GoCardless release PayLinks

GoCardless the company that is revolutionising on-line payments has just released its Paylinks system. This allows anyone with a UK bank account to receive payments through a website. It is a very simple sign-up process that asks for an email/password and then a driving license or passport number and address/date of birth etc. Then back account details. You get a confirmation email and that it everything is done. The PayLinks site then prompts for an amount, whether it's a single payment or recurring (weekly, monthly, annually) and then it generates a unique URL that can be added to a site. Anyone clicking on the link will be prompted for their details and that's it a payment is made to the GoCardless user's account. GoCardless will hold payments for 7 days to ensure that nothing dubious is going on (probably earning interest for them too). GoCardless only charge 1% of the transaction or £2.00 whichever is less. GoCardless already offer what amounts to direct debit payments for merchants (i.e. no credit cards requited, just bank details) and this will just add to their disruptiveness and other payment providers must be quaking in their boots.

Driving the Future with BMW ActiveE

BMW ActiveE (Photo M Vincent)

I recently got the chance to drive the all-electric BMW ActiveE, and it's now my favorite electric car for daily commute driving. My article below explains why.

The BMW ActiveE accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in under 9 seconds (184 lb-ft of torque with up to 170 hp) which is perfect for those short San Francisco Bay area highway on-ramps and active driving in all types of traffic which can change at any second.
If you live in the Bay Area, don't live near quality public transportation and drive alot, you know what I'm talking about.
Lithium-ion batteries enable a driving range of up to 100 miles. The handling and maneuverability when quickly changing lanes in fast-moving multi-lane highway traffic was superb.

Features:
If you like Features, the ActiveE will exceed your expectations.

1. Brake Energy Regeneration - As you ease off the accelerator, Brake Energy Regeneration is activated to convert kinetic energy into electrical energy that is fed back into the battery. During this process, braking torque is created by the electric motor to slow down the vehicle through its rear wheels. In most day-to-day driving, around 75% of all deceleration can be accomplished without using the brake pedal — increasing energy efficiency and significantly extending brake component life.
I rarely used the Brake when driving the ActiveE, and after getting back into my car, I had to use the brake again. The BMW Brake Energy Regeneration technology literally saves an extra step! :)

2. ECO PRO Mode allows a driver to increase the range of the BMW ActiveE by modifying its features for even more efficient performance.

When activated, ECO PRO Mode lowers the amount of power delivered by the accelerator pedal — versus what’s used in normal driving mode — increasing the amount of regenerative braking and lessening the amount of energy given to the heating and air conditioning systems.

Photos: M Vincent

3. Preconditioning is a function that adjusts the temperature of the battery units and vehicle cabin relative to the outside climate. Depending on the ambient temperature, preconditioning will either warm or cool the batteries and passenger cabin. A preconditioned vehicle offers two advantages: first, when battery units are at an ideal operating temperature they provide the highest possible power output and a longer range. Secondly, an interior that has been preset to a comfortable temperature requires much less power from the battery for heating and cooling while driving.
With the My BMW Remote app, preconditioning can be activated directly or even set to a predetermined time. Instead of using additional energy on the way to work, your vehicle will be prepped for high-performance, first thing in the morning.

4. eDrive, visible from the BMW ActiveE’s high-resolution center display, highlights the vehicle’s energy flow. While driving it shows the energy that is being taken from either battery or recovered through regeneration and allows the driver to monitor remaining power and vehicle range. The display functions can also be viewed as a split screen for simultaneous visibility of entertainment features and the eDrive or navigation system.

5. Charging - By using an installed charging station, the lithium-ion batteries can be fully charged within four to five hours (25 driving miles per hour of charging). A driver can also plug into a standard outlet if needed and with every hour of charging through a conventional household socket, it will gain up to 4 additional driving miles.

On a full charge, I drove roundtrip to and from San Francisco just fine (80+ miles) and that left me with less than half of a battery charge.
I don't have an installed charging station so after an overnight charge on a 110 outlet, I was not able to quickly drive a San Francisco roundtrip for example.
I could have stopped at a Charging Station, but I didn't have the time to wait for a sufficient charge. If you get this car and travel alot, I recommend you install a charging station at your home or apartment complex. If you commute, ensure you have a Charging Station at work.

6. Music - My favorite mobile phone music app easily connected to the ActiveE via Bluetooth.

Energy Internet Cloud Platform

Photo: M Vincent

In January 2012, Tendril, an Energy Internet cloud platform and the BMW Group Technology Office USA announced they are partnering to build out a demonstration smart energy home in Mountain View, California to prepare for the roll-out and integration of the new BMW ActiveE.  Per Dirk Rossberg, head of the BMW Group Technology Office USA, “Tendril’s cloud platform allows us to control the EV charging process in conjunction with a smart energy home environment and adds a simple, yet powerful consumer energy management application in Tendril Energize. It allows us to bring the connected vehicle together with the Smart Grid. Our goal is to ensure that the BMW ActiveE is a good ‘grid citizen’ in 2012 and beyond.”




eMobility Lab

Photo: M Vincent

Before I test-drove the ActiveE, I was given an early preview of the e mobility lab including the Solar Tree, and once it's completed, I'll post an update here.
In the interim, here are some live graphs on BMW's solar tree production. The yellow lines are charging sessions and the red line is the cumulative energy generation.
http://www.bmwtechnology.com/solartree2/

Car-to-X Communication, Traffic Light Assistant

Photo: M Vincent

BMW USA is also working on Car-to-X Communication, particularly a Traffic Light Assistant.

Here's a BMW video demonstrating a use case with a large truck in front of you blocking the view of a traffic light.

This Car-to-X Communication allows the car to stop at the traffic light, which would avoid accidents.






Right now, the ActiveE is not available for purchase and all cars are leased at this point. In closing, California is quickly installing fast charging stations, and I look forward to driving the car again and hopefully to LA! Stay tuned for further article updates on the BMW eMobility lab.

Video: Dean Nelson, VP eBay on Project Mercury's Strategy: Alignment, TCO, PUE, DCMM

Dean Nelson (Photo: M Vincent)

Dean Nelson, eBay’s Vice President of Global Foundation Services, keynoted this year's May 2012 Uptime Institute Symposium and discussed how eBay built one of the world’s most efficient data centers in one of the harshest climates in the U.S.: Phoenix Arizona, and saw an average PUE of 1.35 during a one-week period in January.

For history, Dean actually worked on the Sun Microsystems Black Box while I was at Sun, and many people know the Black Box as being a cutting-edge Modular Data Center concept.

In these two videos below, Dean describes Project Mercury's Strategy: Alignment, TCO, PUE, DCMM = Holistic Infrastructure Efficiency, and a few slides from his keynote is below.

Thanks Dean for taking the time to share your insight and best practices.

Part 1 of 2:



Part 2 of 2:


Project Mercury Business Drivers, Timeline, DCMM Assessment, Site
(Credit Dean Nelson)

Plessey release consumer EPIC chip

Plessey Semiconductor have announced the release of an ultra low-cost version of their EPIC sensor for consumer applications (the PS25451). The chip is being aimed at consumer devices such as interactive toys, computer games, TVs, monitors and such like. The chips detect variance in the electronic potential in vicinity of the sensor and can detect the presence (or disappearance) of people. Thus can be used to automatically switch on lights or even detect multiple people for computer games. The original EPIC sensor used titanium dioxide electrodes which are expensive, but can be used in medical applications. These have been replaced by a novel cheaper electrode for the consumer device. It will cost under $1 in 50,000 units.

Apple isn't flattered by Flattr

Apple forces all iOS developers to use Apple's payment systems inside any iOS app and disallow the use any other method for in-app purchases. If Apple finds apps using 3rd party payment systems they will reject the app or remove it from the app store if it's already there. This has recently happened to app developer Vemedio who's Instacast app (an iOS podcasting aggregator) added Flattr support in Feb 2012 and auto-Flattr later allowing users to automatically donate to podcasts after they were playing and the update was rejected. On May 24th Apple forced Vemedio to remove Flattr support completely. The only way for apps to use 3rd party payment systems is to direct them to a website via Safari where payments can be made. Apple acknowledge that this may not provide the easiest flow for the user (as they have to leave the app, do whatever they need to do on a website, then return to the app), but it's the only way to ensure compliance. Flattr are in discussion with Apple to see if there is a solution that will satisfy Apple.

LG introduces HD 5 inch display

On Monday 28th May 2012 LG announced its new 5 inch display that will handle full HD at 1080p (1920 x 1080) at 440 pixels per inch (ppi). This improves on the iPhone's display which is 326ppi. The panel uses a technology known as Advanced Hi Performance In-Plane SwitchinG (AH-IPS) that is meant to support a wide viewing angle, lower power consumption and brighter light transmission which means it can be used outside. This just means that Apple's competitors can now provide great display s on their devices, though other technologies are sure to come out further increasing ppi, further decreasing power consumption and increasing brightness.

Mind Candy release iOS app

Mind Candy have developed its first in-house iOS app called Moshi Monsters: Moshlings. It's available on iTunes and costs £0.69 and works on both iPhone and iPad devices. It features; -

• Over 60 Moshlings
• Essential Moshling info – read about their personalities, habitats and much more
• Moshling secret codes – so you can catch ‘em at MoshiMonsters.com
• 100 stickers to customise your Moshlings
• Bring out your inner artist by scaling and rotating stickers
• Save your artwork at the touch of a button
• Create fangtastic wallpapers for your mobile gizmo
• More Moshlings on the way

Mindy Candy are on a roll

Moshi Monsters goes Mobile

Mind Candy, the parent company behind Moshi Monsters, has partnered with GREE to bring Moshi Monsters to the world of mobile phones. The partnership gives Moshi Monster's 60m registered users visibility and access to GREE mobile gaming platform, while GREE's 230m users are given access to Moshi Monsters. The mobile game is expected to be available by Q4 2012 and will be available in multiple languages including English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and more. As well as having a range of best selling toys, the No1 selling children's magazine and the best selling Nintendo DS game, now Moshi Monsters is set to dominate the mobile gaming space too. Mind Candy is building an in-house team to continue mobile partnerships and development of mobile games. Moshi Monsters returned over $100m in 2011 and can only be expected to grow, they're on-track to be a £1bn company.

Plessey release new EPIC sensor for cars

Plessey Semiconductor have released a version of their EPIC sensor (PS25203) for automotive applications. This has a higher input impedance and lower gain which means it can be used for health monitoring in close proximity to to the driver by mounting electrodes in the rear of the seat. EPIC measures changes in the electric potential in the air which is distorted by other electric fields or objects and can detect the heart rate of a human without actually making direct contact with them. The sensor can also detect respiration and/or just presence (to check for occupancy of seats). The EPIC sensor is already in production for measuring ECG for ambulance use and also for remote detection of people. The new chip has had the digital signal processor addicted to work within the automotive environment. The detection of ECG and respiration in cars can be used to detect driver consciousness (i.e. to see if they are getting drowsy). The sensor will be launched at Chicago Sensor Expo 2012 will cost around $1-2 in volume and comes in a 4 pin PCB hybrid package measuring 10.5mm x 10.5mm x 3.45mm.

USPS won't ship devices with Lithium batteries

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has banned the mailing of any devices containing a lithium or lithium ion battery, whether in the device, in the same package or just the battery itself outside of the United States including to American Forces offices and Diplomatic offices. This is in-line with compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization and Universal Postal Union standards. Within the US, batteries can be posted but limits based on the watt-hour rating of the battery instead of the lithium content will be used. This means that devices such as mobile phones, tablets etc can no longer be shipped using USPS and other international carriers will have to be used such as UPS or Fedex as they have fire suppression systems on their planes which can cope with lithium fires but this may increase the shipping costs. Companies who have employees outside the US will now have to issue phones directly and have them carried as hand-luggage. It may also affect sites such as Ebay where electronics devices are regularly sold.

EU limits data and roaming charges

The EU is putting into effect changes to limit the amount operators can charge for datum calls sent and received and text messages (SMS). The new caps come into force on 1st July 2012 and replace any existing regulations that expire on 30th June 2012.

	Current	1 July 2012	1 July 2013	1 July 2014
Data (per MB)	Uncapped	70 cents	45 cents	20 cents
Phone calls made (per minute)	35 cents	29 cents	24 cents	19 cents
Phone calls received (per minute)	11 cents	8 cents	7 cents	5 cents
Text Message (per SMS)	11 cents	9 cents	8 cents	6 cents

Operator wholesale charges will be

	Current	1 July 2012	1 July 2013	1 July 2014
Data (per megabyte)	50 cents	25 cents	15 cents	5 cents
Phone calls (per minute)	18 cents	14 cents	10 cents	5 cents
Text Message (per SMS)	4 cents	3 cents	2 cents	2 cents

So operators will still make large profits as data and message volumes are still on the increase, they just get less per unit.

Peratech creates an Electronic Nose

Peratech has created a fast-acting electronic nose suitable for detecting Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). This is achieved by utilising a Quantum Tunnelling Composite (QTC) Material which change their resistance when a force is applied (which occurs in the presence of VOCs). The QTC material is able to detect VOCs at around 10-100ppm and can recover (i.e. when they are no longer present) in a couple of seconds. The material was developed in conduction with the University of Durham and Peratech is now looking for companies to license the technology and develop products suitable for the market.

Date via Spotify

On Thursday 10th May, Spotify launched two apps that allow users to find suitable dates based on their musical taste. The apps are Tastebuds and Fellody.

• Tastebuds: The app will match you with a potential partner based on the artists you’ve listened to most on Spotify and your collection of playlists. Filter matches by gender, age and location, and message matches in real-time and share playlists with them directly. Add your Songkick details to your profile to share gigs that you are going to on your profile – the perfect setting for an offline meet up!
• Fellody: Simply drag and drop Spotify playlists into the app to find friends and potential love interests with the highest match rate. Instantly send a ‘flirt’ or browse your matches’ tastes to discover new music. Check out the top artists to see the most popular artists amongst the Fellody community.

Tastebuds (based in the UK out of Cambridge) has acquired around 50,000 users, mainly in the US, UK and Brasil. They have been though the Springboard incubator program. Fellody are Swiss. Today Spotify also announced that it is arranging a 'house party' that anyone using Spotify can join in with. On June 1st 2012 DJ's Sebastian Ingrosso from Swedish House Mafia and Alesso will set-up a special room using the Spotify app Soundrop and they will share their tunes 'live'. Users will be able to vote on what the DJ's play next and chat to them.

O'Reilly Strata conference comes to London

The topic on everyone's mind (well the mind of geeks) is BIG DATA. Recently Big Data Week was held and events took place all over the world including London and San Francisco. Now O'Reilly Media (known for its technology books) is bringing its Strata conference to London this fall (October 1st and 2nd). Registrations will open in June. There's still a couple of days left to submit a proposal for the conference here, though the closing date is May 17th. Strata will be chaired by Kaitlin Thaney and Edd Dumbill and the conference will cover: -

• Data: Hadoop ecosystem, real-time data processing and analytics, crowdsourcing, data acquisition and cleaning, data distribution and markets, data science best practice, predictive analytics, machine learning, and data security.
• Business: From research to product, data protection, privacy and policy, becoming a data-driven organization, training, recruitment, management for data, and the changing role of business intelligence.
• Interfaces: Visualization and design principles, mobile strategy, applications & futures, augmented reality and immersive interfaces, dashboards, sensors, mobile & wireless, physical interfaces, and robotics.

The UK has some pioneering big data companies such as Datasift and it should be a good conference.

Ofcom changes 3G license conditions

On the 9th May 2012 Ofcom the super regulator changed the conditions for 3G license holders and the new conditions must be met by 20th June 2013. The changes are that the licensee must provide an electronic communications networks: - - That is capable of providing mobile telecommunications services to an area within which at least 90% of the population of the UK lives (this has been increased from the previous 80% population coverage obligation). - with a 90% probability that users in outdoor locations within that area can receive the service with a sustained downlink speed of not less than 768 kbps in a lightly loaded cell. Ofcom has worked with the operators on how these obligations can be measured and the methodology is available on-line as a PDF. This will benefit consumers as coverage will be increased.

Apple to intro new MBPs

Apple is expected to bring out new MacBook Pros (MBPs) at the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) being held in San Francisco from Jun 11th through 15th. The MBPs will use Intel's new Ivy Bridge range of CPUs and are rumoured to use new 'retina' high resolution displays (which may have some substance as Apple's MacOS X 10.7.3 contained HiDPI UI assets and the latest release MacOS 10.7.4 doubles the icon resolution). The cases will also be thinner to bring them more in-line with the MacBook AIR versions, but they may lose their optical drives (which are becoming less useful anyway with the advent of high capacity USB memory and even external solid state disks (SSDs).

Wall Street Journal ECOnomics Conference | Climate | Agriculture | Oceans | CO2 | Earth's Future (Part 1)

During the March 21, 2012 Extreme Innovation Wall Street Journal ECONOMICS Panel I attended which discussed progress toward reducing carbon emissions and scaling alternative energy and technology, the discussion turned to Agriculture, Carbon, Oceans, and a Carbon Tax. The following people were on the panel and I wrote a Gratitude Gourmet article here with important highlights. Dean Kamen, President, DEKA Research and Development Elon Musk, Chairman and CEO, Tesla Motors and CEO and CTO, SpaceX J. Craig Venter, Chairman and President, J. Craig Venter Institute Alan Murray, Deputy Managing Editor and Executive Editor, Online, The Wall Street Journal

Video: Jen Fraser, Director Design and Construction Vantage Data Centers on Economics and Operations

Jen Fraser, Director, Design and Construction, Vantage Data Centers, recently spoke on Economics and Operations at a recent Silicon Valley Data Center event, and a video excerpt from her talk is below.
Note: A Clean Tech & Green Business News 2011 Vantage Data Center Tour Article is Here.

North County Times: Surge of Electric Cars Predicted

2011 Nissan Leaf
Photo: Mary Vincent

By Mary Vincent - Follow on Twitter @MaryVincent

The North County Times reports that transportation officials predict a surge in electric cars within five years.

The Encinitas Mayor drives an all-electric Nissan Leaf and says: "Right now, basically if you drive an electric car, you pretty much have to rely on your own ability to charge (at home)," said Encinitas Mayor Jerome Stocks. "Within five years, there'll be a significant influx of electric vehicles and hybrid plug-in vehicles."

I've recently mentioned California Governor Jerry Brown's $120 Million Settlement announcement to fund charging stations throughout California in this March 23, 2012 Clean Tech and Green Business News Article, and my review on the all-electric Nissan Leaf is here.

The North County Times article states San Diego County charging spots mostly free to use include:
"the Oceanside Transit Center; Stone Brewing in Escondido; Walgreens stores in Escondido, Poway and Vista; the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, east of Escondido; SeaWorld at Mission Bay; and outside the San Diego Space & Air Museum in Balboa Park.
Free charges are also available at Mossy Nissan dealerships in San Diego County, including Escondido, Kearny Mesa, Chula Vista, Poway and Oceanside, said Scott Kiefner, general manager at Mossy's Escondido store. He said the charges are available to Nissan Leaf drivers and drivers of other electric cars."

The San Diego Association of Governments, the region's transportation planning agency, said efforts by government and private industry are aiming toward a large-scale expansion of charging stations within the next few years, and locations will include public streets, apartment complexes and neighborhoods with homeowners associations.

Is your State, County and/or City looking into similar plans? Let us know at Clean Tech and Green Business News and we may write about your plans. Thanks!

Tizen bubbles out the bottle

Tizen, the open source operating system that came out of LiMO and MeeGo, has been released. It's available for Intel Atom N2800 and N2600 CPUs and ARM CPUs. Who will adopt Tizen is still up for debate, though Intel are still supporting it as they supported the previous incarnations of MeeGo and prior to that Moblin (which was combined with Nokia's Maemo to form MeeGo). Samsung are also expected to support it too. Nokia which was a major supporter of Maemo/MeeGo has put its efforts into Windows Phone and seems to have dropped support for the Linux'ish based operating systems. The industry as a whole also has generally adopted Android form Google (which was also based on a Linux core). However there still could be a market for Tizen in various connected devices such as automotive (where MeeGo was making inroads). The v1.0 release of the code, known as Larkspur, is available for download from the Tizen Technical Steering Group (TTSG) along with development tools.

Vodafone to speed-up 3G uploads

Vodafone is upgrading base-station software in 3 of its markets (UK, Spain and Italy) that should see uplink speeds increase by around 40%. The upgrades use software from InToTally which solves outer loop power control problems of CDMA and UMTS/HSPA networks. This is due to the way the base-station and terminals continually change their transmit powers to cope with varying network conditions which may not be optimal and the InToTally software changes the algorithms so the system works better. The software only improves the up-link speeds as it's the base-station that's being improved, for handsets to get improvements the InToTally software would need to be installed in them too, though InToTally say that mobile chipsets will incorporate their software within a year and Vodafone has enough clout to persuade handset vendors to adopt the software. Vodafone is also making an undisclosed investment into InToTally.

MyCityWayLondon24 live in time for Jubilee and London Olympics 2012

Argent the largest independent regional media group known for it's London24 website has launched MyCityWayLondon24 in partnership with MyCityWay who are known for their city guides. The app which is available now uses the user's location to find out what's going on around them including live traffic feeds from London's busiest roads or just where to get a coffee. Users can also find out what's playing at a local cinema, find out if there are any local concerts or special events. There's also social aspects so users can connect or leave tips about places. Though the app is free, it will be used to deliver highly localised advertising, coupons and deals. Though the app is initially available on Apple's iOS devices an Android version is due to be released shortly.

Spotify launches on iPad

Spotify has released a new version of their app for iPad which now supports features of the iPad3 such as the high resolution retina display. It's also easier to explore and browse songs (out of the 18m catalogue), when a song is playing the album art is now available in full-screen mode in HD. Playback has also been improved and the app now supports gapless playback and crossfade and there's Airplay integration too as well as social improvements to see what your friends are playing. Spotify for iPad is available immediately from iTunes.

Brand Embassy launches

Brand Embassy is a new tool allowing brands to identify disenchanted users and also influential users and engage with them. Thus negative users can be made positive, while users who support the brand can be further assisted so they support the brand even further. There's a free, fully functional 14 day trial available here. Some big name customers such as O2, Diageo, Johnson & Johnson are using Brand Embassy already.

RIM announced Blackberry 10

Research in Motion (RIM) have released its new operating system (OS) 10 which is based on QNX the multi-tasking microkernel system that's currently used on the Blackberry Playbook. QNX has been around for a long time and is the a very robust real-time OS, which has many similarities to UNIX/Linux in terms of development. RIM is now trying to tempt developers to embrace the new OS and is giving away developer Blackberry 10 phones to all that attend their developer conference in Orlando. The new device is keyboard less, though RIM's virtual keyboard (in the same layout as their existing keyboards) should give users a similar experience - so it looks like the new generation of Apple iPhones or Samsung Galaxy S's. However RIM is keen to point out that this is a developer version and not all the final Blackberry 10 features are in the phones and that consumer devices may be significantly different. RIM have released Blackberry 10 Native SDK which includes Cascades, their Qt based toolkit and also their HTML5 based webworks toolkit. There are still a lot of Blackberry users in the wild (RIM say 77m), but their market share has been dropping. Maybe Blackberry 10 and a focus back into secure enterprise markets will get them more users back again.