The feds finalized the new fuel efficiency standard for passenger cars and trucks in a bid to reduce oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Here’s what you need to know about it. Read more »
Changes in the power market are rippling through the Internet industry, altering both the location of data centers and their sources of power. There are many factors in picking a data center location beyond the geographic location, such as how to procure energy and green-energy models. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
San Diego-based EcoATM wants to make for electronic recycling convenient and even rewarding (with cash!), and the idea has enabled it to raise a B round of about $17 million to expand its reach nationwide. Read more »
This quarter the EV market struggled to find its footing. Meanwhile, the smart-grid sector solidified and low-power technology proved itself important in the data center. Read more to learn what these news pieces and others mean for the larger space over the next few months. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
If you spend a lot of time writing in the margins of reports or filling out endless forms, there’s something you should know: You should be using a tablet for all of these things. Here are four iPad apps to get you on your way. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Federal regulators on Wednesday released a proposed rule for hiking the fuel economy for cars to be sold from 2017 to 2025, and it’s full of incentives for encouraging automakers to use battery-powered and other alternative-fuel technologies. Read more »
Smartphones are increasingly becoming the remote controls of our lives. Car owners can use theirs to check on the battery level and driving range and adjust the climate control system. An MIT project explores new ways to use smartphones to help drivers cut fuel costs. Read more »
Do-gooder developers are the new superstars of the programming world, and Uncle Sam wants in on the innovation action. I chatted with the EPA team recently to hear about what’s behind their app-contest plan. Read more »
Biofuel companies may not get as much venture capital investments, but they sure are attracting a good number of investors in the public markets. Renewable Energy Group is turning to the public market route and on Monday said it will go public to raise up to $100 million. Read more »
Turning wastewater – from cities or food processing plants – into electricity has always attracted investors fancy. Now an investor consortium of GE, NRG Energy and ConocoPhillips is making its first bet on an Israeli technology developer via its new fund called Energy Technology Ventures, the companies said Tuesday. Read more »
Making energy from poop can be a good profit-making and social enterprise. That’s the aim of a research project at Columbia University, where a professor is getting a $1.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a waste-to-energy technology. Read more »
Facebook’s unveiling of its energy-efficient data center in Oregon is being widely hailed as ground-breaking. But to me, Facebook’s touting of one specific efficiency metric shows just how a single snapshot of an energy-efficient data center can sometimes be misleading. Read more »
Solaria corralled political dignitaries such as California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom to show off a new headquarters and adjacent demonstration array of its solar panels in Fremont Friday. The occasion marks a milestone for a company that took a while to engineer a product that could attract customers. Read more »
Here’s the bad news from next-gen biofuel producer Range Fuels: The company has let some workers go. But the good news the company wants you to know is that Range Fuels is still planning to produce enough cellulosic ethanol to meet a government estimate for 2011. Read more »
Biofuels took a step away from the limelight in 2010, replaced by the buzz surrounding electric vehicles. But there were still a variety of policy decisions, and economic milestones that made the sector interesting in 2010. Here’s the year in review for biofuels. Read more »
Cello Energy, the beleaguered infamous biofuel company that’s been hit with fraud allegations, has finally dropped off of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) list of potential cellulosic ethanol suppliers for 2011. I seriously can’t believe the company was on the list for so long. Read more »
God and global warming: A coalition of religious groups is lobbying against a federal bill that would delay an Environmental Protection Agency program to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. What would Jesus do? Read more »
The Obama administration has just unveiled a proposal to require some of the biggest vehicles on the road — including school buses, fire engines, big rigs, large pickup trucks and vans — to slash fuel consumption and emissions by 10-20 percent between 2014 and 2018. Read more »
The federal government unveiled its proposal for the most significant overhaul of cars’ fuel economy labels in 30 years. The EPA and Department of Transportation have put together two options for window stickers in new vehicles starting with 2012 model year. Read more »
Sonic Solutions added a new feature to its RoxioNow digital video platform, allowing companies like Blockbuster and Best Buy to deliver videos to mobile devices. By teaming up with Widevine, RoxioNow will now be able to deliver videos to iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry devices. Read more »
A move to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, led by Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, failed Thursday afternoon. After hours of debate, the Senate rejected the resolution with a final tally of 47-53. Read more »
The Senate has up to seven hours on Thursday to debate a resolutionmeant to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Read more »
The EPA has just opened up its Energy Star program to data centers, using an efficiency rating system years in the works that’s based on the Power Usage Effectiveness, or PUE, metric. Read more »
Cloud encoding service provider Zencoder wants to support VP8 as soon as absolutely possible, and the company is excited about Google’s plans to open source the video codec at this week’s Google i/O developer conference in San Francisco. However, don’t count H.264 out just yet. Read more »
It was time for a replacement, but the adventure I took to get there has been a wild one. You see, for the first time in my life, not only did I consider a Mac as a viable option, but I’ve made the switch. Read more »
The Obama administration has just finalized the country’s first ever national regulation to curb greenhouse gas emissions and raise the bar on efficiency for new cars and trucks. The move could pushes automakers to incorporate more green technology into their lineups. Read more »
Just nine metropolitan areas in the U.S. at the end of 2009 could boast the presence of more than 100 commercial and industrial buildings earning the Energy Star label for energy efficiency, according to the just-released list of the EPA’s top 25 cities for Energy Star […] Read more »
A feature of e-book readers is the ability to take notes in books. Consumers who like to scribble notes in the margins of books can do so in the electronic versions. This brings to mind a question — who owns the notes you “write” in e-books? Read more »
I have encountered executives who were balls of fire mid-morning, but turned into stone by 4 p.m.; I’ve coached creative types who rocked the house in the early a.m. but were slackers at lunchtime; and I’ve seen consultants whose best work got done after dinner. Read more »
I clearly remember the moment I knew I would never buy another physical CD and would buy all my music online. Since then, I’ve been waiting for the moment when I would know that I could buy all my movies online. In November, Apple announced that […] Read more »
