Think Outside the Bottle

"Bottled water corporations are changing the very way people think about water. Corporations like Coke, Nestlé and Pepsi are manufacturing demand for an essential resource that flows directly from our taps. What's more many bottled water brands actually come from the same source as public tap water though these brands are sold back to the public at thousands of times the cost.

Plastic bottles also require massive amounts of fossil fuels to manufacture and transport. Billions of these bottles wind up in landfills every year."

OK. I'm no longer an enviro-nut hippie (really Dave?). But this is a cause I might try to learn more about. It just drives me nuts to see the waste that lurks behind bottled water. What do you think? Before you ask, I have no interest in a petition, a march, or anything of the sort. I just might re-think my use of water in bottles. It is convenient, but at a cost.

Ultra-Capacitors

Ultracapacitors – also called supercapacitors – are more powerful cousins of the basic capacitor. With activated carbon at their core to act as a sponge for electrons, ultracapacitors can absorb power – or send a charge – far faster than batteries. They are also far more durable.

While big Detroit automakers ponder a future plug-in car that goes 40 miles on a battery charge before its gas engine kicks in, Ian Clifford's tiny ZENN Motor, a Toronto maker of low-speed electric cars, announced in March that it will build a new highway-speed (80 m.p.h.) model that goes 250 miles on a charge – and can recharge in just five minutes using these super capacitors. Cool.

Immigration Discussion

Here is an interesting discussion of our current immigration crisis. The speaker uses simple math to illustrate his points about the future of immigration in the US.

Wave of the future

Here is another wave of the future technology. Sony is working on a process to stream real time tv through a cellular connection to the hand held PSP. Now you might ask why I would want to watch tv on such a little device? Simple. Complete portability.

http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/50562993/

VHS, 30, dies of loneliness

After a long illness, the groundbreaking home-entertainment format VHS has died of natural causes in the United States. The format was 30 years old.

No services are planned.

The format had been expected to survive until January, but high-def formats and next-generation vidgame consoles hastened its final decline.

"It's pretty much over," concurred Buena Vista Home Entertainment general manager North America Lori MacPherson on Tuesday.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117953955.html?categoryid=20&cs=1

The Day of the Long Tail

This little video explains a lot about the current state of the market.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xAA71Ssids

EMI Music CEO says the CD is 'dead'

EMI Music Chairman and Chief Executive Alain Levy Friday told an audience at the London Business School that the CD is dead, saying music companies will no longer be able to sell CDs without offering "value-added" material.
"The CD as it is right now is dead," Levy said, adding that 60% of consumers put CDs into home computers in order to transfer material to digital music players.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?siteid=mktw&guid=%7BBA27DA69-B92A-473A-AF46-0CBE9DFA59EE%7D

Outstanding Futurist article:

This article is an interview with a futurist for British Telecom (BT). This article has at least one good science fiction book idea in every paragraph. This guy is very cool.

http://www.itwales.com/997789.htm