efficiency
Two US startups break solar efficiency records, aim to light up your life
www.engadget.com
Two US startups are breaking solar efficiency records in their quest to bring clean, cost-effective, eco-friendly energy to a power grid near you. Alta Devices, based in Santa Clara, CA, has achieved a 23.5 percent efficiency rating with its standard solar panel, while Semprius, a Durham, NC company, has...
Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 keeps it cool, refuses to cook your breakfast (video)
www.engadget.com
It's no secret that Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 SoC is among the most compelling of mobile architectures on the planet today. It delivers fantastic performance and good battery life, but an unsung hero that allows for both characteristics is its excellent efficiency. Based on a new 28nm fabrication process, not...
Philips' pricey LED bulb has impressive specs
news.cnet.com
Philips' L Prize LED bulb, which will go on sale Earth Day for $50 online and in stores, brings a big jump in efficiency, life, and light quality. [Read more]...
Nanoshells trap light for more efficient solar panels
www.engadget.com
Scientists at Stanford are hard at work trying to improve the efficiency and durability of solar panels -- two key factors that have kept the Sun from becoming a more popular source of energy. Their latest effort involves nanocrystalline-silicon, a material that has proven resilient and highly conductive, but...
Solar startups set new power records
news.cnet.com
Startups Alta Devices and Semprius boast new solar efficiency records using very different techniques in an effort to knock down the price of solar power....
Google gets Greenpeace props for work on energy
news.cnet.com
Greenpeace tries to cast some light on the energy sources behind data centers and commend IT companies that advance clean energy and efficiency through tech. Facebook and Apple aren't quite there yet, it says....
Mendeley injects some pace into academia with fast, big data
gigaom.com
Just look around at the likes of Evernote, Springpad, Lawloop and DocTrackr and it should be obvious: managing documents online is a pretty busy space right now. But there’s one service that has quietly been making waves — and now it’s about to stage a real revolution. London-based Mendeley doesn’t...
Suzumo SushiBot pumps out 300 Kwik-E-Mart rolls per hour (video)
www.engadget.com
We tend to avoid scooping up sushi whenever there's no chef in sight -- at, say, a grocery store, or a gas station -- but we've always assumed there was a human cranking out maki somewhere behind the scenes. If Suzumo's SushiBot makes it to the production line, that...
Sharp forms strategic partnership with Foxconn parent Hon Hai to boost competitiveness
thenextweb.com
Japanese electronics giant Sharp has today announced a strategic deal with Hon Hai (parent company of Foxconn) that sees both parties combine and establish a manufacturing partnership that will combine the strengths of each company, “to launch cost competitive components and products.” As part of the deal, Sharp and Hon Hai...
Pricelock Mobile App Puts The Energy Auction In Your Pocket
techcrunch.com
Pricelock is all about making the buying and selling of energy more efficient. It was true when the company launched the Marketplace, a customized online energy auction platform for utilities companies, power plants and other government and/or commercial entities to buy and sell natural gas, motor fuels and coal. But...
Microsoft again dodges the question of desktop apps on ARM-based Win 8 systems
thenextweb.com
It’s been less than a week since we called on Microsoft to make plain its plans for ARM-based Windows 8 computers, in regards to whether they will be able to run normal desktop applications or not. The company has yet to provide a response. To quickly summarize the issue, we...
Lasers plus a crushing magnetic field may make fusion more efficient
arstechnica.com
Ever since I first heard about the idea, I have loved inertial confinement fusion. The basic concept involves blowing stuff up with lasers to get some energy, then doing it again and again as fast as possible. What more could a 38-going-on-5-year-old want? Well, what I might also want...
Army scientists juice battery voltage, hike life up to 30 percent
www.engadget.com
With the modern US soldier turning into a walking gadget, the army has some heavy reasons to lower battery weights. Its own scientists might have the answer, claiming 30 percent energy density jumps could happen using additives they developed. Those "sacrificial agent" materials would bond with electrodes to allow...
Popular iPhone photography app Camera+ gets improved sharing, workflows and more
thenextweb.com
Camera+, undoubtedly one of the most popular paid iPhone camera apps has just been updated. With a copy sold every 3 seconds, it’s 6 million+ users will be happy to know that the latest update is jam-packed with cool new features they can take advantage of. The app’s sharing features...
The NOFAN CR-95C: a fanless copper CPU cooler for your next-gen build
www.engadget.com
Interesting times to be shopping around for a processor, but what about a new cooler to go with it? This unassuming little work of art is the copper special edition of the NOFAN CR-95C, which is rated to cool CPUs of up to 100W TDP without the need for...
FAA plans to expand use of Apple's iPad & create its own app store
www.appleinsider.com
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has found that use of the iPad has improved efficiency and lowered costs, prompting the authority to expand use of Apple's touchscreen tablet, and even create its own application storefront with aviation-specific software....
Nokia to shed 4,000 jobs as manufacturing shifts to Asia
www.bgr.com
Nokia plans to eliminate 4,000 jobs as part of a major cost-cutting effort that will see much of its manufacturing shift to Asia. The cuts will be made across three Nokia plants — 2,300 workers will be shed in Komarom, Hungary, 700 will lose their jobs in Reynosa, Mexico and...
Apache outs version 2.4 of its HTTP server six years after last full release
www.engadget.com
It's been half a dozen years since Apache last released a new version of its venerable HTTP server, but the day has finally come for version 2.4 to be unveiled to the world. Granted, the old Apache was doing fine -- it's been the most prolific web server in the...
Startup Soraa lights up with 'LED 2.0'
news.cnet.com
The startup sees a 75 percent boost in efficiency with its LED bulb, a new material platform for bringing down the cost of LEDs for general lighting....
Tesla publishes Model S efficiency and range stats, expects 350 highway miles per charge
www.engadget.com
We've spent our fair share of time behind the dash of Tesla's gorgeous Model S, though there hasn't been an opportunity to push the all-electric vehicle to its limits on the fuel battery front. The sedan still isn't quite ready for a full-on range test, but the manufacturer has...
Dealers wanting to sell Ford's first all-electric car must Focus on the environment
www.engadget.com
You can't just sell the new 2012 Ford Focus Electric, you've got to embrace what it stands for, or at least that's what Dearborn is telling its dealers. Per the company HQ, outfits hoping to offer the electric hatchback on their lots later this year must send sales staff...
Solar cells must emit light to attain perfection, research suggests
arstechnica.com
Researchers at the University of California-Berkeley claim to have hit upon a counterintuitive means of boosting the efficiency of flatplate solar cells by making them emit light. "What we demonstrated is that the better a solar cell is at emitting photons, the higher its voltage and the greater the...
Samsung teases Series 9 Ivy Bridge Ultrabook, leaves availability in the ether
www.engadget.com
Samsung's latest Series 9 Ultrabook is certainly a beautiful piece of engineering, but really, what's the fun in purchasing a new laptop with yesterday's internals? Fortunately, users won't need to make that compromise, as the company has now outed a refreshed version of the computer that's complete with Ivy...
New 802.1aq standard promises to improve Ethernet efficiency
www.engadget.com
Yesterday the IEEE announced an update to the 802.11 WiFi standard, and today it's promptly moving on to the Ethernet side of things. The association just approved the 802.1aq Shortest Path Bridging standard, which will streamline the management and build-out of networks by using the latest-gen VLAN with a...
Eight Y-Combinator Companies to Watch
pandodaily.com
We’re T minus three weeks until the country’s most closely watched accelerator debuts its Summer 2012 class of companies. The classes at Y-Combinator, compared with many other programs, are huge (this one is 82-strong) and the demo days are factory-like in their efficiency–witness Greg Kumparak’s heroic liveblogging of the...
New research brings better wireless to remote locations, 80 percent faster GoT downloads
www.engadget.com
Not getting the bandwidth you need, Heidi? Then maybe the folks at North Carolina State University can help. They've figured out a way to boost multi-hop networks, where data is forwarded across two or more nodes (hops) in order to reach far-flung users. Networks like this can often get...
Nest responds to Honeywell suit, will 'vigorously defend itself' against 'patent-attack'
www.theverge.com
It's been a few days since Honeywell International filed a patent lawsuit against Nest and the Nest Learning Thermometer, and now the accused has released a statement saying the company plans to "vigorously defend itself against Honeywell's patent-attack strategy to stifle thoughtful competition." Honeywell is claiming that Nest violated...
Porsche 918 Spyder prototype returns to the road with polished black and white shell
www.engadget.com
It may not be the first time Porsche's 918 plug-in hybrid has had a chance to flex its 770 horse power for the camera, but when we last saw the pricey insanely expensive speed demon strut its stuff on record, it certainly didn't look like this. The freakish prototype...
Intel’s Haswell will include new multi-core enhancements
www.extremetech.com
With Ivy Bridge set to debut in just a few short months, Intel has begun to talk about what we can expect to see in Haswell. Haswell is the 22nmm successor to IB and is currently expected to debut in 2013. Haswell will include support for Intel’s Transactional Synchronization Extensions...
ARM announces new quad-core Cortex-A15 Hard Macro variant
www.engadget.com
It's pretty much a year to the day that we reported the possibility of a quad-core Cortex-A15 from ARM, and look what just came across the wire! It's the Cortex-A15 Hard Marco -- the first design from ARM we're aware of that packs four A15 cores. The Hard Macro...
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