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Smart Grid Infrastructure Startups to Watch in 2009

Garry Golden — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:55:22 +0000

What might be at the top of the list as the 'Next Big Thing' for the energy sector?

Creating a 'Smart Grid' (Guide) for Electricity that is more resilient, responsive and efficient.

2009 should be a significant year for investing in the three main ingredients of smart infrastructure: Software, Sensors & Storage.

In 2009 we will be watching for major investments made by utiltiies with the help of 'smart grid' startups and incumbents capable of transforming how we manage, distribute and store electrons:

1) Gridpoint
2) Comverge
3) BPL Global (Better Power Lines)
4) Enernoc
5) Enerwise
6) Trilliant Networks
7) Silver Spring Networks – Kleiner Perkins investment
8) Tendril
9) SmartSynch
10) Itron
11) Sequentric
12) Eka Systems

Other notable sensor and systems startups:
Energy Hub, GainSpan (Embedded Systems), GreenBox, eMeter (Enterprise)

Incumbents to Watch:
General Electric, IBM, Honeywell, and Johnson Controls

Related posts on The Energy Roadmap.com

Category: Energy
Year: 2009
Tags: energy, electricity, smartgrid, grid, infrastructure, obama

Speeding Up The Drug Cycle

Jeff Hilford — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:15:36 +0000

The University of Michigan announced recently that they had made artificial bone marrow that can continuously make red and white blood cells. According to Nicholas Kotov, the PI of the lab, it uses 3D scaffolding that mimics the tissues that support bone marrow in the body.

In addition to possibly providing an inexhaustible source of blood for transfusions, which in and of itself would be great, it has the potential to simplify the pharmaceutical drug-testing process. As the world of discovery speeds up, the process of safely testing and bringing to market drugs and treatments in less than the standard 7-10 years is a difficult obstacle to overcome and one which is in great demand.

Category: Technology
Year: General
Tags: bonemarrow, blood, transfusion, drugdiscovery, cycles, drugtesting, pharmaceuticals

Earth 2100 Game Imagines "Perfect Storm" Catastrophe Scenario

Adam Cutsinger — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 01:59:31 +0000

I wouldn't have predicted ABC News going all bleak futurist, but they did. Earth 2100 is a massive online roleplaying game that starts out with global turmoil and devastation. And they're going prime time with it.

The project is pretty ambitious, but considering the recent popularity of games like Superstruct and Second Life, there should be no doubt that participation will be high. To participate you need to record a short fictional video depicting something in 2015, then, based on those submissions, the ABC News people will design a scenario for 2050, then 2070 and finally 2100.

Category: Metaverse
Year: 2015
Tags: earth2100, abc, news, roleplaying, games, futurism, futurist, catastrophes, perfect, storm, future, environmental, issues, green, energy, alternative, fuels

CCTV Nation — Security at What Cost?

John Heylin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:25:11 +0000

A lot of people keep telling me that if one has nothing to hide, then why worry about wire-taps or security cameras? If you're not planning to rob a bank or kidnap a spoiled celebrity then you should be fine, right?

I have to admit, that argument is pretty solid. I don't plan on doing anything like kidnapping rich kids (at least until the economy gets worse) so I shouldn't worry. But the real issue here is privacy. Humans love privacy, and yet we're afraid of just about everything. Finding a balance between the two can be difficult at times and rarely easy. You might not be doing something illegal that would cause you to fear security cameras, but think again.

Chances are you've done something that could be construed as illegal and fined. Not coming to a full stop at stop signs lands you a ticket for every mistake. Urinating in public when you're coming home from the bars at 2am could land you an indecency ticket and possible jail time. Any prank you've ever pulled from toilet papering a house to stealing a road sign would be prosecuted (for those that notice these crimes are kinda specific examples, I've never TP'd a house, it's a waste of paper).

Someone will always be watching and to think that minor offenses will be ignored is naive since cities are always looking for new sources of revenue. And as it becomes clear that the cameras don't actually prevent any crime (London has 1.5 million CCTV cameras and bombings still happen) people will rely more and more on security cameras which do more. Facial recognition is the next step, following people from camera to camera, tracking their paths. Your entire path from when you leave your house to when you finally return is on record. Great for Alzheimers patients, but I think I'll pass.

I prefer a world where I can enjoy anonymity and freedom to do silly things like hit golf balls off my front lawn, or drop water balloons from a parking garage, or streak on campus. Would I like to find out who broke into my car? Yes. But not at the cost of killing my privacy.

Category: Social Issues
Year: General
Tags: cctv, london, privacy, concerns, facial, recognition

5 Media Trends For 2009

Jeff Hilford — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 20:44:50 +0000

2009 promises to be a big year on the media landscape as next stage public adoption of online product will spur tremendous growth. Here are 5 things to watch for:

Tweet! Twitter explodes and joins the parade - MySpace --> YouTube --> Facebook --> Twitter - as an elite meme that everybody has heard of. In the process it requisitely transforms into a corporate tool and attracts an older demographic cohort.

Online Advertising Hangs Tough Despite all of the end times rhetoric, online advertising actually increases 10%. The efficiency of the web is wreaking havoc on traditional media. Companies still need to advertise their products and eyeballs are continuing to flock to the web. Bang for the buck and big metrics make web media undeniably compelling.

The Future Gets Hot The present stinks and people will turn their attention elsewhere. While many will pine for a return to the past they will be forced to look ahead. The doom and gloom of the economic meltdown and global warming combined with the incredible pace of technological change provide a fertile backdrop for projection. ABC's 2100, Discovery's 2057 and plenty of content about the next decade will push this meme to the forefront. Sweet.

Category: Entertainment
Year: 2009
Tags: predictions, abc, 2057, discovery, corporateblogs, onlineadvertising, web20, future, twitter, tweet

Why Twitority Is A Sign Of Things To Come

Jeff Hilford — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:37:35 +0000

There was a bit of hubbub in the socialmediasphere about Loic Le Meur's complaint that there was no way to filter Twitter posts by authority, or the number of users suscribing to a particular person's feed. Le Meur's beef was that he and other attendees of his conference had a problem - they couldn't sift through the deluge of Tweets about and from people attending their event to find the signal they were looking for. While signal clarity and information overload is a problem (which I will save for a later post) - what I found most interesting is that less than a day after complaining about the problem, an ambitious group of programmers dug in and created a basic product that addressed this problem.

This is something we will see much more frequently going forward.

TechCrunch and other sites that are leaders in authority and Zeitgeist have the ability to drive conversation, memes and ultimately influence production itself. And the collaborative tools that they make a living reporting on are empowering people to come together quickly and solve problems. This compressed market process is likely to accelerate rapidly in an economy where there are a lot of free agents (read un or under-employed folks) with time, expertise and awareness of these platforms and painpoints. By addressing a zeitgeist problem quickly you have the opportunity to garner a great deal of attention from the community, which can result in elevation of personal brands, team and give the solution you've created a chance to get quick adoption and possibly immediate financial backing.

Category: The Web
Year: 2008
Tags: techcrunch, techmeme, crowdsourcing, loiclemuir, twitority, twitter, socialmedia, zeitgeist

Space Program Reinvigorated with Expansive Space-based Solar Energy Policy

Adam Cutsinger — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:23:37 +0000

Many people will say that pursuing a space-based solar power energy campaign is too ambitious, that there are more immediate solutions to get us through our economic/energy crisis until a time when spaced-aged, science fiction-inspired future tech can be safely explored further. They might say that we already have a head start with nuclear, oil and coal, as well as other greener alternatives like wind, water and Earthbound solar. They would be dead wrong. The truth is...

Category: Technology
Year: Beyond
Tags: alternative, energy, solar, power, space, based, panels, satellites, jaxa, nasa, nss, nsso, obama, environmental, solutions, green

Top Energy Science Breakthroughs in 2008: Batteries, Fuel Cells and Capacitors

Garry Golden — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 23:13:46 +0000

Let's think beyond simply trying to find new ways to produce more energy, and focus on ways of storing energy. Why? Because this expands ways for us to produce more energy! Confused?

Solar and wind alone are a hard sell to utility providers because of intermittent production when the sun isn't shining or wind doesn't blow. Add utility scale storage to solar and wind farms, and you have a more valuable proposition.

Battery powered cars sound great, but not if we have to plug in our vehicles every 50 or 100 miles. Or what about a new iPhone with a battery that cannot last the entire day.

We have written dozens of posts on energy storage and believe it deserves much more attention from the media and policy leaders. 2009 could be a turning point for awareness around the importance of enabling next generation batteries, fuel cells and capacitors.

List of 20+ Energy Breakthroughs in Batteries, Fuel cells, and Capacitors

Category: Energy
Year: Beyond
Tags: energy, research, top10, list, science, hydrogen, fuelcells, batteries

Rumor Mill: Three Months Later And Already A New G-Phone?

John Heylin — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:19:00 +0000

The Internet is abuzz with people theorizing that a new Google phone from T-Mobile, the G2, will make an appearance late January on the world market. If true (which it hopefully isn't) this would mean a whole three months passed before a better phone from the same maker breaking the previous record made by the iPhone which stood at nine months.

Although others say it won't appear until April, the idea that a new phone may just be around the corner has got quite a few people heated especially when it "is expected to have a 5-megapixel autofocus camera, VGA camera for video calls, a full touch screen, and Wi-Fi connectivity." Three months later and already all those extras?

There's a lot going in to play here. For instance, many thought the T-Mobile G1 was rushed through production even though there was over a half a year of delay in production. That being said, one might consider a January release as a sign that the first phone pushed onto consumers wasn't the right phone but a rush-job, the rumored one being the phone they should have released first.

If Google wants to keep all the goodwill and support they have from those in the online community who are trying to support their Open-Source venture into the market, they also need to appeal to the consumers buying their Android-powered phones. If they're smart, they will answer these rumors and hopefully give us a release date somewhere later next year.

via CNET

Category: Gadgets
Year: 2009
Tags: google, phone, android, g2, release, january, april, tmobile, angry, consumers

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ten Tech Gadgets that We Want for Christmas

christinep — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 06:36:20 +0000

Christmas is literally right around the corner. And while it might be too late to get those gifts that the kids and grown-ups are longing for, it doesn’t hurt to think about that dream list. So here it is, ten gadgets that we would have screamed for. Maybe they’re underneath the tree waiting to be opened on Christmas morning or they’re still sitting in-store on the shelf, anyway it’s still fun to think of all the tech gadgets that we hope we’ll receive.

1.   Flip Video Mino HD: The holidays wouldn’t be the holidays without capturing memories of the season of giving. Instead of looking back on hazy footage of the kids opening their gifts, why not look back on high definition quality footage?
2.   USB Mini Fridge: It’s a long day of sitting at your computer putting together the annual Christmas card. What better way to ease that neck cramp with nice cold can of soda? If the weather too cold for a soda, how bout a nice hot chocolate? With a USB mini fridge, you can keep your drink cold or warm to your specific liking without getting up to get more ice or putting your cup in the microwave.
3.   Apple iPhone: We all know that iPod Touch is a tease to the iPhone. Sure, you can get the application that allows you to use the Touch as a phone, but you have to have WiFi and a microphone connected. It’s just not the same.

Category: Gadgets
Year: 2008
Tags: christmas, tech, gadgets

Google Earth Updates New York to Near Photo-Realism

John Heylin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:35:27 +0000

The Google Earth Blog announced it has made a huge update to New York City regarding 3D buildings. "Google has completed nearly every building in Manhattan Island for Google Earth. Just fly to "New York City" and turn on the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth." Google engineers tried to keep a lot of user-submitted 3D buildings along with their own updates. Head on over to their site to see before and after pictures of the update, it gives you the same feeling the latest update for Google Streetview gives you — Awed and creepy.

Category: Gadgets
Year: 2008
Tags: google, earth, update, photo, realism, new, york

No End in Sight for Moore’s Law and Its Impact

Covus — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:59:37 +0000

Gorden E. Moore, in a landmark 1965 paper, observed that the density of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every two years and with it comes increased performance and lower cost. It has been a hallmark for computers and information technology for decades. We have exploited this phenomenon to create amazing artifacts and tools which are just emerging to solve our exponentially increasing problems and it doesn’t seem to be waning anytime soon.

As we move into 2009 with Moore’s Law intact, we are pushing the boundaries of computational power. We’ve already reached the petaflop in processing power and we set our sights on the exaflop. While I remain optimistic, Moore’s Law has been in danger of hitting a brick wall for quite awhile now. We’ve had problems passing the 4 GHz barrier (in the consumer market) because of power consumption and heating issues, and it is getting increasingly difficult to create transistors at the sub 30nm level. However, the industry has sidestepped some barriers and kept Moore’s Law alive by using multi-core and high-k metal gate technology. While MCT has kept performance very high, it is creating some major headaches in the IT field.

There is hope. New research at UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) shows that advanced techniques applied to magnetic semiconductors should help extend Moore’s Law even longer than previously thought.

Senior Research Scientist at NPL Dr Olga Kazakova said “The solution lies in changing not only the material but also the structure of our transistors. We have worked mainly with germanium nanowires that we have made magnetic. Magnetic semiconductors don't exist in nature, so they have to be artificially engineered. Germanium is closely compatible with silicon, meaning it can easily be used with existing silicon electronics without further redesign. The resulting transistors based on NPL's germanium nanowire technology, which could revolutionize computing and electronic devices, could realistically be 10 years away."

Category: Technology
Year: Beyond
Tags: moores, transistors, nanometers

Top Gear Tests Out the Honda Clarity, Says It Will Save the World

John Heylin — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:30:17 +0000

Top Gear recently test drove the Honda Clarity in Los Angeles and proclaimed with certainty that this car will be the most important one in 100 years. The reason? It runs on Hydrogen.

It looks like a normal car, drives like a normal car, fills up like a normal car, and its only by-product is water. They also go on to say how the car may never have to be serviced since the engine has only one moving part. It's crazy to think how much people are investing in hybrid or electric technologies (meaning plug-in cars) when a hydrogen-powered car will obliterate them all in the coming decade.

Now if we could just find an incredibly cheap way of making Hydrogen at home from air we'd be set.

Category: Transportation
Year: 2012
Tags: honda, clarity, top, gear, california, hydrogen, powered, car

The Top 10 Energy Stories of 2008

joelg — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:41:11 +0000

By Joel Greenberg and the Staff of The Energy Roadmap

2008 was a big year in energy and one that we could very well look back upon as the platform to the not so distant future of energy. Much has happened. To help you make sense of it all, we here at The Energy Roadmap have sifted through our bookmarks, Google Notebooks, back of the napkin lists, Twitter searches, interview transcripts, and RSS feeds to come up with the top 10 energy stories that will have an impact on our culture, society, and lives.

Top Energy Stories of 2008

#1 Story of the Year:
Electrification of the Passenger Car

#2 The Year of Scientific Breakthroughs

#3 The Obama Election

#4 From $147 to $50: The Price of Oil

#5 The Dying Gasp of Corn Ethanol

#6 The Clean Coal Lobby Breaks Through the Clutter...and Gets a Response

#7 Geeks Go Green

#8 The Rise of Local Initiatives

#9 Infrastructure Gains Attention

#10 Emerging Energy Missionaries & Visionaries

Category: Energy
Year: 2008
Tags: 2008, review, energy, electricity, cars, transportation, algae, biofuels, ethanol

Reuters Poll Shows Industry Leaders Believe Mobile Phone Sales Will Shrink

John Heylin — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:25:04 +0000

Reuters reports that most leaders in the mobile phone industry see sales plummeting in response to the global economic crisis. "On average, the poll of 36 analysts shows global market volumes shrinking 6.6 percent next year and 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter -- traditionally the strongest period for the industry due to holiday sales." The interesting note is that a similar poll in early November saw predictions that the market would grow by 2.6% next year.

We all know the economy is going to crap, so it's not surprising that people are going to stop buying things they don't really need. For many, that's a brand-spanking new cellphone. Our culture has become (or always has been) a sort of throw-away culture where if your technology isn't the latest then you're way behind the curve.

iPhone after iPhone is thrown away, replaced by a new one ten times better and sexier, only to get replaced less than a year later. This economic jolt might be what it takes to get people to start sticking to their stuff, quell the need for the latest and greatest, and stop shopping smartly. Imagine a phone where you could switch out some of the components instead of buy a whole new product. Like a computer tower, just upgrade the parts instead of buying a whole computer. Honestly though, I see this as unlikely.

Image: Tim Psych (Flickr, CC-Attribution)

Category: Economics
Year: 2009
Tags: mobile, phone, sales, down, sink, economy, reuters

Energy Story of 2008: #1 Electrification of the Passenger Car

joelg — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:02:57 +0000

By the fall of 2008, every major automanufacturer from GM to Nissan to Tata--and a few startups such as Tesla and Aptera--had announced production model plans for all manner of electric vehicles, from all electrc vehicles, to plug-in hybrid electrics, to fuel cell vehicles, with deliveries to consumers starting in 2010. 2008 could well be known as the nail in the coffin for the bulky combustion engine which has plagued the auto industry with its manufacturing and design liabilities, and association with volatile oil markets.

How quickly might the world re-tool the global auto industry to build new vehicle chassis based on electric motors and advanced energy storage systems?

Continue Reading other Top Energy Stories from 2008

#2 The Year of Scientific Breakthroughs

Category: Energy
Year: 2008
Tags: electric, car, transportation, energy, electricity, batteries, hydrogen, fuelcells

Key2SafeDriving is a Great Product For Anal-Retentive Parents

John Heylin — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:54:37 +0000

Leave it to people in Utah to invent the most anal-retentive product of this decade so far. Key2SafeDriving is a prototype made by University of Utah researchers that allows parents to disable their kids' cellphones while they're driving. The parents can allow certain numbers to be dialed, and of course 911 is still available, but the kicker is the other functions they hope to add into it.

They hope to include a "safety score" which will be sent each month to insurance companies to compile a driving record of each user. "The score also could include data recorded via Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites on the driver's speeding, rapid braking or running of lights, which are calculated by comparing the driver's position with a database of maps, speed limits, stop lights and so on." You'll basically have to drive like a saint (usually the most hated person on the road) or else your insurance company will use that one time you went five miles over the speed limit to jack up your rates like crazy.

I really don't see this gaining ground among the general public. The people I see using this are parents of only children, Mormons, parents who home school their kids, and rich liberal intellectuals who feel their kids will see how much they treasure their life through their over-protectionism. Sorry if I come off as hostile, but this product is so silly it makes me laugh that there might be a market for it. Check out their totally awesome video after the jump (seriously, you have to see it, I'm still laughing).

Category: Gadgets
Year: 2009
Tags: key2safedriving, utah, university, block, cellphone, bluetooth, teens, driving, parents, anal

Need WiFi On That Roadtrip? Bring it Along With MiFi

John Heylin — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:39:05 +0000

You've got a laptop, a cellphone, a digital camera and at least one other gadget in your arsenal. Sadly, only your phone gets internet which costs about $60 a month. You thought about getting mobile internet for your laptop but that was another $60 plus the cost of the USB drive. You're tired of hopping from coffee shop to coffee shop looking for internet on trips. What do you do?

Novatel, a company specializing in mobile information technology, will soon release MiFi, a mobile WiFi system run through cellular phone lines. MiFi acts as your own personal WiFi system which you can link to from any of your mobile gadgets. On a road trip you can carry it along for any of your passengers to latch onto. With a 4 hour life-span or 40 hours on standby, business trips might be just that more bearable.

Category: Gadgets
Year: 2009
Tags: novatel, mifi, wireless, mobile, hotspot, linking, phone, laptop

The Mandate of Kevin

Alvis Brigis — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 02:16:01 +0000

The quick rise of the prosumer is exerting great force on the social networks and platforms that depend on these users. As prosumers are empowered and generate more value their options broaden, allowing them to control more of their web and market environment through their participation.

The output power of individuals is increasing rapidly largely due to evolving web, information and other technologies. At the same time it's getting much easier to capture and generate digital content that can then return value through the web.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg observes that of late people are sharing roughly 2x more digital data about themselves every year. With better, cheaper video, audio, graphics, machinima, and search capabilities arriving regularly, this new content is steadily growing richer.

As the web market evolves, more value is returned to users through better ad pairing/serving, payment through links, personally relevant structure (i.e. social networks) and access to other data. Ultimately, prosumers (consumers that create content) gravitate toward services that give them the most and best rewards for their time and attention spent.

Category: Social Media
Year: General
Tags: prosumer, prosumerism, mandateofkevin, usermandate, socialnetwork, socialnetworking