Neil Savage
Neil Savage wrote:
Conventions Go Green
The Democrats are committed to minimizing the environmental impact of bringing 50,000 people to Denver for their national convention. Agence France Presse reports that the DNC has a goal of diverting 85 percent of the waste those delegates produce to recycling or composting facilities, while delegates ride around on buses fueled by ethanol made from beer waste produced by Coors. AFP says the Republicans also plan to hold their greenest convention ever, but on a more modest scale. It’s not known if they’re taking steps to offset the hot air from all those speeches.
Warner Wins Over Twittering Crowd
People have been all a-Twitter at the Democratic National Convention, sending out their instant reactions to events in the message sharing service’s 140-character chunks. Wired tells us that Virginia Gov. Mark Warner lit up Twitter during his keynote speech when he said, “In four months, we will have an administration that actually believes in science,” garnering the approval of geeks everywhere. So far, there’s been little talk of science policy at the convention.
Vestas Promotes Wind Power at DNC
With one of the themes of the Democratic convention focusing on the need to go green, it’s just natural that the world’s largest maker of wind turbines would be in Denver to promote its product. Danish company Vestas brought a 131-foot turbine blade manufactured at a Colorado factory, Earth2Tech says. The company is already operating a plant in Colorado, and has plans for two more, including the largest in the world for building turbine towers.
Grid Can’t Keep Pace with New Power Sources
Electricity generated from wind seems like a good idea, but the ability to produce it may be racing ahead of the capacity to distribute it. The New York Times reports that the nation’s aging electrical grid can’t always carry the power being generated during peak productions times. Since both wind and solar power plants are likely to be built in less populated areas, the grid will need to be able to carry the electricity they produce long distances to reach consumers.
Town Plans to Turn River Into Generator
Here’s a source of alternative energy you probably haven’t heard of before. The Discovery Channel says that researchers at the University of Pittsburgh are planning a project that will place small strips of a type of plastic, which generates a slight electrical current when it moves, on the bed of the Kiskiminetas River. Flowing water will cause the strips to wiggle, generating enough electricity to power the central area of the nearby city of Vandergrift, researchers say.
Researchers Monitor Cyber Warfare
A group of researchers who call themselves “hacktivists” like to monitor how Internet traffic moves through different countries, originally with the intent of helping citizens get around state censorship. But as the Washington Post reports, these researchers now find themselves monitoring the cyber attacks that are a growing weapon of international war. One hacktivist tells the paper they’re forming “a global civil society counterintelligence agency.”
Charge Your Cell Phone While You Walk
Technologies that gather kinetic energy and turn it into electricity are starting to reach the point where they can provide useful power. As GigaOm reports, a startup in Boise, ID, M2E Power, says it plans to offer a cell phone charger next year that can convert six hours of everyday movement into one hour of talk time. Expect to see those people who shout into their phones at restaurants fidgeting in their seats to keep their cells charged.
Google Pushes Government to Go Green
Google wants other high-tech companies to join with it in urging the government to provide funding for clean energy startups struggling to bring new technologies to market. Google’s director for climate change and energy initiatives, Dan Reicher, met this week with executives from HP, Apple, and Facebook, among others, BusinessWeek reports. Google has been investing in green tech, and could profit handsomely if the companies it’s funding take off.
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Gregory T. Huang
Gregory T. Huang wrote:
In the last week, there have been some very interesting deals (and other news) in wireless, social networking, and cleantech. Perhaps it’s a sign of things to come after the holiday weekend, when we expect the deals to really pick up.
—Amazon is acquiring Seattle-based Shelfari, a social-networking site for book lovers, for an undisclosed price. The deal has stirred some controversy, as Tim Spalding, CEO of Shelfari’s arch rival LibraryThing (which Amazon owns a 40 percent stake in), has blogged some harsh criticisms of Shelfari. Which leaves us wondering what will become of these two rivals, and what Amazon’s plans are.
—SnapIn Software, based in Bellevue, WA, is being acquired by Burlington, MA-based Nuance Communications for $180 million in stock. SnapIn, which has secured more than $30 million in venture funding, makes mobile software for automating customer support. The deal is expected to close in October, and could improve SnapIn’s business with wireless carriers and handset vendors.
—Not to be outdone, Seattle-based software startup Medio is moving towards a deal with Google and Verizon to provide mobile-search services for consumers. If the deal goes through, it could signal that wireless carriers need help from the big players in Web search—and that small mobile-software companies could reap rewards there as well.
—Luke took a look at the Seattle Science Foundation, a new nonprofit dedicated to collaboration between doctors, scientists, and engineers. The foundation is putting an emphasis on social networking—with its goals being both to improve healthcare and medical knowledge, and to encourage scientists to start companies.
—Speaking of social networks, Tacoma, WA-based Konnects has rolled out a new user interface for its business networking site. Konnects focuses on making professional contacts and transactions, and it aims to occupy the space between business sites like LinkedIn and more open, social sites like Facebook.
—AltaRock Energy, a renewable-energy startup born and raised in Seattle (now headquartered in Sausalito, CA), has raised a $26.25 million funding round. The new investors are Vulcan Capital, Google.org, and Advanced Technology Ventures, which join Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The financing of AltaRock, which is working on next-generation geothermal systems, shows the diversity of promising approaches in cleantech these days.
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Neil Savage
Neil Savage wrote:
Nielsen Measures Obama’s Text Audience
If the phone rings at 3 a.m., it’s probably Barack Obama texting you the late news of his vice presidential choice. Nielsen, which normally measures television audiences, said about 2.9 million people received the cell phone message, which had already been scooped by the more old-fashioned media. The Wall Street Journal points out that Obama still wins, having collected all those cell phone numbers so he can contact supporters in the future.
Joe Biden Sends Out Video Message
The online campaign neither starts nor ends with the text message announcing Joe Biden as Barack Obama’s running mate. Biden has since sent out an e-mail with a link to a video that thanks supporters and tells them something of who he is. The Christian Science Monitor says this is all part of an ongoing digital campaign that’s getting a lot of attention.
Can Obama Bring Facebook Fans to the Polls?
Online support may be great for generating buzz—and donations—but it doesn’t necessarily translate into votes; Witness how Howard Dean’s online support in 2004 failed to win him the nomination. BusinessWeek asks if Barack Obama can translate his success in social networking into success in getting out the vote.
Candidates to Answer Science Questions Via E-mail
Despite months of calls for the presidential candidates to address questions of science and technology, it looks increasingly unlikely that there will be a debate on science in this election. But Science News reports that the organizing committee for Science Debate 2008 has gotten the candidates to agree to answer 14 questions, on issues ranging from stem cells to space exploration. It’s unclear, however, when the campaigns plan to respond.
Security May Be Better in the Cloud
Protecting computers from viruses and worms is a never-ending battle that can take up a lot of desktop processing power. According to Technology Review, researchers from the University of Michigan think computers could have better protection with no loss of performance if antivirus software were moved off the desktop and into the cloud, a collection of Internet-connected servers that act as if they’re one machine. The researchers found that, by using cloud computing, they could detect 88 percent of viruses, instead of only 73 percent found with a single antivirus program.
Wind Turbines Kill Bats With Pressure Changes
The mysterious deaths of large numbers of bats near wind turbines had scientists stumped; bats, after all, excel at not bumping into things. Now researchers have found that it’s the rapid drop in air pressure near the turbine blades that is causing the damage, the Discovery Channel reports. Necropsies showed that the sudden drop is causing the bats’ lungs to explode.
Pedal Pushers Produce Green Energy
While you’re sweatin’ to the oldies, why not use some of that muscle power to help the environment? That’s the thinking at a new gym in Portland, OR, which according to the Los Angeles Times is the first in the country to use human-powered cycling and cardio machines to generate renewable energy. Solar panels on the roof also make the gym more eco-friendly.
Scientists Contemplate Biowar Against Mosquitoes
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found a virus that infects the world’s most dangerous type of mosquito. The New York Times reports that the virus in its current form is harmless, but the researchers feel it could be genetically engineered to kill the mosquitoes. The virus targets the type of mosquito that is chiefly responsible for spreading malaria in Africa.
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Neil Savage
Neil Savage wrote:
Best Energy May Be Under Our Feet
Everybody talks about wind and sun as among the most promising new sources of energy the world can tap. But speaking at the National Energy Summit in Las Vegas this week, Dan Reicher, director of climate and energy initiatives at Google, said the “killer app” of energy may be enhanced geothermal systems, which use artificial means to get heat from under the Earth’s crust. The New York Times science section offers a video interview with Reicher on its site
Google Says It’s Committed to Health-Data Privacy
Google has its thumb in a lot of pies these days, including the medical world with its Google Health application, which consolidates users’ medical data. Eric Sachs of Google spoke this week at the Harvard Privacy Symposium, and assured listeners that Google is committed to keeping users in control of their health records. He reiterates that point at Google’s Public Policy blog.
Packet Scanning Raises Privacy Concerns
Web surfers concerned about their privacy have a new worry with the recent rise in deep packet scanning, which service providers use to track their customers’ habits so they can better target sales pitches. The Washington Post says deep packet scanning only recently became practical, thanks to increases in processor power, and that lawmakers are starting to question the use of the technology
Full Disclosure Important to Security, Expert Argues
The recent case in which a judge (temporarily) quashed a presentation by MIT students on vulnerabilities in Boston’s public transportation system has raised the hackles of both computer security experts and First Amendment supporters, who argue that the injunction was unconstitutional prior restraint. Writing in Wired, the chief technology security officer of BT Global Services argues that secrecy is a fragile safeguard against hacking attacks, and that responsible disclosure is in everyone’s best interests
Wind Fights Coal on Mountain Top
Global warming experts will say wind is a superior energy source to coal because it doesn’t release the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Now a grassroots group in West Virginia is also arguing wind beats coal–at least on Coal River Mountain, where a planned coal mine would tear up the mountain top. The group hired a wind energy consultant, which argues it would be more economical to install 220 2-megawatt wind turbines on the mountain top, Earth2Tech writes. Not answered: Would you be proud to be a wind farmer’s daughter?
Economist Holds Online Energy Debate
Do you think the world’s energy problems can be solved with existing technologies, or must there be breakthrough innovations to move us beyond our dependence on coal and oil? You can read the pros and cons on that question and then voice your own opinion in an online energy debate at The Economist’s website. Votes may be cast until August 29.
Comcast Will Throttle Some Internet Users
The Federal Communications Commission ruled earlier this month that Comcast violated the law when it slowed down data speeds for peer-to-peer file transfers. Comcast has responded by saying it won’t throttle down Internet access for specific applications. Instead, CNET News reports, it will target heavy bandwidth users, throttling their speeds for up to 20 minutes at a time
States Ditch Computer Voting
Break out the butterfly ballots. After a number of states spent $2 billion to replace old-fashioned voting systems with touchscreens, several of those states are reversing course and getting rid of the electronic voting machines ahead of the November presidential election. Ars Technica reports that states including Alaska, California, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Tennessee, and New Mexico will get rid of their voting machines in favor of old-fashioned paper ballots
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Wade Roush
Wade Roush wrote:
The idea that a strain of bacteria discovered at the bottom of a lagoon on the campus of Oklahoma State University could hold an answer to U.S. dependence on foreign oil sounds improbable to many. It certainly does to Robert Rapier. The chemical engineer at Arnhem, Netherlands-based Accsys Technologies published a blog post last weekend arguing that Coskata—the Warrenville, IL, startup that hopes to turn the bacteria into the engines of an industrial process that converts waste gases into millions of gallons of ethanol per year—has wildly exaggerated its claims that the process will eventually yield biofuels at a cost under $1 per gallon.
“Not only is this not the ’slam dunk’ that is being projected, you probably have a better chance of hitting a blindfolded shot from mid-court than Coskata has of producing cost-competitive ethanol,” Rapier wrote. His post attracted the attention of other blogs that cover the energy sector, including Venture Beat.
But Coskata, which is funded in part by Waltham, MA-based Advanced Technology Ventures, is taking issue with Rapier’s analysis, saying that it’s based on faulty assumptions about the cost of building and operating demonstration ethanol plants versus commercial-scale plants. In a comment responding to Rapier’s post and in a separate conversation with Xconomy yesterday, Coskata vice president and chief marketing officer Wes Bolsen says the company sees no barriers to using its technology, which couples gasification of municipal waste and other hydrocarbon-rich materials with bacterial fermentation of the resulting gas, to produce ethanol for $1 per gallon or less, not counting the cost of the manufacturing facilities themselves. “Yes, gasification plants are expensive to put on the ground,” says Bolsen. “But the production cost is half that of gasoline, and you also have more feedstock flexibility—you can gasify trash, tires, agricultural residues, wood waste, any kind of biomass.”
Rapier’s critique centered around the cost of the demonstration plant that Coskata is building in Madison, PA, on the site of an existing gasification reactor owned by Westingthouse Plasma, a subsidiary of Canadian firm Alter Nrg Corp. The pilot plant, which is expected to begin production next spring, will cost $25 million and is expected to produce 40,000 gallons of ethanol per year. Rapier did some basic math, calculating that the plant will produce 2.6 barrels of ethanol per day, which puts the plant’s capital costs at $9.6 million per daily barrel. On the surface, that compares unfavorably to the capital costs of other fuel production technologies such as oil refineries ($10,000 to $20,000 per daily barrel) or even corn-to-ethanol plants ($20,000 to $30,000 per daily barrel). “The capital costs would have to go down by a factor of 100 before they could even start to get competitive,” Rapier commented.
Bolsen concedes that Coskata’s pilot plant will lack economies of scale. “It is very expensive to do commercial demonstrations; any facility producing under 1 to 2 million gallons per year is going to be unbelievably inefficient,” Bolsen told me by phone today. But it’s misleading to evaluate the economics of Coskata’s technology based solely on the cost of the demonstration plant, he argues. “You can never do your economics off of a demonstration,” he says.
Part of the Pennsylvania plant’s high cost, Bolsen says, is due to the fact that it’s an R&D facility, with two separate ethanol reactors—a membrane separation assembly and a traditional distillation assembly—being built side-by-side. He says Coskata is planning a true commercial-scale facility, with construction due to begin next year, that will cost $400 million and will produce 100 million gallons of ethanol per year. That translates into about $61,000 per daily barrel, or only about twice the capital cost of a corn-to-ethanol plant.
But 100 million gallons per year is a lot of ethanol—and the real question from an outsider’s point of view may be whether Coskata’s anaerobic bacterial fermentation process will work as well on an industrial scale as executives say it’s working in the laboratory.
The company’s technology is different from most other ethanol production techniques, in that it uses synthesis gas or “syngas” as its input rather than corn or high-cellulose corn alternatives such as switchgrass. Most so-called “cellulosic ethanol” technologies, such as the one being developed by Cambridge, MA-based Mascoma (which, like Coskata, has collected a big investment from General Motors), use various enzymes to break down the cellulose molecules in feedstock into sugars that can then be fermented into ethanol. In Coskata’s system, feedstocks such as municipal waste are simply vaporized inside …Next Page »
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Neil Savage
Neil Savage wrote:
Virus-Built Battery Nothing to Sneeze At
A new type of microbattery could power implantable drug delivery devices or run tiny labs-on-a-chip, thanks to a technique that uses a virus to build the battery’s components. Nature News reports that scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used a genetically engineered virus as part of a template that gathered cobalt ions into a series of nanostructures that formed an electrode. The researchers say this is a quick and simple way to build much smaller batteries than have been possible.
Experts Warn of Coming Cyber Attacks
Last week’s military incursion into Georgia by Russian troops was preceded by an attack on government computers, and the same thing could happen here, experts warn. According to CNN, computer security experts say no one has devised a way to protect against online attacks on government systems. The fact that the U.S. is so dependent on the Internet makes us all the more vulnerable, they say.
Menstrual Blood May be Valuable Source of Stem Cells
Stem cells harvested from human menstrual blood have helped heal damaged limbs in mice, say scientists from MediStem Laboratories, of San Diego, CA. The researchers published a study showing that mice with low blood flow to their legs had those legs protected from withering if they were injected with the stem cells. The scientists say the stem cells come from the lining of the uterus, which is shed during menstruation, New Scientist reports.
Biometrics May Lower Identity Theft
More powerful and inexpensive microprocessors are leading to increased use of biometrics—the use of individual physical characteristics as identifiers. Scientific American says that fingerprinting, face recognition, and iris scans are becoming more popular methods to fight identity theft, because it’s not as easy to fake an eye scan as it is to steal a PIN. One issue, though, is that the error rates in some systems are still too high.
A Look at the Tools of Cyber Crooks
The Internet makes a lot of things easier, including crime. At the Security Fix blog of the Washington Post, writer Brian Krebs takes a look at some of the trends and tools popular with cyber crooks. First up, programs that mask your Internet address.
Google Digs In to Geothermal Energy
The investment arm of Google, which has been putting money into green energy companies, now has invested nearly $11 million in the development of enhanced geothermal systems to extract energy from the heat of the Earth’s crust. Tech Crunch reports the company is giving $6.25 million to AltaRock Energy of Sausalito, CA; $4 million to Potter Drilling, of Redwood City, CA; and $500,000 to a geothermal lab at Southern Methodist University.
Hitting the Road for Low-Cost Energy
Why spend money on new solar energy systems when we’ve already installed millions of miles of low-cost solar collectors across the country? That’s the question from researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, who want to use water-filled pipes to collect the heat energy collected by the asphalt on roadways and parking lots, according to CNET News. The hot water could be used in nearby buildings, or thermoelectrics could convert it to electricity.
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Rebecca Zacks
Rebecca Zacks wrote:
Last week was a quiet one for New England tech and life sciences firms, but there was a steady stream of small deals nonetheless.
—Boston-based Follica, which is developing a treatment for baldness, raised $11 million in a Series B round led by new investor Polaris Venture Partners and joined by existing investors Interwest Partners and PureTech Ventures.
—Waltham, MA-based wireless network provider Colubris Networks accepted a buyout offer from Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) of Palo Alto, CA. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
—PatientKeeper of Newton, MA—a 12-year-old software firm whose products let doctors view patient health records, prescribe drugs, and so forth from mobile and desktop computers—closed a Series F funding round worth $7.5 million from Frazier Healthcare Ventures and New Enterprise Associates.
—Quincy, MA-based investment firm Allied Minds invested an undisclosed amount of seed funding in Seattle’s AXI, formerly known as Voltan Biofuel. The startup is aiming to commercialize technology, developed at the University of Washington, for using algae to produce oil for biofuels.
—Information-security firm NitroSecurity of Portsmouth, NH, secured $10 million in venture financing. The deal was led by NewSpring Ventures of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
—Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE: LMT) acquired the government business unit of Woburn, MA-based Nantero, a startup developing NRAM, a carbon-nanotube-based form of computer memory.
—Bedford, NH-based Segway has reportedly raised $5 million toward a $14 million Series D round. Segway closed the final tranche of a $35 million Series C round in the second quarter.
UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS
Neil Savage
Neil Savage wrote:
McCain Would Attack Internet Piracy, Cut Taxes
Republican presidential candidate John McCain recently issued a policy statement on various technology-related issues. He focuses on tax cuts, preventing new taxes on the Internet, and offering credits for research and development, according to a summary of the statement on Ars Technica. He’d also go after Internet piracy, work on improving the patent system, and prevent children from seeing online content he considers harmful.
Does the Internet Change How We Think?
With information easily available on the Internet and stored on devices like cells phones, could that be causing humans to devote less effort to remembering things? That’s what an essayist at Salon wonders. He jumps off an essay from a University of Chicago sociologist writing about whether the Internet changes how people think, which itself follows on an Atlantic Monthly piece entitled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”
New Method Could Convert Natural Gas to Gasoline
Synfuels International, of Dallas, TX, says it has developed a cheaper, cleaner method to convert natural gas into gasoline. Technology Review reports that the company says its technology will allow the U.S. to tap smaller reserves of natural gas that hadn’t been considered economical before. The process relies on high temperatures and a catalyst.
Google Your Own Solar Energy
A new Internet tool called RoofRay can help homeowners figure out if their roofs would produce enough power to make adding solar panels worthwhile. The tool works with Google Maps, and bases its estimates on the area and slope of your roof, past weather conditions, and your monthly power bills. CNET News calls it “one of the smarter mashups we’ve seen.”
California Goes Solar in a Big Way
The California utility Pacific Gas & Electric has signed contracts to buy electricity from a pair of huge solar power plants to be built in Central California. The Associated Press says the two plants will produce more electricity than all of the solar-electric panels installed in the U.S. last year. PG&E plans to buy 800 megawatts of electricity, enough to provide a year’s worth of power to 239,000 homes.
Wind Power to Soar by 2020
Expect to be getting a lot of your electricity out of thin air by the year 2020. A report from the research firm Emerging Energy Research projects that wind will produce 150 gigawatts of power by then. Earth2Tech points out that, to meet the goal of 20 percent of all electricity from wind power that’s been proposed by oil magnate T. Boone Pickens, wind power would need to produce double that amount, 300 gigawatts.
Carmakers Focus on More Fuel Efficiency
Detroit is looking to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, as well as electric vehicles, to help pull it out of its current sales slump, Reuters reports. Chrysler, for instance, is launching a new car-based SUV, modeled after the Jeep Cherokee. Ford says it expects strong growth as it focuses on smaller cars that the company had not been pushing.
Volt Almost Ready to Roll, GM Says
General Motors has “essentially finished” the design of its first plug-in hybrid and expects to have prototypes ready for production within 10 days, the New York Times reports. GM is scheduled to start selling the Volt in 2010, and before then will have to significantly improve the batteries that store its power, as well as improve other technology. But the carmaker says completing the design is a milestone in its move toward greener automobiles.
UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS
Robert Buderi
Robert Buderi wrote:
On the heels of closing the final tranche of a $35 million financing round that ranked as the fifth-largest New England venture deal of the second quarter, Segway is reportedly back on the financing circuit looking for $14 million more for a Series D round, according to PE Hub, which cites a regulatory filing.
The report says the Bedford, NH-based company has raised $5 million toward the new round, and that the Masdar Clean Tech Fund was part of it. We haven’t yet gotten anyone at Segway to confirm the new round, but note that gas prices are soaring, and the buzz around more environmentally friendly transportation is high—so the climate might be right for the lithium-ion-battery-powered Segway (which costs around $6,000). All told the company makes seven models, tailored to different uses such as golf, off-road adventuring, commuting, and even cargo carrying.
Segway has previously raised a total of $171 million from such firms as Masdar, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Credit Suisse First Boston Private Equity, and DAG Ventures, according to PE Hub.
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