- Doomsday Recalculation Gives Humanity Greater Chance of Long-Term Survival
And the odds would improve further, say physicists, were we to make serious efforts to counter existential threats such as asteroid strikes
- BrightSource Pushes Ahead on Another Massive Solar Thermal Plant
With BrightSource’s Ivanpah solar plant about to come online, the company looks to its next projects for the economics to improve.
BrightSource Energy is planning to complete construction of one of world’s largest solar thermal power plants this year, and is now betting on an even more massive project that it hopes will come online by 2016. The Oakland, California, company’s first utility-scale plant, its 370-megawatt Ivanpah facility in the Mojave Desert, uses thousands of software-controlled mirrors to direct sunlight at three central towers that produce steam and power a turbine (see “In Pictures: The World’s Largest Solar Thermal Power Plant”). PG&E and Southern California Edison have entered long-term contracts to buy power from the three units of the project, a sprawling 3,500-acre installation that cost $2.2 billion and is slated to start firing up this summer.
- Facebook and Google Create Walled Gardens for Web Newcomers Overseas
In some countries, “the Internet” is confined to certain sites as part of a strategy to help wireless carriers offer starter packages.
With more than half the people in the world still not online, Facebook and Google are waging a battle to make sure that Internet newcomers get their first tastes of the Web from them.
- Nanoparticles Show Which Way the Stem Cells Went
By monitoring the path of stem cells in the body, scientists can better explore experimental therapies, and doctors can better tune treatments in patients.
Giving patients stem cells packaged with silica nanoparticles could help doctors determine the effectiveness of the treatments by revealing where the cells go after they’ve left the injection needle.
- The Elusive Power of Tweets
Study shows mixed answers to the question of whether Tweets drive ratings–revealing limits to what we know about social media’s real-world effects
Can Tweets drive television ratings? Meaning, when people are gushing about a show, does it change other people’s choices and behavior? If it does, it means we know something new about how social media activity affects events in the real world.
- Apparently Samsung is Prepping a Smart Watch. Meh.
Smart watches sound neat, but I doubt I’ll be wearing one soon.
- Don’t Count Out Thin-Film Solar
As startup Solexant resurfaces for funds, consider the possibility that thin-film will still have its day.
Thin-film solar is back in the news as Solexant, a company that’s been hiding out for the past two years, recently resurfaced, likely with the goal of raising more funds (see “Thin-Film Solar with High Efficiency”). A few years ago, thin-film solar was all the rage in Silicon Valley. It was supposed to be a cheaper alternative to conventional silicon solar panels, promising costs as low as a jaw-dropping $1 per watt. It fell out of fashion as conventional silicon solar panels first approached, and then dropped below that cost. Thin-film solar companies started failing, or being acquired for pennies on the dollar, or dropping off the radar, lurking at a low burn rate in the hope that the solar market will surge, creating demand for their product.
- New 3-D Display Could Let Phones and Tablets Produce Holograms
Optical trickery lets a modified LCD produce hologram-like still images and videos.
A new kind of three-dimensional display developed at HP Labs plays hologram-like videos without the need for any moving parts or glasses. Videos displayed on the HP system hover above the screen, and viewers can walk around them and experience an image or video from as many 200 different viewpoints—like walking around a real object.
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