As part of the ongoing renovation of Coney Island (Brooklyn), the infamous Stillwell Subway station has recently unveiled a 76,000 square foot solar roof manufactured by RWE SCHOTT Solar. The station has been cleaned up inside too, and looks better than ever.
Web 2.0 -- the next version of the World Wide Web -- is getting a lot of press lately in nerdish circles, but the terms in which it is being described often don't make sense to me. There is a lot of data stored today on the web that isn't accessible using traditional search engines, leading to what Bob Wyman calls the visible, invisible, and gray webs. Visible is web data we use today, mainly with the help of Google. Invisible is data that is ignored by Google and the other search engines. And the gray web is filled with data that we can search, perhaps, but can't understand. Imagine using an English-language search engine to search a Persian-language web site. The way out of this, to a new dawn where visible, invisible, and gray data alike are available to us, is through Web 2.0 (sometimes called or confused with the so-called "semantic web"), where we will use metadata (primarily XML) to advertise our needs and disposals to the world.
With oil hovering around $60 per barrel, and showing no sign of stopping there, hybrids are starting to make more and more financial sense in the US (elsewhere, where gas prices are higher, they already make sense, especially if there are government incentives – but more on that soon in another post). This podcast by Frank Giovinazzi of Car Buyer's Notebook talks about how hybrids are "category killers" (what is meant by that is explained in the podcast) and points out a way that we don't often hear about in which hybrids can make financial sense (fixed costs vs. variable costs). There is also a mini video review of the Prius.
For those who don't know what podcasting is, it's basically blogging but in audio format (mp3, in this case) instead of text. More on it here.
FORT COLLINS, Colo. - Every day is casual-dress day at New Belgium Brewing Co., where employees with titles such as ``vibe writer'' and "sustainability goddess'' are encouraged to ride bicycles to work.
Yet behind the Fort Collins brewery's neo-hippie veneer is a sophisticated and aggressive campaign to save energy and supplement the profits from selling beer.
With concepts as simple as skylights and shady eaves and as advanced as electricity generation from brewing waste, New Belgium uses 40 percent less energy per barrel than the average American brewer.
When the Internet gets faster, multimedia editing tools get better, and searching for video gets easier, broadcast TV will face a challenge potentially more disruptive than digital video recorders.
The TV structure, whether broadcast, cable, or satellite, is primarily based on the broadcast metaphor or the push metaphor. All the programs are pushed to the user. The only choice a user has is to change the channel or to turn off the TV. On the other hand the Internet infrastructure is based on lot more personal choice in access. On Internet people combine push and pull depending on their need and interest. Once video is available on Internet, people will expect to use all the tools and functionalities that they commonly use with text.
Cringely asks and answers five questions about Apple switching to Intel chips and comes to a astonishing but plausible conclusion — Apple and Intel are merging.
Google and its brethren are attacking their classified and display advertising franchises across a very broad front. In-market competition is back, and so are "two newspaper" town economics. But unfortunately for newspapers, these Internet companies are presenting a competitive profile that is much more threatening than just having another local newspaper to contend with. Google et al. have dramatically lower cost structures. They have larger and more attractive audiences. Their pricing models are more advertiser-friendly--selling qualified leads, not just space. And, they have nicer dispositions.
Saudi Arabia, home to the world's greatest proven reserves of oil, claims it can double its current production. No mean feat, considering that the roughly 11 million-barrels a day (b/d) that it claims it currently pumps is just about the highest in the desert kingdom's history. History, in other words, offers no guide to the future on this matter, according to authorities who oversee those reserves. As such, elevating Saudi production to 23 million b/d in the years ahead is well within the country's capacity, according to Abdallah S. Jum'ah, president and chief executive of Saudi Aramco, the planet's biggest oil company, albeit one run by a government.
In response to an industry campaign touting new nuclear reactors as a solution to global warming, nearly 300 international, national, regional and local environmental, consumer, and safe energy groups reiterated their substantial concerns today over nuclear energy and rejected the argument that nuclear power can solve global warming. Rather, the groups urged a focus on clean and renewable sources of energy and energy efficiency and conservation.
...It’s impossible for Europeans to sustain a single currency without a commitment to a single European political and economic policy. And the liberal immigration laws demanded by such integration have proven to be social anathema, as northern Europeans have freaked out over the prospect of a flood of cheap Eastern European and Turkish labor stealing their good blue-collar jobs.
There will be no credible alternative to the dollar as a store of value until the Europeans decide they can live and work together in peace. While it is a noble and worthwhile goal, there is at least 300 years of recent world history to suggest that was an unlikely prospect.
For the foreseeable future, the greenback will continue to denominate, and dominate, world trade.
