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GE unit invests in biofuels producer

GE subsidiary GE Energy Financial Services and North Bridge Venture Partners will invest $8 million in a company developing a biofuel production process coupled with the production of biochar.

Cool Planet Biofuels converts cellulosic byproducts like plant waste and woodchips into biofuel that can be used in vehicles.

The company's byproduct from the process is biochar, or manmade coal as some call it, which just like conventional charcoal can be burned for fuel. It's something the company says qualifies its biofuel process as being carbon neutral.

The biochar can also be buried in the ground serving as both … Read more

The 404 708: Where we want DrCoolsex to give us a full-body physical (podcast)

Dustin Drury of the comedy group DrCoolSEx joins the show today to talk about their latest viral video about one of our favorite childhood shows, "Doug," on Nickelodeon. Joining us as well is Scott Stein and Angela Inferrera. Where is Justin? A couple of a printer reviews needed to take priority...

You may only remember Doug, if you're in your mid-20s, but it was certainly a childhood favorite of ours. If not, YouTube it! While you're at it, check out DrCoolSex's parody trailer of a grown-up Doug. You might remember them from the viral movie trailer about Mario Kart.

DrCoolSex videos seem to be out of the ordinary on YouTube these days. Especially given the recent news that every single minute, users upload 35 hours of video! The Internet certainly allows users to take away the power from publishers, but to be frank, a lot of it seems to be crap.

We get to one voice mail about show segments. If you haven't noticed, we're not exactly the most reliable people on pretty much anything. But we are trying! Maybe if someone wants to be an intern? Finally, we get to a story about Facebook possibly offering e-mail to all of its users on Monday. Most of us agree that Gmail works great for us, but I'm thinking that every tween out there is pretty much going to think I'm lame if I don't use Facebook e-mail.

Episode 708 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Comic-Con fandemonium!

CBS recently crossed into a new fan frontier with its first-ever booth and extensive presence at Comic-Con. For the uninitiated, Comic-Con is a wildly popular comic-book convention that's been drawing huge crowds for decades. In recent years, the four-day consumer event in San Diego has broadened its offering to also include horror, sci-fi, movies, television, and online entertainment.

People from everywhere flock to see the coolest comics and costumes, to sample movie and TV previews, to snag exclusive giveaways, and to get a glimpse of their favorite stars. Attendees are passionate entertainment lovers in the truest sense: they spend … Read more

Bits and Bytes: New G5 cooler disassembly guide; 10.6.4 Server update v1.1

The PowerMac G5 was the first system developed by Apple that came with a liquid cooling mechanism for the models with higher-clocked dual PowerPC chips. In most systems, this cooling system worked well. To this day, my system has not shown any problems; however, some systems had an issue where coolant leaked, causing corrosion and shorting out mainboard components.… Read more

Cool-er e-reader put on ice?

Maybe you remember the Cool-er e-reader, which came in a variety of colors and got some good publicity when it launched last year. Well, it appears that Interead, the UK-based company behind the Cool-er is in the process of being liquidated, and that probably means the end of the line for the poorly named e-reader that sought to make "reading cool."

The site TeleRead reports that a Dutch site got word that someone seeking customer support from the company didn't get any and e-mailed the executives at Interead only to get a reply that the company was … Read more

IBM liquid-cooled supercomputer heats building

An IBM supercomputer is doubling as a space heater via a technique that reduces energy use by 40 percent and dramatically lowers the overall carbon footprint.

Based at Swiss university ETH Zurich and dubbed Aquasar, the liquid-cooled supercomputer went live on Thursday and started analyzing fluid dynamics while simultaneously providing heat for the building. In a typical data center, about half of the energy is used for cooling.

Researchers at IBM and ETH Zurich will monitor the system, which consists of two IBM BladeCenter servers in one rack, able to compute six teraflops. They will be gathering data on energy … Read more

Greenpeace lauds Cisco on climate, chides Google

Despite Google's lobbying on clean-energy policy and investments in renewable energy, it was Cisco and Ericsson who received Greenpeace's top marks in its ranking of computing vendors' activity on climate change.

The environmental watchdog group released its annual Cool IT Leaderboard on Thursday, which judges large IT and consumer electronics companies on a range of criteria related to climate change, including efforts to lower their environmental footprints and commercial efforts in energy and efficiency.

This year, Greenpeace placed Cisco at the top of the list because of its move into building energy management and the smart grid, technologies … Read more

Suction feet for your iPad

On its Web site, BlueLounge has a quote from Albert Einstein that says, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but simpler." Well, when it comes to accessories, the company's Cool Feet ($12.95) product, which was initially designed to raise a laptop just enough to "allow a constant cooling airflow," is about as simple as you can get, and now the company is marketing it toward iPad owners.

We're not sure how much sense this makes for an iPad, but we can see how the feet, which have integrated suction cups for … Read more