The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — that $787 billion behemoth of a bill that was signed into law in February and was meant to stimulate the U.S. economy — so far seems to have had a beneficial but lackluster impact on the home energy retrofit […] Read more »
When software is designed well, it can radically improve the way an industry works. That’s the vision behind ongoing efforts at Autodesk to upgrade its building performance modeling software — to make energy retrofits of buildings cheaper and easier. The San Rafael, Calif.-based firm believes the […] Read more »
We’ve followed the travails of Nina Paley, whose beautiful, animated film, Sita Sings the Blues, was hamstrung by sticky copyright restrictions (more here). But Paley persevered and during a recent talk at the Workbook Project’s DIY DAYS in Philadelphia, she did what so many other web […] Read more »
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Justin.tv began rolling out beefed up anti-piracy protections this week, as the live-streaming site looks to play nice with copyright owners and build a business that isn’t a lawsuit magnet. The company told us via email today that it has enlisted help from Vobile to filter […] Read more »
The miles-per-gallon metric has gone a long way toward marketing the Prius and other fuel-efficient cars, and some are hoping a new, more detailed energy label than is currently available could do the same for buildings. That’s the idea behind a program set to be unveiled […] Read more »
If group purchasing of solar systems reduces costs, the same should be true for home energy retrofits. We’ve learned that two San Francisco-based startups, building retrofit firm Sustainable Spaces and community organizer 1 Block Off the Grid, have launched a pilot program in the San Francisco […] Read more »
A section spanning just 29 pages of the 1,428-page Waxman-Markey climate bill could have an outsized impact on energy use in the United States as it would require ambitious reductions in the energy use of new homes and commercial structures through a nationwide building energy code. […] Read more »
Disney CEO Bob Iger told a tech conference crowd yesterday that his company is interested in putting up more content online, but it won’t be free, and it might require a subscription. From MediaWeek: “The notion of going online at some point as a subscribe-to, robust […] Read more »
Paying for rooftop solar systems, water conservation measures and energy-saving upgrades like weatherization to homes and commercial buildings in San Francisco should become easier if a new proposal to finance such projects with extra property tax passes the Board of Supervisors. The financing program, which was […] Read more »
General Electric’s Net Zero Energy Home project unveiled this week highlights the rising branding power of “net zero” buildings. The laudable goal of making buildings produce as much energy as they consume is easy for consumers to understand and easy for companies to use as a […] Read more »
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Notebook stands are a dime a dozen, and they come in all shapes and sizes. It’s unusual, however, when one appears that can be used in many different configurations while sporting high-quality aluminum construction. A new stand from a Brazilian inventor is definitely well constructed and […] Read more »
Information technology isn’t just aiding the green building sector in terms of energy management tools — it also can play a role in designing certified green structures. Brattleboro, Vt.-based BuildingGreen, a green building publisher and products cataloger, on Wednesday launched an online software package meant to […] Read more »
The Department of Energy just opened up $346 million in stimulus funds for boosting the energy efficiency of new and existing buildings — but ultimately the agency’s chief, Steven Chu, wants energy efficiency, and other elements of green building, to be incorporated into structure designs from […] Read more »
Starting next week, all construction projects seeking certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, must use a new version of the green building standard. One of the biggest changes to LEED with the new version has to do with energy reporting — […] Read more »
Monitoring a building’s energy use yields valuable data, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to lower electricity bills. For that, you need to manage power use and adopt less power-hungry systems. With that in mind, Optimum Energy has developed technology that automatically optimizes a building’s major sources […] Read more »
The construction industry is about as conservative as they come, but green building materials startup Hycrete has got building contractors giddy about its technology, a chemical that makes concrete waterproof. To take advantage of growing demand, the Carlstadt, N.J.-based startup, which raised $15 million in a […] Read more »
Our pals over at Geek are peeking at a netbook that I haven’t had a chance to play with yet. After my initial jealousy wore off, I read through their hands-on review and I’m wishing I had finagled a review unit out of Samsung. They’re checking out […] Read more »
Cement and lumber will never be as sexy as an electric sports car, but there are still plenty of business opportunities in developing innovative materials for the growing green building market. A report published this week by NextGen Research estimates the global green building materials market […] Read more »
Back when explorers were setting out from Spain, England and Portugal with instructions to find God, gold and glory, maps were a strategic asset. Even today, the in-depth mapping and visual information provided by Google Maps and Street View is a source of concern to the Pentagon […] Read more »
Score one for Michigan. The University of Michigan students behind Husk Insulation — an early stage startup developing high-grade insulation for refrigerators from agricultural waste — beat out more than 100 teams from 40 colleges nationwide to win the grand prize of $200,000 in this year’s […] Read more »
“Over the top” video services carry the implication of going behind the backs of existing television operators. But two of the (admittedly smaller) players in IPTV and web-delivered video on demand are teaming up to give us a glance of what a united future could look […] Read more »
EPA Ethanol Rule on the Way: The U.S. EPA is slated to release a draft of the updated Renewable Fuels Standard this week that will set the course for how emissions from biofuels production and use are measured — and test the Obama administration’s approach to […] Read more »
Energy use in buildings could be cut by as much as 60 percent by mid-century, but doing so would take more than just adopting energy-saving technologies. That’s according to the findings of a four-year study looking at residential and commercial building sectors around the world and […] Read more »
Starting next week, the meaning of “green building,” at least in a technical sense, will change depending on where you live. On Monday, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) will launch the third version of its LEED rating system for green buildings, and […] Read more »
By 2020, every one of the thousands of homes built in California each year should be generating its own energy, according to state Assemblywoman Lori Saldana. New homes built after that date would be required to draw zero net energy from the power grid — feeding […] Read more »
Is your IMAP Gmail moving slower on your handset than a clogged drain? GearDiary offers a simple and common sense tweak to keep the mail moving much faster: sync only the labels or folders that you really need on your phone. Now that’s a compromise that […] Read more »
Struggling to maintain relevancy in the shadows of web-giant brethren like Amazon and Google, Yahoo has expanded its cloud computing research initiative. Initially available only to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, Yahoo’s 4,000-core, 1.5-petabytes-of-storage M45 cluster is now available to their counterparts at the University of […] Read more »
It’s not every day you find $4.4 million lying around at the Empire State Building. But that’s how much former President Bill Clinton and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg today said they expect the Empire State Building Co. to find in annual energy savings after the […] Read more »
Green building is growing, but researching and evaluating the numerous green-building products available — and calculating which ones can help buildings rack up the most points toward earning coveted LEED certification — can cost the construction industry hundreds of hours per project, says Green Wizard CEO […] Read more »
Updated: SAGE Electrochromics said today that it has raised $20 million in a third round of funding for its smart window tinting technology. The new cash comes from Good Energies, Applied Ventures — the venture capital arm of Applied Materials — and Bekaert. That money will […] Read more »
Microsoft will be going live with their press event at the Mobile World Congress in just a little while. We will be attending the streaming live event to hopefully hear what Microsoft plans to do with Windows Mobile and the Sky services this year. You can […] Read more »
What is it about time travel that makes it such a fun plot device? Is it the way in which it opens up the entirety of time and space for storytelling possibilities? Or is it the fact that while you can use it to tell incredibly […] Read more »
Looks like energy efficient retrofits of public housing is becoming the green cause of the year — it’s cheap, fights climate change and cuts the energy bills of those who need them. This week the UK government launched a new competition, Retrofit for the Future, that’s […] Read more »
It’ll take more than just money to cut energy use and carbon dioxide emissions in the Canadian commercial building sector, according to a new report, which says significant policy changes are needed as well. But with those changes, the country’s commercial building sector could help Canada […] Read more »
Office buildings account for 17 percent of CO2 emissions in the U.S., or about 1-billion tons per year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Thanks to an agreement between property manager Cushman & Wakefield and the EPA, some of those emissions could get cut over […] Read more »
Finland’s Kone, which makes elevators and escalators, announced a new line of elevators yesterday that will use LEDs and regenerative braking to cut power use, targeting a 50 percent reduction in its elevators’ energy use by 2010. The first of the new elevators, due out next […] Read more »
Foundation Capital will open the doors to its new green offices, decked out with technology from its cleantech portfolio companies, next Monday. The firm is pursuing LEED certification. Read more »
Green building materials startup Serious Materials officially announced the availability of its eco-windows, ThermaProof, on Tuesday, which it says can save significant energy in buildings and reduce heating and cooling costs by 40 percent. Serious Materials says its windows are so energy efficient that they can […] Read more »
Slide has taken $50 million from Fidelity and T-Rowe Price, according to Brad Stone at the New York Times, exchanging a 9-percent stake of the company at a valuation of $500 million. Kara Swisher of BoomTown had first reported inklings of the news this morning. Read more »
MMOs, while all the rage, aren’t always exactly the most profitable of ventures. Many more MMOs have failed than have made it, and that’s just the way that it goes. There is, however, a gray area that kind of exists between success and failure that absolutely […] Read more »
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