New Florence. New Renaissance.

The $ 32,000 startup

From BusinessWeek

"But Park and Bahn did. How? To start with, they crowdsourced the design. Instead of hiring a bunch of marketing people, as tech companies usually do, they asked their user community for volunteers to help conceive a new site. Then they selected a handful of the most eager users and trained them on the basics of Silicon Valley-style product management. Next, Park and Bahn needed to find a designer. They used 99designs.com, which hosts design competitions, for a two-week contest that attracted hundreds of designers, yielding a design they used as the theme for the new site. The contest, prize, and designer's time cost $9,200.

They broke up Web development into two tasks: front-end engineering (turning design artwork into code) and back-end engineering (making the code actually function). They built their technology on top of WordPress, phpBB, and Drupal—which are free, open-source platforms. Front-end engineering usually requires sophisticated coding done by contractors who earn as much as $100 an hour. Instead, the Beat The GMAT team turned to a service called PSD2HTML.com—which converts Photoshop design files into HTML and CSS code. This service costs $160 to $220 per Web page, totaling $4,500. For back-end engineering, they hired four developers from Hungary and Ukraine on the outsourcing website oDesk. They paid $15 to $20 per hour. The entire back-end engineering cost $18,000."

GE's Hybrid Power Plant

"GE has announced the first power plant to integrate wind and solar power with natural gas—a 530-megawatt plant that will start operating in Turkey in 2015. The power plant is made practical by a flexible, high-efficiency natural-gas system the company announced two weeks ago and a solar thermal power system created by eSolar, a Burbank, California-based startup that GE recently invested in.

Such hybrid plants may become the dominant type of new power plant in some parts of the world, GE says. The new technology is aimed at countries that use 50 hertz electricity (the United States uses 60 hertz). In particular, it could make it easier for China and the European Union to meet their renewable energy targets."

MIT Technology Review

Google's Post-PC World

"Two gadgets that began shipping last week represent assaults from Google on the dominant model of computing, in which we use a cursor and a keyboard to manipulate boxes and windows on a virtual desktop. Samsung makes the hardware for both: the Series 5 Chromebook notebook, the first computer with the browser-only ChromeOS, and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet, whose operating system is the latest version of Honeycomb, the tablet edition of Google's Android mobile operating system.

These products have arrived at a pivotal moment for computing. Steve Jobs popularized the phrase "post-PC era" to describe what's supposed to come next, with the iPad displacing the window-driven, desktop-focused experience that the word "computer" conjures up. Now Google too is offering alternatives to that experience, taking on traditional computing with a pincer movement of tablets and Chromebooks. That the two are advancing together may be either an accident or a deliberate attempt to establish distinct post-PC categories—all we know for sure that Google likes to experiment publicly."

MIT Technology Review

Iceland's consensus Constitution

"Iceland is finally overhauling its constitution, and it has turned to the Internet to get input from citizens. More specifically, the 25-member council drafting the new constitution is reaching out to its citizens through Facebook (although Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr are also being used).

Two thirds of Iceland’s population (approximately 320,000) is on Facebook, so the constitutional council’s weekly meetings are broadcast live not only on the council’s website, but on the social network as well."

ZDNet

Smart “Pet Door”

Activated by an ultrasonic collar on your pet – so strays cannot wander in, and only opens when your pet is on a direct approach. From High-Tec Pet Products

Update: Martijn Linssen points out a similar innovation which is triggered by the microchip that many pets already have for identification and Paul Papadimitriou points to another which allows you to program access for up to 32 cats!

Tech in summer movie crop

This summer there's an excellent line-up of films full of mind-blowing technology. A stealth aircraft makes an appearance in X-Men: First Class, while the Green Lantern (photo below) will travel between worlds using a ring that can open up wormholes. Although some of these gadgets remain far beyond the realm of possibility (at least for now), here's the science behind Hollywood's awesome line-up of wrist lasers, vibranium shields and X-jets.

Popular Science

Airbus 2050

"Airbus has unveiled its ideas of the plane of 2050, from check-in via a  hand print complete with a bionic shell which turns partially transparent to provide a panoramic view for passengers.

The front of the plane will have a vitalising (relaxing) area and the rear will be the 'smart tech' space for working and virtual conferencing.

The middle of the plane will contain the 'interactive' zone where passengers can move around a virtual reality cocoon where the wall can transform to offer lifelike experiences such as playing rounds of golf."

The Travel Magazine - saw it courtesy of Steve Mann.

 

WindTronics innovative turbine

In most turbines, wind spins a three-blade system, which turns a vertical shaft that connects to an electrical generator at its base. In contrast, Mahawili's design looks like a giant bicycle wheel with 20 nylon spokes. At the outer end of each spoke is a magnet and stationary coil, which generate electricity. Because the electricity is created in the blades themselves and not by spinning a heavy shaft, Mahawili's design can capture two to three times as much energy as traditional models, according to Honeywell International (HON). The conglomerate tested Mahawili's design as part of a worldwide search for energy-efficient turbines, and it "really stood out," says Tony Uttley, a Honeywell vice-president. The turbine is small and light enough to sit on a roof; five could power an average U.S. household.

BusinessWeek

Photo Credit Honeywell

Electric charging on the go?

"Proterra uses a type of battery chemistry—lithium titanate—that it says allows the batteries to be recharged in less than 10 minutes every few hours all day and still last eight years or more. Such frequent and fast charging would damage other lithium-ion batteries, rendering them useless after just a few years, Granato says. Proterra has also developed an automated charging system. As the bus approaches a charging station, it communicates wirelessly with an overhead charging arm, which takes control of the motion of the bus as it passes underneath, stopping it when the charger is in place. The bus can charge as passengers get on and off. If the bus travels a route that doesn't completely deplete the battery, it can be topped off in just a couple of minutes, Granato says."

MIT Technology Review

 

Interest in Computer Science degrees grows

“Never mind that Mr. Zuckerberg, like other tech titans, did not major in computer science — or even finish college. Enrollment in computer science programs, and degrees from them, are rising after a decade of decreases, despite much handwringing about the decline of American competitiveness in technology and innovation from President Obama on down. And educators and technologists say the inspiration is partly Hollywood’s portrayal of the tech world, as well as celebrity entrepreneurs like Steven P. Jobs of Apple and Mr. Zuckerberg who make products that students use every day.”

New York Times

Photo Credit for Stanford U Computer Science Building