cal

Green cement company to jump into building market

CalStar Cement says it will tackle one of the unrecognized sources of greenhouse gases: cement.

The company, which is still operating in stealth mode, hopes to later this year unveil its plans for bringing a high-quality cement to market that requires far less energy to manufacture than the conventional stuff, according to sources close to the company. Consuming less energy directly results in fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

And cement takes a lot of energy. Making cement involves a mixture of burning limestone and clay together at very high temperatures ranging from 1,400 to 1,600 degrees Celsius. Many factories … Read more

Press Releases We Never Finished Reading Dept., Fool Me Once Division

PROFNET EXPERTS ROUNDUP: California Wildfires Following is a list of experts who can discuss the California wildfires: 1. MICHAEL BROWN is former director of FEMA and spokesman for COTTON COMPANIES, one of the nation's leading providers of disaster recovery services... Cotton has responded to such high-alert disasters as Hurricane Katrina...

Heckuva job.

Twittering while California burns

Disasters are social: They affect large groups of people, all thrown together by circumstance or location. So when I was at a dinner with Laughing Squid founder Scott Beale two weeks ago and he said, "The next disaster will be Twittered," I thought he was spot on. What better use could there be for a social media site like Twitter than to support people with a dire need to connect to each other and share information?

So how's social media doing in the current disaster, the Southern California fires (aerial pictures)?

As Allen Stern reports in Center Networks, … Read more

Calgoo Calendar goes 2.0, gets face-lift

Calgoo, the Java-based app that syncs up your online and offline calendars (previous coverage here), launches its second version today, and has graduated from a closed beta to a public download. With the update comes support for iCal, Microsoft Outlook, and both tiers of Google Apps (free and premiere). It's also undergone a face-lift that makes it similar to Apple's iCal with a touch of Outlook.

Calgoo does require a small download, but what's nice is that you can create appointments and schedule your Google Calendar without going online. The next time you're able to connect, … Read more

GrandCentral rolls out handy widgets, voicemail sharing

GrandCentral, the cell phone enhancement service we covered last year, is adding really handy customizable instant call widgets to their service next week. The new widgets work a little bit like Jaxtr's widget we checked out in December. You can create customized voicemail widgets with personalized greetings for your callers. There are three different styles of widgets to choose from, and they can be placed on social networking profiles, blogs, or Web sites.

GrandCentral is also adding a way to share your voicemail with other people by letting you embed it like you would with their call widgets. There'… Read more