Green

Sun-Believable: a Solar Paint Advancement

December 27, 2011

A team of researchers at the University of Notre Dame has made a major advance toward this vision by creating an inexpensive "solar paint" that uses semiconducting nanoparticles to produce energy. The advance was made with nano-sized particles of titanium dioxide, which were coated with either cadmium sulfide or cadmium selenide. The particles were then suspended in a water-alcohol mixture to create a paste.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for researchers is to get the efficiency levels to be as great if not greater than typical solar cells which means around 10-15%. So far the paint is at 1% efficiency in the best-case scenario.

The paint has been deemed Sun-Believable by its creators because it can be made cheaply in large quantities.

Posted in Green, Technology

American Superconductor and the Case of Chinese Industrial Espionage

December 15, 2011

Last year I had a chance to sit down with Jason Fredette of American Superconductor about their state of the art technology which allows wind turbines to be more efficient. Moreover the company talked about its strong focus on superconductor wire which is a small fraction of the size of traditional copper wire. I was intrigued – I figured this is the sort of company that becomes the next major tech innovator… One that will do very well for investors.

Fast forward a year and a company trading at more than $30 per share a year ago is now trading at around $3.82 and just had another round of layoffs.

Turns out the company is in a major lawsuit with Chinese Sinovel – the country’s largest wind turbine manufacturer and once American Superconductor’s largest client. On a recent conference call this past November 9th, 2011 the company detailed its lawsuits, shared that they caught a past employee sending proprietary information to Sinovel and the fact that this employee is in a European jail for economic espionage and fraudulent misuse of data.

Company President and CEO Daniel McGahn said the company is seeking nearly $1.2B for contracted shipments and charges.

Posted in Green, Smart Grid, Technology

AAA Will Now Jump-Charge Your Electric Car

June 22, 2011

I ran out of gas once - and I swear the gas gauge said I had a quarter tank. But those days are over as gas is well - so last century. Well that's what I hear anyway. Turns out in order to get ready for a world where cars don't accept gas, you need to be able to charge them via a mobile truck. And that is where AAA comes in with their new mobile charging station. Check it out.

Posted in Green

Home Automation Could Be Next Tech Bright Spot

June 22, 2011

The future looks bring for home automation and energy management vendors

Hold onto your hat tech investors – we already have some hot sectors like consumer electronics, wireless, the cloud, VoIP, collaboration, healthcare automation and security to name a few. Now, home automation is looking like it could be the next big thing as evidenced by this great article by TMCnet’s Peter Bernstein who goes through seven reasons why we are at a home automation/energy management tipping point. What got him started down this path is the fact that iControl Networks just received a $50M cash infusion and has impressive investors and partners.

I don’t want to steal any of his thunder but my personal thoughts are we are getting to a point where disparate products need to start working better with one another. For example, I can watch Netflix on my TV directly via the Samsung widget or via Xbox – but each has a different interface and neither is really pleasant to use.

Posted in Consumer Electronics, Gadget, Green, Smart Grid, Technology

Facebook Opencompute.org Disrupts Data Center Market

April 8, 2011

And just like that, the vanity server gets decapitated

Google continues to suck the life out of profits in industry after industry for the benefit of consumers. For example, sure Garmin is worth $7B but it was once worth $25B! Why? In-part because you can now get free turn-by-turn GPS of excellent quality with your Android phone. In the cloud-based email space the company has given away capacity ahead of others like Yahoo, challenging them to increase the amount of storage they provide. The company was one of the firs to provide open APIs for mashups - like for Google maps.

But some areas where the company is not so open is where they consider themselves to have secret sauce which they keep more secure than crown jewels.

Posted in Facebook, Google, Green, Science, Smart Grid, Social Networking, Technology, Twitter

Meetings, Earnings Calls and E-Mail

February 23, 2011

Its been perhaps one of my most productive days - I eliminated 1,500 emails - about 800 of which were in the "important - save for later" bucket meaning they either got zapped or required some action. Generally the latter. I also had a chance to have a zillion meetings and listen to part of a media company conference call - I won't say which one but to me the amount of information a public company shares has always been fascinating from a competitive intelligence perspective.

One thing I found interesting on one of the recent calls I've sat on is how a media company touts an increase in social media sharing as if it is unique to them and isn't taking place across the web.

For the latest news check out the video below from Tammy Wolf in the TMC Newsroom which discusses the new BMW i series of products and Chinese social media company IPO Renren.com.

Posted in Facebook, Gadget, Google, Green, Technology

Skype, FCC and Google News

February 16, 2011

Rich wearing the TMC hat
(No, I couldn't find any St. Bernard pics)
Apologies for not blogging in some time - I've been wearing my running TMC hat as CEO which means meetings, strategy sessions, mission statement updates, etc. TMC is growing rapidly and it is an exciting time to be in media and TMC is fortunate to have some really great customers partnered in our success and loyal readers like you. I am always amazed - when you become a blogger you have so many ideas, you can't get them all out regardless of how much time you have.

Posted in 4G, AT&T, Apple, Avaya, Blackberry, Broadband, Communications Developer, Conference, Consumer Electronics, Google, Green, HD Voice, Microsoft, SIP, Skype, Social Networking, Technology, Twitter, Verizon, VoIP, Wireless

Electronic Warfare is the Future. Are You Ready?

February 14, 2011

Stuxnet is Victory at Entebbe 2.0

The Stuxnet worm alleged to be the work of Israel and the US was designed to target and disable Iranian centrifuges by increasing their speeds to dangerous levels while reporting to operators that all was well. The latest report from the New York Times shows this worm has also hit five industrial sites in the land of Ahmadinejad.

It’s no secret most of the world does not want Iran to get nuclear weapons and the best weapon being used to deter the country’s nuclear program was sanctions and if they are working it would be tough to know it as the country are prospering greatly as the price of oil is much higher than what Iran has budgeted.

So electronic warfare is a nice and neat way to disable a portion of the country’s operations without the need to go to war, risk lives, etc.

Because of the nature of this attack some predict the Iranian nuclear program has been set back by two years, making this attack historic in its ingenuity. It is really Victory at Entebbe 2.0. As you may recall, Operation Entebbe was a daring hostage rescue mission pulled off by the Israel Defense Forces in 1976.

Cyberattacks are not new by any means but the level of sophistication and damage created by this attack make it something bad guys everywhere will be trying to emulate.

Posted in 4G, AT&T, Apple, Blackberry, Broadband, CRM, Call Center, Cisco, Communications Developer, Consumer Electronics, E-Commerce, FCC, Facebook, Financial, Gadget, Google, Green, HD Voice, IP Communications, IPTV, M2M, Merger/Acquisition, Microsoft, Nortel, Open Source, Optical, Political, SIP, SaaS, Satellite, Science, Search, Security, Skype, Smart Ecosystem, Smart Grid, Social Networking, Technology, Twitter, Unified Communications, Verizon, Video, Virtual Worlds, VoIP, Vonage, WiMAX, Wireless, Yahoo

Meet With Polycom's Stefan Karapetkov at ITEXPO

January 28, 2011

Stefan Karapetkov is the Emerging Technologies Director at Polycom and I've known him as a voice and video expert since I met him at a VON event over ten years ago. I believe he worked at Siemens at the time. I noticed Stefan just posted a page on his Video Networker blog with regards to all of the speaking engagements he has at the show and collocated events. He is very knowledgeable and worth listening to.

Posted in Gadget, Green, HD Voice, IP Communications, ITEXPO, Technology, Video

Austin, Texas Selected For ITEXPO West 2011

January 27, 2011

I have some very exciting news to share regarding ITEXPO. I alluded to it a few weeks back and now it’s here. ITEXPO West 2011 will be moving to the Austin Convention Center in Austin Texas, on September 13-15, 2011. ITEXPO was launched in San Diego, CA at the Hotel Del Coronado and moved to Long Beach and eventually Los Angeles.

Posted in 4G, 4GWE, AT&T, Apple, Avaya, Blackberry, Broadband, CRM, Call Center, Cisco, Communications Developer, Conference, Conferencing, Consumer Electronics, E-Commerce, FCC, Facebook, Fax, Financial, Gadget, Google, Green, HD Voice, IP Communications, ITEXPO, M2M, Merger/Acquisition, Microsoft, Nortel, Open Source, SIP, Skype, Smart Ecosystem, Smart Grid, Social Networking, Speech Technologies, TMC Team, Technology, Twitter, Unified Communications, Verizon, Video, VoIP, Vonage, WiMAX, Wireless, Yahoo

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