The Plug-In 2010 Conference in San Jose was the site of major announcements by major auto manufacturers Nissan and General Motors. During their Tuesday morning speeches, both Nissan North America’s executive vice president, Carlos Tavares, and General Motors vice president of U.S. marketing, Joel Ewanick, announced that their much-anticipated products would be available in only a limited number of cities, at first, and that both companies will begin delivering cars by the end of the year.
Even though there are many similarities and differences, both Nissan and GM are betting that U.S. auto buyers will embrace the plug with open arms.
A bus straddling the road, with cars driving underit sounds crazy, at first, but actually looks like a pretty reasonable idea.
As a matter of fact, it’s very easy to see how you could use several of these, in tandem to quickly implement a high-capacity rapid-bus system nationwide, on our existing interstate highway system.
This actually makes sense, because most of the Interstate system is build to the same specifications, as to road and lane width, overpass height, etc.
This post was written by Rob Reed. He is the founder of MomentFeed, a location-based marketing, strategy, and technology firm.
Location technologies are transforming how we experience, navigate, and ultimately better our world. From the global to the local, here are #10Ways geolocation is a positive force for good.
Social media has changed the world. It has revolutionized communications on a global scale, and the transformation continues with every status update, blog post, and video stream. The global citizenry has become a global network.
Since becoming widely adopted just a couple years ago, social media has supercharged social action, cause marketing, and social entrepreneurship. Indeed, the true value hasn’t been the technology itself but how we’ve used it. Today, a second wave of innovation is defining a new era and setting the stage for change over the coming decade.
Mobile technologies will extend the global online network to anyone with a mobile device while enabling countless local networks to form in the real world. We’ve decentralized media production and distribution. We’re doing the same for energy. And we’ll continue this trend for social networking, social action, and commerce.
The combined forces of smartphones, mobile broadband, and location-aware applications will connect us in more meaningful ways to the people, organizations, events, information, and companies that matter most to us—namely, those within a physical proximity of where we live and where we are. Can location-based services (LBS) change the world? Here are #10Ways:
At the recent Taste of Ki eco-chic product showcase, I was lucky enough to be able to take a test-ride on a very nice electric bicycle, the A2B Metro, made by Ultra Motor.
What I discovered was an entirely new class of vehicle: an electric bike that is just as easy to pedal as it is to ride motor-only. While the bike itself appeared to be a well-constructed, well-designed and well-thought-out piece of personal transportation, I wondered exactly who would be buying it, given its whopping $3,000 price tag. The answer may surprise you.
A huge thanks to everyone who helped make the first GreenGarage event, hosted by PariSoma, a huge success! There was some very lively discourse on how to use mobile phone applications to achieve social good, from three companies that have all released the first versions of their apps. If you didn’t get to attend the event, you can watch a video of the entire discussion below.
Solar cells could make fossil fuels virtually redundant if they were cheaper, but their use of rare elements and complex manufacturing processes makes them expensive. – PhysOrg.com article “IBM develops promising contender for cheaper solar cells”
KurzwielAI.net is a very interesting blog maintained by Ray Kurzwiel, artificial intelligence expert and inventor of the electronic synthesizer. The blog highlights cutting-edge technologies that are information-based, such as medical and computing advances, and recently featured four neat scientific breakthroughs that could potentially change the face of cleantech.
Many people dispute the ability of high technology to provide substantive replacements for our oil-intensive lifestyles. Mr. Kurzweil has proposed a compelling reason why technology will, in fact, make a huge difference: the accelerating nature of information-based technologies. The logic goes something like this: any science or technology that is built upon information and information technologies will grow at an exponential pace (detailed analysis here). The following are a few examples of just how fast the pace of science and technology is currently advancing.
I just discovered this clean energy podcast by Tom Raftery of Spain. At about 11 minutes, in Tom makes some comments on my hydrogen article. He mostly supports my debunking of the hydrogen economy, although he does give a good example of how hydrogen creation can be useful in certain situations, such as storing excess power generation from wind production.
In the glorious Past Before Television, adventurous men and women gained fame and fortune by testing their skills in competitions designed to expand the limits of human knowledge and innovation. Several organizations are bringing back this kind of “innovation prize” in a big way, with competitions designed to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges, and expand its horizons beyond terrestrial limits.
One of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in history was the result of a prize offered by the British government in the 18th century. At that time, many ships were being lost due to the inaccuracies involved in calculating their longitude at sea. The previous method, dead reckoning, introduced greater errors the farther the ship got from a known point, usually ending in loss of life and heated discussions about the velocity of various types of swallows. The British Parliament offered the modern equivalent of $4.56 million for a solution to the Longitude Problem.
One of the potential solutions to the problem required invention of a marine chronometer of such high accuracy that even Sir Issac Newton doubted that it could be created. But, in 1730, clockmaker John Harrison set himself to the task, and effectively solved the multiple problems of corrosion, temperature, humidity and durability within 5 years, (although it took him another thirty to collect his prize) a task which has been compared to the landing of men on the moon in the 1960s.
Ever since I was a kid, when my father used give me Matchbox cars he bought on his way home from work, I’ve been crazy about cars. So I was extremely excited to have the opportunity to speak with Simon Saba of Saba Motors, whose EV vision is something any gearhead can get jazzed about: to deliver an exotic electric sports car with a price tag of under $40,000, that will have the looks and performance of cars costing 10 times as much and is environmentally friendly to boot!
Above: U.S. Hikes, a live data table by Factual.com: Click & Scroll to view & edit data.
“Decisions. They are made every day. Some are made on the fly such as when a low fuel alert prompts me to stop at the nearest gas station. Some are more considered, involving detailed research and analysis, perhaps on the Internet or consulting with friends or experts. And others are made for us, by our friends and family, or our government. An important question is: are we all, given the data available to us today, making good, well-informed decisions? One thing is nearly certain, if your data isn’t accurate and accessible, a good decision isn’t likely to follow.” - Factual, Inc. CEO Gil Elbaz
The Plug-In 2010 Conference in San Jose was the site of major announcements by major auto manufacturers Nissan and General Motors. During their Tuesday morning speeches, both Nissan North America’s executive vice president, Carlos Tavares, and General Motors vice president of U.S. marketing, Joel Ewanick, announced that their much-anticipated products would be available in only a limited number of cities, at first, and that both companies will begin delivering cars by the end of the year.
At the recent 
Ever since I was a kid, when my father used give me Matchbox cars he bought on his way home from work, I’ve been crazy about cars. So I was extremely excited to have the opportunity to speak with Simon Saba of 
