From the article: “Wind turbines typically have an onboard power generator that sends electricity down the tower and onto the grid. General Compression plans to break with that basic design and place an air compressor in the nacelle, the housing on a turbine where the generator usually sits. Its plan calls for sending highly compressed air down the tower and into underground storage, such as caves or depleted gas wells, or through pipelines. The pressurized air can be released when needed to power an electricity generator, even if wind is not spinning the turbine’s blades. ”

Nice — Battery storage has always been an Achilles heel for solar and wind power — We’ve long needed a better way to store up that energy when it isn’t being used, and then deliver it when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Batteries have sort-of/kind-of worked, but the efficiency of the generation-storage-delivery cycle has never been conducive to the growth of alternative energy. — Compressed air storage would remove the notoriously inefficient and hard-to-maintain batteries from the equation and allow for mechanical storage of energy.

From the article: “Two start-ups are gearing up to see if Wall Street is excited about energy efficiency and smart electrical grids. EnerNoc and Comverge, which specialize in technology that automatically and remotely controls electricity consumption, have both filed preliminary papers for initial public offerings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

Alternative energy companies have not done well on The Street historically, but perhaps times have changed? Is sounds as if these two companies are offering good technology at the right time — that’s more than I can say for 90% of the Dot.Com companies that took the money and ran.

From the article: “The elegant helical (twisted) design of QR ensures a robust performance even in turbulent winds. It is also responsible for virtually eliminating all noise and vibration.At five metres high and three metres in diameter, it is compact and easy to integrate, and with just one moving part, maintenance can be limited to an annual inspection. Pre-launch clients include architects, developers and local councils, all of whom share a common vision of renewable energy with sophisticated design. ”

Ok… so the thing costs $50k, but it is still a great piece of technology for alternative energy. Combine this with some of the power-storage technologies and some solar panels, and you have a complete power system.

From the article: “The issue of how much a car should tell about driving behavior isn’t new. As insurers, rental-car firms, police and plaintiffs lawyers have discovered that the “black boxes” that control safety systems can capture and store increasingly detailed data about vehicle behavior just before a crash, the issue of who owns that data and what should be done with it has been on the table. Some privacy rights advocates have argued that what goes on with a car should stay in the car. The National Transportation Safety Board, in contrast, has urged that such black boxes be required in all vehicles, in part so safety researchers and regulators can harvest data to guide decisions about new technology or engineering standards. Mindful of the potential pitfalls, NHTSA has avoided coming down hard on one side or the other of the debate — so far.”

I like my privacy… I really do. I expect it when it is appropriate and I get upset when it is violated — but if I am driving my vehicle on a public road, surrounded by other people, do I really have a reasonable expectation of privacy? If I drive like an idiot and put other people in danger, why shouldn’t Law Enforcement be able to confirm with technology what the people around me would say as witnesses — “He was driving like an idiot.”

We’ve just posted the review for the Otter Medium Laptop Case. We put this tough little shell through laptop-hell just so that you can see if it really can keep your laptop safe from harm in the real world. Check out the review and see if this might be just the thing for your mobile office.

From the article:”A woman accused of rendering a friend a paraplegic by pulling her out of a wrecked car “like a rag doll” may not be protected by California’s good Samaritan law, an appellate court ruled. The 2nd District Court of Appeal wrote in a decision Wednesday that the Good Samaritan law only protects people from liability if they are administering emergency medical care. The perceived danger of remaining in the wrecked car was not “medical,” the court ruled.”

Ok… so the Good Samaritan law states that you must render assistance to those in need if you can do so without endangering yourself. Now the courts have decided that the law will not protect those RENDERING ASSISTANCE if the assistance isn’t really needed. — Great, so now we’re supposed to keep a lawyer on retainer so that we can call him and ask if we might possibly get sued for helping somebody? — Thanks….

From the article: “Take-Two Interactive Software, the video game maker mired in boardroom factions, grand jury subpoenas and bad fortunes, faced an insurrection from shareholders on Thursday that claimed the chief executive and three directors who were at the center of a stock options backdating scandal. Dissident shareholders voted in five new directors at Thursday’s annual shareholders meeting.”

It’s a little Karmic that the Execs who built the company on a video game that not only glorified violence, BUT ROLLED IN IT, should be “jacked” by their stockholders.

From the article: ” Apple Inc. unveiled a new feature of its market-leading iTunes music store that credits buyers for tracks already purchased when they download a complete album, putting an end to double-payment for the same song. Complete My Album credits the 99 cents customers paid for each track included on an album that they purchase, said Apple, with the caveat that the track must have been bought no more than 180 days before.”

Nice move by Apple, but I wonder why they limit the track to album conversion to 180 days… If I own it, don’t I always own it? Even beyond 180 days?

From the article: “Government agencies are expected to spend at least $20 billion on the contract over 10 years, the GSA estimates–a move that will overhaul the government’s telecommunications services. Under terms of the GSA contract, called Networx Universal, agency spending could be increased to as much as $48 billion. “

From the article: “As well intentioned as the fact-finding mission may be, the FCC isn’t likely to turn up much, say both sides of the debate. Broadband providers have consistently stated that they do not give preferential treatment to some services, nor do they plan to block competing services. Comcast’s Vice-President of External Affairs, Joseph Waz Jr., summed up the position at the Broadband Policy Summit in May, 2006, when he said calls for legislation barring preferential pricing were “a solution in search of a problem.”

Hmmm…. So the Telcos are saying that Net Neutrality is a solution in search of a problem — They say that they have never throttled content providers or practiced discriminator delivery.— Of course it’s not from a lack of trying.You only need to take a look at the Google – Yahoo, or the Comcast – Google spats to realize that the Telcos WANT to be the content providers. Once the FCC decided that Net Neutrality isn’t necessary, you can expect the Telcos to show WHY it is necessary.

From the article: ” A patch which it is claimed can help women regain their sex drive is set to become available on the NHS. It is the first treatment for women with low sex drive, but maker Procter and Gamble said it was not promoted as the female equivalent of Viagra.”

I give it a month before we start seeing SPAM emails touting the SEX PATCH for lonely guys — “That’s right fellas! Just surreptitiously slip a few of these clear patches on the girl of your dreams and she’ll be BEGGING for you to take her to your Hobbit Hole!

From the article: ”Juicing up your cell phone or iPod may take on a whole new meaning in the future. Researchers at Saint Louis University in Missouri have developed a fuel cell battery that runs on virtually any sugar source — from soft drinks to tree sap — and has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium ion batteries, they say.”

I can see it now, “New Coke Formula — Now with 30 minutes more of iPod Music Time!

From the article: “The flaw, reported by Neutralbit, is the first remotely exploitable SCADA security vulnerability, according to the security services provider. SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) is a large-scale, distributed measurement and control system used to monitor or control chemical or transport processes in municipal water supply systems, to control electric power generation, transmission and distribution, gas and oil pipelines and other distributed processes.”

That there is a problem with the protocol being used isn’t really big news — there are always exploits being found in every kind of networking hardware and software, that’s just the nature of the IT world — what IS big news is that the operators of there SCADA networks will probably not patch their systems because THEY ALREADY KNOW THAT THEIR NETWORKS ARE ALREADY FUNDAMENTALLY UNSOUND!!!

From the article: “More than 4,000 churches in London will receive guidebooks about the importance of protecting the environment and how to reduce energy consumption. The guidebook, which was created by Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Orthodox and evangelical churches in the British capital, provides advice on how Christians can contribute to stopping climate change. It also contains tips on reducing heating bills, for example, fitting insulation and installing energy-efficient lighting.”

I actually find this story quite exciting — I’ve been on the “energy efficiency is part of social justice” bandwagon for years and sometimes it has felt like I’ve been yelling into the wind. Now that people are starting to see the interconnectedness of our resource usage, pollution emissions and class struggles, perhaps now the Church can get wholeheartedly behind the movement to go green.

A mysterious company by the name of Luvaglio of London has come up with the ultimate way to say, “I can be conned into buying just about ANYTHING!” — It’s a $1,000,000 laptop. (Yup… Million…) They say that they’ve thought EVERY detail of the laptop through, from the power supply to the colored diamond power button that doubles as a security device. It comes with a 128GB solid state drive and leather covering, but I have a feeling that most of the money will be spent on the “ego emissions controls” that they’ll have to build into the thing.

From the article: “While the RIAA is touting a settlement percentage north of 25 percent with its recent campaign against file sharing at US colleges and universities, the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of students are shunning the insta-settlement approach. According to the RIAA, some 116 students have used their new web site to settle copyright infringement claims, but that means that another 284, or 71 percent of students contacted through the program aren’t taking the easy way out. At least not yet. “

Of course this could be the result of typical student procrastination, but the real story here is that the RIAA has been claiming this campaign as a victory. — Seems like it is more an indictment of our educational system when 25% of students were actually naive enough to settle.

From the article: "Michigan Teen Builds Nuclear Fusion Device. A high school senior has achieved nuclear fusion in his parents’ basement. When he's not running track and cross country at Stoney Creek High School, 17-year-old Thiago Olsen can be found tinkering with items such as high-voltage X-ray transformers, diffusion pumps, and neutron bubble dosimeters. Most of the devices were scrounged from eBay or built from scraps and pieces picked up at the local hardware store. This teen's dream of fusing two hydrogen atoms by crashing them together to form a single helium nucleus has finally paid off. The proof lies in the images he has published showing a classic "star in a jar" pattern, indicating the presence of neutron bubbles suspended in plasma, the traditional by-product of nuclear fusion."

From the article: “Intel has come up with a form of Wi-Fi that would let a laptop in San Francisco connect to the Internet from a base station in San Jose, Calif. And there would still be about 10 miles of wiggle room to spare. Academics and researchers from the company’s labs have created a system that lets Wi-Fi signals, which ordinarily carry a few hundred feet, instead travel 100 kilometers, or more than 60 miles, said Eric Brewer, director of Intel Research Berkeley, a lab owned by the company that cooperates on research projects with the University of California at Berkeley. “It is regular Wi-Fi hardware but with modified software,” he said. ”

Now before you get excited by thinking that you’ll be able to connect to the wireless in your home from 60 miles away, the article specifically states that this new software isn’t for use in the US or Europe. It’s also of note that this isn’t anything new to uberGeeks — we’ve been making long-shots with WiFi as long as the standard has been around. In fact, the record for unamplified wireless networking (meaning that it would be the same hardware that you would find in your laptop and home router) is an amazing 125 Miles! — The problem is that the distance require a very directional antenna – couple that with the relatively low power of the WiFi standard and it becomes very difficult to maintain a signal. At 125 miles, wiggling the antenna by less that a millimeter can throw off the aim of the signal by more than a mile. The new system solves this problem by using a “steerable signal” that allows the software to electronically align two sets of antennas, regardless of any physical movements in those antennas. Link a few of these stations together, make sure that at least one of them has a high-speed connection to the Internet, and Voila! — Instant Mesh Networking for remote areas.

From the article: “Rackable Systems has begun selling a data center packed into a modular storage container, getting to market ahead of a rival system from Sun Microsystems. Called Concentro, the system squeezes as many as 1,200 servers along with power and cooling equipment into a 40-foot shipping container. It can be mounted on a truck for portability. The company argues that it’s the bee’s knees when it comes to energy efficiency, dense packing of computing power and rapid setup of ordinarily complicated computing gear. “

Now I’m all about uberGeeky concepts and massive amounts of computer firepower in portable packages, but 1,200 servers in a Shipping container? I can’t wait until there are roving bands of uberGeeks crawling the country with rolling server farms, ready to sell the computing power like the Ice-Cream Man of yesteryear!