Eco Comic!
| The Rustle Comic Strip |
|
Please click the image above to continue. |
|
French energy minister Jean-Louis Borloo will announce a plan on Thursday for the country to invest 1 billion Euros ($1.46 billion US) in the infrastructure needed to encourage the adoption of electric cars. That investment will buy 4.4 million charging stations, upgrade the power grid, purchase a government fleet of electric cars, and provide subsidies to EV buyers and auto manufacturers.
France hopes that this amount of investment will be enough to get 2 million electric cars on its roads within 10 years.
Read more of this story »
 [...]
![]()
When bags go missing, it costs airlines money — to the tune of $3 billion annually, in fact. What’s worse, it exasperates passengers, who are a lot less inclined to take a polite “sorry” now that almost every airline is charging a fee for luggage.
Well, it looks like airlines operating out of certain airports — such as Amsterdam and Las Vegas — will be able to take advantage of more advanced sorting techniques involving modern scanners and RFID luggage tags. Probably the most important is a development of a back-end that can sift through that information, as well, to help predict when a bag may go astray and get on top of it.
For the most part, we currently use barcodes on luggage tags to keep bags tracked, but the computer systems at most airports just aren’t advanced enough to handle the data, and bags get lost. On the other hand, RFID tags are more expensive than the barcode ones, so airlines are only looking to adopt the new system if it indeed saves them money through cutting down on wayward luggage.
From the Wall Street Journal:
Airports generally pay for the installation, which can cost millions of dollars, and then recover the investment in fees to airlines over many years. Airlines generally pay for RFID tags, which today cost around 15 cents apiece, versus a few cents for the traditional bar-code version.
Hong Kong International Airport and McCarran International in Las Vegas were the first to introduce RFID, but aviation industry overall is moving slowly because cash-strapped players can’t yet justify the multimillion-dollar expense of modernizing systems.
Samuel Ingalls, who handles baggage technology at McCarran, says installing and maintaining the airport’s RFID system was less expensive than a common optical system and costs “a fraction” as much to maintain, though he couldn’t give a specific price because RFID was installed starting in 2005 as part of a bigger development project.
Mr. Ingalls says, “the benefits really start to expand exponentially as the world moves” to RFID and all bags get electronic tags.
Via WSJ
[...]
![]()
Plenty of gadgets that we use every day claim to be off, yet consider to suck down power in some sort of standby mode. And this costs money! Take back control of your energy bill with Belkin’s new Conserve Surge.
The Conserve Surge has six outlets that automatically cuts the power to connected devices after 11 hours of use. You’ll get plenty of warning beforehand if you want to keep going, and two outlets are there to always be on for devices that you don’t need cut off, but for those devices such as gaming consoles or TVs that suck up energy when “off,” it’ll cut their supply short.
Gizmodo via Slippery Brick
[...]
![]()
Just about this time last year I reported on the very promising and innovative Mcgyan® biodiesel process. It was one of the most popular stories gas 2.0 ran that year, and rightly so: the breakthrough seemed to deliver the possibility of making biodiesel in mere seconds from start to finish, reducing costs by half the price of other biodiesel, producing no waste, using no chemical reactants, and using any animal fat or vegetable oil as a feedstock.
At the time the company in charge of the project, Ever Cat fuels, had only succeeded at making a small-scale pilot operation of 50,000 gallons per year. But, as of 2 days ago, the process has been completely commercialized.
Read more of this story »
 [...]
![]()
Good on Fujifilm for making good on its promise to launch the Finepix Real 3D W1 point-and-shoot camera in the U.S. this September, albeit barely. The camera, capable of shooting both still pics and video in 3D, is available for purchase starting today for the tidy sum of $600.
So how do you view the 3D pictures? No need for any glasses — the special rear LCD shows the photos in 3D, and you can buy the separate V1 picture viewer with an 8-inch screen for $500. You’ll also be able to order prints through Fujifilm for $6.99 each.
I got to play with the Real 3D for a few minutes during a meeting with Nvidia earlier this month (the graphics-processor maker says Fuji’s system is compatible with its 3D Vision tech, meaning the pics are viewable on regular screens with special glasses and softhardware). The camera is simple to use, and depth really appears to pop out of images on the rear LCD. It looks a bit “shiny,” rather like those hologram comic book covers that used to be everywhere, but it’s unmistakably 3D.
This cam and and the emergence of 3D Blu-ray systems herald a big push for the tech in the coming year. We like the Fuji camera since it doesn’t require glasses, but we’re still skeptical whether people want the tech at all. What say you?
Via Fujifilm
[...]
![]()
Those leaked pics of Microsoft’s Courier tablet PC piqued our curiosity. Just when we thought we were going to have to wait and wonder for a while, this newly leaked video showed up, revealing a lot more about Courier’s sexy touchpad interface.
Just look at this twin-screened booklet! It has all of the strengths of writing in an old-fashioned notebook, along with searching, gorgeous graphics, touchscreen goodness, and that whiz-bang look of Apple’s Cover Flow graphics, taken a step further. We gotta have one of these.
Via Gizmodo
[...]
![]()
Remember Chumby, that padded Internet-connected 320 x 240-pixel screen that looked like it belonged in a converted van from the ’70s? A lot has happened in the two years since Chumby was introduced. Now it’s updated for the current era, dubbed the Chumby One, and still carefully loading connected widgets that’ll bring you YouTube videos, weather and news, RSS feeds, and our favorite, Pandora music.
A welcome improvement is Chumby One’s faster processor: 454MHz of cool power compared to its slightly slower predecessor. While some might dislike its clean lines and sky-blue highlight, we’re digging it. If you can wait a few weeks until it’s released, it might be worth the $100 to have the alarm clock of the future that shows you so much more.
Gadgeteer, via CrunchGear
[...]
![]()
An industrious Swede spent 20,000 hours putting together this full-sized Batmobile replica. Built on a 1973 Lincoln Continental chassis, it’s loaded with gadgetry, including machine guns, video cameras to see behind you, height-adjustable bodywork, and there’s even a plasma TV stuffed in there somewhere.
Want one? If you crave this piece of bat-tech today, you’ll have to build it yourself, and you’ll need to be rich as Bruce Wayne. The 700-horsepower techno-sportster is a one-of-a-kind creation, three-and-a-half years in the making. Oh yeah, and it cost over $1 million to construct. Let’s watch a video of this badass machine, looking fast even when standing still:
[...]
![]()
With the attention on first generation corn ethanol fading, the next big thing on the sustainable fuel horizon is nonfood biofuel crops. Within that category, inedible weeds are taking a front-row seat due to their relatively low demands on water, pesticides, and herbicides, and their reduced need for tilling and other mechanized soil prep. Some weeds with biofuel potential can also thrive on contaminated soils, absorbing and cleaning pollutants in a process called phytoremediation.
Read more of this story »
 [...]
![]()
Much has been written about the launch of the Hyundai i10 concept, the company’s first foray into the electric car market. It’s an impressive car and the underlying technology trumps many other competitors.
For example, there’s the Li-Poly battery which Hyundai claim will charge almost twice as fast as the Li-Ion battery championed by Renault and other manufacturers. Of course, this assumes you have an industrial outlet with enough amps to provide the power fast enough.
However, the Hyundai i10 is more than a standalone electric car. It is part of a range which the company has obviously thought about long and hard before bringing it to market.
Read more of this story »
 [...]
![]()
|
Stop the Dolphin slaughter
|
Comment