Once again, the seizures came with fancy code names — “Project Monday 3″ and “Project Transatlantic” — and were touted by various federal agencies, including the Justice Department and ICE. This year’s event had a continental flavor thanks to the seizure of 31 European domain names, including those ending in .eu, .be, .dk, .fr, .ro and .uk.

The seizure of 132 sites are part of a twice-yearly ritual that the government conducts on Cyber Monday and shortly before the Super Bowl. The idea is to stand up for intellectual property owners and to protect consumers from buying bogus goods.

The law enforcement actions are by and large justified. After all, trademark law forbids selling fake Tiffany jewelry or Nike shoes on the street or in a store. Should the rules be different online?

But while the enforcement goals may be legitimate, some of the government’s tactics are questionable at best. Why, for instance, is this vested under the Department of Homeland Security? Isn’t this agency supposed to be finding Al Qaeda members rather than patrolling the internet for fake Tom Brady jerseys?

Likewise, the government’s authority to grab the domain names may rest on shaky legal ground. As we’ve reported before, the feds are relying on seizure laws intended to confiscate the property of drug dealers — and in some cases are using the seized sites to play copyright propaganda without any apparent legal right to do so.

The feds’ announcement did not identify which websites they seized but the information will come out in coming days.

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ICE seized the domains in late January as part of its operation “In Our Sites,” which has targeted dozens of sites selling counterfeit products as well as a torrent search engine and a number of sites specializing in video streams.

Puerto80 has successfully defended its site in Spanish courts in the past, and is now arguing that its offering is legal. “United States courts would likely reach the same conclusion if and when the government ever decided to bring a cause of action against Puerto 80 alleging copyright infringement,” the company’s petition (PDF), filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, states.

The legality of a site like Rojadirecta in the U.S. is certainly debatable. Foreign courts have in the past ruled torrent sites and P2P services to be legal, while similar offerings haven’t had much luck in U.S. courts. However, the real issue here seems to be that domain seizures completely sidestep the legal process of determining these legal issues.

That’s why Puerto80’s lawsuit is already getting a thumbs-up from the EFF: “We’re very glad that Rojadirecta is fighting back so that this and other domain name seizures can receive more careful judicial consideration,” the organization writes on its blog, adding that it is prepared to get involved as well: “We’ll be following the case closely and expect to weigh in as amicus as well.”

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Chief executive Levi Tillemann-Dick, who currently makes up half of the Washington D.C.-based startup’s full-time staff (one of his 10 siblings, president and chief technology officer Corban Tillemann-Dick, is the other half) told me he sees the nascent markets for hybrids, plug-in hybrids and extended-range electric vehicles as a key opportunity for the company.

“These vehicles are often used as platforms for new technologies,” Tillemann-Dick explained, and a very small, efficient and power-dense engine like the one IRIS is developing could help increase the range and overall efficiency of a car like the Chevy Volt (currently, General Motors says the model’s gas-powered  ”range extender” affords up to 300 miles beyond the 40 miles of all-electric range).

Secret Sauce:
The key element of the IRIS engine design (the brainchild of the IRIS executives’ father, Timber Dick, who died in 2008) is a system of valves and vents that allows the combustion chamber to expand in diameter, rather than length. IRIS claims this expanding diameter means 70 percent of the surface area of the engine chamber can “react productively” to combustion, which is to say, by moving.

In a conventional engine, the company claims only about a quarter of the chamber’s surface area is productive — the rest is passive. You can think of it as reacting wastefully, by heating. (Another startup, Clean Tech Open finalist Alphabet Energy is tackling waste-heat recovery for automotive and other applications).

Growing Competition:
IRIS, previously known as Tendix Development, represents just one of a growing number of ventures chasing after tech for a more efficient internal combustion engine. Khosla Ventures-backed EcoMotors, for example, is working on a two-stroke diesel engine, and sports car maker Lotus unveiled a 1.2-liter range extender engine-and-generator set at last fall’s Frankfurt Auto Show.

Tillemann-Dick contrasted IRIS’s “somewhat radical design” with what he calls “Lazarus projects — things that have died for some reason, and now one engineer or a group of engineers think they can make it work this time.” IRIS anticipates plenty of competition, however, from advanced vehicle technologies. For example, “If someone came up with an absolutely terrific battery,” Tillemann-Dick said, “that could be a competitor.”

Dash for Cash:
Many hurdles lie ahead for IRIS at this early stage. Tillemann-Dick said IRIS has “prototyped some of the subsystems,” but it still needs to spend “a significant amount of time and money integrating them.” To fund further development over the next two years or so, he said IRIS aims to raise some $14 million in investment over the next six months.

Upon completing development (in collaboration with engine development and testing firm AVL), Tillemann-Dick said IRIS expects to spend about six months to a year working on licensing agreements with original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs. So in an optimistic scenario, the startup’s first revenue wouldn’t come in until around 2013 or later.

If the design pans out (some questions remain unanswered about how to minimize friction at higher temperatures and cycling speeds) and delivers the efficiency IRIS believes is possible, Tillemann-Dick said, “Everybody from Ford to Honda to BMW will sit up and take notice.”

The Track Record:
Big talk from a small startup? Well, yeah. But IRIS has hit the ground running, with awards in several business plan and technology competitions (the total comes to more than $100,000, from sponsors including venture firm DFJ Mercury, Dow Chemical, ConocoPhillips and NASA). In addition to its contest winnings, IRIS has worked out a deal with the law firm Perkins Coie, which Tillemann-Dick said “has put in a substantial amount of work — hundreds of thousands of dollars worth — on the contingency that we will pay them back when we get funded.”

For their advisers, the Tillemann-Dick brothers have won over (among others) former Daimler-Chrysler executive Eric Ridenour, and Daniel Yergin, the founder and chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates who chaired the Department of Energy’s Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development.

Road Ahead:
These votes of confidence may help open doors for the company, but even if the technology works as IRIS expects, it could take a lot of convincing for an OEM to make the investment to test out and ultimately adopt the startup’s tech. “It’s the same infrastructure, fuel and techniques,” Tillemann-Dick said, but, “integrating a new powertrain always requires a substantial amount of work.”

Making that bet on an unproven startup wouldn’t be an obvious decision for most automakers. As Tillemann-Dick noted, the industry has traditionally avoided “switching horses until they’re absolutely forced to.”

These days, he sees that pattern changing. But IRIS plans to cover its bases. It’s in talks with some undisclosed companies now about deals outside of the licensing model. And Tillemann-Dick said IRIS will likely pursue other applications such as generators, unmanned aerial military vehicles and racing, where players are “more willing to take risks on cutting edge technology.”

Graphics courtesy of IRIS Engines

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I ended up tweeting about my audio predicament, and was immediately offered ways on how to fix the problems. Sadly, none of them helped with the audio but they did help restore the system performance. However, since then a lot of people have described a whole myriad of problems associated with this OS upgrade — some have mentioned display problems, others are complaining of slow speeds and many are like me: their computers are without sound. Apple’s support discussion forums are chock full of complaints (though on the flip side, the OS X 10.5.7 does boost the battery life of netbooks.)

If you are a Mac owner, I would say don’t upgrade to the latest OS version…at least not ’til the problems are solved. I am off to the Genius Bar to see if they can fix the sound.

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The future of the project, slated for the Thames Estuary off the coast of London, fell into question after Shell pulled out of it last year. Masdar stepped in to help fill the void, only to raise concern again in January when it said it was revisiting the economics of the project.

Falling UK power prices, the weakening British pound and rising credit costs have threatened those economics, according to Reuters. But investors decided to go ahead with their plans after the British government said it would raise support for offshore wind farms in its 2009 budget.

The London Array represents a crucial step toward meeting the UK’s goal of building 30-35 gigawatts of wind capacity, with about 20 gigawatts of that coming from offshore wind, by 2050. That would make up 40-47 percent of the country’s electricity-generating capacity today, although it will be a smaller percentage if energy consumption grows.

If the UK succeeds, the country’s energy mix will definitely be greener. But all that wind will also bring its own set of challenges, as wind power is intermittent — the wind doesn’t blow steadily, or necessarily when energy is most needed.

Just ask Denmark. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, wind power accounted for 23.8 percent of Denmark’s electricity-generating capacity in 2007, with 3.1 gigawatts of installed wind capacity, which translated into 19.7 percent of the country’s electricity generation. But according to a 2005 paper by ICE Civil Engineering, the country exports most of its wind electricity to neighboring countries that can balance out the fluctuating amounts of wind power they receive with hydropower.

Michael Liebreich, CEO of research firm New Energy Finance, said the country discovered one of the consequences of so much wind on a particularly windy day, when it ended up with higher-than-normal frequency on its electrical lines. But he said it’s essential for a region to reach substantial amounts of renewable energy and to figure out how to overcome the issues that arise. Dealing with these challenges now will help spark the smart grid advances that other countries will need to reach their renewable energy goals as well.

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