power

Cool Earth Solar is banking on solar power priced more like a bicycle than a Mercedes.

The Livermore, Calif.-based company, which is still officially in stealth mode, has raised $750,000 in capital with a goal of raising a total of $950,000 to build a prototype, according to founder Eric Cummings. Announcements of board members and executives will be coming in June, he said.

Cummings has taken a radically inexpensive approach to solar power generation, taking into account land use issues as well.

His product design calls for hoisting several connected plastic balloons, referred to as "inflatable … Read more

SAN MATEO, Calif.--I'm standing on the race track at the Power Tool Drag Races here at Maker Faire, and while I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get killed, I'm not certain.

That's largely because I'm surrounded by little racing machines adorned with what look like very, very sharp saw blades. I assume they will stay on the track as planned, but you never know.

A few years ago, I went to these races when they used to hold them in San Francisco and gasped along with several hundred other racing fans when … Read more

Although Power Downloader spends a considerable amount of time in the field chasing down bad guys, part of his job is not quite so glamorous. For all the time traveling around the globe, he still ends up putting more time into research on the Web, hoping he'll find the leads he needs to capture sneaky criminals. To make the job of Web research a little less tedious, Power listens to his favorite music.

To help him stay focused on the research at hand while listening to music, Power Downloader uses FoxyTunes. With this Firefox extension installed, Power can switch … Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--If you can't get the sun to the solar cell, bring the cell to the sun.

That's one of the ideas behind SolBeam, a company that pitched to investors at the Clean Energy Venture Summit here on Tuesday.

The company, which is looking to raise $10 million, is trying to exploit the technique of concentrating sunlight to increase the electricity output of photovoltaic (PV) material. But it wants to break with traditional practices to lower power generation costs, said Daniel Colbert, the CEO of SolBeam who is also a venture capitalist at NGEN Partners.

Many large-scale concentrators … Read more

Some Gmail users (including me, but not Josh, nyah nyah) have a new option in their in-box: PowerPoint files that are sent to them can now be viewed "as slide show." When you click on this link, you're given a full-window, Flash-based slide show of the file, with forward and back buttons at the top of the screen and a slide selector drop-down menu.

Right-clicking gives you options to play the slide show automatically, adjust the speed of the autoplay, and download the original file.

This is probably the presentation player that will be part of Google'… Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--When most people think of solar energy they think of panels on people's homes. But if you follow the money, investors are betting that large-scale solar from companies like Ausra are the most cost-competitive.

Ausra, which presented at the Clean Energy Venture Summit here on Tuesday, is testing a system to generate power at centralized stations. These solar parks use concentrating solar power to create steam that turns a turbine to make electricity.

If constructed on a large enough scale,these solar thermal plants are already cost-effective when compared with fossil-fuel power generation, according to advocates of the … Read more

Sandwiched between similar 7-megapixel siblings--the PowerShot SD800 IS on one side and the PowerShot SD1000 on the other--the Canon PowerShot SD750 nevertheless manages to distinguish itself as a well-designed, practical option for snapshooters who favor big LCDs over optical viewfinders.

If you're the rebating kind, there are some impressive rebates associated with this offer, including two on printers and one on poster-sized prints from Shutterfly. Check out the seller's site for details.

What: Canon PowerShot SD750 How much: $259.95 Shipping: Free, varies Where: Amazon.com (via FatWallet.com) When: Through unknown date Click here for product review.… Read more

When I was a kid, my family put a life-size plastic owl near our house to keep birds and squirrels away from the porch. (At least, I think that's why they had a life-size plastic owl near our house.) Unfortunately, I don't think it worked all that well, because last I heard, the cat had mauled it and thrown it into the hedge. I suppose it really wasn't that scary.

Consequently, the next time I'm desperate to scare away animals, small children, or the IRS, I'm going to get one of these instead. Because this … Read more

update 5/8/07: Here's a lesson for all of us: Don't try to blog at 1am after doing a 7-hour shift of cat adoptions.

Okay, maybe that's just a lesson for me.

It turns out I made a couple of mistakes in this blog entry. At least my errors were pointed out by polite readers, not the ones who feel compelled to verbally abuse you for the occasional slipup. You know who you are.

In any case, I've updated the text to reflect islandgirl45CV's comments, as well as an email from a reader about … Read more