The fourth quarter in cleantech saw attention paid to two prominent, publicly traded companies: EV maker Tesla and newly minted public listing SolarCity. It remains a transitional period for the sector as investment declines, with a shift toward those companies able to scale with little additional capital. Read more »
“Operators treat partners like vendors.” That quote comes form Google director of global android partnerships John Lagerling, who said it at a Dublin conference where it was captured by Light Reading. It’s a telling statement — one that sums up a big problem facing the wireless industry. Read more »
Looking for a basic Android battery optimizer, trash cleaner and a very informative security function that monitors third-party application permissions? Check out Cosmos, a free app that officially launches next week but is available now in a stable beta for Android 2.2 and up. Read more »
Big data now touches everything from enterprises to smart-meter startups, while Hadoop is fast becoming the leading tool to analyze that data, and debates around privacy abound. GigaOM Pro analysts offer insights on what to consider when it comes to big data decisions for your business. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The smart thermostat is grabbing the attention of the tech community because of the Honeywell-Nest lawsuit filed last week. We asked GigaOM readers for their views on what will likely be a nasty legal tussle between the two companies. Here are the results. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Connectivity changes everything. That’s the credo driving just about every corner of our day-to-day lives. As human beings, we are now connected to one another through not just our social networks but also our cars, the books we read, the albums we download and even our own health and wellness habits (to name just a few areas). With that in mind, GigaOM Pro has singled out certain areas in the technology industry where we see this shift to constant connectivity taking place most drastically. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Electric vehicles are a big worry for many utilities. After several interesting conversations with Europeans responsible for electric vehicle pilots in places like Denmark, Germany and Portugal, here are six frequent fears that I learned about that turn out to be false. Read more »
Utilities will spend $3.2 billion this year in telecommunications services, but only a third is related to smart meters. A growing proportion will pay for mobile broadband for workers as part of a wider shift to thinking mobile broadband access is essential for productivity. Read more »
The network of the smart grid is taking its sweet time to get deployed, but we still need smart applications to run over these networks once they are fully installed. Here are five smart-grid startups to watch via the Cleantech Open. Read more »
Google has officially pulled the plug on its web energy management tool PowerMeter. The project, which Google launched two years ago, just “didn’t catch on the way we would have hoped,” said Google. Read more »
While Bloom Energy scored a preliminary massive deal to sell fuel cells to Delaware utility Delmarva Power (subject to terms and regulatory approval), utilities in general are not all that interested in fuel cell technology, according to the latest report from consultants with Black & Veatch. Read more »
How do we get consumers to use less energy and to use it smarter? State and local governments might be able to incentivize smart grid rollouts, but to ensure adoption, utilities will need to educate consumers and giving them the right tools, such as peak pricing. Read more »
Because of the catalyst of the stimulus funds, many of the 4G smart grid networks that Alcatel Lucent is helping utility customers build right now are based on WiMAX. Go figure. Read more »
No one actively cheers for climate change, air pollution, and extreme weather events, which are all caused, in part, by generating energy from fossil fuels. But no one really wants to another key piece of the solution: the invoice. Read more »
For most YouTubers, the almighty viewcount reigns supreme — if your video doesn’t break five figures, it doesn’t matter how good it is. It’s an interesting yet at times exhausting attitude — which is possibly why the 0Views blog is so refreshing an experience. Read more »
One annoyance that I’ve found in dealing with multiple windows in OS X is how each application seems to view the green plus button a little differently. Divvy is an app that provides a user-defined solution to that oversight, and does it in style. Read more »
Finding a useful application or utility for your Mac is a bit like searching for a needle in a haystack. It’s a lot of work to find them (at least good ones) but when you do find one, it’s a great thing. Read more »
A pilot project for testing plug-in hybrids and smart charging tech that Toyota and EDF have been developing for years is finally ready for a large-scale demo. Starting this month about 100 plug-in versions of Toyota’s Prius will be leased in the area. Read more »
The Renault-Nissan Alliance has just recruited two more players to its team in the race to dominate the global electric vehicle market. This morning the duo announced plans to collaborate with Italy’s largest electricity producer, Enel, and Spanish utility giant Endesa. 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 »
Once a tool employed mainly by hardcore users, GeekTool seemed to begin exploding across OS X desktops in 2009. But despite its widening usage, many still are unfamiliar with this fantastic utility (you’ve probably seen it, and not even realized) or just don’t know how to […] Read more »
Microsoft‘s Xbox 360 game console already has a huge install base, a wide variety of content and engaged users. And now, according to an article in the New York Times, Microsoft is in talks with Disney to bring some live video content from ESPN to the […] Read more »
It looks like utilities are poised to drive the U.S. solar market in coming years, based on a new report from Emerging Energy Research that predicts utilities will add 21.5 GW of photovoltaic capacity by 2020, up from only 77 MW of utility-driven PV projects in […] Read more »
PC performance optimization apps normally make me nervous, because they can mess with the registry and end up removing something I actually need. But my Windows desktop computer has been driving me insane recently, especially with its sluggish startup, so I decided to give TuneUp Utilities […] Read more »
As utilities start to build large solar projects and solar power makes up an increasingly larger portion of the electricity mix, integrating this energy into the grid will be a challenge. Solar, like wind, is intermittent — power from the sun fluctuates when clouds pass overhead […] Read more »
