... comments are not only threaded, meaning each user can reply directly to another user, but more information is shown on each person, including their job and company, or network, and their comment record. The system also allows for up- and down-voting ..... Each comment begins with one point and a vote up or down raises or lowers that rating by a point. .... your comment stays at the top, so you can manage your comment and conversation ..... the move certainly encroaches on the territory of commenting systems like Disqus, Echo and Intense Debate. .... with more active posts rising to the top and negating the usual newest to oldest order. Allowing users to vote on posts and on individual comments could really alter the entire dynamic of Facebook.

It was only a matter of time. I knew something like this was bound to happen. The like button was going to be more sophisticated. And it is getting there. The open graph just became more useful. Facebook comments just became more useful. Now it has become more possible to navigate updates that might collect hundreds of comments. This is called scaling.

The Facebook Blog: More Ways to Stay Secure: If you have any concerns about security of the computer you're using while accessing Facebook, we can text you a one-time password to use instead of your regular password. ..... Simply text "otp" to 32665 on your mobile phone (U.S. only), and you'll immediately receive a password that can be used only once and expires in 20 minutes. ..... the ability to sign out of Facebook remotely

Related articles

• I Like to Dislike! Facebook Introduces Comment Voting, Threads (readwriteweb.com)
• Facebook Dials Up Security with Temporary Passwords via Text (mashable.com)
• Facebook Unveils One-Time Passwords Via SMS To Thwart Keyloggers (textually.org)
• Facebook introduces one-time passwords (go.theregister.com)
• Facebook adds one-time password authentication (v3.co.uk)
• Facebook Now Texts Users Temporary One-Time Passwords [News] (makeuseof.com)
• Is Facebook's one-time password system safe? (sophos.com)
• Facebook enhances security with one-time passwords via phone (newstatesman.com)
• Facebook Notches Up Security with One-Time Passwords, Other Features (globalthoughtz.com)
• Facebook adds new security features including remote logouts, one-use mobile passwords, and more (techvibes.com)

Millions And Millions

Image via CrunchBaseSteven Carpenter

TC Teardown: 13 Ways To Get To $10 Million In Revenues (Part I)

cheap to start but expensive to achieve scale

TC Teardown: 13 Ways To Get To $10 Million In Revenues (Part II)

media, paid service, and physical commerce ..... search, gaming, social networks, and new media ..... marketplace, video, commerce, retail, subscription, music, lead generation, hardware and payments ..... Video ad rates are typically amongst the highest in online media ($15-$20 CPM) ..... audio ads are not actionable, and display ads often get ignored (music apps tend to stay open in a browser tab in the background). ..... we will see an explosion of innovative hardware companies over the next few years

Steven Carpenter has done a good job of demystifying here, perhaps too good a job. I think the money is in the mystery. A business is much more than the sum of its parts. And there is that creative part, the human element to the sauce. Each startup really is unique, although it is perfectly plausible for a Steven Carpenter to come along and box them up into a few swift categories.

"It can be done over and over again," Sam Walton said. He was talking about reinventing retailing, of course.

Related articles

• TC Teardown: 13 Ways To Get To $10 Million In Revenues (Part II) (techcrunch.com)
• TC Teardown: 13 Ways To Get To $10 Million In Revenues (Part I) (techcrunch.com)
• Etsy, GroupOn, Zynga (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Pandora goes after drive-time listeners (sfgate.com)
• TC Teardown: Etsy, It's Crafty (techcrunch.com)
• Ohio man convicted in deadly road-rage wreck (dispatch.com)
• ChannelAdvisor Customer eForCity Surpasses Two Million in eBay Feedback (prweb.com)
• Outdoor revenues grow by 20% (mumbrella.com.au)
• Where It All Began: Chain Retailers' First Locations (huffingtonpost.com)
• If Sam Walton Had an iPad (fool.com)

Offshoring The Wind Harvesting: Google Wind

Image via Wikipedia

Christian Science Monitor: Will Google wind power project harm wildlife? Depends on location.: The mid-Atlantic venture would position wind turbines at least 12 to 15 miles offshore, which means they would not be easily visible from land. ..... 6,000 megawatts .... equivalent to five nuclear power plants .... “It is so much better than each of the wind generators building their own transmission lines all over the seabed.”

Nokia did not start out a cellphone company. Nokia as a company has gone through many incarnations, in fact so many that its founders will not be able to recognize the Nokia of today. Google might have started out as a search engine, but these forays far and wide are welcome. This not only makes corporate sense, but this is also Google being a good citizen. This is Google turning Don't Be Evil into an active verb.

Wall Street Journal: Google’s Wind Project Got Lift From Vail Ski Trip: a planned giant wind farm designed to run 350 miles along the Eastern seaboard .... laying undersea cables to connect the wind turbines to electrical grids on land ..... 1,200 to 2,000 wind turbines

Google Earth. Google TV. Google Car. Google Wind. I say bring it on.

Google Blog: The wind cries transmission: offers a solid financial return ..... both good business and good for the environment ..... equivalent to 60% of the wind energy that was installed in the entire country last year ..... superhighway for clean energy. .... stronger and steadier winds offshore. .... Mid-Atlantic region ..... offers more than 60,000 MW of offshore wind potential in relatively shallow waters that extend miles out to sea. .....

Related articles

• Statement by Deepwater Wind on Google's Atlantic Wind Connection Project (eon.businesswire.com)
• Google Invests in Offshore Wind Energy Network (dailyfinance.com)
• Google invests in Jersey Shore offshore energy (tech.fortune.cnn.com)
• Google Builds First US Off-Shore Superhighway for Clean Energy! (cleantechnica.com)
• Not Hot Air: Google Investing In Offshore Wind Energy (searchengineland.com)
• Google: Now We're Investing In A Huge Wind Farm Off New Jersey That Will Power 2 Million Homes (businessinsider.com)
• Major Wind Energy Backbone Transmission Project Announced by Trans-Elect; Backed by Good Energies, Google and Marubeni Corp. (eon.businesswire.com)
• By the Numbers: Google's Offshore Wind Investment (gigaom.com)
• Google and friends scheme offshore windmill army (go.theregister.com)
• Google now wants to control the wind (networkworld.com)

Marissa Mayer: Location, Local

Over the years Marissa Mayer has been more visible than Google's two founders. She is a delight. She wears the rare top female engineer hat effortlessly, cheerfully. But this move is not just about one person, however visible, or one company, however big, even as big as Google.

Bloomberg: Google Executive Marissa Mayer Takes New Role in Location, Local Services: “Marissa has made an amazing contribution on search over the last decade, and we’re excited about her input in this new area in the decade ahead,” the company said.

Location is hot and heavy. Local is hot and heavy. Ends up most people don't travel. The local is important. The here and now is important. Guess what, the here and now is important also to those who do travel.

The coming years belong to the smartphone, and there location is the starting point of the experience. And what is location about but local bars and eateries and the like?

Related articles

• Google Executive Marissa Mayer Takes New Role in Location, Local Services (Brian Womack/Bloomberg) (techmeme.com)
• A New Role at Google for Marissa Mayer: Location, Local Services [Voices] (voices.allthingsd.com)
• Google's Marissa Mayer to focus on location and local (venturebeat.com)
• Google's Marissa Mayer To Switch Roles Within Company (searchengineland.com)
• Google's Marissa Mayer Takes Over Location, Local Services (searchenginewatch.com)
• Google's Marissa Mayer to Take Over Geo and Local Services (fastcompany.com)
• Google taps Marissa Mayer for location, local services (intomobile.com)
• Marissa Mayer's New Job: Google's Location and Local Services (mashable.com)
• Google's Marissa Mayer To Leave Search Team, Take Over Location And Local (techcrunch.com)
• Google's New Locations Boss Is Marissa Mayer, And Boy Does She Love Foursquare (GOOG) (businessinsider.com)