Thin-film solar startup Konarka today opened its new manufacturing plant in New Bedford, Mass., which will have a production capacity of 1 gigawatt per year. The 250,000-square-foot plant was previously an advanced printing facility for Polaroid, so Konarka has retrofitted much of the old printing equipment […] Read more »
Japanese consumer electronics maker and solar giant Sharp plans to boost its thin film manufacturing capacity six fold. The company is still working on reaching its goal of 1 gigawatt of production capacity by 2010 but Toshishige Hamano, a vice president in Sharp’s solar-battery division, told […] Read more »
The future of the solar power industry may be bright, but solar also has a dark side — some thin-film photovoltaic solar cells contain hazardous substances like Cadmium that can pose a health risk if the solar panel is simply thrown out after it’s done soaking up the sun. Read more »
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In the past couple weeks there’s been news of hundreds of millions pumped into thin-film solar startups, with both Nanosolar and AVA Solar announcing massive rounds. Well, it’s not over yet, folks. This morning Venture Wire says that thin film solar player SoloPower has raised a […] Read more »
Is Austin-based thin-film solar startup HelioVolt getting close to producing its solar material made of Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS)? Sounds like it — the company just sent out invites for a “ribbon-cutting ceremony” for its factory on the morning of Friday, Oct. 24, followed by […] Read more »
The idea behind Optony, a year-old startup that is working on combining thin film solar cells with a solar concentrating system, is to merge two of the solar industry’s low-cost options to produce solar power prices that rival grid parity. At least that’s the theory — […] Read more »
Less than a month after Green Energy Technologies signed a deal for a thin-film solar module production line from Applied Materials, the company says it has already received requests for four times its expected capacity next year, Bloomberg reports. The solar silicon-wafer maker, a subsidiary of […] Read more »
The intersection of the semiconductor and solar industries has yielded yet another investment — this time it’s from Intel’s VC arm Intel Capital, which is investing $12.5 million into Voltaix, a manufacturer of chemicals and gases used in both chip and solar cell fabrication. This is […] Read more »
Thin-film darling First Solar said it will build a 10 megawatt solar photovoltaic power plant for power company Sempra Generation, a subsidiary of California utility Sempra Energy [SRE]. Sempra Generation said the solar plant will be built on 80 acres next to a 480 megawatt combined […] Read more »
About a month ago, we mentioned the danger in taking your iPod, iPhone, or Mac across the northern border into Canada. Now there is a ground swell led by Michael Geist, a lawyer, blogger, columnist, and professor at the University of Ottowa opposing Bill C-61: Canadian […] Read more »
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Funding thin-film solar isn’t just a popular idea among VCs; public funds have been financing research for years. Xunlight is the latest, announcing yesterday that it has received $4.9 million from the Ohio Research Commercialization Program. When we heard from the Toledo, Ohio-based Xunlight last April, […] Read more »
Innovalight, a thin-film solar startup developing photovoltaic silicon ink, has received $5 million in equipment lease financing from ATEL Ventures. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based startup has a 30,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Sunnyvale, Calif., and this financing could help the company move into production. (Rumors put a […] Read more »
Thin-film solar technology, or thin layers of photovoltaics that can be printed onto flexible surfaces, will make up 28 percent of the solar market by 2012, says a report out this morning from Lux Research. Thin-film solar technology, which is being developed with materials like amorphous […] Read more »
IBM, with years of experience designing chips and LCD displays, is jumping into the solar sector — but not just silicon-based solar. Big Blue has announced a new joint effort with chip gear maker Tokyo Ohka Kogyo to develop thin-film solar panels based on CIGS (Copper-Indium-Gallium-Selenide) […] Read more »
We were a bit surprised when GE announced last September it was acquiring a minority interest in a thin-film solar company called PrimeStar Solar. Well, it looks like GE was more than pleased with that investing move because yesterday afternoon GE Energy (a division of GE) […] Read more »
FTL Solar, which is building products embedded with thin-film solar cells, said today that it’s closed $1 million of what it hopes will be a $50 million first round of funding (hat tip, peHub). The funding was led by Terra Firma Capital Group and included investments […] Read more »
Past WWD contributor Leo Babauta has teamed up with LifeDev’s Glen Stansberry to launch Web Warrior Tools, a new ebook publishing house. Their plan is to present “ridiculously useful, powerful tools to change your life” at a reasonable price: $6 to $9 for offerings ranging from […] Read more »
As I continue to see the benefits of moving more of my work and organizational tools online, it gets harder to see my friends and family continue to use their traditional desktop counterparts. I could go on and on about the productivity gains I think they […] Read more »
Holy Toledo, Ohio-based solar startup! Xunlight, a thin-film silicon-based solar company spun out of the University of Toledo has just announced that it has raised $22 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Trident Capital, and Emerald Technology Ventures and NGP Energy Technology […] Read more »
In a recent post on the company blog, Nanosolar CEO Martin Roscheisen hinted at “near-term” plans for residential solar from the thin-film startup (hat tip to CNET): To all those of you who are disappointed that our first product is not for residential homeowners, we can […] Read more »
Growth in venture capital investing in the U.S. will continue, according to the latest figures. But venture firms are battening down the hatches to prepare for a rough 2008. Read more »
As web workers, we depend on a variety of tools: mobile phones, computers, PDAs, even (depending on how you look at it) coffee shops. But one set of tools stands out as being both important and difficult to select: the software we use, whether as web […] Read more »
There are a lot of sites that offer the ability to manage some part of your working life on the web – we’ve reviewed plenty of them in the past. Todoz is one that stands out from the pack as offering a different mix of features […] Read more »
One of the benefits of being someone who gets to use a lot of different mobile devices is the conversations these devices start with those interested everywhere I go. Whether I am in a coffee shop or a business meeting pulling out one of my mobile […] Read more »
I keep getting my head filled with additional thoughts and impressions of the P1620 as I continue to use it heavily and I intend to share them from time to time, like now. I had forgotten how perfect the P1620 form is for reading ebooks with […] Read more »
Ratings powerhouse Nielsen is looking to extend its tracking services into online video. According to AdAge, Nielsen’s strategy is to measure video across all platforms, whether it be TV, online, mobile phone or other personal media player. To accomplish this, Nielsen wants to install metering devices […] Read more »
Regardless of what you believe about the current state of IP networks’ ability to handle online video, delivering video and voice over IP networks is a far less forgiving experience than routing data packets for email or documents. Brief glitches and network congestion don’t result in […] Read more »
Windows on a 3 inch touchscreen. WinCE for $108 that is. Read more »
Running the presentation Read more »
I am now settled in at the CES in Vegas and have everything I need: Read more »
This Digital Inspiration tip on DocSyncer couldn’t come at a better time for me personally. I’ve been writing all of my non-jkOTR freelance work within both Word and Google Docs to see if the web-based service is good enough for my needs. Already I’ve had one […] Read more »
I had the pleasure of attending the Winnie Awards down in L.A. this past weekend. The show, created by Irina Slutsky of Geek Entertainment TV, celebrated vlogging, and in true DIY fashion guests brought their own trophies and made their own awards. The Winnies were a […] Read more »
Long time readers know that I thrive on music throughout the day and that my favorite free music service is Pandora. Rather than streaming tunes through my web browser, I like to use a standalone client for Pandora that we’ve previously covered: PandoraMan. It works great […] Read more »
NBCU Signs Up for TiVo’s Ratings Service; the peacock to get second-by-second viewer research and will implement interactive ad tags. (The Wall Street Journal) Userplane Hooks Up with TV Companies; The CW, FUEL TV and IFC to implement the AOL subsidiary’s webchat and web-based IM services. […] Read more »
This so called “iPhone killer” is probably going to kill itself. The Good Based on the LG Viewty’s microsite alone, the most touted feature is clearly the 5 megapixel camera on its back. It has flash, a manual focus, and an image stabilizer as well. On […] Read more »
Fliqz, a company we criticized earlier this year for its me-too offering and terrible design, has emerged into a respectable player in the video services space. After taking $2.5 million in funding from Mohr Davidow, the Emeryville, Calif.-based company dropped its personal and blogging video tools […] Read more »
The folks over at the Participatory Culture Foundation are gearing up for the 1.0 release of their Miro video player, formerly known as Democracy, and you can practically hear them sharpening their knives. The Getmiro.com web site is now featuring a comparison of Miro and Joost, […] Read more »
Billing itself as “MTV meets QVC,” Honeyshed made its debut in a soft launch last week. The idea behind the site is to create branded entertainment so transparent about the fact that it’s selling something that as a viewer, you don’t even care. As of now, […] Read more »
Thanks to this week’s sponsors for keeping the hamsters fed and the wheels turning: CDW CoreCases Crucial Etymotic OWC PowerMax Qdea ResQ Systems SmallDog Read more »
According to ThinkSecret, Leopard is still on track for its delayed release estimate of October. This gives Apple a matter of a few weeks to declare a Gold Master, produce a significant number of copies and get them to retail stores. It’s a time crunch for […] Read more »
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