The Maui Electric Company and General Electric are joining up to test a unique smart-grid technology on the Hawaiian island's electrical grid.

The Maui, Hawaii, project includes the usual smart-grid tech: developing a substation with battery storage capability to remove and store excess electricity generated from connected wind and solar energy sources. The electricity supply is then released from the substation to the main power grid when it's needed during peak usage times.

Many companies are interested in smart-grid energy technology. Google wants users to confront their home energy use appliance by appliance. IBM is jockeying to be a key supplier for smart-grid tech … Read more

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has joined Fusion-io, a start-up specializing in high-speed solid-state drives, the company said Thursday.

Wozniak will be Fusion-io's chief scientist and will also advise the company on technical strategy for product development.

"With the revolutionary technological advances being made by Fusion-io, the company is in the right place at the right time with the right technology and ready to direct the history of technology into the 21st century and beyond," Wozniak said in a statement. "The technology marketplace has not seen such capacity for innovation and radical transformation since the mainframe computer … Read more

The X Prize Foundation announced the winner of its "What's Your Crazy Green Idea?" competition on Thursday.

The first-place winners, which will receive $25,000, were University of California at Irvine students Kyle Good and Bryan Le on the Capacitor Challenge team, for their idea that someone should develop a more efficient energy storage device to replace batteries, for everything from iPods to cars.

Unlike other X Prize competitions, the winners of "What's Your Crazy Green Idea?" were not picked by a panel of educationally pedigreed judges to build an invention for which they … Read more

The U.S. Army has committed to renewing its partnership and providing another $50 million to Arizona State University's flexible-display research facility, the university announced on Thursday.

That brings the Army's total investment since the Flexible Display Center (FDC) started in 2004 to $100 million.

The announcement comes in conjunction with a two-day event in Tempe, Ariz., near ASU, in which the U.S. Army and Flexible Display Center plan to showcase their progress to the public.

So why is the military so keen on flexible displays?

It's all about information and communications...and possibly profit.

Flexible displays are paper-thin electronic screens that can be bent, mounted onto objects, and sewn into clothing. Soldiers could easily wear them on their sleeves or wrists, and use them to receive critical data in real time in the form of instructions, photos, or maps.

In addition, flexible displays can be made more durable than regular LCD screens, allowing them to get banged around in combat and still work. They also consume only a fraction of the power of LCDs.

That doesn't just make them good for the military; it also makes for cool tech products.

That commercial value is something the military, ASU, and its partners clearly have in mind.… Read more

There is some good news in the auto industry for car geeks this week.

The Porsche Museum at the company's headquarters in the Zuffenhausen district of Stuttgart, Germany, opened its doors to VIPs and the press today, with a full public opening planned for January 31.

The museum boasts exhibit space for 80 vehicles, with another 200 Porsche-related items of memorabilia on display.

Present at the opening was Stuttgart's mayor, Porsche's chairman of the board Wendelin Wiedeking, and members of the Porsche family.

"At this meeting point, we welcome our international customers as well as numerous … Read more

Sentilla, a company that makes energy management technology, announced Wednesday it's also getting into management for data centers.

The Redwood City, Calif.-based company makes a software and microsensor system for detecting and managing the environments and energy consumption of commercial and industrial facilities.

Sentilla's new product announcement on Wednesday expands their reach to include analyzing the energy consumption of computers, servers, and their accoutrements in data centers.

Simply named the Sentilla Energy Manager, the system uses Sentilla's sensors with microcomputers to measure the change in activity levels and electricity consumption of servers. The devices are basically … Read more

Toyota Motor plans to recall 1.4 million cars throughout the world for minor defects.

About 830,000 cars in Europe, North America, and other regions are being recalled, and another 536,000 in Japan. The defective models include the Yaris (called the Vitz in Japan), Belta, and Ractis models built between January 2005 and April 2008.

The recall concerns the tensioner on seat belts that may melt or catch fire in some collision situations. On some models, there's also concern that the exhaust pipe will crack under extreme heat.

An official safety recall with the National Highway Traffic … Read more

The Big 3 of Detroit aren't the only ones singing the praises of electric vehicles this week.

The U.S. Army on Monday announced an initiative to potentially replace up to 28,000 gas-powered vehicles at more than 155 Army installations with Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) in the coming years.

NEVs are not highway-legal electric vehicles, but rather light-use electric vehicles with a maximum speed of 25 mph. The Army intends to use them for nontactical things like on-base transportation for visitors, or maintenance personal and their equipment, according to Paul Bollinger, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for … Read more

General Motors has decided to manufacture its own battery packs for its new electric vehicle, the Chevy Volt.

"GM is getting back in the battery business," CEO Rick Wagoner announced Monday.

The company also announced Monday that it has chosen LG Chem to provide the lithium-ion cells for the battery packs GM plans to manufacture.

GM announced in September that it had chosen a battery supplier, but would not reveal which company that was. LG Chem and A123Systems have long been involved in the development of the lithium-ion cells for the Volt's E-Flex electric drive train. While … Read more