drfilmcommission.com

(Credit:
Blue H)

Shell and Iogen announce extended alliance to accelerate a next generation biofuel
Shell does appear to be serious about developing alternate sources of fuels. It ups its stake in Iogen to 50 percent.
Critics Claim WEEE Failed to Deliver in First Year in U.K. - GreenerComputing
The electronic waste directive is meant to increase recycling, but administrators have run into some hitches.

Undersea Volcanic Rocks Offer Vast Repository For Greenhouse Gas, Says Study - Science Daily
"Carbon burial" at a large scale–150 years worth–could happen in undersea volcanic rock, researchers say.
British company launches floating wind turbines off Italy - The Guardian
There are a number of floating wind turbines being developed, but Blue H says its test will be launched later this year.

Here’s a sampling of
green-tech news with quick commentary:

Maui algae operation will produce biodiesel for power plant - Pacific Business News (Honolulu)
A pollution-to-algae-to-biodiesel project in Hawaii gets a green light.
NREL and Optony Collaborate on Developing Cost-Competitive Approach for Solar Electricity - Press release

The project will combine thin-film solar cells with optics from a new company, Optony, to create a concentrating photovoltaics (CPV) device with potentially cheaper electricity.
Plan to bury climate-warming carbon unveiled - Reuters
EPA looks to create some environmental guidelines because geological sequestration of carbon dioxide is still unproven.

A prototype of Blue H's floating turbine.

I added the CNET News.com channel; the rest are LightPole's.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

From LightPole’s Web site, you input any RSS feed or site URL corresponding to geotagged content into the blank field to transform it into a channel. A Google map and Flickr stream are two examples. A few more clicks and a manual phone update later and the content is ready to access. I’ll admit that mapping the CNET News.com feed was a little useless (CNET headquarters doesn’t move around much,) but I like the flexibility and relative ease of relying on LightPole’s partnerships for my most-wanted content.

It works like this. Users looking for stuff–a good restaurant, happy hour specials, or Internet cafe–can click open LightPole, select a service (MappyHour and Hotspotr are two more,) and can read about the establishment, call the establishment, and map the results.

New customization features, announced Wednesday, make the application heaps more appealing to the masses because it lets users do what users like to do best–add their own content by creating channels online.

In a final enhancement, two of LightPole’s partners, MappyHour and Hotspotr, have added functionality that lets users add favorite happy hour lairs and Internet cafes to the communities’ Web sites from the LightPole application. There are still some usability hitches (a few too many menus and clicks for my taste,) but these second helpings already make LightPole more useful.

Two other announcements join ranks with the news of the now-open channels. LightPole’s integration with Yahoo-owned Fire Eagle, a nexus for managing your location information. This integration lets registered users of other Fire Eagle-supported location services, Loki for example, post their whereabouts. LightPole will pick it up from there.

If I had to describe LightPole in 10 words or fewer, I’d call it an interface for accessing location-aware services from mobile phones. More than anything else, LightPole’s downloadable application offers a listings and mapping format that many location-based services, such as Yelp and Yahoo Local, can squeeze into to gain more visibility or avoid creating their own rich cell phone applications.

Henry Ford? Yowza.

Seth Weintraub of 9to5Mac, a blogger with good sources within the Macintosh community, is reporting that Apple has invented a new manufacturing process for MacBooks.

(Credit:
CNET News)

At the same time, Mike Schramm from TUAW.com writes that Nvidia is offering sneak peeks of the product to employees. He speculates that the units may include “some extra Nvidia power,” presumably to turn the MacBook into a more serious game machine.

Of course, some or all–or none–of the above may be accurate. The hype cycle always works the
Mac faithful into a lather, and this time the meter is simply off the charts. The “brick,” as it’s being referred to, may shape up to be quite the story. (And Apple definitely could use a different narrative after a steady stock decline topped off by a phony Steve Jobs rumor.) But if the breakthrough isn’t as revolutionary as the early leaks suggest, will we be talking about the brick the way we now recall the Segway? Just wondering.

Something up his sleeve?

“It is totally revolutionary, a game changer. One of the biggest Apple innovations in a decade. The MacBook manufacturing process up to this point has been outsourced to Chinese or Taiwanese manufacturers like Foxconn. Now Apple is in charge. The company has spent the last few years building an entirely new manufacturing process that uses lasers and jets of water to carve the MacBooks out of a brick of aluminum. (Yes, this sounded a bit crazy to us as well. But our source is adamant so bear with us. He says Apple has built a manufacturing process that would make Henry Ford proud.)”

Icahn’s record in proxy fights
In the past, when Icahn has waged a proxy fight, he has won more proxy challenges than he’s lost, according to research firm FactSet SharkWatch.

Folks who are familiar with Icahn’s efforts at these companies and others, where he has tried to gain board seats, acknowledge he comes with detailed ideas, versus vague suggestions on how to improve the operations of the companies.

Icahn has received commitments from at least 12 potential board members to run for some or all of Yahoo’s 10 board seats, which are all up for re-election at the company’s July 3 annual shareholders meeting, according to Reuters.

Less than two weeks ago, Microsoft withdrew its sweetened cash-stock offer for Yahoo, valued at $33 a share, after a three-month period in which its initial offer of $31 a share remained virtually comatose.

Shares of Yahoo on Wednesday closed up 2 percent to $27.14 a share, spurred by expectations Icahn would move forward on a proxy fight, potentially paving the way for a sale of the Internet search pioneer.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is planning to wage a proxy fight against Yahoo, in a move that could ultimately kick out Yahoo’s entire board, according to a Reuters report.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

Prior to Microsoft’s $31 offer, Yahoo’s stock was trading around $19 a share.

After Microsoft withdrew its offer on May 3, Yahoo’s stock took a hammering during the next trading day and has since bounced between a low of $24.20 to as high as $27.36 per share during intraday trading on Wednesday.

At both biotech company ImClone Systems and video rental giant Blockbuster, Icahn was able to gain a board seat, but ImClone continues to post losses and Blockbuster shares have lost nearly half their value since the fall.

Updated Thursday 1:00 AM PDT with further details of Icahn’s past proxy efforts.

Nonetheless, Icahn and the video rental giant have managed to persuade a reluctant electronics retailer Circuit City Stores to contemplate an acquisition. Earlier this month, Circuit City Stores agreed to open its financial books for Icahn to take a peek, after the shareholder activist said he would consider buying the electronics chain if Blockbuster’s offer fell through.

He’s had mixed results on those companies when he’s made a run for them through some sort of shareholder activist campaign.

Investor Carl Icahn keeps a close watch on the numbers.

Microsoft and Yahoo declined to comment on reports of Icahn’s proxy plans.

As the campaign to win the hearts and minds of Yahoo investors kicks in, don’t be surprised to watch a knock-down, drag-out fight between the two parties. Proxy solicitors note that proxy fights are often like watching a presidential campaign.

“I love it,” said Safka, whose company announced Wednesday plans to buy Lexico Publishing Group said. “Just when you thought Microsoft and Yahoo were going to get on with their lives, it’s going to paralyze them once again.”

( CNET News.com Stephen Shankland and Ina Fried contributed)

Icahn was expected to unveil his plans as early as Wednesday night, according to the report. The deadline for Yahoo or any shareholder to name a slate is by the end of the day Thursday.

Some are already gearing up for the fight, such as Jim Safka, chief executive of Yahoo rival Ask.com.

Verdiem Surveyor 5.0 has a console to centrally configure different devices and additional reporting tools. It also has better integration with
Windows Vista and integrates with Intel’s vPro PC management technology so that it can access machines that aren’t turned on.

Verdiem touts its environmental credentials: last year, its software saved $6 million and prevented almost 38,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases, the company said. That’s the equivalent of about 4 million gallons of gas saved, or 8,200
cars not driven for a year.

Verdiem's software lets companies measure energy savings or greenhouse gas reductions.

Energy in data centers is getting more attention because usage is going up rapidly with more Web users coming online and more power-hungry servers.

PCs and monitors, meanwhile, are 40 percent of IT budgets’ energy usage, according to Gartner. Severs, including cooling, take up around about 23 percent, with the rest in communications, networking, and printers.

The application also gathers data on energy usage of PCs on a network so that companies can measure their energy savings and reductions of carbon emissions.

Energy conservation is becoming a concern both for IT organizations facing rising costs and people responsible for corporate sustainability initiatives, according to Gartner.

Renewable energy sources are flashy but tend to be more expensive than conventional power.

By contrast, energy-efficiency technologies typically have a quicker payback while eliminating waste.

The company has about 200 customers.

Verdiem on Wednesday is expected to release an update of its software that monitors desktop Windows PCs and puts them in low-power mode when they’re idle. A PC usually wastes about two-thirds of the energy it uses.

For a large corporate network, that’s serious money: a 10,000 PC network could mean half a million dollars in savings, said Matt Heinz, senior director of marketing at the company.

(Credit:
Verdiem)

Verdiem’s Surveyor application can pay for itself within a year by saving between $20 and $60 per PC, according to a company.

Talk about low-hanging fruit.

The patent on the aircraft belongs to Calgary, Alberta-based Skyhook, and it will be developed and built by Boeing’s Advanced Rotorcraft Systems unit. (JHL is short for Jess Heavy Lifter; the patent lists Skyhook’s Peter Jess as the inventor.)

One industry ripe for the JHL-40 is logging, Boeing says.

Here’s how it would work: The helium-filled envelope would support the weight of the aircraft itself (fuel included). Four rotors sticking out from the sides of the envelope would provide the lift for the external payload.

(Credit:
Boeing image by Joe Naujokas)

As unusual as the JHL-40 appears, this isn’t the first such blimp/rotorcraft combination. The pioneering helicopter company Piasecki Aircraft in the 1980s experimented with a very similar demonstration vehicle called the PA-97 Helistat. It was built on a U.S. Navy contract for the U.S. Forest Service, according to Piasecki.

The JHL-40, mind you, is still essentially in the blueprints-and-artist’s-renderings stage. It’s an aircraft that Boeing and its partner Skyhook International are pitching as a short-haul commercial transport rig.

What do you get when you cross a blimp and a helicopter? One potential answer is the Skyhook JHL-40.

Boeing says that the neutral buoyancy of the JHL-40 would let it hoist and move far greater payloads than can be handled by existing rotorcraft. The aircraft, the companies say, should be able to lift a 40-ton sling load and then transport it 200 miles without refueling, a capacity that would come in handy in harsh, undeveloped regions like the Canadian Arctic where “conventional land and water transportation methods…are inadequate, unreliable and costly.”

The JHL-40 is an uncommon mix of blimp and helicopter.

Two production prototypes are set to be built at a Boeing facility in Ridley Park, Pa., and the aerospace giant says the aircraft will enter commercial service as soon as it gets the OK from the Federal Aviation Administration and Transport Canada.

The venerable twin-rotor CH-47 Chinook helicoptor, by comparison, has a range of about 200 miles, but lifts only on the order of about 10 tons.

(Credit:
Boeing image by Joe Naujokas)

This being the era in which no product, potential or tangible, can be promoted without a greenish tinge, Boeing also proclaims that the JHL-40 will be “environmentally acceptable” because there would be less of a need to build roads in remote regions and because it would lessen the carbon footprint of target industries like logging, mining, and energy.

The recording industry appears to have won a closely watched copyright infringement case over charges of evidence tampering.

“Defendant’s intentional spoliation of computer evidence significantly prejudices plaintiffs because it puts the most relevant evidence of their claim permanently beyond their reach,” the RIAA reportedly argued. “The deliberate destruction…by itself, compels the conclusion that such evidence supported plaintiffs’ case.”

However, the RIAA accused Howell of destroying evidence on four occasions after being served with the lawsuit, the site reported. RIAA experts found that Howell uninstalled Kazaa and reformatted his hard drive, Ars Technica reported.

Wake reportedly agreed with the RIAA and is expected to inform Howell of his decision in a forthcoming written order.

The RIAA sued Pamela and Jeffrey Howell for copyright infringement in 2006, claiming that the husband and wife had used Kazaa to make copyrighted files available for download.

Judge Neil Wake ruled on Monday that Jeffery Howell, a defendant in Atlantic v. Howell, had willfully and intentionally destroyed evidence related to his peer-to-peer activities after being notified of pending legal action by the RIAA, according to a Tuesday report by Ars Technica. Furthermore, since it was done in bad faith, it “therefore warrants appropriate sanctions,” the site reported.

He also argued that that he was not the one sharing the files, but that it was the computer that was sharing the files.

In a deposition, Jeffrey Howell admitted to loading the file-sharing software onto his computer. He said, however, that the songs listed in the complaint were for personal use and that he had not placed the files in the program’s shared folder. He said the recordings were copies made from CDs he owned placed on the computer for personal use, not copies downloaded from Kazaa.

Judge Wake apparently agreed with that position and in April denied the labels’ motion for summary judgment in a 17-page decision (PDF), allowing the suit to proceed to trial.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation argued on behalf of the couple–which lacked legal representation–saying the RIAA’s “making available” position “amounts to suing someone for attempted distribution, something the Copyright Act has never recognized.” The argument–that merely the act of making music files available for download constituted copyright infringement–has been the basis for the Recording Industry Association of America’s legal battle against online music piracy.

Facebook now has nearly 70 million users.

It was clear that Facebook was concerned with the stability of the chat application, first debuting it on a Sunday when many members–not to mention tech bloggers eager to report any flaw or bug–might not be at their computers.

The social network then rolled out Facebook Chat incrementally, with different “networks” on the site–geographic regions, colleges, companies–gaining access to it before others so that the new feature could stay under control. Some had the feature as early as April 6; a number of large networks couldn’t access it until very recently.

Facebook announced Wednesday morning that its in-browser Facebook Chat feature is now live to all members, over two weeks after it first debuted to a limited number of users.

Its first trial in Sacramento, Calif., was effective enough to cut the equivalent of 700 homes’ electricity use. That’s only a 2 percent energy efficiency improvement, but compared to most typical utility programs, it’s very effective, said Yates.

“Everyone knows how efficient their
car is. But even at the broadest brush stroke, people don’t have the ability to talk about their home energy use, and that’s a big problem,” he said.

The company has developed a hosted software application that takes in utilities’ customer data and generates quarterly or monthly reports for consumers on how their energy use compares to people in the same area.

The Arlington, Va.-based company late last month revealed that it has raised $14 million from New Enterprise Associates to build up its software service designed to cut home electricity use.

If Daniel Yates, founder and CEO of Positive Energy, hits his goal this year, he’ll unplug the equivalent of 75,000 homes.

With the $14 million, which follows a seed round from angel investors, Positive Energy plans to enhance its software to crunch data from so-called advanced meters, which give utilities regular updates on energy demand. It will also give consumers more data online, said Yates.

The company has 10 customers and is seeing strong demand. In the coming year, federal government incentives could boost the growing number of state-level mandates for utility efficiencies.

Yates was inspired to get into the energy efficiency business after being struck at how pervasive environmental degradation was during a 10-month trip from Alaska to the tip of South America. He decided to pursue efficiency at utilities through software because it was an area that would have a big environmental impact while playing to his strengths in software.

Positive Energy is taking a somewhat more traditional tack to the same goal, relying on software-based data analysis and plain-old direct marketing campaigns led by utilities.

Updated January 10 at 6:50 A.M. PT with corrected name of New Enterprise Associates.

The premise behind the company is that people would change their behavior–and lower their energy usage–if they simply had more and better information, according to Yates.

Because of the recession and a growing interest on cutting wasted energy, efficiency is expected to be one of the most active areas in clean tech. Already there are dozens of smart-grid outfits that make Internet-connected meters, networked appliances, or in-home displays.

Utilities use the data to offer more targeted efficiency programs. For example, it could offer a wealthy homeowner an incentive to set up zoned air conditioning.

Utilities are notoriously conservative about adopting new technologies. But the hosted software application means they don’t need to spend a lot of money upfront or launch a long installation process.

“The same week that Google put solar panels on their roofs (in 2007), I read another article about how New York had installed 8,000 (efficient) refrigerators in low-income housing, saving five times as much energy at two-thirds the cost of Google’s solar panels. That was my ‘Ah ha’ moment,” he said.

But I digress. The technology development effort to predict traffic flow on unmetered roadways was led by Microsoft’s Eric Horvitz. What’s interesting is that Horvitz et al. also developed another traffic prediction system, which was spun out to the company Inrix (previous story), which in turn sells its data back to Microsoft.

Inrix does not do the routing itself, but it supplies its data to Microsoft (and other mapping companies, auto manufacturers, and GPS device makers) who then can incorporate it into their routing algorithms. Microsoft’s new Clearflow prediction system doesn’t overlap much with Inrix’s prediction algorithm, since Clearflow predicts what the traffic of the moment will be on unmetered streets, while Inrix provides data for all highways, and predicts traffic flow in the future.

What’s next in traffic routing? Inrix CEO Bryan Mistele says the “Holy Grail” is routing based on the routes real drivers take, not just observed speeds. For example, a navigation service could record the actual paths people take between points, and use this data as well speed information to generate directions. Of course, there are privacy implications when you’re recording users’ driving in this way, but there’s all that data to be got from commercial vehicles. So in the future, the wisdom of taxi drivers may end up popping up on our in-car GPS gizmos.

Inrix collects traffic-flow data directly from vehicles (mostly the GPS units in trucks and other commercial vehicles, but also some mobile phones and Dash Navigation units). Based on the historical data it collects, it can predict traffic on the routes it has coverage for.

Microsoft now considers surface street traffic as well as freeway speeds in its routing.

Today Microsoft announced a new feature on its Live Search Maps service: Clearflow, an option that will alter driving directions based on traffic, not just on the usually metered major freeways, but on adjoining connector ramps and streets as well. See news story.

Since Inrix collects data from actual moving vehicles, not just road sensors, it can report on traffic speeds on any road where there are drivers. Today, the company announced that it’s now providing coverage on all U.S. freeways, for instance–over 100,000 miles of roads. Mapquest will be the first of Inrix’s customers to use that data in its direction-finding service.

I find the Clearflow product of only marginal usefulness on a PC, since traffic patterns change quickly. I’d trust it to get me on to a freeway in the most efficient way, but if my route takes more than 20 minutes, I’d worry about its accuracy at the other end. If this technology can be applied to Microsoft’s Live Search Mobile, and if it can update the route in real-time when conditions change, then it will be killer.