Underwater batteries are making a splash for energy storage
Companies are looking to harness underwater pressure for energy generation and storage. Read more »
How data, cheap sensors and Android could be a game changer for rural farmers
Startup Re:char hopes to deliver a low cost Android gadget plug-in that can test the moisture content and fertility of soil. Kenyan farmers get ready to meet the latest in data analytics and cloud services. Read more »
The road less traveled: How Google does Streetview for the world’s oceans
Google and the Catlin Seaview Survey are working as fast as they can to map the world’s coral reefs in Google Streetview. But the project’s founder fears he may be too late. Read more »
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Hydrogen energy the chloroplast way: solar-to-fuel with the artificial leaf
photo: Thinkstock
The first fully integrated nanosystem for artificial photosynthesis is developed for producing hydrogen with cheap components and biomimicry. Read more »
The spigot of money starting to open up for installing solar panels
As a boom of solar panels continues to be installed on buildings throughout the U.S., companies, groups and even every day people can make money off of funding this clean energy transition. Read more »
After loving to hate Tesla, many scramble to show their love
Tesla is now officially a success according to blind-sided investors and media. Tesla didn’t emerge last week with a win, it’s taken a decade to deliver and true game-changing innovation takes a very long time. Read more »
SunPower to sell energy storage, potentially lithium ion batteries
SunPower plans to sell lithium ion batteries — or other energy storage technology — bundled with solar panels. The move follows other solar companies into the energy storage space. Read more »
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Tesla could raise $830M through new offering, including $100M from CEO
Tesla could raise another $830 million in a new offering in a combination of selling common stock, and issuing senior convertible notes. That means Tesla can pay back its DOE loan early, among other things. Read more »
How RelayRides is making money from long-term car sharing
Peer-to-peer car sharing startup RelayRides tells us that long-term sharing — over days, weeks and months — makes up the bulk of their sales. Is this an emerging trend for this nascent service? Read more »
European RE.WORK summit aims to solve future problems through emerging tech
The first summit in London, which is produced in partnership with Google’s Solve For X initiative, will focus on emerging tech such as the internet of things, 3D printing, artificial intelligence and sensors. Read more »
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What SolarCity’s earnings say about the challenges of building a solar retail business
SolarCity is one of the leaders when it comes to installing solar panels on home owner’s rooftops. But the company’s $31 million loss, in its latest quarter, shows the growing pains for the retail solar players. Read more »
Meet the 6 startups from the inaugural accelerator of French telco Orange
Orange, the French telco giant, unveiled the first 6 startups in its inaugural accelerator program, including startups building hardware and software for the developing world, and startups using data to make clouds and online identities secure. Read more »
Cisco survey: Consumers are getting comfortable with the idea of the driverless car
photo: Cisco Systems
Fifty-seven percent of drivers Cisco surveyed said they would let themselves be chauffeured around town by a driverless car. The number was even higher among Americans. Read more »
RelayRides buys up car sharing startup Wheelz for the tech
Peer-to-peer car sharing company RelayRides has bought up startup Wheelz, partly for its automated system that lets users easily unlock and drive away in a car without having to get a key from the owner. Read more »
The Hue lightbulb makes some connected friends and gets new skills
photo: Philips
Philips is giving its connected Hue light bulb an update that connects it to IFTTT so people can tie their light bulbs into existing web services. It’s also adding a location-aware feature and scheduling. Read more »
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GreenTouch details roadmap for wiping out 90% of telecom’s energy demands
After three years of investigation, the GreenTouch consortium issued its first recommendations for energy efficient telecom networks. GreenTouch claims the roadmap, if implemented, would cut the communications industry’s power needs to a fraction of current levels. Read more »
Crowdsource your carbon: power plant mapping project seeks location, CO2 data
Ventus, a citizen science project based at Arizona State University wants eagle-eyed environmentalists to map power plants and hopes to use the crowdsourced data to improve global carbon cycle models. Read more »
Report: Bloom Energy raises another $130M
The Valley’s fuel cell startup Bloom Energy has now raised over $1.1 billion, according to a report. While Bloom has gotten strong traction, particularly with data center operators, fuel cell manufacturing is difficult and capital intensive business. Read more »
Startup GridCOM uses photons and quantum physics for smart grid security
Can quantum computing be the key to a much safer power grid? A California startup, GridCOM, plans to show just how quantum encryption could be a nearly fail-proof shield against cybersecurity breaches. Read more »
Adding an electric car cut the payback point of our solar panel investment in half
When planning our solar panel home project in 2011, we figured on paper that it would take nearly a dozen years to break even on the investment. Turns out that adding an electric vehicle has cut that figure roughly in half. Read more »
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The best student entrepreneurs at Stanford are working on health tech and energy
photo: Amanda Alvarez
An annual Stanford University startup competition awarded $150,000 in prize money on Friday to ideas in construction engineering and medical devices, among others. Read more »
Powering Times Square via Shanghai: How a global smart grid can fuel our insatiable data appetite
At our current pace of consumption, the world’s demands for compute power will quickly outpace the energy provided by our data centers. The solution is a global smart grid, and Europe provides a model for what that might look like. Read more »
Elon Musk, David Sacks ditch Zuckerberg’s Fwd.us
Mark Zuckerberg’s immigration reform group Fwd.us is losing two big players this week: Elon Musk and David Sacks. A bad sign for the Valley’s latest political group? Read more »
Tiny antennas that can harvest light and heat could deliver new solar tech
photo: photo courtesy of fdtate
Capturing energy from light and heat using tiny antennas could be a way to produce solar energy at a lower cost, and capture and reuse waste heat from industrial processes. They’re still in the prototype phase. Read more »
Alarm.com buys energy software startup EnergyHub
Algorithms to manage connected thermostats and collect their data have become a hot property in 2013. Alarm.com snaps up startup EnergyHub for its thermostat management software. Read more »
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Natural gas van maker, backed by T. Boone Pickens and U.S. government, shuts down
Following the Fisker debacle, another auto maker with a government loan has stopped operations. Vehicle Production Group, which made natural gas and gas-powered vans for disabled passengers, says it’s closed up shop. Read more »
Stunning Google Earth photos show our planet changing
Google, NASA, USGS and TIME have released a set of photos that show a “picture of Earth through time.” It is stunning to see Amazon rainforest shrink and a glacier vanish. Impressive Read more »
IoT Podcast: Where self-milking cows graze fields of data gold
Combine the internet of things and Numenta’s machine learning algorithms and a new world of possibilities emerge. In this week’s podcast we cover machines that will tell you before they break and fields that ask for water. Read more »
Tesla shares soar almost 30% in after hours on profit news
Tesla stock jumped almost 30 percent in after hour trading on the news that electric car maker Tesla has delivered a profit for the first time. Read more »
Tesla delivers 1st profit, record revenue and boosts Model S guidance to 21K
Tesla hit its goal of the first profit in its 10-year history, and also delivered a record revenue, and boosted its guidance of Model S car sales by 1,000, to 21,000 for the year. Read more »
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10 milestones Tesla hopes will make it a $43 billion company
Tesla is about to announce what is says will be one of the best quarters in the company’s history, reaching profitability for the first time. But Tesla’s ambitions are much higher than its current $6.4 billion marketcap. Read more »
How Nest and Opower quietly morphed into competitors
The leading energy data startups Nest and Opower have quietly started to look more like competitors, though with some significant differences. Read more »
Why the time has come for Android @Home to finally make a splash
Android @Home has been missing in action ever since it was announced in 2011. There’s a good chance that this will change at next week’s Google I/O conference. Read more »
How Fisker’s struggles will affect electric cars, investing and government support
We’ve got the results of our survey on how Fisker’s struggles could affect the electric car market, government incentives and cleantech investing. Check out my 21-page report I wrote for GigaOM Pro, and some of the teasers in this post. Read more »
Nest acquires MyEnergy (formerly Earth Aid), moves deeper into utility data
Learning thermostat maker Nest has acquired a Boston-based energy data startup called MyEnergy. The company will help Nest develop its energy data services and continue its missions of working directly with the consumer to reduce home energy consumption. Read more »
Elon Musk: Your Tesla may come with “autopilot” sooner than you think
The Tesla CEO says he’s weighing a form of autonomous driving technology that would do away with the expensive laser tracking systems adopted by most automakers and instead uses cameras to sense the car’s surroundings. Read more »
Beyond Meat CEO: One day eating meat will have no connection to animals
Can a Valley-backed startup help usher in a transition to plant-based proteins dominating the meat counter? Read more »
Bright outlook: First Solar sells out of solar panels, inks new deal in China
After reducing production and costs and closing a big solar panel factory, First Solar says it’s done a better job of managing its supply and has sold out of its production through nearly the end of the third quarter of this year. Read more »
Intel debuts Silvermont: mobile chips with powerful battery-sipping abilities
photo: Intel
Does Intel still stand a chance in the highly-competitive mobile chip market? Yes, if the company’s new Silvermont chip lives up to its promise of 3x the performance of today’s Atom or 5x the power efficiency. Read more »
4 charts that show the slow but steady progress of electric cars
One of the biggest challenges for the electric car business in the U.S. has been unreasonable projections. The reality is that sales of electric cars, installations of public charging stations and the valuation of industry leader Tesla are all going up. Read more »
