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FreelanceCamp PRO Coming to San Francisco

Simon Mackie — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:00:22 +0000

FreelanceCamp PRO, a BarCamp-style “unconference” for freelancers, will be hosting its next event on June 5 in San Francisco. It will consist of a series of participatory workshops, with all the content provided by the attendees themselves.

In true BarCamp style, the actual schedule will be determined by attendees on the day of the event, but if the list of suggested topics is any indication, FreelanceCamp PRO should be of interest to regular WWD readers. Suggested topics include:

Transitioning from freelance to agency
Balancing products with services
Running 100 percent remotely
Coworking
The art of subcontracting
Advanced toolkits: PM systems, finance and communication
Beyond the basic services
Long-term clients

FreelanceCamp PRO is aimed at experienced freelancers who have been in business for a year or more. Tickets to the day-long event cost $50 (plus a $2.24 fee). It’s suggested that attendees bring laptops (Wi-Fi will be provided), their own coffee mugs, lots of business cards and “a head full of ideas.”

Still not sure if BarCamp-style events are for you? To get an idea of why FreelanceCamp PRO might be useful (and fun!), check out this post from Pamela about her experiences of a similar event in Paris.

Running a similar event? Tell everyone about it in the comments.

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Enabling the Web Work Revolution

Daily Sprout

Josie Garthwaite — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:48 +0000

Cap and Trade’s Biggest Losers: A new report by energy consultants Wood Mackenzie finds “cap-and-trade legislation will cost U.S. refiners about $100 billion a year by 2015 and put them at a competitive disadvantage to refiners in Europe.” — WSJ’s Environemental Capital

Bright Automotive Bags $1.4M Army Demo Deal: Anderson, Ind.-based Bright Automotive said today the U.S. Army plans to test the startup’s plug-in hybrid vehicle tech in non-combat situations as part of a $1.4 million demonstration project.

New World for Cleantech: “The race to cash in on the environmental technology wave just got a little more crowded on Monday with the founding of the New World Capital Group, a private equity firm focused on investing in companies in the nascent ‘green tech’ sector.” — NYT’s DealBook

Public Financing as Stimulus for Private Investment: A new report out today from the United Nations’ Environment Program suggests several public finance mechanisms to “help stimulate private investment in climate change solutions in developing countries.” — Reuters

What to Expect this Week from the Senate: The Senate is digging into debates over the climate bill this week. Here’s what to expect — WSJ.

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Daily Sprout

Josie Garthwaite — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:49:53 +0000

“Carousel Fraud” Strikes Carbon Markets: Carbon credit fraudsters are increasingly “setting up complicated import and export schemes between EU member countries, charging buyers for value-added tax in the country of destination, and then absconding with the tax rather than handing it over to the governments.” — FT Energy Source

Low-Budget Fusion Power: “General Fusion, a startup in Vancouver, Canada, says it can build a prototype fusion power plant within the next decade and do it for less than a billion dollars. So far, it has raised $13.5 million.” — MIT’s Technology Review

Colorado Utility Considers Extra Fees for Solar Users: Colorado utility Xcel Energy has is toying with the idea of charging a fee to all customers who install solar systems after April 2010, supposedly in order to pay for transmission lines. — Denver Post via Fast Company

Carbon Capture Needs a Decade on the Dole: Carbon capture and storage technology will require government subsidies for at least a decade before it becomes economically viable, according to a researcher at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. — Bloomberg

Military Power: Army bases like Ft. Irwin in California, poised to snatch away from Nellis Air Force Base the title of the Pentagon’s biggest solar array, offer two big advantages to clean-energy developers: Lots of secure land and stable demand for electricity. — WSJ’s Environmental Capital

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Ascent Solar to Help Power Unmanned Aircraft

Jennifer Kho — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:02:15 +0000

Ascent Solar Technologies‘ thin-film solar panels may soon be flying the not-so-friendly skies as Bye Aerospace, a startup developing jets with better fuel efficiency and lower emissions than today’s commercial and military models, said Tuesday it plans to incorporate Ascent’s panels into its first design, an unmanned hybrid aircraft called the Silent Sentinel. The companies didn’t disclose the size of the deal, but Ascent last month said it would supply Bye with panels from its current 1.5-megawatt line, indicating the contract calls for less than 1.5 megawatts’ worth of panels per year.

Aside from the solar panels, the aircraft also will include an engine and battery pack. The panels, combined with other unnamed technologies, will enhance the Silent Sentinel’s flight-time capability, lower its emissions and help it keep silent, the companies said. The aircraft is mainly targeted at military applications, including border patrol, search and rescue, reconnaissance and air control, but also could find its way into civilian applications like traffic control, pipeline and power-line inspection, law enforcement, forest-fire detection and aerial photography.

The aerospace deal is a bit of a back-to-the-future move for Thornton, Colo.-based Ascent, which was founded in 2005 by ITN Energy Systems, a group working to bring aerospace technologies into other commercial markets, including energy. But the company has been involved in aerospace since at least 2007, when the Air Force selected it to develop a dual-layered solar cell that could convert sunlight into electricity with 20 percent efficiency.

Ascent is developing a flexible panel made of copper-indium-gallium-diselenide material deposited on plastic film (see a video simulation of its process here). In August, the company said it had reached panel efficiencies of 6-7.5 percent — using single-layer cells — in trial production. While it had completed construction of a 1.5 MW production line in December of 2007 and began trials in March of 2008, Ascent planned to wait until it could consistently produce panels of 7-8 percent efficiency before ramping up.

Two months ago, the company announced it had begun full production on the 1.5-megawatt line, which suggests that it’s reached its average-efficiency target. (In December, Ascent had bragged that its best panels topped more than 9.5 percent efficiency, but didn’t release its average efficiency levels.)

Also in March, Ascent Solar began tooling its second factory, with an expected capacity of 30 megawatts. It expects to begin production there in the first quarter of next year.

Aerospace isn’t Ascent’s only target market, of course. The company is also targeting buildings. In September, the company said its panels would be integrated into products by Texsa, a Spanish roofing firm. (It also plans to supply panels from its 1.5-megawatt line for this deal, at least initially.) And in November, the company said it would develop building-integrated solar products with TurtleEnergy, a solar integrator in Linden, N.J.

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Daily Sprout

Josie Garthwaite — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:59:54 +0000

Oh Lutz: Reducing fuel consumption by mandating more fuel-efficient cars “is like attacking obesity by ordering everybody to wear size small clothing,” and other gems from former Chevy Volt frontman Bob Lutz on David Letterman last night. — Jalopnik

Smart Grid for China: China’s power distribution monopoly State Grid Corp. has set a goal of building a smart grid by 2020, the company’s general manager Liu Zhenya said today. — Dow Jones Newswires

Green Military Tech: The U.S. Navy says it has saved more than $79 million this year on ship fuel costs, and reduced its overall energy consumption by 12 percent in 2008 with wind, solar, geothermal and ocean thermal energy conversion projects at military bases, mostly in California. — Environmental Leader

Ag Readies for a Fight: The House Agriculture Committee could create some of the most formidable opposition to the compromise version of the climate and energy bill now working its way through Congress. Committee members want more offsets for farmers and changes in renewable fuel standards. — ClimateWire via NYT

GM Engine Progress?: General Motors is working on a new internal combustion engine for use in upcoming hybrids and plug-in hybrid vehicles that it says approaches the efficiency of diesel engines. — CNET’s Car Tech

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MIT Spawn Levant Power Takes Prize for MPG-Boosting Shocks

Josie Garthwaite — Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:37 +0000

Updated with additional information from MIT: The MIT students behind startup Levant Power have already won over some tough crowds, drawing interest in their energy-harvesting hydraulics from the U.S. military and several U.S. truck makers. Today the Levant team won the nod of the university from whence it came, beating out 39 teams to take home the $10,000 MIT Clean Energy award for transportation and earn a slot in tomorrow’s competition for a $100,000 entrepreneurship prize. Update: Winning the transportation award in the MIT contest also qualified Levant as a finalist for the grand prize of $200,000 in a sister contest hosted at the school but open to colleges across the country.

When we wrote about Levant earlier this year, the startup was testing out its GenShock shock absorbers — which harvest kinetic energy when a vehicle hits a bump — on a Humvee lent to them by military supplier and off-road vehicle maker AM General. They were talking about a nationwide commercial rollout sometime after 2010 — ambitious even for six guys from MIT.

According to Levant CEO Shakeel Avadhany, quoted in an announcement about the prize today from MIT, the bootstrapped company has built multiple prototypes, secured one purchase order, and lined up a pilot test with a major retailer in the last year and a half. At this point, the team says the technology bumps up fuel efficiency by 2 percent to 10 percent (depending on the vehicle and application), saving large fleet operators such as Wal-Mart upwards of $13 million per year at the pump.

As for the military applications, Levant is hardly alone in eying the Defense Department’s massive budget in a time when other big spenders have closed their wallets. Energy storage company Ener1 said in a call with shareholders earlier this year that while the “personal transportation sector, as everybody knows, is financially stressed,” the military has “huge untapped potential” for lithium-ion battery technology. Lead-acid battery startup Firefly Energy spun out of Caterpillar to develop technology for the military, as well as the commercial sector, and just raised a $15 million round of venture capital financing last week.

So far, the territory of kinetic energy-harvesting shock absorbers for heavy-duty off-road vehicles remains relatively uncharted. But that doesn’t make Levant a sure bet. It simply hasn’t had time to gather data about how the GenShock system functions long term, which automakers, thinking about warranty costs, and the military, worried about performance in combat zones, will want to have before committing to big supply deals.

Tomorrow, Levant’s technology and business plan will go up against plans from four other student teams for the $200,000 grand prize, which could help the team make strides towards its commercialization goal, even if 2010 remains out of reach for a large-scale launch. The other competitors, who each won $10,000 to $40,000 in the finalist round, include green building materials group Husk Insulation, oil-spill cleanup developer Process Water Absorbers, solid-state lighting startup Troy Research Corp., and low-cost solar tracking team SunPoint. Whoever emerges as the winner will be in good company. According to MIT, the school’s $100,000 competition has helped launch more than 85 companies and create more than 2,500 jobs.

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Daily Sprout

Josie Garthwaite — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:58:03 +0000

Pentagon Picks Up Alternative Fuels Projects: The Defense Department, the largest consumer of energy in the U.S., spent some $18 billion on energy last year. Now it’s prioritizing development of alternative fuels and energy saving technologies in an effort to reduce the number of convoys put at risk delivering fuel. — Washington Post

Dangerous Emissions: The U.S. EPA had planned to announce this week that it has found CO2 emissions pose a danger to the public, a step that could lead to tighter limits for vehicle, factory and power plant emissions. But a fight between environmentalists and automakers is complicating the rollout. — Wall Street Journal

Battery Consortium Eyes Kentucky: The National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Batteries has selected Glendale, Ky. for the site of its first plant. Depending on funding allocated under the stimulus package, the group may invest up to $600 million in the project. — Kansas City Business Journal

Coulomb Breaks It Down: Coulomb Technologies CEO Richard Lowenthal talks about strategy, costs, 2010 profitability and rival Better Place in a new interview. — Business Insider’s Green Sheet

Jag Gets a Plug: — Now that the European Union has agreed to provide loans for new green technology, Jaguar plans to launch an extended-range electric version of its XJ luxury four-door by 2011. Autocar

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Daily Sprout

Josie Garthwaite — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 00:00:39 +0000

Brits Go Ahead With Green Auto Bailout: Jaguar Land Rover and Nissan’s British factory have won hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to develop cleaner vehicle technology. The money comes from the European Investment Bank in the first round of money for UK-based carmakers. — Times Online

No DOE Loans for GM, Chrysler: Next month, the Department of Energy plans to start doling out $25 billion in loans to help automakers and suppliers start making more fuel-efficient cars. General Motors and Chrysler are out of the running, for now, since companies must be deemed “financially viable” to qualify. — Washington Post

Hydrogen Powered Drone Ready for Test Flight: This spring, the U.S. Navy plans to launch a zero-emission unmanned aerial vehicle for a 24-hour endurance flight carrying a five-pound payload and powered entirely by a hydrogen-powered fuel cell. — CNET

Coal, Nuclear to Figure Large in Future Energy Mix: Four decades from now, the electric system have a lot more renewable energy than it does today, according to a new study from the Electric Power Research Institute, but coal and nuclear will together still supply two-thirds of the energy. — NYT’s Green Inc.

Baby Steps at Bonn: International climate talks in Bonn, Germany over the last 10 days have delivered few tangible results, but attendees report some positive momentum on deforestation, developing countries taking on more responsibilities and a softened stance from China on carbon markets. — ClimateWire via NYT

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Rhodes 1.0 for Developers: Write App Once for Multiple Platforms

James Kendrick — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:20:37 +0000

We’ve wondered if the explosion of smartphone app stores has created a dilemma for developers. It’s easy to imagine that with limited resources, app developers are going to make a choice as to which platform will make them the most money and then go solely with that one for their baby. It can’t be an easy choice to make, so a new product announced today may go a long way to helping in this area.

Rhodes 1.0 by Rhomobile is an open-source, Ruby-based tool that lets developers write their app once and then have native versions for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android , Windows Mobile and Symbian. What a big deal this should be, especially for those small development firms that are resource-strapped. According to Rhomobile apps are written in HTML and fully native versions, not web apps, are produced for all of the platforms noted. Press release after the jump.

Rhomobile Launches Rhodes Open Source Smartphone Application Development Framework

Rhodes Slashes Mobile App Development Effort by 80 Percent

New Framework Allows Developers to Simultaneously Create Native Applications for All Smartphones

CUPERTINO, Calif. – March 24, 2009 – Rhomobile today announced the release of Rhodes 1.0, the industry’s first open source framework for rapidly building mobile applications for all major smartphone operating systems. Rhodes allows developers to write a smartphone application once using simple HTML and it automatically builds native applications for all smartphones including iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and now Android.

The Rhodes framework is now available at http://www.rhomobile.com/download

“As a web and mobile app developer, I was attracted to the idea of leveraging our web development skills to build natively running applications on the iPhone, Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Mobile and now Android platforms,” said Michael Morris, CEO of Carry The Day (developers of two Rhodes-based mobile apps). “Another big plus of the Rhodes framework is its availability via public open source repositories, unlike all other ‘enterprise mobility’ solutions.”

By enabling developers to code smartphone applications in HTML instead of in diverse and complex native device operating system languages, Rhodes reduces development costs by up to five times and eliminates the need to develop specific applications for each mobile OS. Rhodes’ unique framework allows for creation of robust mobile applications that can take full advantage of smartphone capabilities such as GPS, PIM data and camera. Rhodes is ideal for mobile applications that require interaction with hosted enterprise application (SaaS) backends like CRM and ERP and allows the user to work offline with synchronized local data.

“By using HTML, Rhodes breaks down the barrier between an inspired idea and a full blown mobile application that works on all the top smartphones,” said Adam Blum, CEO of Rhomobile. “Whether you are an enterprise developer who wants to tap into the power of today’s smartphones for the mobile workforce or an entrepreneur who wants to build software for app stores, our Rhodes framework provides unparalleled ease-of-use and efficiency, allowing developers to build powerful mobile applications with about ten percent of the code used in apps today.”

Rhodes Features:
- Makes developers five times more productive for even a single smartphone OS
- Allows developers to write apps in HTML and simultaneously build for all smartphones
- Supports iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android
- Features the world’s first Ruby implementations for all of those smartphones
- Full access to device capabilities: GPS, PIM contacts, camera
- Allows users to work with synced local data for rapid access and ease of operation when disconnected or offline
- Available as open source realtime on public repositories

Rhodes is available under unique and flexible pricing options suitable for a range of smartphone application efforts providing low cost options for the enterprise to enable their mobile workforce and encouraging entrepreneurial innovation. Rhomobile offers dual licensing under GPLv3 for open source apps and commercial licensing options for enterprises and ISVs.

Availability
The Rhodes framework is now available at http://www.rhomobile.com/download

About Rhomobile
Rhomobile Inc., a privately held venture-backed company, provides Rhodes, the industry’s first open source mobile framework. For more information on Rhomobile visit www.rhomobile.com

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Coffee Break- VAIO P Chillin’ at the BUX

James Kendrick — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:55:48 +0000

I am having a great time sitting outside the local Starbucks using the Sony VAIO P computer. I am amazed at how well I can touch-type on this little thing which is a tribute to Sony for making this as small as possible without being too small. The high-res screen is usable quite easily in Firefox after zooming in with the CTRL-+ keys. One of the first things I did in Vista was change the window properties to use a bigger font in menus and enlarged the close box. That is really the only adjustment I’ve had to make so far. I will report more on the VAIO P as time progresses.

My most favorite things about the VAIO P so far (size aside):

Middle mouse button that provides smooth scrolling with the nubbin trackstick
Two programmable launcher buttons (bottom of photo above)
Dead silent operation
Fast SSD
Drop-dead gorgeous screen (even outside in shade)

Least favorite things so far:

Right shift key is too small (keep hitting the Up Arrow key)
Slower than my MacBook (faster than most netbooks)
Vista (needs Windows 7)
Battery life (2.5 hours with standard battery, estimated only)

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