Winter Clothes

By briansrapier

Gray Hair

By briansrapier

Born Again

By briansrapier

Get the LED Out!

A research team at Boston University is developing a whole new way to use LEDs for more than just energy-efficient lighting. They’re creating Smart Lighting, which would enable wireless communication through visibile light.

Ditching radio frequency, the prototype from BU uses light instead to connect. Each light would essentially be a Wi-Fi hotspot with 1 to 10 megabits per second networking speeds. Data transmission would be done over existing electrical wiring.

“Imagine if your computer, iPhone, TV, radio and thermostat could all communicate with you when you walked in a room just by flipping the wall light switch and without the usual cluster of wires,” said BU Engineering Professor Thomas Little.

Imagine that.

Bikes Up!

While high oil prices and an economic recession are hitting carmakers hard, bicycle makers are selling more than ever. “Giant Manufacturing, the world’s largest bicycle-maker, sold a record 460,000 units last month and is heading for its best year ever.”

Demand is so high in certain places that there are even shortages. For example, it happened it New York City earlier this year, and in Taiwan, people pay deposits before the bikes are even off the assembly line.

Cycling to Work Just Got Less Taxing

Some of the hidden pork in the Bailout Bill have been written about for their silliness, like the Sec. 503. Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children, others are not very green, like the Sec. 317. Seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility , which costs a cool hundred mil to give a fast tax break to the motor sports industry. However there is one particular one that TreeHuggers should love: Sec. 211. Transportation fringe benefit to bicycle commuters

it allows for a “qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement” for “reasonable expenses incurred by the employee during such calendar year for the purchase of a bicycle and bicycle improvements, repair, and storage, if such bicycle is regularly used for travel between the employee’s residence and place of employment”- your bike expenses, up to 20 bucks a month, can be covered by your boss as a benefit tax free. Full copy below fold.

Literacy

By briansrapier

Power From On High

Known to most as the center of divine light, the Vatican will now benefit from the less than heavenly, but still celestial sunlight.

Sanctioned by Pope Benedict XVI himself, an array of 2,700 solar panels was installed on the roof of the Paul VI auditorium this Monday to offset some 200 tons of CO2 and provide enough energy to light, heat, and cool the 6,000 seat facility. BBC also reported that the new solar panels, donated to the Pope by a Bonn-based company Solar World, will feed electricity to the Vatican’s power network when the hall is not in use.

The Virtual Office

Cisco, a global networking giant, knows first-hand the importance of a flexible work schedule. The company employs about 60,000 people worldwide, and 20 percent of them — about 12,000 workers — spend at least part of their time working remotely.

So when the company today announced its Cisco Virtual Office, a “zero-touch” tool to plug workers at remote offices into corporate headquarters, it brings its own experience to bear on the problem and its solution.

8.4 Million Green Jobs By 2020

A just-released report from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) is projecting US$2.74 Trillion worth of “environmentally friendly” goods will be produced in the world each year – by the year 2020.

Note:print media reports have mistakenly reported the UNEP projection as US$ 2.7 Billion, which would be a ridiculously low number. Thankfully, this writer checked the original source before posting. More on that later.

Although no precision level estimates were found in the media coverage or press release from UNEP it sounds like UNEP has, to some extent, put a micrometer on a green fog bank with these estimates.