california

The state of California has purchased seven monitors to measure greenhouse gas concentrations in the air statewide, as part of an effort to get accurate data for reducing emissions.

Until now, the maker of the monitors, Picarro, has sold its gas analyzers to scientists and government agencies for research purposes. This sale is thought to be the first installation where in-field hardware devices will be used to verify estimates of greenhouse gas emissions.

"There's a big shift away from just scientific use for our technology to using it to meet regulatory requirements," said Picarro CEO Micheal Woelk … Read more

Updated 3:45 p.m. PST with note of the filing made by the Open Book Alliance.

Objections to the Google Books settlement are once again filling the mailbox of Judge Denny Chin, as another deadline in the saga looms.

It's the second go-round for objectors to the settlement, which would allow Google to partially display in-copyright but out-of-print books alongside books authorized by publishers and public domain works in Google Books. Google and the plaintiffs--the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers--came within weeks of getting their settlement approved by the U.S. Federal Court for the Southern … Read more

The California Department of Motor Vehicles department suffered a network outage on Thursday due to an equipment glitch, a state official said.

A router switch malfunctioned, said Bill Maile, spokesman for Office of Technology Services for the state of California.

"It's very rare," he said. "Our staff quickly diagnosed the problem and re-routed network traffic to restore connectivity."

The network was down for about two hours and was restored at about 1:40 p.m. PST, according to Maile.

There are 168 DMV offices throughout the state, said Jan Mendoza, spokeswoman for the DMV.

"… Read more

Fuel tech start-up Cobalt Biofuels launched a California plant on Tuesday that will produce biobutanol from forestry byproducts.

Biobutanol, butanol made from biomass as opposed to fossil fuels, already has approval for use in fuel blends for vehicles under U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines.

Cobalt and others have claimed that biobutanol has an advantage over ethanol, which has been known to have corrosion issues in some older fuel systems and pipelines and is conventionally used in fuel blends and in newer cars with ethanol-ready engines. Biobutanol can be used as a standalone fuel even in conventional gasoline car engines, … Read more

Here's a historic first you won't be seeing today: Coverage of a federal trial via YouTube.

The U.S. Supreme Court has put a halt, at least temporarily, to plans to let Google's video site stream coverage of the "Proposition 8" trial, which kicked off Monday in a San Francisco courtroom.

California voters approved Prop. 8, a ban on same-sex marriages, in last fall's elections, and the court is now being asked to overturn the law. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker was going to allow the trial to be covered, on a tape-delayed … Read more

Among the budget cuts California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed to health care, prison, environment, and other parts of the state budget, there's one area that has a good chance of actually getting a budget increase: open source in IT.

According to a policy letter (PDF) issued last week by California CIO Teri Takai, "the use of Open Source Software (OSS) in California state government [has now been formally established] as an acceptable practice."

It's about time.

California faces a $20 billion budget deficit, a gaping void that open-source software, no matter how aggressively used by … Read more

I know I've been giving a lot of lip service to Ferrari lately on this blog, but it's hard to argue that it's not been informative and fun. I promise to move on to other subjects this week, but I have one more Prancing Horse I'd like to take a closer look at.

Some critics and consumers have suggested that the introduction of the new Ferrari sports supercar, the 458 Italia, came about partly because certain Ferrari snobs were put off by the 2009 Ferrari California's more streamlined and practical features and design. It does … Read more

Monday's video blog featured Venezuelan-born race car driver Milka Duno making her first attempt at stock car testing for the Automobile Racing Club of America at Daytona International Speedway a little over a week ago, a foray that turned out to be pretty successful. But it seems it's hard to write about or discuss Duno without IndyCar superstar Danica Patrick being referenced or mentioned in some form or another. Well, sure enough the TV commercial sexpot and would-be NASCAR-bound Patrick was also getting in on the stock car fun at the ARCA's Daytona event December 18 through … Read more

California will be the "lead market" for the Chevy Volt when the electrically driven car is available at the end of next year, General Motors said Wednesday.

California was chosen because the state has the largest U.S. car market, and Californians are "known to be leaders in adopting groundbreaking new technologies," GM's vice president of global Chevrolet brand, Brent Deware, said in a statement pegged to this week's Los Angeles International Auto Show.

Production of the Volt is scheduled to start in late 2010. GM has not announced pricing for the 2011 model, … Read more