- First Solar Shines as the Solar Industry Falters
First Solar’s strong finances are helping fund innovation and drive down the cost of solar power.
Innovation in solar cell technology has slowed as startups struggle to get a foothold in a tough market and solar panel manufacturers delay purchasing the equipment they need to manufacture more efficient cells. But First Solar, one of the world’s largest solar companies, continues to invest in boosting the efficiency of its solar cells.
- Obama Wants Far More Money for Existing Technologies than for Developing New Ones
Does it make sense to spend so much on already commercialized technology?
According to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, President Obama’s budget has nearly $13 billion set aside for energy-related spending–if you look just at the amount allocated for key R&D programs at the Department of Energy along with spending on tax incentives (there’s more if, for example, you include funding for Department of Defense related programs). Most of that money–$7.5 billion—is going to tax breaks of one sort of another. That is, money that goes to deploying technology we already have. The rest—about $5 billion–is for R&D and demonstration of new technology.
- How Wireless Carriers Are Monetizing Your Movements
Data that shows where people live, work, and play is being sold to businesses and city planners, as mobile operators seek new sources of revenue.
Wireless operators have access to an unprecedented volume of information about users’ real-world activities, but for years these massive data troves were put to little use other than for internal planning and marketing.
- Big-Name Investors Back Effort to Build a Better Bitcoin
Some of Silicon Valley’s best-known venture funds have backed OpenCoin, a startup with a new digital currency called Ripple.
The value of a Bitcoin has grown in the four years since the digital currency was invented, but there’s been little interest from mainstream business or technology investors in using it.
- The Mermaids of Los Angeles: A Dumbphone in Exile
On a desert journey, coffee-scented oases of WiFi.
As loyal readers already know, a few months ago I embarked upon an experiment: I junked my iPhone. Surprising even myself, at the end of the appointed month, I decided not to go back to it. Currently, I make do with a very basic Alcatel phone, together with a hand-me-down dataless Verizon iPhone that I use as a de facto iPod Touch.
- Wireless Micro LEDs Control Mouse Behavior
Mice tap into their own neural reward circuits with the help of a new optogenetics device.
A microscopic light-emitting diode device that controls the activity of neurons has given researchers wireless control over animal behavior. The tiny device, tested in mice, causes less damage than other methods used to deliver light into the brain, report researchers in Thursday’s issue of Science, and it does not tether mice to a light source, enabling scientists to study behaviors more naturally than is normally possible.
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