KQED/KTEH Panel - Is Silicon Valley Going Green: Is Green Living Up to its Hype?

By Mary Vincent - @MaryVincent
Photo: Barry Cinnamon, Kevin Surace, Craig Miller
Photo Credit: Mary Vincent
On February 25, I attended a San Jose, CA KQED/KTEH Panel called 'Is Silicon Valley Going Green: Is Green Living Up to its Hype?' thanks to the kind invitation by Fresh Dialogues' Alison van Diggelen'.

The Moderator was Paul Rogers, Managing Editor KQED QUEST and Natural Resources and Environment Reporter, San Jose Mercury News.

The Panelists were: Barry Cinnamon, CEO Akeena Solar; Carl Guarino, Chair, Silicon Valley Leadership Group; Kevin Surace, CEO Serious Materials; Curtis Snyder, Principal Hawley, Peterson, Snyder Architecture; and Craig Miller Senior Editor, KQED Climate Watch.

The Panelists discussed the following Trends:
Curtis Snyder says architects are embracing design i.e. workers prefer controlling their room temperature and Sutter patients commented they just feel better being there in the building. Per Snyder, "We have a responsibility to make design beautiful." In addition, Snyder says there are now 20,000 US Green Building Council members. He says there is a public perception that it costs 17 percent more to build green, but it's only 1.5 percent.
Snyder says that Building Information Modeling is also a trend: "We need to design in intangibles..this place makes me feel better and do my work better."

Craig Miller says "Big important, sweeping policies are not happening. In 2010, more people are preaching to the choir, and there is an acceleration of that. There is a polarization of attitudes toward science...not scientists..but politicians. There is a policy showdown, and we're running out of time, i.e. attacks on carbon legislation, attack on epa's right to regulate greenhoise gas emissions. This is a Year of Reckoning."

Kevin Surace, also Inc Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year, said "a few years ago, buildings weren't even looked at as green; now there is a trend to energy efficiency and saving money.  A building built 5 years ago sells for 20 percent more today."
He's currently replacing all the windows in the Empire State Building, and they are recycling the old windows to produce energy efficient windows. Kevin stated, "because of Polarization, Economics is the answer; talk about Energy Independence."


Barry Cinnamon stated "we need to make sure we fix the economics; a solar payback is now in the 5 to 7 year range. It's necessary to focus on policies locally and nationally. California's been good with tax credits, P&G has been very cooperative, installation costs are coming down, and it's easier to install solar, i.e. Lowes Hardware Stores are carrying solar products."


I think Silicon Valley is living up to the Green hype, but we need to do more, and so does the rest of the U.S. and the World.

Changes to our mobile lineup - Skype Blogs

Changes to our mobile lineup - Skype Blogs

Skype the P2P software company (that's what they say anyway i.e. they're not a telco) has dumped Skype and Skype Lite for Windows Phone as reported in the company blog.

They say's it's becoming more and more difficult to maintain the Skype user experience on that platform, so rather than give users a bad experience, they're dropping support.

They are still working with carriers (in the UK 3 and now Verizon in the US) who bundle Skype as part of the service. What's different there is that it's actually using voice calls back to a server and then it's translated to the Skype P2P service in the network i.e. not on the phone (it's using an iSkoot client). The Skype client uses VoIP (though Skype's propriety version) which is obviously having problems on the Microsoft Mobile OS.

Skype have done well with 3 in the UK who offer free Skype to Skype calls for life.

144 petabytes in your pocket, or are you just please to see me?

The new standard for Compact Flash cards (version 5) will support 144 petabytes - that's a lot of information assuming that the average Joe Blogs has 1TB of data, you can keep all the data of 144,000 of your closest friends.

To put in context 144 PB is 144 x 1024 x 1TB.

The current SDXC specification for CF cards only supports a measly 2TB, though the cost of that amount of Flash memory may be slightly expensive (256GB SSDs go for around £500 - so 1TB would be about £4,000 and 1PB £4m).

Maybe by the time 144PB cards are available they'll be some form of optical/holographic storage that is workable,

Berkeley Energy Symposium, March 3 and 4

http://www2.haas.berkeley.edu/News/Newsroom/100201energy.aspx

Some of the top minds in the energy industry – including scientists, entrepreneurs, academics, and regulators – will explore the dramatic changes coming in the next decade at the fourth annual Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative (BERC) Symposium, on campus March 3 and 4.

The main part of the student-organized symposium, titled "2020: Envisioning the Future of Global Energy," will occur in the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union. The student-organized event is expected to attract a sell-out crowd of 700 for the second straight year. Tickets are $30 for students; $95 for government, nonprofit, or university affiliates; and $200 for the business community. Visit http://berc.berkeley.edu/symposium-2010 for more information and to register.

New this year is an expanded Innovation Expo, showcasing 80 of the latest discoveries by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley researchers, from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. March 3 in the Haas School's Bank of America Forum. The top 35 project teams will then present their technologies at the symposium.

The main conference will begin at 8 a.m. March 4 in the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union. Following a greeting by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, Federal Regulatory Energy Commissioner Phillip D. Moeller will give a keynote address. The 12 panel topics include solar, biofuel and energy-storage technologies, renewable solutions for developing countries, green jobs and eco-planning as well as infrastructure and post-crisis financing.

This year’s symposium is co-chaired by Erick Dean, MBA 11; David Chen, PhD 10 (Elec. Eng. and Comp. Science); and Bret Strogen, PhD 11 (Civil and Environmental Eng.).

BERC was founded by Berkeley MBA students in 2005 to provide a forum for collaboration on energy and natural resources topics across disciplines, as well as between the university and the private sector. It now represents about 2,300 students. BERC is also sponsoring a new renewable energy case competition a day after the symposium. See related story for more information about the case competition.

Fibre Capacity Limitations in Access Networks | Ofcom

Fibre Capacity Limitations in Access Networks | Ofcom

Ofcom have commissioned Analysys Mason (of Edinburgh) to write a report about fibre technologies and how they relate to fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and fibre-to-the-cabinet FTTC) deployments.

The report goes into the differing fibre technologies such as single vs multi-mode fibre, optical transceiver types (such as differing lasers), repeaters/amplifiers and differing transmission types (GPON, PTP and WDM PON).

There's a nice analogy of comparing a road system to a fibre, you have to consider the length of the road, the wide of the road and the lanes and the speed limit and the effect they have on the available capacity i.e.

* Increase the width of the road. Relates to the available spectrum which means more spectrum, more capacity. However the technology may not be available (at the optical or fibre level) to support extra spectrum.

* Increasing the speed limit. This relates to the frequency of the light being sent down the fibre, which can be limited by both the fibre characteristics and the optical transceivers.

* Increasing the number or lanes (or decreasing the size of the lane). More traffic can pass down the increased lanes, however at some point there is interference between lanes and traffic on neighbouring lanes will collide.

The report goes into considerably more technical detail, but an interesting read if you're into fibre technologies and what happening in that area.

Twitter Blog: Measuring Tweets

Twitter Blog: Measuring Tweets

Twitter is now seeing 50m tweets per day from maybe a couple of million per day a year ago.

That's 600 tweets per second and it doesn't include Twitter SPAM (twam?) as SPAM traffic is removed before analysis.

The actual number of tweets delivered to end-users is much higher as tweets get sent to multiple followers/recipients. Those figures haven't been made available.

Those are big numbers and considering most of the growth has been in the last year, Twitter has done well to survive the onslaught, in early days there was quite a lot of downtime but the systems must now be scaling well.

As the population grows the delivered tweets must exponentially grow, will the systems cope?

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Digital dividend: 600 MHz band and geographic interleaved spectrum | Ofcom

Digital dividend: 600 MHz band and geographic interleaved spectrum | Ofcom

Ofcom is consulting on the 600MHz band which will become free as part of the UK's Digital Dividend as analogue TV is switched off in 2012.

This consultation aims to:

* update stakeholders on spectrum availability, how developments have changed this and how technical considerations may affect spectrum use.

* seek stakeholders' input on potential uses of the spectrum and on their level of interest in acquiring it. This information will help us develop proposals on how best to make the spectrum available.

Ofcom originally published what it was going to do in 2008, but the market has changed since then and other European countries have decided to refactor the upper end of the 800MHz band and this has knock-on effects for the lower half of the 600MHz band (some paring was to take place).

There's potentially many uses for the spectrum which include Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and mobile broadband as well as mobile multimedia services (MMS e.g. mobile television), program making and special events (PMSE), broadband wireless access (BWA) and communications for the emergency services.

Ofcom expect to publish proposals for further consultation when they are more certain about what spectrum will be available for award.

Though Ofcom has some autonomy on these matter, unfortunately radio signals do not honour national boundaries and thus they have to act in a manner that is friendly to the UK's neighbours.

The consultation closes on 28/04/2010

Star Trek Exhibition and Earth Message

By Mary Vincent - Twitter @MaryVincent
If you are in the San Francisco Bay area, you should check out the Star Trek Exhibition at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. There are more than 15,000 square feet of costumes and props, including a Transporter where you can stand in the device and see yourself be transported.

There is also a History of the Future Wall where one can see the Star Trek Show and Movie History.

What is the History of Our Future?

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry stated: "Treat Earth well, so one day we'll journey out amongst the stars." 

The movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, directed and co-written by Leonard Nimoy (Spock), tells an environmentally responsible story: a probe enters orbit and serious storms threaten to destroy Earth. Captain Kirk's crew journeys back into time to obtain something the 24th century lacks. The probe is searching for humpback whales, which are now extinct. 
Let's make a History which can benefit all living things.
The Star Trek Exhibition is a great inspiration for those who love sci-fi and technology. May it also be an inspiration for those developing Clean Technology and Innovations benefiting the planet. 

Photo by James Martin/CNET

Seesaw tips the balance

IPTV company Seesaw has launched as a completely free service in the UK. It has programs from BBC, 4oD and Five available 24 hours a day and available to anyone without a sign-up etc.

They have 3,000+ hours of content available for viewers to watch including current series on terrestrial TV and it's streamed in Flash 10 video.

All the videos (even BBC - which comes from WorldWide) come with pre-roll adverts (i.e. before the program starts adverts are run).

For UK viewers Seesaw is a great catch-up free TV service with some good content.

BlackBerry - BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express

BlackBerry - BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express

RIM has announced an 'express' or free version of it's Blackberry Enterprise Server or BES. The feature set seems to be a slightly reduce version of the standard BES allowing up to 75 Blackberry devices to be connected.

BES Express must be installed on the same server as Exchange (versions 2003 SP2, 2007 SP1, 2010) or Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 which will limit things due to server resourcing.

BES Express is also configured through a web interface giving access to the following: -

* Manage smartphones including resetting passwords, or remotely wiping lost or stolen smartphones pick from 35 IT policies.
* Define policy settings using IT policy templates.
* Delegate tasks with 6 preconfigured IT administration roles.
* Deploy and manage applications over-the-air.
* Schedule device, application and IT policy updates.
* Update BlackBerry Software wirelessly without users having to bring the device to IT.

This will be really useful for companies who have Exchange or MS SBS who can use Activesync for free with MS Mobile devices (and even iPhones) and should bring Blackerry devices back into the realm of start-ups and small businesses (MS SBS can be obtained very cost effectively for a start-up) giving full access to push email, calendering and all the other BES features.

Top 10 Best Selling EnergyStar TVs

ENERGY STAR is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, helping us all save money and protect the environment through energy-efficient products and practices.
Consumer electronic products are responsible for approximately 15% of household electricity use. According to the Consumer Electronics Association, the average American household has three televisions, two DVD players or recorders, and one desktop computer. By replacing all of these home electronics with ENERGY STAR models, you can save more than $200 over the lifetime of the products.
Check out the Top 10 Best-Selling EnergyStar TVs* below (*2-15-10 Amazon):

Nokia and Intel to go Mee (or MeeGo)

Intel who drove the Moblin initiative (as in MOBile LINux) have joined forces with Nokia's Maemo Linux OS and come up with MeeGo a combined effort taking parts of both.

The system is expected to run on multiple architectures and not just Intel processors (many mobile devices are based on ARM chips).

Moblin hasn't really gone anywhere yet, while Maemo is used on Nokia N700/800/810 tablets and the recently released N900 smartphone.

The combined effort seems more of a defensive move against Android which is making headway in the smartphone arena (and Google giving away Nexus One phones to pretty well any conference it is involved with doesn't hurt it's popularity).

MeeGo does pose interesting questions about the future of Symbian (which is still the most popular phone operating system with an installed base of about 330m phones). The Symbian Foundation recently put all of the OS into the public domain as Symbian^3 with promises for Symbian^4 later this year. There were similar worries when Nokia said Maemo would be used for high end smartphones, so it's likely that this strategy will continue, Symbian for lower end phones and MeeGo for high end ones.

Though MeeGo might be a good OS it will have a struggle with Android, though the biggest loser might well be Windows Mobile 7 which is also due to be announced at Mobile World Congress taking place in Barcelona this week.

Innovate and get into the top 100

Innovate 2010 is a competition for start-ups in technology, media and telecommunications.

There are various "slam pitch" events in Europe (London March 3rd - entry fee $75) and North America later in the year. Starups selected will get: -

* Coverage in some of the world’s most influential business and technology media
* Incisive feedback from select investors, technology executives and successful entrepreneurs
* Qualified introductions to world-class partners and investors.

One company will also get free participation in the Connections Program.

It looks like a good start if you're selected, but expensive if you're not.

DBVu goes live

DBVu has gone live, well the website has at least.

DBVu is a MySQL monitoring, analysis and reporting service that will help start-ups and small companies grow/scale their MySQL databases by reporting on issues before they become problems. Reports will be suitable for both management (easy to understand) and technical users who can drill down and see what's happening in the depths.

Customers install some simple client software on a public facing server, which is securely polled by DBVu and gathers the information from the MySQL database.

Once live customers will be given 30 days of completely free usage, after which the service will drop to basic monitoring and reporting. If a customer signs-up during the first 30 days then full reporting will be continued after the free period expires.

As all the analytics and reporting is performed centrally, bug fixes, new features etc can be added without the customer making any changes. Also as value add features are added, customers will easily be able to upgrade.

In future value add services will be database replication and back-up with increased support for new database types such as Postgres, Oracle and MS SQL.

Currently DBVu is looking for friendly beta testers.

U.S. EPA and DOE Join Forces with States to Spur Action on Energy Efficiency

Application for a variation to 3G licences (and consequent proposal to vary draft 2GHz MSS/CGC Base station licences) | Ofcom

Application for a variation to 3G licences (and consequent proposal to vary draft 2GHz MSS/CGC Base station licences) | Ofcom

Ofcom is holding a consultation on raising the power limits on 3G basestations which the mobile network operators(MNO) have requested in order to increase mobile coverage.

The MNOs have requested to increase the EIRP limit to 65dBm while Ofcom are suggesting 68dBm, the current limit is 62dBm EIRP i.e. an increase of 6dBm which is about 1585W going up to 3981W almost double the power.

Though Vodafone made the original request Ofcom are proposing that the limits be increased for all operators.

This will allow bigger cell sizes and therefore will be good for rural areas, though (if there any any) health risks will be increased too.

The consultation closes on 19/03/2010.

Facebook get's Hip and Hop

Facebook Rocks the PHP World with HipHop - Application Development from eWeek

Facebook have introduced their HipHop technology which allows PHP code to run more efficiently. It's not a compiler but a language translator, PHP is translated to C++ which is compiled using the g++ compiler. There's a C++ runtime to go the with compiled code.

Some elements of PHP have been removed, but the core elements and various extensions are supported.

Facebook say that the code runs 50% more efficiently (which is massive reduction for a site like Facebook which delivers 400 billion pages every month).

HipHop is being released as open source and was made available on GitHub servers yesterday for all to get access too.

PHP is still used on many sites and it will take a while for HipHop to be adopted, though high volume sites will probably looking at using it in the very near term if it will save CPU's, though it wont be for all as PHP is very easy to understand and make modifications to (as it's interpreted any modifications will be actioned next time the page is viewed). Now much more formal procedures will be required as in change the PHP source, translate to C++, compile and send to the the server. Larger sites will have some kind of source/update control in place anyway so they'll just need to incorporate the extra steps into their processes.

Stanford Woods Institute and Bill Lane Center Unveil Joint Program on Water in the West

University of Michigan and Climate Savers Computing Initiative

Carphone Warehouse to split into TalkTalk and New Carphone Warehouse

Carphone Warehouse (CPW) the telecoms and broadband operator is to demerge its two operating units by the end of March. TalkTalk will deal with all telecoms and broadband services, while New Carphone Warehouse will deal with the retail outlets (incorporating 50% of Best Buy Europe and 47.5% of Virgin Mobile France). Both TalkTalk and New CPW will be traded on the London Stock Exchange.

Charles Dunstone will become Chairman of both companies while Dido Harding will be CEO of TalkTalk and Roger Taylor (who is current CEO of the combined entities) will become CEO of New CPW.

This should allow both companies to specialise in their particular areas and both can feed each other at arms length.

There's a new play on words and it's called SeeSaw

The quite cleverly named new IPTV player has gone into private beta. The service is called SeeSaw (get it?) allows TV programs from the BBC, 4oD and Five to be delivered on your PC.

There are various categories: -

Comedy
Drama
Factual
Lifestyle
Entertainment
Sport

Or you can select by channel: -

BBC
4oD
Five

There's quite a lot of content available with new shows like Skins from 4oD and also a lot of Dr Who from the BBC (both past and present) and things like the Gadget show from Five, there also lots more. The content uses DRM and Flash Video.

If SeeSaw manage not to annoy too many people (like BSkyB) and keep the service going there'll be compelling content for viewers (it seems you have to be in the UK to view it). How the commercial models will work is yet to be seen. Hopefully it wont go the same way as its predecessor Kangaroo.

There's a private beta request sign-up on the front-page.

2.6GHz Spectrum Auction delayed until 2011

2.6GHz was going to be the figurehead of Ofcom's spectrum auction policy. It would be auctioned on a technology neutral basis with at least a national license allowing the possibility for innovative new 3G services, LTE or even WiMAX (i.e. a technology neutral basis). Ofcom would be the regulator that other countries would strive to follow. This was all going to happen in 2007.

The 2.6GHz band was originally allocated as a IMT-2000 (i.e. 3G) 'expansion band' and Ofcom might have allocated it to a 6th operator had the 5th 3G operator (i.e 3) failed.

Unfortunately things didn't go to plan and T-Mobile and O2 (both UK bits) challenged Ofcom that a realistic price could not be set unless Ofcom determined what would happen with GSM spectrum refarming (the current licenses only allow 900MHz to be used for GSM, the GSM operators wan to use it for 3G and the PCN operators i.e. Orange and T-Mobile think they should get some of it). The situation is further muddied as the MNO's with 900MHz spectrum say they should have access to 800MHz spectrum if they give up some of their valuable 900MHz. The reason 900MHz (and 800Mhz which is currently analogue TV) is so valuable is that it has very good transmission characteristics and goes into buildings well, while 1.8GHz (PCN) and more so 2.1GHz (3G) radio signals tend to get absorbed by concrete etc.

The situation has subsequently got even more complicated with the proposed merger of Orange and T-Mobile which would break existing spectrum caps.

BT are also interested in the 2.6GHz band as they could deploy WiMAX in rural areas and 3G services in urban areas. The WiMAX service would allow them to provide high speed broadband connections to communities where fibre/VDSL wont reach and in urban areas where they have good broadband coverage, they could offer their own 3G services to compete in the mobile business markets.

It was hoped that the auction would take in 2010, but now it seems 2011 is the earliest possible date and Ofcom still have a lot of mess to clear-up.