First Solar’s own power generation projects have always been mounted on racks that don’t tilt throughout the day to follow the sun, but the company is exploring the use of trackers. First Solar announced Friday it has bought RayTracker for an undisclosed sum. Read more »
First Solar’s big plan to eventually build 2 gigawatts of power plants in China’s Inner Mongolia has moved ahead. The company signed a memorandum of understanding with China Guangdong Nuclear Solar Energy Development Co. on Wednesday to develop the first phase, 30-megawatt project. Read more »
Chinese wind turbine maker Sinovel Wind plans to raise about 9.46 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) in what would be Shanghai’s biggest ever IPO. That’s pretty aggressive, but given China’s booming greentech economy, perhaps not unexpected. Read more »
China has reportedly moved to block private VoIP services such as Skype and will only allow China Telecom and China Unicom to offer such services. It’s unclear when this will take effect or if it means the outright ban of services such as Skype. Read more »
Both Google and the government have taught us one important lesson: data rules. On Friday, U.S. officials said they will develop what they called the “first-ever, comprehensive and up-to-date database” of satellite images that will show land-use changes around the world. Read more »
Apple made a lot of money from direct sales last year, so it isn’t surprising that it would expand its online store to China, a market with huge growth potential. Extending the App Store’s reach there isn’t shocking either. So what does Apple stand to gain? Read more »
Powerline communications — sending data over the same wiring and power lines that carry electricity — could be set to capture increasing market share from wireless in the smart grid space. Here’s why. Read more »
Tudou.com, the second-largest online video site in China, is making plans for an IPO on the Western markets, according to a report by Bloomberg. The offering, which Tudou CEO Gary Wang told Bloomberg was “inevitable,” comes as competition heats up in the Chinese online video market. Read more »
With China’s greentech-friendly government policies, the country’s super hot economy, and the need for resource management for the rapidly booming population, China is clearly becoming a greentech world leader. And the VCs at VantagePoint Venture Partners want a piece of it. Read more »
According to a survey released by Apple watcher Gene Munster at Piper Jaffray, the antenna issues cost the company a decent amount of business over the summer. But it wasn’t what hurt it the most in the U.S. That was the lack of a Verizon option. Read more »
Private Media Group CEO Berth Milton doesn’t think it’s worth fighting piracy. The porn veteran wants to instead give the content of his adult entertainment company away and use it as a free promotional tool to build a new business based on actual real-life sex. Read more »
Google’s problems aren’t just a result of its huge size — its global ambitions and the impact it has on so many aspects of our lives has given it a whole new class of problems. In many ways, the company might as well be a nation-state. Read more »
Reports of a Google blockage in China led to a storm of media coverage, but the reports turned out to be wrong. Does that mean the rush to report such events is misplaced? Not at all. Real-time news is a process, not a finished product. Read more »
Molycorp, a company that controls one of the largest deposits outside China of a group of metals used in many green technologies, is off to a rocky start on the public markets after raising $393.8 million in its IPO today. Read more »
We are inching toward half a billion broadband subscribers worldwide, thanks to booming demand for fast connections. Find out the top 10 service providers in the world. Which is the largest? The fastest? What are the top five US broadband service providers? Read more »
A visitor to China discovered that the Whispernet connectivity of her Kindle was able to download news publications otherwise impossible to get inside China due to the Great Firewall. China takes this censorship duty seriously, so it is surprising this hole exists. Read more »
The number of internet users in China rose by 9.4 in the first six months of the year, and is now at 420 million, according to China’s Internet Network Information Center. It’s a huge market, and one that’s getting faster speeds with government subsidized fiber deployments Read more »
In the second quarter of 2010, greentech startups scored record venture capital and increased spending despite a weak economy. Solar power retained its lead in greentech venture financing, while global investment for clean energy asset financing fell. China, meanwhile, underscored its rising might in the greentech industry, raising billions of dollars in green energy financing. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A group of 20 senators is urging the Department of Energy to open its loan guarantee program to projects meant to increase U.S. production of rare earth elements, a group of metals used in used in a variety of green technologies. Read more »
Today on the Net: About 300 million Chinese residents tune into video on the web, Adap.tv added multiple new publishers as customers of its ad platform and cable profits could be boosted by higher affiliate fees due to TV Everywhere services. Read more »
As if Google didn’t have enough on it plate already, this week saw the web giant fighting hard to keep its head above water on two unrelated fronts — privacy issues and China. Despite small victories on both fronts, neither battle is close to being over. ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
To make it easier for dissidents in countries such as China and North Korea to communicate without government sanctions, researchers have developed software that can hide information inside messages posted to Twitter, as well as in images that can be uploaded to sites such as Flickr. Read more »
If Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. is already an 800-pound gorilla in the solar panel industry, it’s now seeking a more than $5 billion credit line to become one heavy beast. Read more »
The Chinese government has renewed Google’s license to operate in that country after the search giant changed the way it handles visitors to the Chinese version of its website. But despite the renewal, the tension between Google and the Chinese government seems unlikely to disappear completely. Read more »
ZAP, the Santa Rosa, Calif.-based developer of low-speed electric vehicles, says it has closed a deal to buy a 51 percent stake in China’s Zhijiang Jonway Automobile Co. for $29.03 million in cash. Read more »
